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haemosexuality · 1 year

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insanely long analysis of the ep promise of she-ra <3

(first a bit of S1e10- the beacon)

[Adora is talking to the woods as she-ra.] Just let me fix this, please! I-I can’t let anyone else get hurt. [she transforms back into adora and sits down] Fine. You win. You want me to be weak? Well. I am. And I’m afraid. Because, I-I’m no good at any of this.

God doesn’t that hurt immediately off the bat. “just let me fix this, please” is a perfect summary of adoras entire character. She is so, so desperate to be useful- she needs to help other people, she needs to fix everything and save everyone. She cant let herself be a person, shes a vessel (HRUAHHRAGHHH season 5) to help others, shes a tool and a means to an end. Shes the hero. But shes bad at that, because no matter how much she represses herself, she feels and wants things so strongly all the time. She hopes and begs for direction and destiny but shes terrified of not having control. She will desperately try again and again to be the perfect hero-sacrifice that will heal the world and keep her friends safe but she doesn’t want that, not really, what she wants is to go to parties and hang out with her friends and catra, but she feels she doesn’t deserve that. She cant let herself have anything she wants. But she still does. Shes afraid and shes weak and shes too young for this. Her wanting things so strongly is what ruins everyones plans, shadow weaver’s and light hope’s and horde prime’s. its what saves everyone. This doesn’t have anything to do w the scene I was talking about anymore oops. “I’m no good at any of this” just confirms that, shes bad at being your standard self sacrificing selfless hero in the same way catra was bad at being an unfeeling purely evil villain. She just cant stop being a person

Ok now onto Promise: the ep starts immediately after that scene, with adora going inside the crystal castle looking for answers on how to heal glimmer, and catra following after her looking for tech that she can use (and also to spy on adora bc that might not have been her primary objective but shes not gonna pass up on that chance lol)

“You are not ready yet. You must let go.” “let go of what?” [camera pans to catra] will always be so. Ugh poetic cinema

How did anyone ever trust light hope lmao immediately from the first time she shows up shes all like “free yourself of all of your earthly attachments and join my hero training course”. Also, again, adora’s attachment to catra (and glimmer and bow) has always been the main thing saving her from falling head first into self sacrificial bullshit. She cant let go of her. She will never fully let go of her.

Catra: What's going on? Why are those things trying to kill us?

She-Ra: They're trying to kill you. This place sees you as an invader.

Catra: Well, can't you tell them to stop?

She-Ra: [incredulously, frustrated] No, I can't tell them to stop! Clearly nothing in here is listening to me!

Oh I just realized something. The crystal castle is a place that was made for adora and caters to her, and it sees catra as an invader. Much like how in the Horde, adora was favoritized and shadow weaver’s center of attention while catra was mistreated and discarded. Seen as an invasion, a corrupting force in Adora’s life. The one thing adora cant control in the crystal castle is how it reacts to catra, it activates security protocol no matter what she does, like how adora could never fully protect catra from shadow weaver and the others. Even throughout the episode and at the end, we see catra fighting tooth and nail to survive everything the castle throws at her while adora undermines her (“I had it.” “Sure you did.”), and by the end all her fighting pays off and she comes out victorious, like how she goes up in the horde until shes effectively its lord. The crystal castle (im just gonna call it CC) literally becomes the fright zone throught the simulation too I cant believe I didn’t get this before

Catra: Anyway, what are you doing here? [angrily, sarcastically] Where are your new best friends? I thought you guys did eVeRyThInG together.

The similarity between this and the flashback scene where we see a child catra say “go eat with your new best friend lonnie! I know you like her better than me. Youre supposed to me my friend” really shows how immature they still are I think. Not as a like, inherent character flaw or smth, they just weren’t raised in a place where emotional maturity is a thing you learn. They were never taught how to deal with their emotions in any way, other than “repress it really hard, hit someone and blow up a civilian”. Of course theyre emotionally stunted. This probably also contributes to both of them’s very black and white way of thinking. Also theyre still in the 17-18 range so like literally theyre teens. Just goes to show that them being separated for a while was necessary, bc they needed to break off their codependency to be able to grow as people and mature emotionally, that would never happen if they stayed together and just enabling each others toxic traits, instead of being able to have a healthy relationship like they do after the end.

Something I also never considered before is why the CC showed them the memories it did? Like. Was it light hope that chose those? I assume so since she not only has shown she can do that but also watched adora her entire life so she knows all her memories. Did she specifically pick out painful memories that she thought would tear them further apart? It seems obvious now but I just never thought ab this before. The first memory shown does go against that tho, its just baby adora and catra being cute. Maybe she wanted to show them how much their relationship had deteriorated?

↑ gay

Ooooouough this is when it starts to hurt pray for my emotional stability

Adora: ...Can I ask you something?

Catra: Can I stop you?

Adora: ...Why did you help me escape after Shadow Weaver captured us?

Catra: Not this again.

Adora: It's the one thing I can't figure out. You didn't have to do that. You could've gotten caught...why risk it? [Rock on the edge crumbles beneath her; yelps] Whoa, whoa, whoa--!

Catra: Did you really think I'd just let Shadow Weaver erase your memory like that?

Adora: I dunno. Probably.

[Adora grunts as Catra pulls her up]

Catra: Yeah, well, you never did have too much faith in me.

Adora: Can you blame me?

Catra: Not really.

This is so. Ugh. I love adora but especially in the first season shes so.. girl what are you doing!!!! How can she be so ignorant. Obviously I know how but. Augh so much of catra’s hurt stems from this… when I say that adora was fully, totally brainwashed by the horde, I don’t mean just that she believed their propaganda about the war, or whatever bullshit shadow weaver ingrained in her about her purpose. She also believed what they all said about catra. To a lesser extend, obviously, and she loved catra with all of herself- but she did still believe catra was a bit lazy, kinda disrespectful, uncaring, etc. and I cant even totally blame her, because catra actively tried to make herself seem all those things. Catra didn’t want to let anyone know how hard she tried, how much she hurt, so she played up the “aloof, lazy student/soldier who doesn’t care about anything” role as much as she could. But still, god, the way adora treated her must have hurt so much. “you never did have too much faith in me” absolutely breaks my heart. Catra cared about adora so much. She cared about adora more than anything in her life. Obviously she would do anything to prove herself once she can, look at how even the person who loved her the most thought about her. Im gonna talk more ab this later there are better scenes for that. But also I CANNOT BELIEVE ADORA IN THIS!!! GIRL WHAT ARE YOU DOING!!!!! WDYM CAN U BLAME ME YES I CAN (ignore the part where I said I couldn’t) DON’T JUST SAY THAT SHE SAVED YOUR LIFE. OH MY GOD ok. Being a catra, an adora, and a catradora stan means sometimes u really want to slap s1 adora in the face. For multiple reasons. and the fact catra agrees too…. Catra hates herself so much. She truly honestly believes shes a bad person and it breaks my heart. And unfortunately for everyone, catra has shown that she'll always play a role that shes assigned to the max. everyone believed that shes a villain, she believed that shes a villain, so by fucking god shes gonna be a villain.

putting the rest of this under a readmore bc its longggg

her tail touching adoras hand i am on the floor

Catra: It wasn't all bad growing up in the Fright Zone, was it? I mean, you still have some good memories, right? (dont trust the subtitles in the pics theyre wrong)

THIS scene destroys me. Catra’s so- she always knew the horde was evil, ok, she always knew their childhood was bad. But she endured it for adora. To catra, all the happy memories they made growing up were worth it- all for adora. It didn’t matter what they did. Only to see adora throw all these moments away the moment she realized the rest of it was bad? God, catra mustve felt like she was garbage to adora. Something that wasn’t even worth thinking about once she had the opportunity of something better. Shes very aloof here, as always, but she probably feels a bit desperate- was it worth it for you too? Did any of it matter to you? Where you just miserable the entire time?

Adora: Of course I do. But it doesn't change the fact that the Horde is evil. I had no choice. I couldn't go back.

This is adora’s biggest problem tho. She had no choice, she couldn’t go back. She never feels like she can choose anything based on what she actually wants. Shes always, always driven by this need to do good, the right thing. And this is where theyre most incompatible at first, because while catra only cares about adora and that’s her priority, adora has Morals and puts the greater good over her personal relationships, which to catra makes it seem like she doesn’t care about her. Her happy memories were absolutely worth it to adora, but theyre not more important than the good of the entire world. (I don’t think adora having a sense of morality and not wanting to side with a military empire is a bad thing, catra was the villain of the show for a reason and the reason is that obviously working for something that wants to take over the world is bad. Im just explaining how this is what drove them apart, how catras mind works, and to an extend why you can understand her side and emphatize with her even if she was in the wrong. That trait of adora’s does get bad when she starts acting like she needs to kill herself for that greater good tho.)

them taking a moment to play-fight in the middle of all of that makes me want to sobbbbb 😭😭😭

TINY LITTLE BABIESSSSSSSSSSS Young Catra: What was that? Way to gang up on me!

Young Lonnie: You were fighting dirty. I was just leveling the field.

[Catra shakes and growls in anger as Adora walks up and places a hand on Catra's shoulder]

Young Adora: Hey, you were awesome! Did I hurt you?

Young Catra: No, I'm fine. You're just lucky I let you win.

Young Adora: Riiiiiiiight.

Young Catra: I'm serious! [scoffs] If I came in first, people might expect me to actually start doing stuff around here. Trust me, second place suits me just fine.

Young Adora: Yeah, okay.

EVERYTHING I SAID BEFORE. you can see catra was obviously extremely upset that she didn’t win, but admitting that would be admitting defeat. She shrinks herself to fit into this “no im fine, im chill, im not even trying in fact. I don’t care” attitude, because that hurts less than admitting that shes trying so, so hard but no one believes in her and she keeps losing to adora (mostly bc the other cadets and staff favoritize adora over her, and discriminate against her, making it harder for her to succeed in anything). And adora believes her. “second place suits me just fine” was the mantra catra kept telling herself through her entire life to try and feel less hurt about living in adoras shadow.

though it wasn’t working, and her resentment towards adora kept growing more and more.

oh this scene could be ab so many things. Catra literally slipping through her fingers. A parallel to earlier, when catra held onto adora and helped her up, while here theyre torn apart by a force stronger than them. How adora tried but couldn’t save catra. Aughh

and here, we see how capable catra is. Shes both extremely strong (able to rip herself out of… whatever that is) and extremely smart, even under pressure (in seconds she figures out where she has damage this thing shes never seen before so it stops working)

only for adora to come in, “save the day” after she had already saved herself, and act all. “sure you did” about it. Again, making absolutely clear catra knows she doesn’t believe in her.

Adora: What is your problem? I was just trying to save you.

Catra: For the last time, I don't need you to save me. I've been doing just fine on my own. No thanks to you.

That says everything on its own. Adora doesn’t understand why catra is hurt/angry, she doesn’t even understand how what she said undermines catra. And catra is extremely bitter that adora keeps acting like That. Also, something I haven’t touched on is that adora leaving the horde put catra in so much danger. She was the only thing providing catra with even the slightest bit of protection, which catra -hated- but absolutely depended on, since shadow weaver had made clear that catra was -only ever kept alive because of adora-. Adora defecting put catra in danger not only of the other cadets targeting her, but of death. Catra was left all alone to survive in those conditions, and she did, and now adora keeps acting like catra needs her to save her.

Adora: Catra, wait. ...I'm sorry for leaving. I couldn't go back to the Fright Zone, not after I saw what the Horde was really doing. something that must have stung too is the idea that adora saw innocent people suffering, and that led her to realize that the horde was bad. But she had seen catra being abused by the horde their whole life, and yet still thought the horde was good. What does that say about how adora saw catra? Did she think catra deserve it, wasn’t innocent enough for that violence to be unwarranted? Was her suffering not enough for adora to realize how fucked up that was? (again, we’re able to know that it wasn’t that, adora was just as abused as catra, watching someone be physically abused is also extremely traumatized and kids will learn to justify the abuse theyre experiencing to themselves or others and might not realize its wrong u cant expect a kid to know how to act in a situation like that she was in as much survival mode as catra was and her trying to keep herself in shadow weaver’s good side was just her desperately trying to keep herself safe etc etc this is from catras perspective) I never wanted to leave you. ...You could come with me! You-you-you could join the rebellion! I know you're not a bad person, Catra. You don't belong with the Horde.

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA this hurts so much. Adora might have internalized some of what the horde said ab catra and catra might have felt that 10 times as strong than it actually was but adora never actually believed catra was a bad person. Shes probably the only one (before scorpia and entrapta) that Didn’t think catra was destined to be a disgrace, to be bad. And its so sad bc even with all their flaws she loves catra so so much and she wants catra to come with her so much. Adora now has access to a life where she has the opportunity to be happy and she so desperately wants to give catra that same life. She knows catra deserves better and she can see that now more clearly than ever. But its too late, catra is too hurt and too angry to follow her and even if at this point adoras words might have some effect on her, its about to get so much worse. :(

Fuck this next part is going to hurt. Ok

Shadow Weaver: [screams angrily] Get out!

[Young Adora cries out in alarm as dark magic encloses the exit]

Shadow Weaver: Catra... [young Adora turns to see young Catra's form enveloped in a paralyzing, zapping magic] ...you stay.

[Young Catra grunts as she is forced to stand]

Shadow Weaver: What do you think you're doing in here?

[Shadow Weaver makes young Catra turn, feet squeaking on the floor as she does so without picking up her feet; Shadow Weaver clicks her mask back in place]

Catra: [fearfully] We were just playing.

Shadow Weaver: [hatefully] Insolent child. I've come to expect such disgraceful behavior from you. But I will not allow you to drag Adora down as well.

Adora: [pleading] Shadow Weaver, it wasn't her fault, it was my idea, too!

Shadow Weaver: [hatefully, still talking to Catra] You have never been anything more than a nuisance to me! I've kept you around this long because Adora was fond of you, but if you ever do anything to jeopardize her future, I will dispose of you myself. [slowly, enunciating] Do you understand?

Adora: [runs between them, throwing her arms out to protect young Catra; pleading] Please stop!

[The dark magic dissipates back into Shadow Weaver's cloak as she groans and moves back toward the Garnet; Young Adora and young Catra share a look before young Adora runs over to Shadow Weaver]

Adora: She didn't mean to!

Shadow Weaver: [placidly, attempting to soothe] Adora, you must do a better job of keeping her under control. [Shadow Weaver finally lets young Catra out of the paralyzing magic and she grunts as she falls to the ground] Do not let something like this happen again. [she pats young Adora's head as young Catra looks on]

Transcripts and screenshots cannot properly convey the dread of this scene. In a flashback, catra and adora are caught by shadow weaver playing in a place they weren’t supposed to be in, and shadow weaver paralyzes catra with electric magic we know is extremely painful to be caught in, and threatens her life. Catra and adora look to be like, between 6-7 years old in this scene. Theres so much happening here. This lays the foundation to basically everything that happens in the show.

First off, shadow weaver singles out, physically hurts catra, and blames her for something that adora initiated. then, she makes it clear that she sees catra and someone that is bad, and she doesn’t expect anything else from her. And, she says catra is a bad influence in adora’s life, tainting whats perfect, and that tells her that every time after this that adora “acts out”, will be catra’s fault.

she tells catra that, if she ever feels like catra is “ruining” adora, she will get killed. From now on, adora’s friendship is literally what is keeping catra alive. This will, understandably, fuck their relationship up a little bit and also make catra incredibly dependent on adora. She will do anything to keep being adora’s friend and she will have to make sure that shadow weaver doesn’t feel like she is making adora behave out of line or that she isn’t becoming better than adora, isn’t taking her number 1 spot away from her.

she goes on to tell adora, who has been watching all of this, that its her job to make sure catra is kept in line. She’s seen what happens when she doesn’t. this will make adora feel incredibly responsible for catras well being, and like she has to constantly save catra and beg for catra to act right, otherwise catra will get hurt and itll be her fault. On the other hand, adora is a child who just saw someone get tortured, and subconsciously shes gonna make sure to always stay in shadow weavers good side, not only bc if she doesn’t then catra gets punished but because she does not want that to happen to her too.

catra, who was frozen and electrocuted and berated, saw adora get gently talked to, “reassured”, and receive physical affection.

that results in catra growing up both extremely attached and extremely bitter of adora, for “having it easy” and always acting like shes her savior, while she has to constantly walk on eggshells (on a minefield, honestly) so she doesn’t get physically abused. She starts resenting adora as anything she does gets blamed on her, and shes forced to live as her shadow, her bad influence, the devil to adora’s angel. And in adora having a major savior/messiah complex, she feels like shes responsible for saving everyone, and every time someone gets hurt its her fault. She will live the rest of her life trying fix and save everything, because if she can’t then what good is she?

understanding that this is where all of their motivations, flaws, traumas and personalities come from will help u understand the entire show better tbh. It all comes down to shadow weaver. [Young Adora and Catra are walking down a hall in the Fright Zone, just after this incident; they walk past a pillar and become Present Adora and Catra again]

Catra: You always need to play the hero, don't you?

Adora: I was only trying to protect you.

Catra: You never protected me! Not in any way that would put you on Shadow Weaver's bad side.

[Scene transitions to Young Adora and Catra in the same place]

Young Catra: Admit it. You love being her favorite!

Young Adora: That's not true!

Young Catra: Oh, yeah? [glitches back to Present Catra (and Adora)] When you left, who do you think took the fall for you? Who was protecting me then?

Adora: You don't have to let Shadow Weaver treat you like that anymore. You can leave--[glitches back to Young Adora and Catra]--just like I did!

Young Catra: Oh, because I need to follow you everywhere you go?!

Young Adora: I didn't mean it that way.

[glitches back to Present Adora and Catra]

Catra: I don't. Want. To leave. What don't you understand about that? I'm not afraid of Shadow Weaver anymore, and I'm a better Force Captain than you would've ever been.

[glitches back to Young Adora and Catra]

Young Adora: You always said you didn't care about things like that...

Young Catra: [crying] Well, I was lying, obviously!

[glitches back to Present Adora and Catra; Catra begins to walk away]

Adora: Catra, just wait!

Catra: Why do you think I gave the sword back to you in the Fright Zone? I didn't want you to come back, Adora!

That scene lays out everything I said so perfectly I don’t even have anything to add.

This scene where catra is running through a simulation of all her most painful memories and desperately screams LET! ME! OUT OF HERE!! perfectly represents what spiraling like that feels like

[a younger Catra, maybe 5 or younger, is crying and hiding her face in a blanket on their bunk in the Fright Zone]

Young Adora: [peers from around a doorway] ...Catra?

[Young Catra continues to sob as Young Adora walks to her; Young Adora peels back the cover from Young Catra's face, and Young Catra hisses]

Young Adora: Catra, it's okay, it's just me. It doesn't matter what they do to us, you know? You look out for me, and I look out for you. Nothing really bad can happen as long as we have each other.

Young Catra and Present Catra: You promise?

Young Adora: I promise.

And then the promise. Everything catra went through, all the abuse and bullying, she put up with all of it because of this. She held onto their promise until the end. But the moment adora decided to leave the horde, she broke their promise.

as the memory-simulation ends, young catra gives a look to present catra. One that probably said, remember this. Remember how much you mean for each other. Don’t break your part of the promise. But this isn’t how catra takes it at all. all this tells catra, all that this entire day has told catra, is how terrible adora is. Adora ruined her life. Adora lied to her, said they’d be together forever only to abandon her. Adora forced her to be in her shadow. Adora is the reason shadow weaver never treated her right. She looks at her younger self and thinks, I'll avenge you. Im never gonna let anyone hurt you ever again. Im going to show all of them how strong I can be, ill rise to the top and ill be unstoppable. Im never letting anybody put me down ever again.

(and then is season 5, seeing a younger version of herself is also what makes her realize how wrong she was, how this isn’t the path she wants to take. Its what motivates her to get better, be better. Thinking about herself as a child kickstarted both her descent into being a villain and her redemption arc/recovery.) [Adora is holding onto dear life to some ropes or smth that are keeping her from falling off a cliff. Catra shows up]

Adora: [hopeful] Catra?

Catra: [holding the sword, rubs a finger along its side] Hey, Adora.

Adora: [pleading] Catra, help me, please...

Catra: [contemplatively unhurried] This thing wouldn't work for me if I tried, would it? It only works for you. Then again, you're special. That's what Shadow Weaver always said.

Adora: Catra...what are you doing?

Catra: Ah, you know? It all makes sense now. You've always been the one holding me back. You wanted me to think I needed you. You wanted me to feel weak. Every hero needs a sidekick, right?

Adora: [desperately] Catra, no, that's not how it was...

Catra: [laughs humorlessly] The sad thing is, I've spent all this time hoping you'd come back to the Horde, when really you leaving was the best thing that ever happened to me. I am so much stronger than anyone ever thought.

I wonder what I could've been if I'd gotten rid of you sooner...

[Catra cuts the last of the rope holding Adora up; Adora shrieks as she falls, catching a rock handhold on the way down]

Adora: I-I'm sorry! I never meant to make you feel like you were second best! Please don't do this!

[Catra looks at the sword, then tosses it into the chasm; it clangs on the way down, Adora gasps lightly]

Catra: Bye, Adora. I really am going to miss you.

And then she fucking lion kings adora. The fucking episode ever number 1 villain origin story of the century catra you will always be everything to me. Writing this took 6 hours im so tired. And then the episode ends with light hope once more telling adora she needs to let go AUGH so good. I need to go to sleep. if you read all of this i love u i hope u liked it <3 also u might like this post also

#writing this was exhausting omg #its 5:30am i begun writing this before midnight #sorry ab the quality of some of the pics i had to make sure this fit the 30 pics limit #also i am not a writer! i apologize for how messy this is!#theyre literally everything to me..#she ra #catra #adora #catradora

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dgct2 · 2 months

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Based on the trailer that Scott brought to Las Vegas to share with cinema owners, “Gladiator 2” recaptures the first film’s epic sprawl and shattering action sequences. One that saw Mescal face off against a charging rhino and a horde of vicious baboons. There were also naval bombardments, political intrigue aplenty and a pair of diabolical emperors who seem even crazier than Joaquin Phoenix’s spiteful monarch. Through it all, Denzel Washington seems to be pulling the strings as a shadowy operator who intends to use Mescal as a blunt instrument in his power play. “Rome must fall,” he says at one point. “I need only to give it a push.”

The 5 minute clip featured a brutal battle between Pedro Pascal and Paul Mescal.

#movies #spoiler alert #pedro pascal #gladiator 2 #denzel washington #paul mescal #sneak peek

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msclaritea · 10 months

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Directors, stop saying there's no CGI in your movies | Creative Bloq

"There was no CGI in Oppenheimer, right? Nor in Barbie. That's the impression that's been given about two of the biggest movies of the season. There's been a reaction against visual effects and it seems to have become something of a fashion for filmmakers to boast that they made their films the 'old-fashioned way'.

It's perhaps understandable that, amid the explosion of AI image generation, the idea of making something without computer assistance is becoming attractive again. But it's not true, visual effects artists say. If Barbie used no CGI or VFX, why does the film have such a long list of visual effects artists in the credits? (and those are just the ones that got a credit).

This tweet is for @guardian and Shaad D'Souza: If you bothered to watch Barbie until the end credits you would have discovered that the film, which you claim has ‘almost no CGI or VFX’ has a credit list of 207 VFX artists and 5 VFX companies. Please also note that 3 out of the 5… pic.twitter.com/5bodtvGuPHAugust 3, 2023

The filmmaker and VFX supervisor Hugh Guerra wrote a post on Twitter in response to a Guardian article that was headlined '"It’s exactly as they’d have done it in the 1910s": how Barbenheimer is leading the anti-CGI backlash'. The article had commented on a spate of recent films using practical effects and prosthetics instead of CGI.

"If you bothered to watch Barbie until the end credits you would have discovered that the film which you claim has 'almost no CGI or VFX’ has a credit list of 207 VFX artists and 5 VFX companies." He said that three out of five companies listed had missing credits, so the complete number of artists would be longer. "Just like Oppenheimer and Mission Impossible, these films have hundreds of invisible VFX and CGI," he added.

Guerra's tweet provoked comments from VFX artists who worked on the film, including some who didn't get a name check in the credits. "People have no idea how broad the term 'VFX shot' is. There is no movie made today without VFX," one person replied. Someone else suggested "'Almost no CGI' tends to mean 'good CGI'. 'Almost no VFX' just doesn’t even really mean anything."

I watched it a few days ago, it's full of vfx 😂 The virtual production LED counts also as VFX, artists worked in Maya for the environment and I don't know how many used unreal 5. "Almost no CGI", really sad August 4, 2023

Some have suggested that it's a great compliment for the quality of the visual effects in the films if reviewers can't tell that they aren't real. However, others raise concerns that the so-called 'VFX-backlash' downplays the importance and contribution of VFX artists to film, which can provide an excuse to cut budgets, leading to poor VFX, which ends up being what people think VFX is.

"It's so sad to see how underappreciated VFX artists are. Especially since studios are being sucked dry and then when the effects are “subpar” they blame it on the artists without having any context," one person wrote. "VFX artists have given us some of the most iconic moments in cinema."

You all know how this started, don't you? It came from competing studios like Warner Bros Discovery just to use against Disney, as an attack on the quality, and an attempt to downgrade the value of superhero films...at least, the ones that came from Disney. Heaven forbid you find anything wrong in Snyderverse 🙄

The psychological effects to fans everywhere, to look forward to a film, only for a horde of corporate trolls online, tearing it apart, piece by piece is not fun, not cool and shouldn't even be legal. That damages a competitor's film in such a scummy way. I'll say again, it wasn't like that when I was younger. We could like what we wanted to. There weren't a bunch of raving lunatics trying to spoil a good time. As an aside, I'm sure the inevitable damage to the special effects industry was also a very big consideration.

#WGA #sag aftra

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strange-and-unusual-bibelot · 2 years

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Finding a mysterious ad for a job in a place he’s never heard of, Chris accidentally stumbles onto something much bigger then him in the strange little town of Black Gully.

Now working at the Belljar theatre, Chris discovers, Black Magic, zombies, spiders, endless janitorial opportunities and a colossal cover up in the tiny town.

#book #novelette #short story #short story series #Black Gully #digital art #art #First book #Belljar Theatre #illustrated #Amazon #kindle #zombies #black magic #literature #reading #fantasy #supernatural #short book

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playermagic23 · 5 months

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24 Years of Kaho Naa Pyaar Hai: Rakesh Roshan talks about the challenge of shooting the cruise scenes; reveals how he calmed down irate passengers: “Our dancers put up a wonderful show; I even told the captain to serve them liquor on my account”

Hrithik Roshan, who turned 50 on January 10, completes 24 years in the industry today. His debut film, Kaho Naa Pyaar Hai, was released on this very day, January 14, 2000. It went on to become that year’s biggest hit, collecting Rs. 44.27 crores. Hrithik’s popularity and dashing looks attracted the audience into cinemas in hordes but what also worked was that the film had a great story to tell and was aided by chartbuster songs. The cruise track was entertaining and shoot-wise, the layman might not have considered it a challenge. However, executing this track was a herculean task and director Rakesh Roshan pulled it off due to a tremendous amount of planning in advance. The blockbuster filmmaker spoke about this in detail in an interview to Komal Nahta’s Film Information magazine dated December 5, 1998.

Rakesh Roshan revealed in this interview that he opted for the Star Clipper cruise as it seemed ideal for his shoot and didn't look like a 5-star hotel in the sea. The plan was to shoot for 22 days, which included 9 days on the ship in the middle of the ocean with a unit of 85 people. He said, “Given the logistics involved, only an insane person would embark on such a shooting without due planning. Hence, I spent months working out the nitty gritties of the shooting schedule and only when I was certain that nothing could go wrong did I finally begin shooting.”

Rakesh Roshan also added in the beginning that he just didn't arrange the requirements for the shooting but also kept in mind any trouble that might crop up during the shoot and how to counter it. After his request, Star Clipper had a stopover in Mumbai, on October 29. Rakesh took the shots of people boarding the ship and also loaded the equipment. This is when he realized that while his equipment needed a 220-volt power supply, the power fixtures fitted on the ship were designed for an electrical supply of 110 volts, which is standard in the USA. The stopover in Mumbai helped him address this issue. He got a custom-made generator set and also loaded it on the ship. Rakesh Roshan then revealed, “On November 6, my entire unit and I flew to Colombo and boarded Star Clipper from there. The entire contingent of 82 people, including 35 dancers, could cause quite a commotion, especially if they are shooting. The passengers on the ship began to get a little irritable and understandably so, as they were there on holiday and our activity was robbing some of their pleasure. I had envisaged that something like this might occur and hence had told my dancers to be ready to bail us out if need be. So, on day 2, I asked the ship’s captain to announce a special entertainment programme for the passengers. Our dancers and artists put up such a wonderful show that our fellow passengers just couldn’t help having a great time. I even told the captain to serve them liquor on my account. In my own small way, I was asking them to bear with us for a few days and most of the passengers appreciated the gesture. They loved Indian music and dance so much that they requested us for repeat performances on subsequent nights. We obliged and soon found most of the passengers beginning to get really excited about our shooting. They became so co-operative that when it rained a couple of days later and we were forced to shoot indoors in the bar area (one of the most popular spots on the ship), everyone cleared the place for us without even a grumble.”

Once the on-board issues were solved, Rakesh Roshan successfully overcame other challenges too. He had to shoot aerial shots of the ship while it was in the middle of the sea. These were the days when there was no drone and the director had to shoot it from a helicopter. The nearest centre that offered a helicopter on hire was Bangkok, five hours away.

Rakesh Roshan stated, “On my trip to Bangkok prior to the shooting, I had worked out the problem by locating the small island of Maiton which was situated nearer to Bangkok. I also surveyed the island and found a suitable place where a helicopter could land in the absence of a helipad. Having done this much, all that remained to be done was to inform the helicopter crew about the exact time Star Clipper would sail past Maiton, so they could make all preparations for the aerial shooting. I found out from the captain that our ship would pass Maiton at 6 am on November 13. Accordingly, I instructed the helicopter crew to reach Maiton by the 12th evening and start preparing. On the other hand, since I was to be in the helicopter during the shooting, I left detailed instructions for the shots with choreographer Farah Khan who would be handling things during my temporary absence. Come 13th morning and we all had our fingers crossed. With no other communication with the helicopter crew since issuing instructions, we just prayed that everything would go as planned. And sure enough, we spotted our helicopter at the precise hour. Just as Star Clipper neared Maiton, Kabir Laal (cameraman) and I got onto a speed boat and left for the island. When he reached ashore, we found the helicopter crew waiting in all readiness. We quickly got into the helicopter and took off. After gaining the required height, I signalled to Farah Khan that we were ready to take the shot. She positioned everyone as per my prior instructions. One by one, we canned all the required shots in quick succession and landed back on Maiton. Now, we had to get back aboard Star Clipper which had sailed quite a distance past Maiton. We got onto the speed boat again and raced after the ship. It took us nearly four hours to locate Star Clipper and finally, we boarded it again. We reached Phuket the next day."

Rakesh Roshan also credited the captain of the ship in this interview, “He extended all possible help to us during the shooting. At the very outset, he had told me, ‘Rakkkesh, do what you want, just don’t sink the ship!’” In the film’s beginning slides, Miss Anjie McFarlane, Captain Jurgan and Captain Shamim have been duly thanked.

The sequence where Hrithik Roshan and Ameesha Patel’s characters are marooned where shot at Krabi Island near Phuket, Thailand. Rakesh Roshan also shot for the underwater scene here, which was presumably the one where Rohit (Hrithik Roshan) is killed in an accident.

On this, Rakesh Roshan said, “The underwater shots were very tricky in the sense that Hrithik had to remain 30 ft. under the sea for nearly 45 minutes. Before the shots, a trained diving instructor explained the basics of diving to Hrithik — things like how to use the oxygen mask and so on. Fortunately, Hrithik had undergone a scuba diving course in Miami, USA, just for a lark a few months ago. So, he caught on pretty fast. Yet, at the end of the entire underwater sequence, I felt proud of Hrithik. Remaining underwater for so long required a great deal of guts more than anything else as anything could have gone wrong at any time."

Rakesh Roshan signed off by exulting, “Unlike some of our other directors, who claimed to have spent 15 crores on their film, even 50% of which didn’t show in it, in KNPH, you will be able to see every single penny I have spent on the film. There is absolutely no wastage in my film.”

#24 Years of Kaho Naa Pyaar Hai #Down The Memory Lane #Features #Flashback #Kaho Naa Pyaar Hai #Rakesh Roshan #Throwback #bollywood hungama

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roseshavethoughts · 1 year

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Night of the Living Dead (1968)

My ★★★★ review of Night of the Living Dead (1968) #FilmReview #MovieReview #Cinema

Synopsis – A ragtag group of Pennsylvanians barricade themselves in an old farmhouse to remain safe from a horde of flesh-eating ghouls that are ravaging the East Coast of the United States – Night of the Living Dead. Director – George A. Romero Starring – Duane Jones, Judith O’Dea, Karl Hardman, Marilyn Eastman Genre – Horror | Thriller Released – 1968 ⭐⭐⭐⭐ Rating: 4 out of 5. For fans of…

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#1960s Cinema #★★★★#black and white cinema #Black Cinema #cinema #Creature Feature #Duane Jones #film review #Film Reviews #George A. Romero #Horror #Judith O&039;Dea #Karl Hardman #Marilyn Eastman #movie review #night of the living dead #Thriller

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libraryenergylife · 2 years

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Wyrmwood road of the dead (2014)

His sister, Brooke, is kidnapped by a sinister team. 3 pieces of steak to the face out of 5 For more movie reviews and opinions check into - . Barry is a talented mechanic and family man whose life is torn apart on the eve of a zombie apocalypse.

On the back of this effort you'd suggest that the Roache-Turner brothers most certainly do have a career ahead of them that hopefully sees them given a much bigger stash of play money that would no doubt see them craft some wickedly inventive and entertaining cinematic moments. Now, director Kiah Roache-Turner has teamed up again with his brother, cowriter Tristan Roache-Turner, to cook up a new batch of frenzied violence and comic possibilities in Nekrotronic. There are myriad problems with the film, mainly some downright lame scripting and some pretty lacklustre acting but when things click in this blood splattered ride they certainly work to a very high level. While Brooke plans her escape Barry goes out on the road to find her & teams up with Benny, a fellow survivor. A shotgun blast of fresh air, Wyrmwood: Road of the Dead was a buoyant survival tale about zombies and the possible end of the world. With some off the wall ideas (mind controlling zombie hordes, zombie blood as a new source of fuel, just to name a few) and with an impressively constructed yet whole heartedly home grown production Wrymwood is indeed a film in a league all of its own. It's glorious to see the Roache-Turner brothers use the locales at their disposal to great effort from the wilderness through the "road of the dead" this is a tale that feels Australian and benefits from it while the movies performances range from impressive through to never passing acting school yet it doesn't bring the film down, it in fact brings it to a new level of enjoyable even though what your witnessing is akin to watching a friends high school media production. His sister, Brooke, is kidnapped by a sinister team of gas-mask wearing soldiers &. Every part of Wyrmwood feels as though it could've been made in your backyard and in anything but a negative it gives the overall sense that this is a film that is truly its own beast. Barry is a talented mechanic and family man whose life is torn apart on the eve of a zombie apocalypse. While we all know that the zombie genre of film and TV has virtually been done to (pardon the pun) death over many years Wrymwood has enough OTT ideas, violence and the Aussie humour we all know and love to keep us glued to our zombie guts covered seats for it's pretty quick fire 90 or so minute run time and in an age of films that look to cover up there budgetary flaws it's a joy to see Wyrmwood reveal in its roots. Filmed from my understanding over a number of years on a budget that was more than likely made up of family, friends and everyone else in between, there is no questioning that this is an unpolished film but at the same time a film that you can't help but appreciate on a level where you understand that the limitations set before the filmmakers failed to derail a film that is at its core a hugely energetic and often fantastically inventive tale. With Jay Gallagher, Bianca Bradey, Leon Burchill, Keith Agius. While Brooke plans her escape Barry goes out on the road to find her & teams up with Benny, a fellow survivor - together they must arm themselves and prepare to battle their way through hordes of flesh-eating monsters in a harsh Australian bushland.It's great to see not only the spirit of DIY filmmaking but Ozploitation cinema alive and well in the form of the Roache-Turner brothers (Kiah the director, Tristan his co-writer) blood filled and over the top zombie carnage horror/actioner Wyrmwood: The Road of the Dead, a film that was clearly a labour of love for these aspiring filmmakers and a film that in recent months has grown quite the reputation on the festival circuit that has seen the filmmaking duo well and truly become the next big thing in the local industry. Wyrmwood: Road of the Dead: Directed by Kiah Roache-Turner. His sister, Brooke, is kidnapped by a sinister team of gas-mask wearing soldiers & experimented on by a psychotic doctor.

#Wyrmwood road of the dead (2014)

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kittyprincessofcats · 4 years

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She-Ra S5 E03 - Corridors

Sorry this one took me so long to write up. But even though it’s now been a while since season 5 was released, I still really want to finish writing up my thoughts on all the episodes, so here we go.

This episode. THIS EPISODE. GOD. I love it so much! I predict this post is going to be full of me gushing about how amazing it is. Also, there might be spoilers for the rest of the season in this post.

- First of all, I love how this episode begins with so many “oh shit” moments for you as a viewer. First you realize there’s no scene before the opening and you’re like “oh shit”. Then you realize it opens with a Catra flashback and you’re like “oh shit”. Then you see present!Catra looking down on her planet getting destroyed and then standing undecided between two corridors - one light and one dark - and you’re like “oh shit, guess we’re finally answering the ‘redemption or not’ question.” I love how it’s set up in a way that everyone knows within the first few minutes what this is going to be about and that shit’s about to get real.

- I also love that this season didn’t beat around the bush and did the redemption so early on. I was worried that we’d have to wait until the very end and wouldn’t get to actually see Catra work and bond with the good guys. And like I said before, all the groundwork for the redemption was already there after season 4, so I’m glad they didn’t make us wait.

- I like that Catra runs on all fours when she’s trying to be fast.

- I really like that first scene between Hordak and Catra. I generally think their relationship is super interesting, since they’re not as different as they think and they’re narrative foils to each other in many of the same ways that Catra and Glimmer are. And they’re in a very similar situation as Catra and Glimmer, too: They don’t particularly like each other and were fighting/trying to kill each other before getting abducted. But now they’re stuck on Prime’s ship with no way out, and are one of each other’s only reminders of their previous lives, so they still end up reaching out for each other (albeit in a smaller way than Catra and Glimmer do). I like how Hordak calls her "Catra", clearly showing that he does remember, and how Catra immediately recognizes him because of that and calls him by his real name as well (though she doesn’t realize what consequences that’ll have for him). I also like that despite their history, Catra tries to bring his memories back and tries to bond with him. I also find the line “It’s good to see a familiar face” interesting, since the clones all technically have the same face. (Basically, I need more fanfics about Hordak and Catra talking things out and becoming friends post season 5.)

- Bow being an exhaused parent who’s trying to keep Adora and Entrapta from destroying the ship is hilarious, but I also feel really bad for him.

- I also just realized that Bow, Adora and Entrapta are the rescue party, while the respective people they’ll end up with (Glimmer, Catra and Hordak) are trapped on Horde Prime’s ship... there’s fanfic potential in this.

- The entire talk where Catra and Glimmer bond over Adora - Do I even need to get into how perfect that scene is? “You’re lonely, aren’t you?”, both of them admitting it helps to talk to each other, them sitting back to back, Glimmer talking about her perfect day and Catra looking visibly sad when she mentions Adora, but Catra NOT lashing out and acting jealous this time but talking about her own memories of Adora, them bonding over memories of Adora - JUST YES. GOOD STUFF.

- “We’d play tricks on Kyle, stay up all night whispering about... you know, whatever.” And that was another one of those really strong Catradora hints. I didn’t pick up on Horde Prime’s “elevated heartrate” line in S5Ep1, but this line I did notice and it was my first “omg, this is actually happening, isn’t it?” moment. (Because I kind of just assumed that Noelle wouldn’t queerbait us and wouldn’t put in so many Catradora hints if it wasn’t going to happen.)

- Glimmer: “I’d do anything to go back and make it right.” *camera focuses on Catra’s sad face* Enough said.

- “There’s nothing for me on Etheria.” The fact that Catra was so surprised to even be asked what she’d be doing on Etheria speaks volumes, imo. She never considered the possibility of getting to go back there and never really thought about what she even wants.

- I love that Entratpa named the ship “Darla” and the other characters (and Darla herself) just go with it without even questioning it.

- “If I could tell you where Adora is, I would. She’s my enemy, I want her gone!” This whole exchange is so brilliant. Prime is such a good villain. I love how he sees through Catra’s lies right away. Also love how he refers to Adora as “your Adora” (he definitely low-key ships them). I also love how Catra is still trying to protect Adora, even when Prime sees through her bluffs. And that shocked expression on her face when Prime asks if she wants to be “free” of her feelings for Adora - poetic cinema.

- Hordak’s purification: God, this scene is so incredibly messed up and creepy - I love it! Starting with Catra’s worried expression when she looks at Hordak and how she angrily glares at Prime, how Horde Prime does the creepy face-touch thing, how Hordak looks back at Catra with this sad, resigned expression, the creepy clone cult with their glowing eyes and their chants, Horde Prime’s whole cult language (“suffer to become pure”, I mean, wtf?), how Catra’s so horrified by the whole thing and Prime tells her "Do what I ask of you” (the threat very clearly being “or I’ll do this to you, too”). 10/10

- Catra blushing as she brings Glimmer the cake... she is baby.

- “Adora’s on that ship, isn’t she?” This line gets to me every time. I already love how before this, Catra was talking to Glimmer quietly, trying to make sure the clone in front of the door doesn’t hear them as she tells her about the ship - but this line kills me every time. How Catra whispers it so quietly, how she looks so concerned for Adora, how you can tell in just that one line how much she still loves Adora - seriously, shout-out to AJ Michalka for how she spoke that line.

- I feel like everyone has already spoken at length about the rest of Glimmer and Catra’s talk, but seriously, it’s amazing. I love how Glimmer reasons with Catra and points out the flaws in her thinking, and I also think she really got through to Catra here. It might be the memories of Adora that finally get Catra to make the right choice in the end, but I think Glimmer’s words really got through to her as well. “Do one good thing in your life” - I mean, damn!

- I also just noticed that Glimmer and Horde Prime act as foils to each other in this episode as well, with how they’re both trying to convince Catra to make a different choice. Glimmer bonds with her over their memories of Adora, while Prime offers to “free” her of those memories. Glimmer begs her to not to sell Adora out and tells her Prime will just get rid of her, while Prime assures her she’ll be “raised above the other creatures of her homeworld.” Both of them at one point ask Catra what she really wants. (Glimmer: “If Prime captures Adora, he can use the Heart of Etheria to wipe out the whole universe. Is that what you want?” / Horde Prime: “ You will be exalted, raised up above the other wretched creatures of your home world. Is that not what you wanted?”)

- Adora hanging from a mess of wires and saying “I have everything under control” needs to become a meme, please. It reminds me of that comic where the dog’s surrounded by fire and says “This is fine”.

- That whole scene where Bow’s ranting at Adora and then Entrapta just shows up in the background floating around outside the spaceship this absoltuely hilarious.

- “I made spacesuits for us and then I fixed the ship from space. Where I am! Aahahahaha....” Oh, I love her. Poor Bow, though.

- How can Entrapta use a blowtorch in space, though? Like... there’s no oxygen, how can she... you know what, I’ll just stop questioning the science here.

- I love the whole suspense of Catra selling Adora out at first, then remembering their childhood and changing her mind - good stuff.

- Also, I’m not crying over that childhood memory, you’re crying over that childhood memory! Did you see how little!Catra blushed when Adora said she was always going to be her friend? And the music is their childhood theme from “Promise”. I also love the callback to “Promise” in general - back then, the memories were projected by Light Hope and pushed Catra away from Adora by only showing her the worst ones. This time, Catra is remembering herself, remembers Adora being there for her and decides to protect her.

- “I’ll never say sorry to anybody, ever.” Yeah, we’ll see about that.

- And here’s one of my favourite moments of the entire season: Catra visibly feeling guilty, remembering herself and Adora playing in the hallway, then that beat of music where she changes her mind and turns around. When I first watched this episode, this was the moment where I started so cheer and said “Well, finally!” Here we go on the redemption road!

- “I wanna do that one good thing in my life. Like you said. So... come with me.” That’s another amazing moment. And the music when Glimmer takes her hand... The entire episode from here on is basically just amazing moments with amazing music.

- “Are you saving me?” “Not you... Adora.” She did it for Adora... hold me. (I do think she also did it for Glimmer, though.)

- “Even if I sent her a message to stay away, she’d still come for you, that’s just how she is.” The heartbreaking part about this is that Catra genuinely didn’t realize that Adora would also come for her.

- “There’s no one left in the entire universe who cares about me.” *cut to Adora*

- The whole scene where Catra saves Glimmer and sacrifices herself just gets to me every time. Starting with the music - it’s Promise, which played during the cliff scene in “Promise” (and will later play during Catra’s love confession in Heart Part 2).

- “Adora... I’m sorry! For everything!” 😭😭 What makes this scene work so well for me as a starting point of Catra’s redemption is that she was being completely selfless here. She wasn’t trying to gain anything out of sacrificing herself. She wasn’t asking for forgiveness, pity, or gratitude. She didn’t expect Adora to come back for her. She just wanted to keep Adora safe and let her know that she’s sorry. There were no expectations behind this apology or sacrifice. (And that’s not even getting into how she knew exactly what Horde Prime would do to her - because she saw it on Hordak earlier - and still decided it was worth it to save Adora.)

- “No. No, no, no, no, no, no, no! Catra! Come back!” 😭😭😭😭

- The spacesuit designs are so ridiculous, but I kind of respect the show for saying “Yeah, we know this will never look realisitic anyway, so let’s just make it completely ridiculous. Ab-window for Bow? Hole for Adora’s ponytail? Let’s just do it all.”

- While I love that scene of them catching Glimmer in space, I’ve got to say it kind of makes me anxious to think about how lucky they were here. I mean, Catra’s plan was a little dumb here, sorry. Imagine if Entrapta hadn’t fixed Darla in time and they wouldn’t have been able to get to Glimmer? Imagine if Darla had been too slow? If the teleporter had been faster? Or if Bow and Adora hadn’t had spacesuits? If Glimmer hadn’t been able to survive in space for a few ‘I’m still glowing green from the teleport thingy’ seconds before Bow caught her? This ‘I’m just going to teleport her into space’ plan could have gone so wrong, just saying. (Also, why didn’t she just teleport Glimmer to Etheria? Wouldn’t that have been easier? And safer? Though granted, it wouldn’t have made as good of a story.)

- “I think Catra saved me. I think she saved us all.” 😭😭 Yes, she did! That’s my wildcat and I’m so proud of her!!!

- Can we talk about Horde Prime tilting Catra’s chin up with his foot? Everything about him is so creepy and evil, I love it.

- Catra just laughing in Horde Prime’s face... honestly, what an icon. (I also love the “What did you expect?” line. I mean seriously - what did we as viewers expect? I’m pretty sure most people expected Catra to redeem herself eventually.)

- “It doesn’t matter what you do to me. Glimmer is gone, and you will never get your hands on Adora!” She loves Adora so much I 😭

Amazing episode. Definitely one of my favourites. There’s probably way more stuff to talk about here and I only scratched the surface - but this post is getting way too long as it is.

[Previous episode] [Next episode]

#spop #spop s5 #Catra #Catradora #Glimmer #spop spoilers #spop s5 spoilers #Corridors #Hordak #Bow #Adora #Entrapta #long post #Horde Prime #spop meta

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theparanormalperiodical · 4 years

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Everything You Need To Know About Zombies, And 5 Sightings Of The Real-life Walking Dead We STILL Can’t Explain

At this point, I’m not sure anything would surprise me.

In fact, a zombie apocalypse would actually make sense at this point. But even if the grand finale of 2020 was the dead rising from their graves, it wouldn’t actually be the first time.

According to those that practice Haitian Voodoo, zombies exist. And according to scientists, zombies exist.

But the thing is, Hollywood has gotten our favourite flesh-eating, apocalypse-heralding monsters wrong. The folklore behind these monsters is actually rather different than men and women foaming at the mouth as they mummy-walk towards you.

The reanimated corpse didn’t take its first steps with the debut cinema screening of Night Of The Living Dead (1968).

It started with slaves.

Today we are going to cover everything you need to know about zombies from forgotten folklore of years gone by, to the rumours of the living dead among us in preparation from the incoming apocalypse...

What Are Zombies?

It’s pretty simple: a zombie is someone who was dead and is now not-so-dead. According to an official definition they are corpses which have been brought back from the grave to haunt the living.

Yep - they’re just like ghosts. But instead of wafting gently they have to lump around this great hulking cadaver which is in the midst of decay.

Zombies can be traced back to Haitian Voodoo which claims that a dead body can be reanimated by magical rituals. This supernatural take on the walking dead, however, is at odds with more modern fictional beliefs which centre on science.

Parasites, diseases, and viruses (*looks into camera*) feature as the main causes of zombies taking over the world in Hollywood’s take on the beast. This new zombie first pulled itself out of the ground in 1968 with Night Of The Living Dead, but the term ‘zombies’ was only applied by fans after the release of the cult classic. They were originally known as ‘ghouls’ in the film, confirming the premise that zombies exist to haunt the living.

Following this on-screen debut, the horror genre was overrun by zombie films with Dawn Of The Dead and Thriller going down in history as some of the most iconic movies of all time. The genre waned towards the 90s, however, and was due a resurgence just before the millennium thanks to predominately East Asian video games.

28 Days Later and Shaun Of The Dead resurrected the genre at the turn of the century and shaped what zombies are now known most for: the zombie apocalypse.

The terrifying claims of a civilised world being brought to its knees by walking corpses is now a pop culture staple, but more recently its been given a makeover and shopping montage as a part of its rom-com redo. Warm Bodies and iZombie are a novel take on the horror must-have and incorporate a human-zombie relationship that is an emblem for the sexual liberation of the era.

The severed relationship between supernatural zombies and the sci-fi alternative doesn’t just take place on Netflix. There is evidence that both could exist.

Zombies In Haitian Voodoo

In 1819, poet Robert Southey was the first to use the term ‘zombie’ in his history of Brazil. This heralded the emergence of zombies in Haitian Voodoo which chimed with a concept even more terrifying than the prospect of a zombie apocalypse:

Slavery.

According to Haitian Voodoo, bokors - or witches - would use necromancy to revive a dead person. This zombie would then be under their control as a personal slave and would have no personal will.

Bokors were also known to capture ‘zombie astrals’ - part of the human soul - in a bottle which would provide the owner with extra luck or healing properties, for example.

These beliefs were rooted in Voodoo traditions brought to Haiti by enslaved Africans: they believed Baron Samedi would take them to an African heaven after they died. Those that offended the Ioa (a Voodoo god) would be a slave forever - AKA a zombie. This fear of eternal slavery was reinforced by slave drivers who were often also voodoo priests; to prevent slave suicides, they would threaten zombification.

It was this widespread belief in zombies as slaves that would spread beyond Haiti’s borders during the US’ occupation of the country in the early 20th century. A number of case studies reporting zombies came to the US’ attention, such as in the William Seabrook’s The Magic Island (1929): he cited an article in Haiti’s criminal code which recognised zombies’ existence, (it essentially said even if you murder someone and you make them come back as a zombie, it is still murder).

It was shortly after US forces entered Haiti that one of the most famous cases of an alleged zombie emerged. We will get to Felicia Felix-Mentor’s story later in this article.

Zombies In Science

Zombies are deeply rooted in some of humanity’s darkest chapters in history - but they also have a place in our natural history, too.

Technically, zombies do exist. Sure, if you made the claim for human zombification via Voodoo priest scientists would counter with claims that these ‘zombies’ are schizophrenic, in a catatonic state, or are suffering from a mental illness that mirrors how we believe they would act. But if you made a similar claim for other animals - namely insects - they’d believe you.

In fact, there are numerous known cases of such instances.

Whilst there are no known insects that practice Haitian Voodoo, these cases follow the basic plotline of zombie cult classics - parasites infect them and alter their behaviour or use them to their advantage. The parasites effectively make slaves out of those they target, mirroring what we saw in Haiti.

Take zombie carpenter ants, for example:

A fungus enters their bloodstream, hijacks their mind and grows around their muscles. Within one short week the ant is compelled to leave its colony and seek higher ground which has the right temperature and humidity for the fungus to grow in. It then forces the ant to bite down into a leaf, grows a stalk through the ant's head, and cuts off the ant’s muscle control.

The ant’s corpse still moves its legs vigorously as the bulbous capsule of fungi spores grows through what’s left of its body to infect the ant colony below.

There are many more examples just like this with most parasites having their own unique - and uncomfortably brutal - method of killing off wildlife.

Scientists are unable to refute claims that a parasite might mutate and have a similar effect on humans one day, reducing us all to the zombie hordes seen in the movies.

We just have to wait and see.

Cases Of Actual, Real-life, Not-so-living-n-breathing Zombies

Although scientists don’t support claims that Haitian voodoo can in fact raise the dead and create personal slaves, various sightings and reports suggest that human zombies do exist.

Question is - do you believe them?

#1 - Felicia Felix-Mentor

In 1936, the owner of a farm in a small village in Haiti woke up to quite a shock.

A naked woman staggered towards them with her raspy voice mumbling and slurring that this farm belonged to her farmer. But the most terrifying thing about this strange woman that stumbled her way through the village was that she looked rather familiar.

In fact, they were pretty sure that this was a woman who had died and had been buried many years before.

19 years before.

Zora Neale Hurston - an anthropologist - investigated this alleged case of zombification and met Felicia Felix-Mentor at a hospital. The doctors were convinced she was a zombie and her husband confirmed this was his wife.

Even Hurston admitted that she believed what they were telling her:

“I know that I saw the broken remnant, relic, or refuse of Felicia Felix-Mentor in a hospital yard.”

#2 - Clairvius Narcisse

30 odd years after Felix-Mentor first wandered up to her father’s old farm, a 40 year old man admitted himself into hospital in Deschapelles, Haiti. Doctors, however, were unable to work out why he had a fever, was clearly fatigued, and was spitting up blood. He died 3 days later.

20 years after he died, a man claiming to be Narcisse approached Angelina Narcisse, his sister.

He told her and other villagers private, personal information in an attempt to convince them that he was in fact Clairvius and had been turned into a zombie for use on a sugar plantation. He had been paralysed for the duration of his burial and then dug up to be put to work as a slave.

He described in detail the process of his alleged zombification, claiming she was given a paste made from hallucinogenic chemicals which scientists would later use to refute most claims of zombies as simply a drugged state. When the bokor died and he was no longer fed the concoction, he regained his sanity and thus his free will, and returned to his family.

Much like Felix-Mentor’s story, Narcisse is actually widely believed to have been a zombie. His death was documented by 2 American doctors unlikely to follow Haitian Voodoo folklore, and even the man who investigated his claims - Lamarque Douyon - believed to some extent zombies could be real despite dismissing supernatural claims.

He brought a sample of the powders or paste used by the bokor back to the US to investigate whether ‘zombies’ were actually people who were drugged and then revived.

#3 - Woman from Port-au-Prince

Only known as FI to The Lancet, the journal investigating cases in southern Haiti in the late 90s, she was discovered 3 years after her death wandering near the village she once called home by a friend.

FI was mute and unable to feed herself but she was still recognised by her family, her fellow villagers, and the local priest by a distinct facial mark and other features.

The local courts opened her tomb to investigate the fact that she had apparently risen from the dead and found it full of stones. Her husband was accused of zombifying her after he caught her having an affair.

Despite local claims of supernatural goings-on, she was later admitted to a psychiatric hospital in Port-au-Prince.

#4 - Son of a secret policeman

WD (mentioned in the same study by The Lancet) was 18 years old when he became ill. He developed a fever, his body swelled up, and his eyes went yellow. They thought he was dying or at least already dead.

His father asked his brother to get advice from a bokor but WD died 3 days later. 19 months after he was buried, he reappeared at a cock fight and recognised his father before accusing his uncle of zombifying him.

#5 - Unknown young woman

MM (also mentioned in the same study by The Lancet) was joining her friends in prayer for a local who had been zombified when she fell under a similar affliction. The 18 year old became ill with diarrhoea and fever, her body swelled, and she died.

Her family immediately suspected a sorcerer had had their way with their daughter.

13 years later and MM reappeared at the town markets, claiming not only had she been a zombie in a village 100 miles away, she had had a child with another zombie.

When her bokor died, his son released MM from their control and she travelled home.

What do you think?

Are zombies real? Or are they merely a fictional beast haunted by the forgotten history of slavery?

If you liked this post I’m pretty sure you’ll love the other articles I post every Saturday! Make sure you hit follow if you want to see ‘em.

Can’t wait ‘til next weekend for a new hit of horror? Check out this online archive of paranormal experiences…

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zrtranscripts · 3 years

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Home Front, Mission 5: Peter’s Movie Nights (And Days)

Cinematic Masterpiece

[film projector runs]

PETER LYNNE: Hello, runners! Peter here, broadcasting from the gorgeous Princess Louise Theater, an independent cinema a few miles outside Abel. We're going to start working out in a minute, so whilst I'm talking, I suggest doing some light warm-up exercises. Jogging on the spot, stretching, anything that gets your heart rate up.

Right. So muggins here thought it'd be a brilliant idea to loot some cinema equipment for Abel movie night, but the moment I got here, the horde descended, so I've barricaded myself in the projection box and the auditorium is full of zoms. Although as long as there's a film playing, they're too fixated on the screen to come looking for me, but uh, I am trapped for the foreseeable. Still, I can think of worse ways to pass the time than watching The Fantastic Light Trip.

Do you remember this? The uh, sci-fi jukebox musical, came out a few years before the apocalypse. I know everyone made fun of it for having a totally nonsensical plot, but it ruled the box office for months! The Princess Louise actually hosted sing-along screenings, which um, even the zoms appear to like, clearly. Um, sorry. Anyway, uh, Janine thought it would help everyone who's in a similar state of stuckness if I used my impressive fitness experience to lead some Ministry-approved exercises, so let's start with a dance warm-up. Sam said if I plug this cable into – yep. [cable zaps] You should then be able to hear the music from the film when I press this button! Right. Get ready everyone, and dance!

[film projector runs]

PETER LYNNE: Well, that's not the first song I'd think of to soundtrack an inter-species dance-off, but yeah, I think it works. Er, kind of. I wanted us to watch the Fantastic Light Trip as a group. You cry with laughter at the Dance of the Seven Tentacles. You cry with, I mean, just cry at the ending. The song right before they go into hyperspace always gets me. I came to the cinema to bring people together and now everyone's apart. Except for the zombies, obviously. Well, they've got loads of company. Just because we're not in the same place doesn't mean we can't exercise together. We're a team, runners, even if we're far apart.

So now that we're all warmed up, let's do some jumping jacks. Right, you stand with your feet together and your arms by your sides. Then you jump, spreading your legs whilst you're in the air so that you land with them about shoulder-width apart. Now jump back to the starting position. Got that? Great. Now do it again, except this time, swing your arms up over your head at the same time as you spread your legs, then swing them back down as you bring your feet back to the center. Let's give that a go. Good job, runners! I assume. Let's keep it going.

If you're not able to jump right now, keeping your blood pumping with some dance moves is a great alternative. You could uh, walk from side to side instead of jumping, but keep up those arm movements and if you're the sort of person who likes a challenge, Janine, why not try spreading your arms and legs and moving them back to the center whilst you're still in the air? Right, now keep whatever you're doing up as long as you can whilst I turn the music back on for the next song.

[film projector runs]

PETER LYNNE: Nice work, runners! Tell you, you really jumped the hell out of those jacks. Oh, great, this is the feast scene. You know, where all of the um, the alien food starts singing. Um, I tell you what. Speaking of which, how's everyone eating? I know we've had to improvise ever since the apocalypse, but we have to be especially creative now. For example, I have several sacks of popcorn and, thank God, a jar of vitamins I happened to loot on my way here. Would be nice to have something green, but lately I’ve found it's healthier not to worry about having the perfect diet and instead just notice how the food makes me feel. And it turns out munching a little popcorn whilst watching a movie feels pretty damn good.

Still, it's gonna feel even better to kick back and relax after releasing some endorphins, so let's do 60 seconds of squats. Was that a band? Or have I just been indoors too long? Uh, anyway, right. Squats. So squats, they build your leg muscles, which is handy if you ever need to, uh, just thinking off the top of my head here, carry a popcorn machine up two flights of stairs. So start by placing your feet just wider than hip-width apart, toes pointing only slightly outwards. Now stretch your arms out in front of you. Look straight ahead so that will help you engage your core and maintain good form. So you now send your hips down and back until they're just lower than your knees, as if you're about to sit down in a chair, and raise yourself back up. Nice. That's it.

So we're going to do that for one minute, or as long as you can comfortably manage, that's fine, and that's going to start now! Excellent! I'm assuming you're all doing this great. Uh, probably need to just slow down. Don't get carried away. Right, we're 15 seconds down. So I want you to try to really sit into the squat, right? Don't lead with your knees, sit into it. Halfway there. Right. Remember to keep your thighs in line with your feet. Don't let your knees start pointing inward or go over your toes because you're gonna be feeling that burden now, it's gonna make you sloppy. Don't do it. Right, 15 seconds to go. Just try and breathe in time with the movements if you can. [loudly inhales and exhales] In, out. Keep on going, and we're done! Oh, perfect, this is the time for the space cadets to do their musical training montage. Right, you take a dance break, or if you're up to it, just keep on squatting. I think I had a T-shirt with that on for a while.

[film projector runs]

PETER LYNNE: Yeah, I'll admit it. Before the apocalypse, I was pretty proud of my body. And also after the apocalypse for a while. Some strange body things. I'll tell you about that later. Um, but lately I've learned that the best thing you can do for your body is actually just have a good relationship with it. You know, at the end of the day, it really is the only thing that will ever truly be yours. We runners, we can get quite utilitarian about our bodies, so if something stops us using it to get supplies such as an injury, or again, I'm just thinking off the top of my head, a horde of zombies, that can really get you down. But I'm here to tell you to be kind to your body, even if you can't do exactly what you want with it right now.

So why not start by giving it some exercise? This next move is the extremely nifty chair dip. So first, locate an armless chair. I'll just give you a couple of moments. Oh, there we go. Oh, that one looks great. So that-that should be a chair without arms. I wasn't saying a harmless chair, but I definitely would prioritize a harmless chair over a harmful one. Right, so now perch on the front edge of it, hands gripping the edges on either side of you. Lovely. So put your feet flat on the ground a little way in front of you and then you slide yourself down off the chair, lowering further down and then back up again, really using your arms.

Right, I'm going to believe that was a good job. So if that is too much or if you're worried about the flexibility in your shoulders, actually, punching the air is a genuine great upper body alternative. You do have to be careful not to fully extend or or lock your elbows, but whichever exercise you're doing, you are about to keep it up for as close to a minute as you can, starting any moment... now!

Excellent! Okay, again, don't get too over excited. We've got a whole minute to get through. Ease your way in, keep on breathing in and out. 15 seconds in. If you happen to want to make these chair dips more challenging, you can extend your legs further away so they're actually taking less of your weight. See? Makes it much harder than you thought, doesn't it? And we're halfway through! You really should be feeling that burn in your shoulders. Now that burn is what lets you know you're actually doing something. You're stretching yourself, pushing it. Keep on pushing it, but breathe! Nearly done, runners. Just 15 seconds left, in and out. Keep on going. You're almost at that finish line. You can see it, you can taste it, and time's up!

Nice work, everyone. And now you can reward yourself with a nice relaxing bop as the alien queen leads her subjects in their beautiful synchronized dance, or you could keep doing those chair dips if they're feeling particularly good.

[film projector runs]

PETER LYNNE: So The Fantastic Light Trip, it did get just terrible reviews when it came out, but I love that the marketing team like, genuinely leaned into that mockery and that's helped it become a cult classic. And you know, just like them, we've gotten used to making the best of things. You know, looking for the good in every situation. We're just gonna have to look a bit harder for a while. Here, for example, I've only got access to one tiny window and it's in the toilet. It's just big enough for me to stick my arm out and get some delicious vitamin D. And it just means I don't have to worry about SPF. [laughs] Oh, nice try, sun. No skin damage for me!

Course, not everyone's lucky enough to even have a tiny window, or a toilet for that matter. I'll tellyou what. If your situation feels overwhelming, which it might, sometimes the last thing you honestly want to do is exercise, so here's something I used to tell people who came into one of the gyms I was in when they were feeling low. Just concentrate on being in your body and the physical sensation of moving.

And with that in mind, let's raise our heart rates and our moods with some high knees. So we're going to march vigorously on the spot for one whole minute, just like those plucky space cadets out there. Aim to bring your knees to waist height with each step, and begin!

Yes, excellent! Although I did say waist height. No compromise, all the way up. Keep on going. 15 seconds down. Pump the arms, too. It's not all about the knees. There we go, the blood's pumping. Feel it! Halfway there, runners. Lift those knees like you're trying to impress your cadet leader, which in this context is me, and I'm not yet impressed! Keep on going, pushing it. Only 15 seconds left. Keep the core engaged, keep yourself upright, keep the breath and the blood flowing. Feel the energy! And we're done! Just in time for The Fantastic Light Trip’s romantic leads to do their, let's be honest, just gorgeous duet. So take a dance break, or if you're up to it, keep on marching.

[film projector runs]

PETER LYNNE: [sighs] I know, I know. It's a bit silly, since it is a romance between a wide-eyed space cadet and an exiled alien prince. But it's just, The Fantastic Light Trip, it's so sincere. We're never sincere, and you can't help but root for them. At least, I can't. You can't see, runners, but the whole cast is on screen now getting ready for the big finale. They're all smiling and yeah, actually, it reminds me of something else that I tried to tell people when I was leading classes. Did you know that studies show that if you smile while you exercise, it genuinely makes you feel better?

And listen, I know, I know. Really annoying when someone else tells you to smile. Boy, did I learn that the hard way with Janine. Won't be doing that again in a hurry. But it really is different if you're smiling for yourself. Just trust me and give it a try. I mean, the last song from The Fantastic Light Trip, it's so uplifting. We're gonna have a cool down dance to it. And while you're dancing, I just - you don't have to - I just encourage you to smile. Because you are here, and you are alive, and you deserve to feel good. And yes, you smile too, Janine, if you're listening. No one can see you, I promise.

[film projector runs]

PETER LYNNE: [sighs] And here we go. It's the uh, the part where the alien queen and the leader of the cadets, they finally agree to work together. So all that remains is uh, just to assemble the hyperdrive. Turns out all you need to end an intergalactic war is 20 rousing song and dance numbers. Need to remember to mention that to Janine the next time she's brainstorming our defense strategy.

See, it's now the whole cast and they're together and dancing onto the ship. And you know, they really did have that much fun doing it and, and they're arm in arm. Or well actually, to be fair, arm in tentacle. But then the hatch is closing. Blast off. [laughs] Oh, brava. Well, that raised the spirits! I suppose that's gonna be all from me for now, runners, because I'm gonna have to go find another film before the credits finish rolling and all the zoms start looking for something a little bit meatier to entertain themselves, i.e. moi. So until next time, look after yourselves please, and keep on smiling.

#zombies run #zr home front #zrhf5 #peter's movie nights (and days)#zr transcript

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cateringisalie · 3 years

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9 years later and we have at last got a new Eva film and the end of the Rebuild project.

Much was made at the start of Rebuild of the desire to introduce Eva to a new audience. 1.0 more or less leant into its original goal and restaged episodes 1 to 6 of the TV series with a bigger budget, CGI, some more blunt and early reveals and a few weird alterations for the existing fan base. The Angel numbering was off; everyone knows Lilith is stuck in the basement, Seele just default to their monoliths. Kaworu is actively introduced at the tail-end rather than alluded to in the opening titles. As an intro, its fine (though most would agree the equivalent stage of the TV series isn’t really a struggle to cope with either), though a few stylistic and environmental changes lead many to conclude this was a direct sequel to End of Evangelion. 2.0 seemed content to build off of the intro but steer away from the relevant section of episodes – roughly 8 to 17. Recognisable moments like the falling Angel, the corrupted Unit 03 and the ribbon angel and Unit 01’s impossible reactivation share the screen with altered relationship dynamics. Now we get Mari one of the few wholly new characters who gets to open the second film in a wildly dramatic fashion. The key of Nebuchadnezzar (which does at least re-enter proceedings in the final film, but I am even shakier on what it is or used for – even fandom seem to have struggle to explain this as anything other than a blunt drop-in replacement for the Adam embryo in the TV series). And come the end its time for Third Impact already, Shinji altering the world around him to rescue Rei from the depths of an Angel. Kaworu uses an unfamiliar spear to incapacitate Shinji and the preview hints at a story further from the rails than ever. 3.0 is as promised more or less completely divorced from anything Eva had done before. Just not the off-the rails version 2.0 advertised. Some will be quick to note that none of the Rebuild previews have entirely accurately advertised their subsequent instalment; 1.0’s features at least one key scene that never happened (Mistao slapping Ristuko in a seeming allusion to the Sea of Dirac Angel) while even the sequences of animation that did make it look nothing alike. Which is fair, but even then 2.0’s bears absolutely no resemblance to 3.0 and even 3.0’s very strange preview doesn’t really jibe with 3.0+1.0 ultimately. 3.0 is post-post-apocalypse and with a whole 14 years just evaporated between films. There’s a distinct last third of Nadia feel to it. About the only part similar to a former incarnation is Kaworu and Shinji’s relationship which while not even roughly mapping to episode 24 serves the same function; to make Shinji distraught before the climax of this story. But 3.0 is also the point where that initial premise of the series slams headlong into the drift from familiar territory. Where the film is a quantum leap away from the mystery terms and slow reveals. The oddities and confusions pile up given the glimpsed state of the world, the strange gridded moon, the sea of Eva corpses, the strange state of Lilith in the depths of Nerv. An awful lot happened while Shinji was (for reasons no one has explained or seems to care about except me) IN SPACE and the film only ever alludes to the sequence of events occurring between these two films in the broadest of strokes. Which if done a certain way can be compelling though I did not find it to be the case here in the slightest. It’s a huge struggle to build up even a vague idea of what went down and that’s with heavy deferral back to the TV series again. If you’re new, none of this means much of anything. Even mixed media doesn’t help. The reveal there was a limited run manga of events prior to 3.0 had a potential for answers, but upon reading a synopsis... Nope. Helps not even a tiny amount. Also this mixed media attitude is never to be encouraged. So, I didn’t like film 3 much at all. Film 4 does little to not be based on where it left off. Which is a small mercy that it doesn’t effectively toss everything out again and skip further ahead in time. And 3.0+1.0 does at least make use of some of what 2.0 revealed and setup in the spirit of trying to get this into something cohesive. It fails, but it tried. Maybe the points it touches on were the intended direction of the films. Maybe Anno changed his mind on this one. It’s not like Rebuild’s failure to cohere should be a surprise – the title of the film is simply confusing in sequence. Titled neither 4.0 nor 4.44, instead we have the pretty inexplicable 3.0+1.0 which is just annoying to type. Even thematically this doesn’t feel right given its more like 2.0 mushed into 3.0 but I suppose that’s technically film 5 so... Unless, 1.0 here is supposed to mean the original TV series or EoE, which... End of Evangelion figures unexpectedly largely in the film. Could be that its meant to infer some collection of the Eva cast (the original pilots + Mari? The Ikari family + Mari? The pilots from 1.0 (Shinji and Rei) plus the pilots from 3.0 (Asuka and Mari)?). The other part of course, is that the three prior films had titles in the form of [Thing](Not)]Thing]. 3.0+1.0 decides to dispense with this entirely and instead is titled “Thrice Upon a Time”. Nothing like confusing matters (and instead media library ordering) by not only giving the film a title that puts it before the 3rd film (since prior to this cinema releases are .0 and the home media (excepting the first release of 1.0) are triple digits of their instalment number) but also has another reference to three within it. It might be some kind of holy trinity allusion, some play on Third Impact, or an acknowledgement that this is theoretically the third version of events surrounding the end of the world (if you take TV series as 1, EoE as 2, and Rebuild as 3). Also potentially a literary reference about cyclical time and messages from the future which is all well and good and fits into a whole other essay about how Rebuild and FFVII Remake are operating on the same basis and making many of the same mistakes by both trying to be fan-service for the new fans and draw in new ones and do the big fan-moments similarly but diverge wildly off in others. Good start! The final film starts with bombast as per 2 and 3 (and thus focused on Mari) though the setup and point of the action is possibly more confused and less explicable (which is saying something given 3.0 opened with retrieving Unit 01 from space. No, I will continue to complain about not getting this. Yes it was very exciting but why was Unit 01 in space? In a strange crucifix coffin. Anyone at all?) – and only vaguely connected to anything resembling the plot. At least 2.0 and 3.0 had some immediate and long term stakes with a cover for Kaji stealing something and bringing Shinji into the plot. This film opens with a scrounge for spare parts in a red Paris that the tertiary cast make no longer red while Mari fights off a massed horde of Evas while battleships are puppeteered from orbit. It’s all terrible cool and everything, but given at no point do we even begin to understand what is going on or what the stakes even are. Which is a problem with the latter half of the sequence. 2.0 might have started with an Eva vs Angel fight but while there was ambiguity over the situation it at least seemed to lead into the eventual plot. Here we’re getting Eva spare parts for later and a whole dose of new terminology the film has no interest in explaining. Which is par for the course for prior Eva incarnations but again, I feel there was more explanation setting the weirdness up. Here we are reduced to keywords that sound important. The film proper opens with our familiar trio of Eva pilots winding up at a village with their old classmates (which of course, to follow the proliferations of 3 all the way down and also match to Tokyo-3, is in fact, Village 3. The far future sequel to Resident Evil 8 presumably). Who are necessarily now 14 years older than them. Asuka is naked (in a sequence to contrast to 1.0 and 2.0) or in her underwear for far too much of this sequence (and just as creepy as 2.0 got with this) as Shinji struggles in the aftermath of Kaworu’s death, Ayanami (critically not the Rei of 2.0) learns about life (and visits a library with – I’m not kidding – a poster for Sugar Sugar Rune on display. I like to think not many in the audience caught this slightly odd reference). 30 minutes of the film are taken up with Rei being happy and contented with her life while Shinji slowly recovers and re-enters polite society (sulks, throws up at the sight of the DSS collar, is insulted and force-fed). There’s a good case for this section just being an unnecessary time filler, though you don’t need to fill time in a film that is 2 ½ hours. But if it was cut down, perhaps it would have the same strange feeling as 1.0 had where the aftermath of Shinji’s second Angel fight lead was mostly skipped and left that part of 1.0 feeling strangely hasty and actively (and badly) abridged. Maybe that’s just my familiarity with the source material again. There’s still an edge of weirdness in the air on the film hits the 45 minute mark; even prior to this gigantic sections of the land are missing, and some things just float around now (apparently because). Past this mark is where weirdness creeps in; the barriers keeping the village from suffering the fate of Paris – the structures a curious match to the Cocytus facility at the start of 2.0. There are headless Eva copies who roam the landscape. An indicator on Ayanami’s suit runs down. Shinji is advised to talk to his father before he loses the opportunity forever. This one made me laugh, and even Asuka comments that given who Shinji’s father is and what he’s done don’t really make this plausible (or sensible). Ayanami concludes her pastoral life and this stage of the film by transforming back to her original white plug-suit; her AT Field then dissipates and she bursts in a familiar spill of LCL. For such a previously central character, Rei or Ayanami or Lilith will have exceptionally little bearing on the remainder of the film. The plot now kicks in properly as Gendo decides enough is enough and he’s going to be doing some world ending. Our Eva pilots are ready but not the same; we have Asuka, Mari and Shinji. And standing orders for Shinji to be shot if he tries to pilot anything (but given we’re at the end of the world and basically the original plan fails to stop Nerv bringing about the end of the world, that people still try to shoot him is... a little weird and an almost pointless resolution of factors the quaternary cast brought up in 3.0). The entire rest of the film is even more impenetrable and confusing than Kaworu’s sweeping explanations of what happened between films 2 and 3. If 3.0 fumbled the ball on being newcomer friendly 3.0+1.0 actively doesn’t care. Not that familiarity with series helps since so much new terminology is thrown at the audience. The entire cast – literally the entire cast – are not only caught up on but also understand the varying levels of psychological, biological and religious nonsense that Eva has formerly wielded as something almost coherent. You, as audience member, are not privy to a fraction of this understanding and thus left to flail for the remainder of the film making what you can of the maddening breadcrumb trail of exclamations and partial explanations. Shinji is no help here and infuriatingly asks barely a single question about what is going on (thankfully he does prompt Gendo to explain a few things – presumably where even the staff had gotten lost on what was supposedly going on). For existing fans, you might get a sense of it by application of known quantities from the previous incarnations (I pity newcomers struggling to make sense of this). What the Lance of Cassius is a thing introduced abruptly into the series – and contrasted with the Lance of Longinus you can muddle through to get some idea of what was going on. 3.0+1.0 however, decides that even that grip on its story is too much and adds a bunch more unnamed spears. Some of them formed from Lilith. This is a thing of some import apparently, though ultimately is effectively buzzword name-checking. We know who Lilith is in context from both 1.0 and the TV series but how that relates to spear formation is beyond me. And then there’s the part where one of the flying ships (there were four made according to Seele’s plan. Seele, the former sinister puppet-masters, who died in film 3, and if the flying ships were their idea or this stated at all, I had totally forgotten it in the last 9 years (checking wikia seems to indicate no one else knew this either so I feel vindicated). Seele feel an artefact of the old Eva Anno has no time for – EoE had what equated to three groups vying for control of the process of human instrumentality. Seele are adhering to a prophecy of sorts, Gendo is trying to subvert that process for his own ends, and Misato is trying to stop it. In terms of economical story-telling, the distinction between Seele and Gendo’s goals in causing Third Impact are so slim as to be basically zero (few critical differences though), I suspect Seele were deemed unnecessary and shuffled out of proceedings hastily despite their continued name-checking at this late stage) is turned into another spear because if all the spears are used up, the end of the world can’t be averted. You will have to forgive me for failing to notice how and where most of these spears (save three) wound up or what most of that means or why or how or anything. But we have a budget to squander and why not channel the Gurren Lagann energy for action one last time? And there is some action, this presumably part of what a good section of the audience have waited for with baited breath, that thing the TV series so rapidly lost interest in; that EoE staged for narrative cruelty. Smashy giant robot action time! So we get billions of Eva enemies for Asuka and Mari to cut through without problem. They explode and fall away despite exhaustively overwhelming numbers. There is a palpable lack of threat here. A few hitches but nothing the pilots can’t cope with. It’s just empty fan-service, a boast about how much can be rendered into a single frame. We get Asuka, unable to stab critically important Unit 13 (looking distinctly Unit 01-like just with four arms), and then hooking into an odd leftover thread from 2.0. Her accident in the activation test of Unit 03 has left her with a part of herself now more correctly classified as an Angel. And like 2.0 for surprise value, her Eva has special Angel blood injectors to again overcharge her Eva (which seems to be a thing in the latter three films – turn the Eva safety off and go beserk. As if Unit 01 didn’t do that all on its own in the first and second film). And this too fails. But this too is just another moment of important and pretention. Where the audience is meant to gasp at Eva/Angel hybridisation (not that the dividing line between Angles and Evas is ever completely clear (not least Unit 03)), at Asuka revealing herself to be part Angel (as if Kaworu and Rei weren’t established examples). So her Eva bloated and animalistic is... just another moment. We saw this in 2.0 with Mari releasing her limiters. We saw it in 3.0 in almost the same way. The distinction isn’t meaningfully different to the last few times the Evas were let off the leash and became more brutal. And just like the prior times this escalation of Eva body horror, ferocity, blood and over-indulged violence doesn’t actually help the situation. Asuka fails in her task as the Unit 13 counter-attacks. She’s saved by getting pulled out of reality moments before her end. Of course this being narrative, this being Eva; Gendo, the architect of this situation, is three steps ahead. Misato’s flying ship is badly and perhaps critically damaged so Gendo can retrieve the limbless body of Unit 01 formerly powering the flying ship. Shooting Gendo doesn’t work thanks to the key of Nebuchadnezzar (which did... Uh. Something? Kaji noted it as the lost number kept as a spare in 2.0 which implied Angel or Eva or... No I don’t know nor can I make sense of what it’s done to Gendo. Wikia informs me that while it’s never seen on-screen past the one time, its case is in some shots of 3.0. How amazing) and he leaves. And thus, of course, Shinji must get in the f-ing robot once more. But we’re back to the confident, more certain Shinji who 2.0 birthed as we enter the last (but still very long) final stage of the film – and restage End of Evangelion. Curious of course; EoE by turns can feel like a legitimate replacement for the final two TV series episodes or a bleakly, darkly, disturbing and flippant retort to the low-budget metaphysic version of the TV apocalypse. EoE to some has been not so much the intended ending (though buying a complete set of the old Eva in Japan will always net you the 26 original TV episodes, the four amended episodes and EoE), but more a poisoned chalice for the people who wanted a less introspective version of the end of the world and the process of human instrumentality. Anno was free to do what he wanted and veer off the tracks here – he can’t get away from the end of the world – this is integral to Eva’s base concept. 2.0’s glimpse of Second and the starts of Third Impact depict a process completely unfamiliar from the TV series’s version (reading Wikia explains some of 2.0’s imagery but is still bewildering with reference to 3.0+1.0’s reveals). In Rebuild, the end of the world is staged in the space below the strange aftermath of Second Impact, in an anti-universe where humans cannot venture. And yet, we are still clearly revisiting End of Evangelion. Not exactly the same, but a lot of imagery (the symbols in the sky, the gigantic form of Lilith at multiple points, the crucifix explosions across Earth’s surface) – to say nothing of some actual sections of animation – are taken straight from the 1997 film. Those moments and images were haunting and disturbing (the more overtly sexualised imagery has been completely removed). Clearly no matter what was said at the time or in the interim, EoE is in fact how the ending must play out; this is, or has become, what happens externally and internally when these characters attempt to force a next stage of evolution. The End of Evangelion will always be the end. ...just not quite the same. Not least it is missing most of the infamous moments (Shinji in Asuka’s hospital room is notably completely absent). There’s no moment where Shinji strangles Asuka, Komm Susser Tod is missing entire (in favour of something similar sounding but in Japanese), the live-action sequences of the empty cinema or the world without Evas aren’t utilised (though some live action footage is included), Rei betraying Gendo and beginning Third Impact outside his control etc. It's actively absurd to type this, but Lilith – Lilith! – has less character here. Which is so astonishingly absurd given the only depiction of Lilith we get is effectively Rei/Rei was Lilith the entire time, but those introspective sequences hinting at something more involved with Rei or the points Lilith does talk directly to Shinji are gone too. This shouldn’t be a surprise – we are after all missing a Rei character at the climax. Mostly. 3.0+1.0 almost expects you to remember the last time you saw Eva end the world and contrast it to this new version. The EoE imagery, the footage of Lilith descending from the crucifix, the looming figure of Lilith rising as humanity ends. Even something like the sequence of the backsides of cels running backward is reused – this footage also cribbed from EoE and played out on a wall between two characters. The animation breaks down into scratchy storyboards and later degenerates from finished footage down to outlines, animatics, and storyboard. The end of the world is this time around is more heavily meta. Both EoE and the TV episodes “staged” the process of Instrumentality (or parts of it) for Shinji. It occurs in filming spaces and on sets, there’s lighting equipment and dolls as stand-ins. The strange artificiality of pulling back the curtain on the TV or film production, or else the effect of setting the camera back further than you should for filming a theatrical experience. But even that’s a false layer given a true pull-back would be to people in front of computers or previously drawing key-frames. Here the staging is more blunt still. It begins with an Eva vs Eva fight between Gendo and Shinji in the anti-universe where their brains make sense of the impossible space with artificially staged areas of familiar locations. A fight in a city has a huge sheet as a backdrop and carboard buildings the Evas kick around. They fight in front of Nerv headquarters and in Misato’s kitchen. A blow knocks over a section of scenery and sprawls Shinji in the studio space surrounding the set. A crossroads of sort where Shinji will move on from Gendo to meet with Rei, Kaworu and Asuka. The major difference to EoE is that the end here is much more concerned with Gendo; we dive into his psyche and his past. His isolation and desire for it. This feels extremely confessional for Anno all things considered given Gendo was always previously kept at arm’s length. This feels revealing about the man behind it all, a reflection of the director. He has admitted during production that at his stage of life he is far closer to Gendo than Shinji – I think this is barely obfuscated here. The flashback is more about understanding Gendo and how Yui changed him than anything about Evas or the end of the world. Gendo’s motivation is revealed to be the same as always; this is how he gets to be with Yui again. Odd details catch as this past plays out. And is that Mari in his memories? Mari, who Fuyustuki calls Mary Iscariot upon meeting her and has prepared something for her. Which feels much more like religious buzz words; there’s an obvious implication coached in that selection of a name, but how it actually relates to the story or the circumstances is really unclear. Nor am I clear on what Fuyutsuki prepared. He explodes into LCL like last time too. The process is so close to EoE but the mood is lighter and the reasoning behind the cast a little different. Asuka is part of a clone series – same as Rei. Just without the physical signifiers that Kaworu and Rei exhibit and the prior short-hand for clones in this universe (as noted, their design is intended to invoke lab rats). Nice consistency there. The beach ending from EoE is re-done under a blue sky; Asuka is saved thanks to Shinji and Mari working in concert. Kaworu’s beach meeting with Shinji is restaged, the newer, confident Shinji discussing the circular system that delivers Kaworu into his place at the end of the world. So Eva has happened before, meta-wise or time-wise or dimensionally. Take it as you will, no interpretation is more valid than another. Only that Kaworu remembers them all. It’s happened before and it’s expected to happen again. But Shinji’s different now, so the end of the world is different. Now it’s time to move on; Kaworu is left with Kaji to tend the earth assured the cycle of Eva productions is at an end – both have been dead all this time. Anno’s attitude to his seeming forever association with this one franchise his and his desire to set it down and move on? EoE finished in space; 3.0+1.0 finishes beneath the Antarctic. The idea of Unit 01 living forever as a testament to humanity is no factor at all Shinji intending (and his parents possibly driving) the final riddance of the Evas from reality – none can be allowed to remain. But now, the film takes an odd turn, and as with EoE, there’s the coda. In EoE this was the beach scene. For Rebuild: The sun shines, the sky is blue. An adult Shinji sits in a train station and meets with Mari. She’s older too now; the pair share a kiss and run from the station hand in hand. So. Uh. Yeah. That happened. There’s Kaworu and Rei seemingly alive and well as adults. And Asuka of course. But Shinji winds up with Mari. Mari who knew everything the whole time and might somehow have been part of Gendo’s group at university and known Yui and no, we are not getting any insight into those peculiarities! (or more plausibly it could be Mari’s mother who looks near identical to Mari but... What are we meant to take from this, really?). Mari who met Shinji in a handful of brief moments and has never spent any actual time with him. Mari won the love-triangle! But this is not some simple alternate reality, a different better take world where the cast existed in something resembling our reality; Shinji still wears the exploding DSS collar given to him before rejoining the giant robot fray. Mari effortlessly removes it from his neck. The film ends with a live-action sequence – this is reportedly Anno’s hometown. The world without Evas; we passed the relevant date while 3.0+1.0 was stalled. Shinji made it to 2014, or more plausibly past it in a world without Second Impact. And he’s happy, well-adjusted, and... Not really recognisable as Shinji. Shinji now exists in the present, not the future as he had for so long in pop-culture. But he’s in a different 2021; a world without the pandemic. And that was Rebuild; a project intended as a new introduction to Evangelion that blatantly had its entire core conceit revised at least twice (the 4th film delayed because of Shin Godzilla and then a struggle to write at all) that increasingly and confusingly leant more and more on its famed initial incarnation even as it veered increasingly and erratically away from the familiar sequences. I liked 3.0+1.0 more than 3.0, but can’t help but still bemoan whatever 3.0 was going to be when 2.0 happened. The alternate other sequence. And despite it all, despite the allusions to a repetition of Eva and of this being the break in the chain, even those working on and involved with the film see even this as a definitive end. Even Anno’s not convinced that’s the last word. Eva will come back all over again; naturally – there’s money to be made here, and what’s yet another alternate take to add to the TV series, the manga, the games, the other manga, EoE, Rebuild and so on. Kaworu apparently is indeed doomed to revisit this forever alongside everyone else and also remember that for once he was gifted a true end. An impossible conclusion for modern pop-culture it feels.

#long post

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creepykuroneko · 4 years

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Halloween Movies with Black Leads

Its my favorite time of the year and I LOVE seeing other people post their Halloween movie play list but if I’m being honest, its always the exact same 2 dozen films listed on everyone’s lists. While I love these movies, the lists aren’t original or diverse. Here is a Halloween movie list with some forgotten (ignored) gems that I highly recommend. These films range from family friendly to adult horror so viewer discretion is advised.

1) The people under the Stairs

This 1991 horror comedy follows Fool, a black child who gets guilt into helping some criminals break into their rich landlords house to steal their fortune. Once inside of the house, the landlords kill the adult intruders and go about their business until they realize there is another unwanted person in their house. As Fool tries to escape the house that is rigged with traps, he learns the landlords have not only been hording resources from the neighborhood they have been making money from but have also been committing gruesome acts. The People Under the Stairs gives us something we rarely see in Hollywood, a black male child as a hero, a genuinely entertaining story, and a critique of those who are on top by exploiting impoverished communities.

2) Twiches 1 & 2

Its the Mowry twins whats not to love? I never read the books so I won’t compare. These movies are about two sisters (Alexandra Fielding and Camryn Barnes) who were separated at birth, meet when they are grown, and find out they have magical powers. Honestly its just a fun movie. If you like Halloween Town or Hocus Pocus you’ll probably like this one. Plus its not everyday we get to see beautiful black witches on the screen who are not a side character.

3) Get Out

Ok I know everyone has heard of this one. If you support BLM but haven’t seen this film yet, what are you waiting for? Chris (a black man) goes to meet his (white) girlfriends family for the weekend and eerie unsettling white nonsense ensues. I think white liberals have a harder time with this movie than conservatives do. It is as Jordan Peele described it, a “social thriller”. I got very emotional at the end when I saw this movie in theaters. It hits all the emotions.

4) Tales from the Hood

I ask that you give this one a chance please. A horror “comedy” from 1995, Tales from the hood is a anthology that is centered around a funeral home. Each story could be taking place in modern time as they address timeless issues dealing with police violence, domestic violence, racism, gang violence and a hard look at not only how society treats the black community but how the black community treats each other.

5) Us

Staring the fabulous Lupita Nyong'o, the film is about a family who goes on vacation to the mothers childhood beach house. Haunted by her past, Adelaide can’t shake the feeling that something is off. She is right as a family of doppelgangers show up and chaos ensues. This film is truly creepy.

6) The Witches (2020)

Technically not out yet at the time of this post. This is my favorite Ronald Dahl book and I loved the original movie with Angelica Hudson. The remake looks supper cute and I LOVE Octavia Spenser. The story is about a boy whose parents die, he goes on to live with his grandma, she tries her best to prepare him for the dangers of the world, and he encounters a ploy by you guest it real life witches. The witches scheme to turn every child into a mouse. It is up to Luke and his grandma to save the day!

7) The Haunted Mansion

In this silly family friendly comedy, Eddie Murphy plays a realtor who is more interested in making a sale than he is in spending time with his loved ones. While on their way to a family vacation, Murphy stops at a potential clients mansion and learns that there is a mystery afoot. Based off the beloved Disney park ride, the Haunted Mansion is full of ghosts, murder, mystery, charm, and intrigue.

8) A Vampire in Brooklyn

Eddie Murphy has never looked so fine! Also staring the beautiful Angela Bassett, this romantic love triangle film will be sure to thrill anyone who is a fan of gothic romance.

9) Blade

Give me more sexy vampires please! I’m not usually one for action films but this one ( based off the Marvel superhero) actually works. It’s about a half vampire who is out to avenge his dead mother by taking out other vampires and villains. The martial arts and costumes alone make this film a enjoyable watch.

10) Gothika

Staring Hallie Barry, this film is about a psychiatrist who has a frightening encounter on the road while driving home one night. She wakes up in the mental hospital she works at only to discover that her husband has been murdered and she is the one accused of killing him. Barry tries to maintain her sanity while proving she is innocent. But is she?

11) Night of the Living Dead (1968)

Admittedly not one of my favorite films, but I have included it because of what this film did by paving the way for Black cinema. If it were not for Romero’s decision to cast Duane Jones as Ben, a (black) man trying desperately to survive the zombie apocalypse and protect a group of (white) survivors, we might have not ended up with all these other horror films listed. This film came out during the American Civil Rights movement, at the time white people were not on board with interracial film and television. Even when Sesame Street came out in 1969, it was banned in some areas because of its interracial cast. Having a black actor as a main character during this time was unheard of.

That’s it for now! Hope this list will inspire someone to watch something else besides Beetlejuice (I love this movie but there are other movies out there) this Halloween. If anyone wants to add to this list feel free to :)

Honorable mentions (as cool as these characters are they are not the main focus of the story or they are problematic but I still wanted to give them a shout out):

Queen of the Damned: Akasha played by the late Aaliyah.

Rochelle from The Craft. Her character was well written for the first half of the film, then it all falls apart.

Laurent from Twilight. Just because I hate Twilight, that doesn’t mean that I can’t appreciate how hot Edi Gathegi is in this film.

Candyman. This movie has a interesting plot, a folklorist is doing research on a urban ledges and discovers that it is real. Not bad but the problems is who the antagonist is taking his anger out on. To quote a article I once saw about the movie, “you can tell that there were no black women in the board room when this film was being pitched”.

#halloween #spoopy #halloween movies #horror #vampires #black cinema #90s nostalgia

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nazumichi · 4 years

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Double Trouble? 😍

Already did this one Scorp, but:

1. Have you seen them? More like why don’t I like them. Their design is so fun, and they’re such a cool character, one of types that wasn’t given a backstory so you can go absolutely crazy and give them the saddest origin story possible. Also lizard hot.

2. There was no backstory!! Also, I don’t like how the crew portrayed them, which affected how the fandom paints them. Some people just act like Dee isn’t a person, who just doesn’t feel anything and that’s sort of annoying. Guys. They have feelings >:/

3. All of them?? I can’t choose just one. That locker room scene in episode 12 (?) season 4 with Catra was poetic cinema at its finest. They just strutted into the Horde like “guess who’s back, you hot and messy motherfucker” And their whole introduction was awesome.

4. “Espionage is a long game, kitten.” and “I can’t cry on cue! The only thing that’s works is thinking about children falling! They’re tears of laughter, but no one can tell the difference!”

5. Prom!

6. I feel like someone (probably a mutual) will slap me if I say catrouble again. But I’ll take that chance.

7. I need a friendship between them and Adora! Catra Protection Squad, and Dumb Hairpoof Squad.

8. I think that Dee really likes teasing people, but can’t stand when people tease them back. Like, they’ll make fun of and vibe check Catra constantly, but hates it when she calls them “clingy”. “Excuse you, I am not clingy! You’re one to talk!” Everyone teases them endlessly now for the stupidest things.

9. Controversial take, but I think that Dee really likes physical contact. I see a lot of people say they despise it, and prefer being a “look can’t touch” type, and I agree up to a point, but they were very touchy with a lot of characters. There was that scene between them and Scorpia in season 4 ep 2, they were touching Catra constantly, and they didn’t seem to mind the attention Sea Hawk was giving them. Dee is touch-starved and enjoys attention, in this essay I will.

10. I need them to get a backstory and development so badly, Noelle please—

11. Don’t imagine Dee curled up on the floor in agony, burning up. Don’t imagine the chip in the back of their neck pulsing, whispering to them, compelling them to move and wreak havoc that they secretly don’t want to commit. Don’t imagine them alone in the dark, trying to pry the chip out of their neck with shaking hands, crying silently, breath coming up short, wishing for someone to find them, before their eyes glow a dull green light and—

12. Hot, cunning, crafty, distant, lonely.

13. When I write them, I refer to them as Trouble, because I don’t think they’d like to be called DT unless it’s just a casual nickname from relatives, like Casta and Micah. Calling them Dee is honestly the best thing.

#can you tell i love them #double trouble #dt #spop #ask #raii talks a lot

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mattkenzie · 4 years

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So with a lot of changes going on in June with all this talk about racism being a hot button topic indeed, WotC (Wizards of the Coast) wants to revamp and update the diversity of Dungeons and Dragons especially those that are centred around the orcs, drow and the Vistani

So one of the biggest things I would change about the real world is to have fantasy races (elves, dwarves and orcs... etc) but my biggest fear is that deep down... humans can sometimes be racist to one another and I’ll be adding even MORE racism into the world if my dream and ideas of fantasy races lived in the real world would become a nightmare. 😢

So the first thing I will want to address is our mean, green fighting machines (the orcs); So it all started when J.R.R Tolkien wrote the Lord of the Rings Trilogy so we were introduced to the orcs there and soon the orcs have became the staple of fantasy novels henchmen, brutes and thugs for our heroes to fight against. It’s sad that we have to picture them as stupid brutes and when I was younger in my Warhammer 40,000 and Warhammer Fantasy days (I was about 12 or 13 at that time) I hated the orcs because of how the books considered them to be these dumb brutes (nobody wanted to play with them because in 40,000 they have the lowest Armour Saves you have to roll a d6 and prey to the dice gods that you’ll get a 6 if your opponent doesn’t use an AP 6 (Amour Penetration) weapon (+5 if they have scrap armour) and in Fantasy Battles if you have a Dwarf Army (with I did) you get to reroll your failed rolls to hit giving us more chances roll to wound (eventually I stopped using the Dwarves ‘hatred’ rule that the other players say that I am the easiest person to win against because I choose not to use the hatred rule. (I just don’t know why I never heavy rely on the Hatred rule, why should hate win?)

When I started playing World of Warcraft after my college years (For the Alliance) I loved the Draenei but eventually there were times I wanted to know what it was like being the Horde. (you have your Undead, Tauren, Trolls and Blood Elves but what stood out more are the Orcs.) I sometimes want to know how the other half lives that I have slowly became accustomed to the Orcs, sure the Alliance had their Paladins as their exclusive class but the Horde had something different and I love the fact that they are spiritual (shamanism), No I have never seen the movie. But as a human, I started to find tusks appealing.

It’s funny how in the real world, eventhough I am a Caucasian male, I wanted to know what it’s like to be black. (with all that “Black Lives Matter”, I will admit that I used to think that all lives matter... but that is not the case anymore because some people aren’t treated as equals. We portray those who are different from us ‘savages’ even in modern media (of television, movies and video games) we portray people in the Middle East as Terrorists ever since the 9/11 attacks (September 11th) and we portray people who are black as gangsters and thugs and one of my favourite shows happens to be The Boondocks and while Riley Freeman plays the stereotype (that portrayal needs to stop), my favourite character is Huey Freeman and for a fictional character, he challenged the way I think about things). I have made some awesome friends at Church who are black but they’ve broken that mould. I went to college with them (but we didn’t go to the same department mind you) while I was getting a higher education, they have been studying to become physicians (they are smarter than me). They go to interviews to not get hired (instead they hire someone less qualified) they have been stopped by the police for driving cars they shouldn’t normally have (but earned it fair and square).

Heck there were times where they didn’t fit in the black community because they acted white. “How!?” (I’m sorry, how you can be rejected for being black on the outside but have personality traits of a Caucasian?) just to be called a ‘Sell Out’ or a ‘Bounty Bar’.

So anyway back to my D&D discussion, to me when I’ve played my first ever D&D 5E game with a gaming group known as the “Natural Oneduhs” my first character that I’ve created is Kamui, the Half-Orc (my DM wanted Kamui to either be a shade of green or grey, but I was having none of that “All orcs should be green or grey.” so I chose to stick to my guns to be Caucasian). I played against type because orcs in a fantasy setting (with their +2 Str and +1 Con they would be suited to play as Barbarians or Fighters) so because orcs aren’t an intelligent race I thought I’d kick things up a bit so I chose to play as a Bard. After these sessions with the (playing in the DM’s world and no stories for the individual players) Kamui grew up in a human society because the orcs rejected Kamui for not being an orc, but is always portrayed as a monster no matter the colour of his skin, (in 2nd Edition orcs aren’t a playable race, it was later introduced in 3rd Edition) sick and tired of the prejudice he sees where people see Kamui as an orc and not an actual person only one person accepted Kamui.

“What I hate about society is people tend to use violence as a weapon to get their point across (which ends up breaking into war) instead we need to use our voices and our own words to speak volumes.”

So the books that I have read where the orcs/half-orcs have became the anti-heroes is The Grey Bastards and True Bastards by Jonathan French (it’s the most boyish book I ever read) so I have Volo’s Guide to Monsters and the Explorer’s Guide to Wildemount.

Now the Vistani (they are a travelling group of gypsies commonly found in Barovia in any Ravenloft campaign) and in the real world we look down upon the Romani gypsies because they couldn’t follow our “rules of society” by dumping their old trailers (fly-tipping), setting up camps in public spaces and being in large groups (I’m a large man, but I’m scared of getting ganged up on or mugged by them when I am walking down the road) not exactly Esmarelda from Disney’s The Hunchback of Notre Dame.

I don’t know why, but I tend to see them hanging out in boxing clubs and riding (or racing) in those 1 horse carriages or sometimes having lunch in the carvery (and ignore social rules like changing a baby on the dinner table) which is gross, “We having changing facilities!”, Oh it’s your kids birthday and you let them watch a 12 rated movie instead of a U rated film yet your kids choose to cause havoc in the cinema “Yep, still ignoring the rules of society!” and then having the audacity to be dumping popcorn on me when watching Avengers Assemble because your kids couldn’t follow the rules! in this TV show on Channel 4 My Big Fat Gypsy Wedding. I never played a Vistani before but it would be interesting to see more variant humans in the game.

In real life, with what I had to put up with, I think I would be scared to make a friend with the Romani (learnt behaviour) but I admire them for being a tight knit group, you don’t see that in modern day society, we are all wrapped our heads around social media.

I can picture them with Animal Handling and Performance as their skills, have a proficiency with a musical instrument.

The Drow (Dark Elves) have been painted as sadomasochist and well... “evil” but what I find fascinating and appreciate them is their religion because they have female priests. What I am saying is that in the real world, it’s a rare sight to see a female Vicar (I feel that it’s quite progressive but other people (old men and traditionalists) are apprehensive about having a woman to preach about the gospel.) Look at Matthew Mercer’s Critical Role campaign 2 and take a look at the Krynn Dynasty.

I never played a drow before and I don’t think I shall anytime soon. I know that a popular drow that is well known is Drizz’t and to fight against the stereotypical world view that all drow are evil because of Lolth, the Spider Queen... I don’t think a religion should define you. But it’s like I said, I believe that this has ushered in having a female priest (if you’ve seen the Victor of Dibbley you might understand where I am coming from.)

For me the Orcs in my world are indeed a tribal society (and I give them a Polynesian/New Zealand/Aztec/Hawaiian flair to them, instead of “Makin’ um as da dum broots dey are”).

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