#I do this with every comically-raunchy post I make now

[captainclickycat]

Before you post anything on the internet, take a moment to imagine being on trial and having that post read out by a judge. Like a really stuffy old judge with a posh accent who reads it in a very stern disapproving tone of voice.

If that thought cracks you up, you should definitely post it.

[dfortrafalgar]

would you be interested in a more Platonic type fic? Like being good friends with Robin?

alternatively if it has to be romantic: Law being forced on a disaster of a date only to meet a super helpful (comic) bookshop employee and she starts seeming cute when he finds out she has similar interests? (Boy probably went into cardiac arrest at first when someone caught him not being broody)

hope this isn’t too much!

and you’re doing awesome!

thank you so much for your request, anon!!!! im actually going to use both of your ideas, but i started with the Law one because that hit seriously close to home. ive been on some absolute TRAVESTIES of dates in the past, and i needed to write law suffering through a similar fate or i'd die!!!!! I hope you enjoy, and pretty soon I'll post your platonic Robin request as well! I love writing platonic stories just as much as romantic ones <3

An Out.

Law x Fem Reader

Law made the mistake of letting his friends talk him into a first date… and now he desperately needs an out. Fast.

Warnings: an absolute disaster of a first date for our wonderful nerdy man. modern au, implied college setting, some mild slight suggestive language but nothing more than that

Trafalgar Law tried in vain to recount the series of events that led up to this very moment.

There was the dusty apartment floor discussion about how the med-student hadn’t gotten laid yet, which was followed by a raunchy comment about a girl in someone’s class, it was revealed that this girl was single (‘and ready to mingle’), and her number was forcibly input into Law’s phone.

For the week that followed, he was inundated with flirty texts from this girl he had never met in person.  He was forced to send her a picture of himself, mostly to get her to stop blowing up his texts every hour, and that was the next mistake in the line-up of unfortunate events.

Turned out she had a thing for facial hair.

Then, instead of getting pestered with general flirty messages, it was general flirty messages that were ramped up to a nine.  ‘I’d rip your clothes off if you give me the opportunity,’ kind of nine.

Law knew he was a virgin, but at least he wasn’t this desperate, nor did he have any inclination to be.  If anything, the texts he received from this stranger were making him want sex even less.

And yet… he was still pushed into this.

A date around downtown with this girl.  She clung to his arm, tried to loop her fingers into his, and yet had absolutely no interest in anything he had to say.  At all.

First red flag: she mentioned her ex.  Three times.  In four minutes.  Everything was about what he did wrong to upset her, no self-awareness to be found.  Second red flag: the clinginess.  Law hated public affection, but any attempts to urge her to give him space resulted in a childish pout and her arms caged around his, almost pulling him to the ground.  Third red flag: she couldn’t give two shits about Law, in any sense of the word.  She wouldn’t stop talking about herself.  Her looks, her clothes, her favorite music, her favorite shows to binge watch, her distaste for the area of the city they were in, her distaste for the lunch Law had [regretfully] paid for, her distaste for the speckled jeans he decided to wear…

He could feel the premature wrinkles forming in between his eyebrows the longer the date went on.  He was starting to wonder if he’d have to throw out the shirt he was wearing later.  It already reeked of the too-strong, powdery-scented perfume she bathed herself in.

“Where do you wanna go?” she suddenly asked, still tugging on his arm.

“I kinda want to stop by the bookstore before we leave,” he suggested, his feet already carrying him, and by extension, her, along the sidewalk to a small bookshop that had just recently opened.

“The bookstore?  What kinda guy brings a girl to a bookstore on a first date?!” she demanded, showing off yet another childish pout.  It wasn’t a good look on her.

‘A guy who knows this girl’s not getting a second date,’ he wished he could say.  Instead, all the snarky remarks stayed locked inside his weary brain, bouncing around like a caged lion desperate to escape.

The girl didn’t make any motions to ditch him to his nerdy reprieve, and instead followed on his heels as he pulled open the bookshop’s door, the familiar, calming scent of new books, fresh paper, and ink filling his nose.

“It smells gross in here,” the girl huffed.

Aaaand there went Law’s fleeting moment of peace.  Out the window.  Down fifteen stories and splattered on the pavement.  He needed to violently restrain the eyeroll that begged to appear.  His ocular nerves ached to be a dick in the pettiest way possible.  He inwardly hoped that by dragging this girl to the most unassuming bookshop would encourage her to leave, call a friend or get a cab to take her back to her home, but alas, she stayed glued to Law’s side like a lost dog.

She followed behind him as he blindly perused shelves of new and pre-owned books, Law’s feet subconsciously guiding him to the back of the store where he knew the comic books would be located.

If anything would turn this girl off for good, it had to be his love for all things superhero.  His comic book collection would dry her up like a dessert in a drought.  Or at least, it fucking better.

His eyes lit up as he approached the expansive comic shelf, immediately spotting the latest print of Sora: Warrior of the Sea- Volume 10.  It had finally been officially localized, and he had been saving some of his spending money for this very moment.  He eagerly grabbed the book from the shelf, thumbing through the pages.

“How old even are you?” jeered the girl by his side.  “Comic books are, like, little kid shit.”

“I’m five years old,” barked Law, refusing to look toward her as he continued to analyze the pages of his favorite series.

To the average onlooker, they both probably looked like complete jackasses towards one another.  And while Law was at least brave enough to admit that his behavior was certainly petty, he felt like he was warranted a Get Out Of Jerk Free card for all the painful hours of suffering through this atomic catastrophe of a date had put him through.

“Whatever, I’m going to find a bathroom,” the girl finally groaned, releasing his arm and trudging through the aisles of books toward the checkout counter to ask an employee where the bathrooms were located.

Law watched her go out of his peripheral vision, refusing to exhale a sigh of profound relief until she was completely out of his line of sight.  With shoulders that finally relaxed, free from the overbearing tension, he turned his focus back to the comic in his hands, continuing to thumb through the colorful pages of artwork.  He flipped the book around to examine the price, smiling at how reasonable it was.  He filled his arms with a few other comics from a series he had been meaning to pick up, and retreated toward the cash registers to buy his books.  The sooner he got his treat for this ordeal, the sooner he could get out of here, call this girl a taxi home, and spend the rest of his life as a willingly single comic book mega-nerd.

But reality wouldn’t let him off the hook so easily.

Not when the girl sitting behind the register thumbing through another copy of Sora Volume 10 was an absolute bombshell.

When she looked up at Law, her eyes quickly went wide.  She placed the book under the register counter and eagerly leaned forward, her hands supporting her over the counter.  “Are you alright?” she asked, her voice laced with worry.

Law cocked an eyebrow, confused.  “Yeah, why?”

“That girl you’re with is making you miserable.  You walked through the door looking like you wanted someone to grant you a mercy killing,” she huffed.  Her eyes were clearly concerned.  “Are you dating her?”

Law felt his guard dropping without even realizing it the longer he was in the presence of this cashier.  “My friends set me up on a date with her, but I’m having the absolute worst time of my life.”

The new girl’s own eyebrows angled downward in concern.  “Do you want an out?”

“A what?”

“An out,” she repeated.  “An excuse to get her to leave you alone.”  Time was running out.  At any moment, she could leave the bathroom.

Law frantically looked back and forth between the cashier and the small, short hallway that led to the single restroom.  With pleading, golden eyes, he silently mumbled, “Yes, please.”

The cashier kept her eyes on the bathroom door as she began unloading Law’s hands, spreading his books out on the counter to make it look like she was busy ringing out his purchase.  Law watched with an analytical gaze as she fumbled with his items, clearly buying time until the bathroom door opened.

He didn’t have time to ask what she was plotting.

The second the door cracked open, the man’s shirt collar was violently clenched in the cashier’s hands as she pulled him over the counter, smushing her lips into his.  Law’s fingers flexed in thin air as he froze, brain completely fried as he was frozen in this sudden kiss.

His first kiss.

“What the fuck?!” the girl screeched, exiting the bathroom in a frenzy as she booked it toward the heated exchange happening over the cash register.

The new girl pulled herself away from Law’s face, but only enough where she could display her best rendition of a weary, tired war-torn wife waiting on a cliffside for her husband to return.  “Baby, please just take me back!  My life isn’t complete without you!”  Her voice was cracking as she fake-wailed, her grip on Law’s shirt never faltering, not even once.  The few customers who also occupied the store turned to stare at the commotion, frazzled and befuddled.  “Nothing in life is as good as it was with you!  I’m in shambles!  You were the best sex I’ve ever had!”

It took a few moments for Law to catch on to the ruse.  As soon as he put the puzzle pieces together in his mind, however, he was grabbing the wrists of the cashier and bringing his lips back to hers, closing his eyes and trailing his arms up to grasp her face.  Completely disregarding the fact that they were still separated by the heavy check-out counter between their torsos.

“You were dating someone?!” snapped the original girl.  “Why didn’t you tell me?!”

Law pulled away from the cashier’s lips, his own skin immediately feeling fifteen degrees colder from the loss of her contact.  “I wasn’t.  Until now.”

The new girl put her arm around Law’s shoulders from across the check-out counter, her deft fingers caressing his skin through his shirt.  “I’m sorry, but I’m taking him back, I can’t stand to be without him any longer!  The sight of him with another woman…” she made a show of clenching her chest, “makes me sick!”  She was damn good at this, in a way that almost made Law concerned.  The fact that she was pulling all of this out of nowhere, and the fact that her first course of action was this drastic, made Law’s heart flutter in his chest.

“Ugh, whatever.  This place sucks ass anyway.  I’m going home.”  She finally shouldered her bag and marched out of the shop, her feet stomping across the hardwood floor until the sound of the front door slamming closed finally made the cashier release her arm from Law’s shoulders.

And once again, the man was feeling oddly cold without the contact.  He glanced at her as she started ringing up his items for real.  “You’re… a good actor,” he blurted.

The girl hid her face in her arm with shame, an awkward laugh bubbling from her throat.  “I’m so sorry, I was trying to think of what to do to help you but when the door opened I panicked.”  Her eyes were focused on her work.  “I’ve been on some absolutely awful dates myself, so I understand.  Sometimes I’ve wished I could have Prince Charming swoop me out of the movie theater where a guy made fun of me for my interests the entire run-time.”

His jaw went slack.  “Are you serious?”

“Deadass,” she replied, quick as a whip.  “Insisted on holding my hand the entire time.  I think he was convinced that I had taken him to see a horror movie because I wanted to act scared in front of him, but his hand was so clammy and sticky the whole time.  And not in the endearing ‘Aww he’s shy!’ kind of way.”

Law wished at that moment that he had more charisma.  He was sure one of his friends would be able to pull a witty, flirty quip from their asses like it was nothing, but Law’s personal dictionary of flattery was nonexistent as it was.  He balked while he listened to the cashier who just took his breath away lamenting about her own poor experiences with dating, and he was sure that her example in this moment was only one of many.  Instead of continuing the conversation, his mind blanked.  He stated, more like whispered, “That was my first kiss.”

The girl’s hands stopped scanning his books halfway through.  Her wide eyes darted up to Law’s, her jaw slack.  “It… It was?”

“Yeah.”

Her hands flew to cover her mouth, eyes wide with shock.  “Oh my god… oh my god, I’m so sorry!”  She dropped her head onto the counter, covering her despair with both of her arms now.  “First kisses are supposed to be special and I just took your’s away from you…”

Law shocked himself by smiling at the weary display in front of him.  “If it makes you feel any better, that was far better than the date I was on.  But I’m sure you already knew that.”

She picked her head up, a trembling hand grabbing one of his last books to scan.  Her eyes nervously darted back and forth as she silently worked, once in a while sucking her bottom lip in with her teeth before releasing the flesh.  She was clearly lost in an intense inner turmoil.

“It’s really alright,” Law muttered, now growing shy himself.  He was just now realizing the gravity of what had happened… and how truly adorable this girl was.

She tapped a few buttons on her cash register before finally making eye contact with him again.  “You are a pretty good kisser… you’re really sure you’ve never done that before?”

He affirmatively shook his head.  “Never.  I’ve never been… popular with the dating scene,” he muttered.  “Hence this awful set-up date.”

The cashier’s eyes went wide again momentarily.  “That’s kind of surprising to me… I would think someone like you would get any girl you wanted.”

Law backpedaled.  “What does that mean?”

She pulled his total up on the small screen that faced him.  She was turning away from him as if to hide her face, her entire expression teeming with a child-like embarrassment.  “Well, you’re crazy hot, for starters.  And you like Sora, clearly.”

Law felt a smirk emerge on his lips.  “Is Sora one of your only qualifiers for a decent partner?”  He began to rekindle some of the confidence he had lost throughout the day.  The longer he spent in this girl’s presence, the more he felt the tension in his body leaving.

She grinned, the stress in her shoulders from her own actions finally releasing.  “Only guys with fluffy black hair and golden eyes that read Sora, if you want my honest answer.”

Now this was flirting.  Law had to admit, he was pretty pleased with this sudden turn of events.  The atmosphere this girl radiated was immensely calming, allowing him to chip through his reinforced walls just enough to feel like a somewhat normal person.  He started to wonder if she could break through his barriers even more.

“What’s your name?” he finally asked, taking out his credit card and swiping it through the machine to finally cash out his order.

The girl excitedly revealed her name.  “And your’s?”

“Trafalgar Law,” he replied.  “I go to North Blue University for med school in the next town over.”

“No shit, so do I!  I’m getting a worker's license there,” she added, her expression shifting from one of moderate happiness to one of excitement.  “I doubt we’ve had any of the same classes, but we should hang out sometime!  Get coffee, maybe talk about Sora…”  Her voice trailed off, her eyes growing soft.  “Unless you’ve been completely turned off to dating after what you’ve clearly just been through.”

Law took a few moments to ponder over her words, watching as the receipts for his purchase slowly emerged from the thermal printer.  “I think I can make an exception this time.”

The smile that broke out on the girl’s face may as well have blinded him.  She was truly dazzling, even in her ratty-looking employee apron and an oversized T-shirt accounting for her work attire.

Law placed his new assortment of books into his own bag, the girl snatching his receipts from the printer and stashing one of the copies in the drawer below the counter.  When he looked back up, she was holding out his second receipt, folded in half.  She gave him a fond smile when he took it.

“I hope you’re able to relax later today, and enjoy your books!” she called, waving to Law as he exited the store.

Once outside again, the air felt clearer now that he was alone.  The day was still young, hardly a cloud in the sky and a pleasant breeze coasting through the city.  He looped his bag over his shoulder and opened the receipt, peering at what was written on the backside.

Call me for Sora… and for just me ;) <3 1125-354-9854

[latte-ella]

L cougar moment

For the record, I am black.

Now these aren't my usual type of posts but just let me rant on my shit cuz this genuinely pissed me off.

Now I'm sure everyone and their mother heard of the drama between CougarMcDowell, how he prioritized making inappropriate content rather than the next update for the Tabi mod, which is now cancelled. I needn't give you an introduction but if you're really curious, do your own research.

This post is targeted at Cougar himself as I have a few choice words I need to get across to him, even if he never sees this, I just wanna get this off my chest.

Now drama in the FNF community is nothing short of new, neither is a mod getting cancelled (hell I worked on one that was cancelled, I'll show y'all my work another time) but the circumstances that led to the Tabi mod being cancelled pisses me off so much, as if it could've been easily avoided.

Now for context, CougarMcDowell is pretty infamous for his softcore porn-esque thumbnails and subjects he and other people voice act in rather suggestive comics or drawings. Thing is, he voices Tabi in the OG mod and even in the updated version (the one with better visuals and voice acting). Homisky gave Cougar ownership of Tabi and asked him to take good care of him essentially, whilst still harboring a lot of care, as did a lot of people in the fandom did.

And what did he do? Make shit like this.

A lot of these are comics that I've seen and to be honest, I couldn't help but have a sour taste in my mouth each time. Literally in the last image, Ayana is nude bro 💀

But the only reason why I kept going back was for stuff like this. The non-raunchy and overally sexual thumbnails.

These thumbnails are flashy, fun, and colorful and have done a stellar job at catching my eye. I watched them and adored them because it didn't try to be something it wasn't. It also wasn't uncomfortably sexual, like why TF is Nikusa or Ayana always going some devious shit to Tabi? He looks violated in almost every one of them. Innuendo is one thing, seeing straight up porn on my YT recommendations is not.

Cougar, not EVERYTHING needs to be sexual.

If you wanna make a suggestive comic dub, fine, but don't advertise towards minors 💀. Content farming is known to be directed at children and what would you know, I've been getting your comics recommended to me ever since I was 15.

And even your team expressed to prioritize the mod instead of your channel and you managed to do the complete opposite. You didn't communicate and made it difficult to work with. Your job as a director is to help your team and work through their problems together, cuz that's how a team works.

When I watched your stuff, in my mind, I knew this shit was weird but I continued to make excuses but now that people are actually starting to point out this shit was weird, I'm confident enough to put together my opinion on you and your content.

Cougar, you're a wonderful voice actor and your role as Tabi was incredibly inspirational and impactful on not only me but others too. Even on your channel, I could tell you had skill, but even then, you're seriously holding yourself back.

I know this post is pretty messy, I just wanna throw up my thoughts a bit cuz this has been stewing and building up for days and I just needed an outlet. Anyways back to our scheduled programming, see y'all later 🤜🤛

[goddamnwebcomics]

Gag and Puke A Day: The Loco Bandito

I hate the term "didn't age well". You should only say that about spoiled milk or moldy bread. It also implies that EVERY single modern day media is better and could never age badly. But we won't know how much the stuff that is considered good and valid today is horribly offensive to the people in the next 20 years. For all we know, eating red meat will be as offensive as blackface to future generations. It also justifies corporations wanting to eradicate all the old media and replace it with generic, safe slob """remakes""", as well as go after the institutions whose job is to preserve these works like Internet Archive, but that's a whole other can of worms.

Also, it implies that something that was released back in the day didn't just instantly fucking suck. Take for example today's topic, The Loco Bandito. I feel that anyone who read it back in the day would find it just as offensive back then as it is today. It was dead on arrival.

Loco Bandito was made by a man known as Mike Matei. You might have heard of him, he helped to co-create Angry Video Game Nerd with James Rolfe. Now Mike has been a source of controversy these past few years. Whether it's Minecraft with Gadget, his terrible review of Elmo in Grouchland or him getting upset about people making fun of his gigantic penis(???), however none of these are as bad as The Loco Bandito.

I don't have a problem with edgy humour. Twitter has defined edgy humour as "saying bigoted shit" but that's not edgy humour, that's just bigotry. Bigotry is not really a form of comedy. That being said edgy humour is not safe, it's not supposed to make you comfortable. Edgy humour could also help you to challenge yourself and think. Many jokes that I have made in this blog in the past definitely qualify as edgy humour. While I was a lot more raunchy in the 2010's, it never crossed the line of "saying racial slurs as a joke". And that is what The Loco Bandito is. While I have issue with policing jokes, that doesn't mean I am okay with this.

Loco Bandito is about a self-hating mexican man who is horribly racist. The final page is him shitting on himself by the way.

It's bigoted for the sake of bigoted. I didn't use the word edgy because it it was edgy for the sake of edgy, it would at least be comical in some form or fashion. I know the early 2000's Internet was filled with shit like this, but that shit was either made by 10 year old kids or actual racists who have since likely commited suicide in one of the last 4000 mass shootings in the last hour that happened on American soil. Hah! Now that's an edgy joke!

This also applies to Electric Retard and I might make a post about that in a future Gag-and-Puke-A-Day since I feel that no longer belongs to the rifflist. Let's take a look at another work of misery.

This format is literally the exact same as in the last comic. And the final page involves shit again, at least they did the censoring for me this time.

I don't think I need to post any more pages, you get the idea. There is another comic where the punchline isn't racism, but still why would you fucking do this??? Why would you even associate your name with this shit?

I know that Mike has expressed regrets for making this comic, and if I were him I would have tried to erase every aspect of this comic from the internet. This is actually considered so bad, Internet Archive has actually refused to archive the original page for this webcomic. When the Modern Library of Alexandria goes "yeah this shit isn't worth preserving" then you've created something truly worthless. The Loco Bandito was dead on arrival, stillborn, to say it didn't age well would imply it was allowed to breathe.

[asuka--langley--soryu]

Hey! I’ve watched all of the show, the nge movies (rebuilds included) and the nge manga and I was wondering if you know of anymore canon/offical nge stories or content. I’ve seen some light novel series at my local bookstore but in general idk if there’s more Eva stories and series out there and what’s actually worth reading. Thanks! I love your blog!

short answer: there is SO much (too much) nge spin-off content and for the most part all of it is both non-canonical and unnecessary. off the top of my head the only thing I wholeheartedly 100% rec is khara’s ‘until you come to me’ animation (amv?), which is really beautifully done and, also, free.

also ive drafted this post like uh......4 times now and kept accidentally losing it so VERY sorry for the wait!! if it seems a lil slapdash i was tired of writing the same stuff again and again lol

extremely long answer under the cut (and links will be in a rb). somehow this became a fully fledged field guide to nge spin off content bc i am physically incapable of brevity so w/o further ado or whatever:

ok so i’ll try to make this as comprehensive + comprehensible as possible but,as I said, there is a loooot of content and I, shockingly, have thoughts on most of it. let’s organize by categories

Manga:

Every single nge spin off manga is bad in shades and variations, ranging from ‘just kind of uninteresting’ to ‘genuine human atrocity’. Raising Project is probs the most well known and is one of my least favourite pieces of content that has ever been put onto this earth. it coalesces all of the worsts parts of both evangelion and evangelion fans and can’t even manage a decent art style on top of that. there is nothing redeemable about raising project.if you see a copy out in the world please do me a favour and tear it apart w your teeth <3

Aside from That, the other big ‘alternate universe’ manga are probably Angelic Days, Campus Apocalypse, and maybe Petit Eva. I do not care much for Angelic Days or Campus Apocalypse but they are definitely not as deeply repellent as sirp. Petit Eva is, as far as I’ve seen, kind of your usual chibi comedy stuff so if youre looking for something extremely lighthearted that might be for you? I havent interacted w Petit Eva pretty much at all frankly so I’m not exactly sure whats going on there.

Shinji Ikari Detective Diary is another AU manga which I have actually been meaning to read for like......ages but have never gotten around to. It’s (as you can probably guess) a mystery series, which I’m usually into, and I havent personally heard anything bad about it, so I’ll cautiously rec looking into it. if you do and find some good scans feel free to send me way <3

finally, there’s Tony Takezaki’s parody manga, which is just like...a bunch of parody/satire comics. I do actually own it (bc I loooovvveeeee genocyber) and the art is great and its genuinely funny (given you like takezaki’s weird, kind of raunchy humor). He has a comic making fun of fan service that ends w fuyutski beating the shit out of gendo as ‘real fan service’ so like. I do genuinely recommend this one.

Novels:

Not a true ‘novel’ but Eva 1 + Eva 2 is an anthology featuring some essays, as well as comics and illustrations. It is a lot of silly shitty fanservice though, so ymmv. I dont own it (yet) but its on my radar literally exclusively because of Obata’s fucking incredible cover art.

The actual ‘novel’ that youre probably talking about is ANIMA, which is a canon divergence exploring a future where Shinji managed to completely circumvent Instrumentality. I haven’t picked up the last volume since it came out last year, so I can’t speak on it as a whole, but I like ANIMA well enough to recommend it. It reads kind of like an extremely dedicated sci-fi/cyberpunk fanfic, frankly, with that same kind of wildly convoluted but entertaining plot and much more of a focus on idealised character interactions and the ‘wow cool robot’ of it all. Actually, its kind of entirely ‘wow cool robot’ tbh, or at least the best parts are, but Ikuto Yamashita (the writer) was nge’s mech designer so that’s no surprise.

the writing is nothing stellar and it can get fanservicey in a very eyeroll kind of way, but if you go in w reasonable expectations it’s pretty entertaining. like i said, it feels very fanfic but in a ‘200k wordcount crazy worldbuilding fix it fic’ kind of way.

ANIMA expands waaaaaAAYYY more on the evas, which can be cool but does definitely indulge in some ridiculous mecha shit and, i cannot stress this enough, a lot of deeply convoluted and absolutely fruit looped sci-fi plot shit. it does actually literally feature something called ‘Super Eva’ and iirc mari is a cat girl who pilots some kind of wolf robot so yknow... ymmv

theres a buuunch of illustrations included and all the concepts for the evas are very cool and the concepts for the kid are very bad. probably it should be illegal for him to draw asuka ever again

Video Games:

there are too many nge video games. way too many. did you know about the typing game??? what about the multiple STRIP mahjong games???? or the pokemon/tomogatchi game where you hand raise an angel from birth while playing as KAJI???? the detective game where kaworu straight up fucking human murders gendo???

they wrung nge for everything it was worth in the 90s, though ig having a million fucking titles was probs super useful for all that tax fraud

some highlights:

Battle Orchestra: this is the only one i’ve ever really played and it is very fun and very of its time. a pretty straightforward fighting game but ft a big combat polygon

Second Impression: this is the second nge game to be released and i am fucking obsessed with it. what i would not give for there to be a translation available. as far as I have ever been able to tell its sort of a vaguely canon ‘side story’ about joining a band and also befriending a new girl who eventually transforms into a giant fucking horrifying bug angel. its a kind of proto kaworu storyline but gross and i want it so SO bad.

rei ayanami raising project: this is I guess basically a pet raising game except the pet is pre-series rei ayanami. you get to choose what clubs and hobbies she has and the coordinating pictures are genuinely incredible and ill 100% be posting some later. nonsense but there IS a dress up portion so like. might be worth.

Girlfriend of Steel 1 & 2: GOS 1 has the rando brunette that you see all over the place and so like idk shout out to her i guess and if you want to know the context behind that feel free to check it out, but it frankly seems extremely fucking boring and also has GOD awful asuka characterisation so. pass.

GOS 2 is the one where you can kind of date kaworu and afaik thats the only notable thing about it

Angel Rising: this is the pokemon/tomogatchi kaji game and despite how baffling it is conceptually i do actually love the artstyle and am deeply considering playing it myself. also, it does apparently give some good insight into Kaji. a new english translation came out last march so its like actually one of the most accessible of all of these somehow.

Evangelion 2 has the ‘Classified Files’ which is a tenuously canon supplemental info dump, but god is in his heavens and thats all fully available + translated online so we do not have to bother playing Evangelion 2

Secret of Evangelion: I actually know almost nothing about this but ive heard it may have some interesting info on instrumentality? it is very VERY much On My Radar and may be worth checking out 

there are so, so many others but i am just so tired.

Animation:

There are a few Petit Eva OVAs which are all in the same silly slice-of-life style and seem mostly whatever except for an episode which is, as far as i can tell, entirely about up-skirting asuka so like. yknow what actually fuck petit eva

MORE IMPORTANTLY in like 2015ish Studio Khara had the ‘Japan Animator Expo’ where they released anime shorts made by a bunch of different people. it’s actually where me!me!me! came from, and plenty of other very very cool shorts were put out during the expo’s run. Another Impact and until you come to me were both part of the Expo and are extremely fucking good. Another Impact got a lot of hype, which was well-deserved but DID briefly spark a whole ‘live action nge’ thing which is, actually, my manchurian candidate sleeper cell trigger phrase. until you come to me is much less ‘flashy’ and didn’t get as much attention, but its so so beautiful and you should all go watch it immediately.

if you have managed to bear reading through this whole thing just know that you are my favourite and im giving you a lil kiss on the forehead

[ask-lu-wild]

Ask-LU-Wild

Hello and welcome to the show! Ask-LU-Wild (ALUW) is a blog that consists of primarily comics and text posts where you get to ask the Hero of the Wilds the questions you've been dying to know!

Please remember that as of the "Fairies, We Shrank the Wild" (previously "a not-so-wild child") arc, Wild uses the pronouns They/Them. They still identify as a boy currently. This is subject to change in the future.

My name is Author. I'm 22, and my pronouns are Vi/Viol, as in Violet.

Ask-LU-Wild Started out as a fanfiction of Linked Universe by Jojo, but the story and characters are vastly different. As of 14 April 2022, despite the name of the blog staying the same, its association with Linked Universe is somewhat distant.

CONTENT WARNING: Ask-LU-Wild contains scenes that are highly graphic in the blood, gore, and body horror sense. Viewer discretion advised.

If you would like to still read the blog but still filter specific subjects, please refer to the Trigger Warnings section in "A Link to the Tags". Remember that the more graphic content will be labeled under Nightmare Fuel. Please filter this tag if you feel you need to. Because our main character is low-key immortal, death is not a trigger warning.

Rules

Use the inbox to only interact with the characters. If you would like to ask me, Author, something, please use @author-main.

I'm not a teacher, I'm a storyteller. I can't explain everything down to a science, and I'm learning as I go along. While I do research topics when needed, some of the things I write about are from experience and observation. Please respect and understand that. If there's something you want to help me understand, please use my main blog's inbox.

Even though this blog is no longer that connected to Linked Universe, I would ask that we keep the no NSFW/Linkcest rule. Though the Links in ALUW may be very affectionate/loving to each other, it's all platonic. That being said, I don't have a problem with a little raunchy humor every now and again. If jokes or light talk about sex bothers you, it's not constant, but reader discretion is advised anyway. Know that this isn't an attack on people who enjoy NSFW and Linkcest content, it's just that I'd like to keep the found family trope on this blog, and just... not deal with NSFW here.

Please keep personal experiences to a minimum, especially if they're heavy. They've started throwing me off and I want to keep the heavy stuff from the audience to a minimum.

If the story is getting a bit too rough for you, please leave, or take a break at the least. Your mental health is important. However, if something upsets you, please don't attack me or the story because of that. I don't know you. I don't know what you don't like, nor what hurts you. I am not responsible for you. You are your own responsibility. Please remember that.

And on that note, I think it's important for me to say that tagging triggers aren't mandatory. I didn't tag them because I'm obligated to. I have no obligation to do anything, not even make this blog. Tagging is a courtesy.

Please respect my headcanons, ships, design choices, character choices, etc. I respect all of your ideas for Linked Universe/LoZ and I request the same respect for ALUW.

I want to make note that no specific mental illnesses are chosen for these characters, except for the obvious PTSD, and occasionally depression. Things like insomnia or paranoia have been named, and symptoms of mental illness are present and touched upon.

I'm in the process of figuring out all of the Zelda games to write this story. If I miss something, bear with me, please. I don't think my versions of Four and Wind will have gone through Four Swords Adventures and Spirit Tracks.

As of this point, no manga. However, there is a potential that this rule might be retracted.

You can complement the Links, but do not ask to kiss them or act in a lewd way, especially the minor Links and other characters (Wild, Four, and Wind). Sex jokes are allowed but make sure they aren't too graphic and maybe only say those jokes around adult characters.

Links below

A Link to the Tags: all commonly-used tags in ALUW. This includes trigger warnings, character tags, and arc tags.

Note: "A not-so-wild child" has been renamed to "Fairies we Shrank the Wild"

Author-Main: My main blog. A lot of stuff happens there. I don't tag spoiler content though, so watch out for that.

Angster's Paradise Discord: A discord run by @hiddenteddy and me.

Wild's Sheikah Slate Discord: A discord mainly meant for ALUW updates and stuff. It's only run by myself.

Ko-fi: I don't get paid for this blog, obviously. But as a broke college graduate, I would appreciate it if you donated. I do commissions and own a shop too. So I recommend following.

Youtube: Occassional speedpaints.

[arcgeminga]

♚— Art dump!! 

I’ve been in an AsupuMani mood this entire week... So I managed to draw a handful out. I even did something censored, but raunchy in response to a comic on art 5 and 6. I was too embarrassed to post it here, but I’ll link it in case anyone is horny and curious.

Art 7 is, honestly, a big mistake on my part. I was sort of thirst tweeting about how thick Defteros was, and I was gonna do something with that information but I ended up getting shy and making a shitty comic out of it. SO SORRY BUT DAMN DEFTEROS IS SO THHHHHIIIIIIICCCCCCCCCCCCCC---

Art 8: I planned to do a comic of what my next AsupuMani smut fic (Aspros + Passion) was gonna be since it kind of needs backstory before I can publish it. There’s actually a bit of plot for it, but because I don’t have the time or patience to write everything out, I decided to make the smutty parts a fic, and the before parts a comic. But I might post the smutty parts first and the comic several months later with how this is going haha orz 

Art 9: Anyone who’s been paying attention to my accounts knows that I have an original Saint Seiya story for Byaku for many years now (which I adapted for Avenir as well). Well, these characters are from that story, my Saint Seiya OCs/Fan Characters, Kastor and Gemini Pollux. They’re Catholic Twins, meaning that they are siblings born within twelve months of each other, but not a full year yet. Their birthdays land on the season of Gemini.

The brilliant Kastor isn’t a saint even though he knows 1 technique from every gold saint. Kaster hated himself, no thanks to the Pope’s constant belittling. Although he wouldn’t ever tell anyone that since he thought it wasn’t a big deal. He always purged photos of himself or avoided pictures to keep from looking at himself (he has body dysmorphia, so he hates how he looks). Following the formula Kurumada set up for us, Kastor was aiming to become pope but killed himself in his valiant attempts to protect Sanctuary. 

The mournful Pollux, after Kastor’s death, took his brother’s likeness since he was afraid of forgetting what Kastor looked like (the two have terrible memory and can’t remember someone’s face after a set amount of years). His grief became a cycle for him, and he has a lot of pent up self-directed anger over the incident which he unleashes on the Pope. Pollux became emotionally unstable after Kastor’s death, and the mention of his brother would cause him to grieve again.

 Abbadon (the armor from the Abrahamic Order) is related to these two as well since the original Abbadon had caused Kastor’s sudden death. But now someone else is the new Abbadon... hm... 

[emergingsentiments]

Hometown Cha-Cha-Cha: Episodes 5 and 6 (Repost)

“The problem with some people is that when they aren't drunk they're sober.” — William Butler Yeats

With Hometown Cha-Cha-Cha’s premise largely settled, its third pair of episodes move forward to deal with the aftermath of the previous week’s intoxication. Drunk and blacked out by the strength of alcohol, Hyejin wakes up next to Dusik. It’s as much a shock to her as it is to Gongjin’s tight-knit community, who, being in the right place and time, discover the issue and spread the rumor like wildfire. It’s a hilarious sequence, one that includes an embarrassing recollection of the good dentist’s trippy, drunken ways. It also sets up awkward conversations with the townsfolk, especially with Dusik being the other half of the scandal.

Hyejin wants to squelch the gossip. Dusik, however, seems cavalier about it. Their different attitudes inform much of the tension that fills Episode 5. What Homcha does so well at this juncture, however, is to pit these contrasting views, reactions, and responses of our leads to challenge our own. Hyejin, for instance, thinks of herself so highly as a woman of the city that she wouldn’t be caught dead being associated with Dusik, let alone rumored to have slept with him. It’s an uncomfortable judgment made against the seemingly flawless Renaissance man of Gongjin. He doesn’t take it lightly and calls out Hyejin for being narrow-minded.

But in hindsight, it’s not farfetched to sympathize with Hyejin. When we find out her condescension towards Dusik was not warranted given the man’s prestigious educational background, we also learn of her experience being looked down upon by a man. The man also happened to be her ex-boyfriend. This painful memory — unearthed by Miseon’s tactlessness — reveals the motives behind Hyejin’s views. She’s not just a woman driven by ambition and defined by material success. She’s not just a daughter grieving the early death of a mother. She’s also a human being that had to deal with social disadvantages, which led to her being ridiculed. Those negative experiences continue to influence and shape her persona seen best in her insecurities.

Dusik — well-read and well-educated — should have been the first person to recognize the scars behind Hyejin’s wounded ways. Hyejin is entitled to feel the way she does, without a man he’s practically just met prodding her to come out of her ‘shell’. This is where Dusik’s single-mindedness becomes a flaw. After all, he has his own skeletons in the closet. He knows enough about loss and pain to recognize its symptoms in other people. He surely would have sensed how uncomfortable Hyejin is being the subject of a small town’s raunchy rumors. There’s something else lurking behind the Dusik’s unbridled heroism and his confusing and flippant behavior around Hyejin. For instance, when Cheonjae suggests he finds a partner, he brushes it off and changes the conversation. Why the evasion? Why these apprehensions?

Like any good show, Homcha isn’t in any hurry to give answers. But we do get clues. First, there is that mysterious picture that bookmarks one of Dusik’s books. It’s probably connected to another hint — his visits to a shrink concerning a recurring nightmare. Dusik’s past looms ominously over his present. Lastly, we learn that summer night drinking fancy wine didn’t end only with a stoned Hyejin wrecking hangover havoc across Gongjin’s empty evening streets. It was capped with something less theatrical but more intimate — a kiss.

Kisses, they say, are far more intoxicating. And its effects are clear on both our dentist and jack-of-all-trades on Episode 6. Now that Hyejin remembers their lips-to-lips, we get to understand a little more about Dusik’s strategy. If he has been deliberately coy, it was an attempt to bury Hyejin’s memory of that kiss. But Dusik being Dusik, he pursues in taking down Hyejin’s defenses. If Hyejin can be contrary as a woman, then Dusik can be contradictory with his dilly-dallying, too. His newfound philosophy revolves around the idea of taking risks, crossing boundaries, getting drenched in the rain every now and then. It’s a romantic prospect but one that reduces Hyejin to another one of Dusik’s projects it seems. And yet, it’s an approach that doesn’t seem out of character, too.

Homcha subtly peels away the perfect facade of Mr. Hong, highlighting the man’s little foibles with every episode. Yes, he’s tremendously kind. Yes, he’s exceptionally good at everything. But he’s human, too, with anxieties and errors in judgment. We see more of the latter whenever he’s around Hyejin, which tells me behind the gallant exterior of Gongjin’s favorite son is a man either unsure of how to dance with a woman he obviously likes or afraid to step on his lover’s feet. Why? He knows the cha cha cha takes practice, right, and a willing partner, too? Had he failed in this dance before?

Hyejin yields to Dusik’s credo but not fully. She is her own woman, after all. Yes, she gets jealous and annoyed with Dusik’s cheekiness. But she can also be defiant by letting everyone know her displeasure at being rumored as Sikhye or in telling off Dusik as he tried to bring Juri home. Dusik will have to deal with Hyejin’s tantrums because he simply cannot stubbornly “fix” her or “work” on her as a side hustle. We’re talking about two people navigating the unsteady paths of life and love as grown-ups. They’ll need to grope the steps of their choreography. That takes time.

But they’ll have to get it right, soon. Ji Seong-hyun (Lee Sang-yi) has arrived in town, which makes for interesting love triangle fodder. Seonghyun, however, is exceptionally likable. A bit naive and with a megawatt smile, he also offers the unpleasant advantage of having known Hyejin for longer, including being a witness to that pivotal rejection she suffered from her ex. While we all know the fate of second leads, I look forward to how Seonghyun’s presence shifts dynamics and allegiances in a town known for impulsive, gossip-mongering residents. Does he prance away with the lady? Or will Cinderella’s final dance be with Dusik?

Speaking of dancing, we see a lot of it in arguably one of the show’s highlights so far — the festival. It’s an event that brings together our favorite characters in a wholesomely wild and merry night. With all of them in one stage, it’s easier to appreciate how Homcha has successfully balanced all the story arcs so far.

But it’s becoming clear Gongjin’s narratives, though varied, are all threaded by one thing — pain.

The drama sheds light on these aches using both humor and gravitas. With Miseon, we find comic relief in her frequent, ill-timed, and embarrassing stomach aches. Juri’s pain, on the other hand, draws close comparison with Hyejin’s loss of her mother. Her rebelliousness is rooted in the stifling parenting of Cheonjae who tries too hard to offer both father and mother figures to Juri. It’s a father-daughter struggle that sees Cheonjae accepting Juri becoming her own young lady, leaving behind his own dreams to support Juri’s own.

And of course, there’s Hwajung and Youngguk’s post-divorce relationship, one complicated further with the return to Gongjin of Youngguk’s first love, Cho-Hui (Hong Ji-Hee). It’s an arrival that isn’t exactly welcome, and one that causes Hwajung to clench her jaws and writhe in pain. Like Seonghyun, Chohui can win a congeniality award with her smile. Hwajung describes her as kind to a fault. But there’s something amiss with this love triangle, and if theories prove true, we may be in for a surprise.

See, underneath the picturesque and coastal idyll of Gongjin are tales of trauma and tragedy. We sense that the town’s folksy air draws its warmth from the burning embers of its people’s pasts. Homcha is unafraid to weave the growing affections between Mr. Hong and Dr. Yoong using these sorrow-tainted fabrics, while only lightly reassuring us that even yesterdays have tomorrows. Surrounding Dusik and Hyejin are equally deep entanglements of human relationships — from a man trying to be the best father for her daughter to an iron-willed lady silently figuring out her place in the present as the past returns. It’s interesting how all these stories will tie together in the coming weeks.

For now, we can only make assumptions in search of our own catharsis. But we will have to be hurt, too. If Hometown Cha-Cha-Cha claims to offer healing, then we must get wounds first, right?

[a34trgv2]

Why It Worked: Kung Fu Panda

Introduction: Kung Fu Panda is a 2008 animated film staring Jack Black, Dustin Hoffman, Angelina Jolie, James Hong, Jackie Chan and Ian McShane. Directed by John Stevenson and Mark Osborne, the film was released on June 6, 2008 after premiering at the Cannes Film Festival on May 15 of that same year. The film went on to receive critical acclaim from critics and audiences (Rotton Tomatoes collected 183 reviews and 87% of them gave and average score of 7.2/10) and grossed $631.7 million on a budget of $130 million. It spawned 2 sequels, 5 shorts, 2 TV shows and 5 video games. It was DreamWorks Animation’s highest grossing non-Shrek film domestically until it was surpassed by How To Train Your Dragon 2 years later (KFP made $215 million in the U.S. and Canada while HTTYD made $217 million domestically). I’ve always enjoyed this movie and as the years went by I’ve come to love it more as an adult. In this post I’d like to explain why this film defied the odds and became one of the best movies from DreamWorks Animation’s filmography.

The Plot: Kung Fu Panda has a rather bizarre premise even by animation standards. A panda is chosen to be the protector of ancient China (this China has anthropomorphic animals living in it) and must learn to master kung fu before an evil snow leopard comes to his village to reek havoc. To make things even stranger, the leading panda is played by Jack Black, 1 half of the raunchy rock duo Tenacious D and at the time was mostly known for playing the eccentric rock star in School of Rock, the bumbling lucha dore Nacho Libre and Lenny the shark from the polarizing animated film Shark Tale. This sounds like it couldn’t work, and yet the filmmakers pulled it off by making a genuine story about a guy who loves kung fu but feels he’s not good enough to master it even after he’s dubbed the Dragon Warrior. The film goes to great lengths to show Po’s struggle to learn how to be a kung fu master in the most hilarious ways possible. From him losing a tooth to a practice dummy to him being pumbled by the Furious 5 and Shifu during training, Po takes several beatings during the film and the visual gags always land. Speaking of visuals, the animation in this film is some of the best work from DreamWorks Animation and still holds up to this day. The Valley of Peace looks so authentic to ancient Chinese cities and the character animation is so fluid and lively. This is especially true during the fight scenes, which are all nothing short of dope. One scene in particular that stands as one of the best action set pieces in cinema (yes, cinema) is Tai Lung’s prison escape. The tension rises the higher he climbs, the cinematography follows his every movie, he perfectly makes mince meat out of all the rhino guards and just when you think they got him, he turns the tables and annihilates them with their own dynamite. One of the greatest lessons this film teaches is towards the end when Po is given the dragon scroll and he finds that it’s just his reflection. He then learns that his father, Ping the goose, didn’t put any secret ingredient in his Secret Ingredient Soup. Po learns that there’s no secret ingredient not just to the soup but to who he is as a person. He’s already special because Shifu, Oogway and most importantly he himself believed he was special.

Cast and Characters: Jack Black was not just the best man to voice Po; he was the ONLY man to do this character justice. Everything from Po’s mannerisms, his eccentric attitude and his happy-go-lucky attitude are all because of Jack Black. It’s clear Jack loves voicing the character and it even shows during his most emotional moments. Po feels like such a relatable guy as he has his self doubts but never truly gives up. Dustin Hoffman plays an excellent Master Shifu, making him sound old and grumpy, yet also quirky and funny in parts. The Furious 5 are all integral to the development of Po and stand very strong on their own. It also helps that they’re all played by great actors in their own right. Angelina Jolie brings the perfect amount of sternness to Tigress, Jackie Chan was perfectly comical as Monkey, David Cross was funny and relatable as Crane, Lucy Liu sounded so sweet as Viper, and Seth Rogan brought his best family friendly humor to the role of Mantis. Randall Duk Kim sounded so wise and quirky as Oogway, James Hong was funny and relatable as Ping and the late great Michael Clarke Duncan was especially entertaining as Commander Vachir. Then there’s Tai Lung, who’s most certainly among one of DreamWorks Animation’s best villains. He’s so fierce, intimidating, powerful and also empathetic. His backstory is excellently handled and he’s hyped up brilliantly as this fearsome foe and he does not disappoint. Ian McShane was brilliant as the film’s main baddie, bringing such gravitas and pride to this character.

Where It Falters: I only have one gripe with the film as a whole: GIVE ME MORE FURIOUS 5!!! I cannot be the only one who thinks these characters could easily hold their own movie. The Secrets of the Furious 5 shorts were good, don’t get me wrong, but I want to see their first mission together, how they learn to be a team and become the masters they are now. I recognize that a spin-off to Kung Fu Panda isn’t going to happen immediately (considering where DreamWorks Animation’s focus is these days) but I’d definitely pay money to see a Furious 5 film.

Conclusion: Kung Fu Panda is very much one of the prime examples of “don’t judge a book by its cover” personified as a feature film. Despite its odd premise, it makes for a funny, action packed, emotionally resonate and wonderfully written film with great cinematography, amazing animation and stellar voice acting. It very much stands on par with DreamWorks Animation’s best films and is more than worth of its cult status. Thank you so much for reading and I’ll see you soon. Skadoosh! ;)

[renzywenzy]

Joker Review

*Disclaimer* I held off posting this review until Phoenix won the Oscar. I promised myself that if he hadn’t won, I would have just left this in the drafts forever. That’s how much faith I had in this man and now here is my critique of my favorite film of 2019. 

I have a tattoo on my right arm. The tattoo is actually the Batman logo but altered. One half of the logo is normal but the other half is made up of red “HAHAHAHA’s” all over. There’s a reason why the dynamic between these two is my favorite of all-time. It’s two different interpretations of insanity colliding in an eternal battle. It’s two iconic, well-written, captivating characters having epic confrontations. 

Needless to say, I love the characters of Batman and The Joker. I grew up on them and they have played a huge part of my life. My ideologies, my way of thinking, my perception of the world, my behavior in private and in public have been directly and/or indirectly impacted by these two characters.

Any film or any form of media that have these two, separate or together, is already met with my high expectations. So obviously, my expectations for this film were through the roof. If this film was nothing short of great, I would have been really angry. 

I would have been the first to say how disappointed I was, I would have been the first to say that Joaquin Phoenix should never play The Joker again, I would have been the first to say that Todd Philips should stick to raunchy comedies and stay away from the character as far as possible....but that’s not the case here. 

I’m singing a different tune. A tune that I’m gonna be letting everyone hear with every chance I get. A tune that I’m gonna be playing in my head whenever I dance on the street. 

Ladies and gentlemen... please welcome Joker.

The Tragedy

First of all, I’ll begin with some faults that I found in the film. Not a whole lot but I have to get these out of the way so that I can end the review with high points. 

1.) The origin story we didn’t want but the one we got anyway

Now when I talk about origin story, I don’t mean Joker’s. I mean Batman’s. I’m really sorry to say but I am getting absolutely sick of seeing THAT scene. 

I have to point out that it felt like this scene was rushed. It wasn’t shot as well as the other scenes. Every other scene in Joker felt like there was a beautiful story behind it. As if there was a creative progress going through the minds of the people in the scene and off the camera but this scene felt rushed and was treated like an afterthought. 

I must admit, of all the films that showed Bruce’s parents in the alley, this one might be one of the weakest I’ve seen in a while. Even that piece of garbage Batman V. Superman had a slightly better way of showing that scene. If you’re going to show us a scene that’s been overly done since the beginning of Batman films, you gotta add a little more flavor and cinematic flair to it. Sad to say that for a film that was shot so well, this scene stuck out like a sore thumb. 

2.) A little too much dancing and a few too many ribs

As it says in the point, there’s a little too much there.  Don’t get me wrong, I love most of his dance scenes but there’s maybe 1 or 2 too many. I personally would have kept the first dance scene when accidentally shoots a gun, the one after his first kill, the one with his mother, and all the dance scenes once he completely transforms. These particular dance scenes were showing us a slow evolution and allowed to see how his mind was slowly changing. But there were a few dance scenes that didn’t really do that and instead was just kind of there. For example, the few dance scenes where he’s half-naked can be taken out completely and it wouldn’t make a difference. 

And speaking of him being half-naked. I understand the film wants us to see how weak he his and in some scenes, it wants to show you the literal scars he got from society. However in some of these scenes, it gets a little distracting. The first scene where he’s half naked and trying to adjust his shoe is just perfect because for one, you don’t know really know what he’s doing at first so it leaves you wondering for a few seconds and two, you get to see how much his frail body struggles with something so simple. 

But then you have a few scenes where he’s unnecessary shirtless like the one where he’s smoking and watching TV. It seemed needless for him to be shirtless for this scene because the main point of it was his reaction towards what was being shown on TV. Again, it’s no problem to show us how skinny and weak he looks but it has to be the point or a point of a scene or else it’s just distracting.

Small gripes but I had to find some criticisms for the film. But now that that’s out of the way, let’s put a smile on that face (I know they’re not the same. Just be like Joe and Chill).

The Comedy 

1.) Romero, Nicholson, Ledger, Hamill, and now...

 ...Phoenix

There have been numerous people who have played the Joker with each actor adding their own twist to the Clown Prince of Crime. Romero embodied the camp and goofiness of the Silver Age iteration, Nicholson provided a more laid-back and mafia-esque performance, Ledger portrayed him as a true anarchist who “wants to watch the world burn”, and the legendary Hamill basically performed multiple layers of Joker’s persona for his 20+ years as the character and is THE definitive voice (and laugh) of The Joker. 

Joaquin Phoenix joins this hall of fame (or infamy) by giving us a closer, more in-depth look at the mentally ill, physically battered, and emotionally abandoned man behind the smile. 

I honestly can’t give this guy the praise he really deserves but I’ll do my best. My lord...this man blew me away like I was a talk-show host. Powerhouse performance doesn’t even begin to describe his acting. 

This film, as well-made as it was, wouldn’t have worked nearly as well had it not been for its main star. This film hinged on how well Mr. Phoenix played the titular character and he absolutely delivered.

The film had a tough job in its hands: portray how a man was slowly dissenting into madness to the point that he lets the madness in and indulges in it. It was going to be a deliberately slow process that required an actor who can be significantly subtle enough to convey to the audience how a character is evolving but taking small steps to do so. Phoenix did that with flying colors. 

If you look at the first scene where we’re introduced to Arthur, it’s clearly not the same Arthur when the film reaches its ending. We went from a man who walks with a slouch and a noticeable stiffness to a man who vigorously dances in the streets without a care in the world. 

Don’t get it twisted, though. Phoenix didn’t play two different people nor did he play a man who takes a sudden huge leap in his personality. He played a person who displays slight changes to his psyche in each scene and these small changes eventually pile up. Arthur was meant to be a man who was layered like an onion and Phoenix’s performance mirrored that perfectly. 

Is he the best Joker? I can’t say that. Each Joker I’ve been introduced to, while having a different spin, is ultimately the Joker at his peak or even at the twilight of his criminal life. This is the first time where I’ve witnessed a Joker who is still truly staring out. And no, Nicholson doesn’t count because Jack Napier was an established criminal way before he became the Joker. So I’m not too sure yet where to rank Phoenix’s actual full-blown Joker as it doesn’t last long however excellent it was AND a huge factor for me when it comes to ranking Jokers is the interactions with Batman. There was no Joker and Batman clash here. Only Arthur and Bruce. As it stands, Phoenix’s spot on the all-time Joker list may not be the highest but in terms of pure acting, he may very well be #1. 

I know this sentiment has been repeated multiple times but I do honestly believe Phoenix deserved the Oscar here or at least a nod. 

2.) Familiar punchline, fresh set-up 

For any Batman/Joker fan, you’ve probably heard of this following quote:

“If I’m going to have a past, I prefer it to be multiple choice.” 

It’s an iconic quote and one that you will hear in almost any review of this film but there is a good reason for it. The line encapsulates one of the best things about The Joker: the mystery of his origins. 

As mysterious as the character is, it’s hard to keep The Joker interesting these days. He is the most over-exposed Batman villain of all time and quite possibly the most over-exposed villain in fiction period. Comic books, video games, tv shows, live-action movies. The Joker has been in EVERYTHING. Like his heroic counterpart, the Joker has been exposed too much to the point that there’s really not a lot of fresh things you can do with him.  

The last time any media brought something refreshing to The Joker was in Telltale’s Batman video game where you meet a man named “John Doe” who’s still looking for himself and finding out which path in life he wants to take. In the game, whatever John becomes is based on your actions. That was in 2017. 

The last time before that was in 2011′s Flashpoint where Martha Wayne became The Joker in an alternate timeline where Bruce dies in the alley. Even though this version of the Joker had a clear backstory and no mysterious origin, it was still fresh because of the sheer novelty of seeing Bruce Wayne’s mother as The Joker and his father as Batman.

So there are stretches of time where there’s nothing new and exciting for The Joker character but I’m happy to say that this film does breathe new life into the character. 

The filmmakers understood how this specific character should be handled and they did it in ways that are plausible. His abusive but vague childhood and his delusions help in keeping the film from being straightforward. 

Let me give some examples. In the scene where Arthur steals his mother’s files in the Asylum, it’s said that he was adopted by Penny and that he was abused by one of her boyfriends. 

Some people I’ve talked to believe that it was Thomas Wayne who put Penny in the Asylum and forged adoption papers. Some people even say that it was Thomas Wayne who abused them when Arthur was a child. Some people say that it’s true and Arthur really was adopted. 

We don’t know these things definitively and that’s the best part. It’s whatever you want it to be. Multiple choice. 

I personally want to believe that Arthur really was adopted because that just adds another air of mystery to him. If he was then we don’t know his actual birth name or who is real parents are.  

All in all, even though the evolution of Arthur into The Joker remains the ultimate goal, the film lets you make up your own path into how he got there. It’s handled beautifully and the script is clearly made with a lot of knowledge of and love for the character. 

3. A problem tackled with grace

I just wanted to point how well this film handles the issue of mental health and illness. This topic will forever be relevant and is an issue that’s been tackled in media before. Some handled it terribly, some handled it bad, some handled it ok, some handled it well. And then there’s Joker that handles it amazingly. 

As someone who sees mental illness on a regular basis, it was so sublime how accurate this film was. The image of a decaying mind and one that descends further and further down is so powerful in this film and it just never half-asses it and I loved that. 

My girlfriend is a nurse and she interacts with mentally ill people far more than I ever will and she praised it more because everything she saw from Arthur is something that she has personally had to deal with in her patients. I asked her if there was even one inaccurate and she said “No” because everything was completely plausible and has actually happened in real life on multiple occasions. Delusions of grandeur, uncontrollable ticks (like a laugh), murderous tendency, self-harm, stalking, hallucinating, you name it and most likely, this film shows it. 

Not only is Arthur’s mental illness accurate but what makes it better and why I praise it is how others deal with him. It’s scary how much it mirrors reality. Some people may know how to interact with him while others just get annoyed with him. Even those who are accepting of mentally ill people can still have be irritated with them when they come in contact with them. 

Arthur is beaten not just because he’s mentally ill but because he just looks like a weak man who can be pushed around. People don’t care if he’s sick, they’ll kick his ass or make fun of him regardless and in some cases, they’ll have even more incentive when they learn he has mental problems which is sadly similar to the world we live in today.

Joker is arguably the best adaption of mental illness for this decade (I say arguably because Bojack Horseman is up there) and I can’t believe that the director of the Hangover films got it right and speaking of which...

4. He directed what??

Todd Philips, the man behind the Hangover trilogy, Starsky and Hutch (2004), and Old School directed this film. Imagine late 2018 and you just heard who the director was and you search for the films he directed prior. Did you honestly believe, in your heart of hearts, he was going to pull this off?

Don’t get me wrong, comedic talents have proven to excel in other genres. Jordan Peele is a great example of that but that doesn’t necessarily apply to every comedian...However, it applied to Mr. Philips. 

His direction, his vision, his execution was top-notch and I have to apologize to this man because I honestly doubted him when I initially heard about it. I knew Phoenix was going to do well and I thought that the film would just rely solely on his performance but no. Todd Philips deserves a lot of credit here. Yes, he takes some ideas and cues from Scorsese (not a bad inspiration by the way) but he handles the psychological aspect in his own style.

In terms of performers, this was close to a one-man show as you can get but Philips’ contributions behind-the-scenes should to be given as much appreciation. Phoenix was the master painter and Philips gave him the tools.

Honestly, if Philips wants to direct more dramatic and heavier films akin to this, I’m all for it. If he wants to stick around and maybe direct some more DC films, I am definitely on board. In this time of uncertainty towards DC films, Philips gave me hope. Yes, I know this film isn’t part of the DCEU but if they want to create more films in the Elseworld universe, Philips should still be part of it in some way. 

5. The sound of laughter

I’m not going to lie. I rarely appreciate film scores. While I do believe they enhance a film’s quality, I’m not actively seeking it out unless it truly stands out. The only scores I truly remember and appreciate is the opening score for Star Wars, the Superman score, the main score for Indiana Jones, the Back to The Future action sequence score, Danny Elfman’s Batman score, and all of the scores from The Godfather films. 

By the way I realized the first three examples I gave all sound similar but it makes sense since John Williams made them all.

So out of the hundreds (possibly thousands) of films I’ve seen, these are the only scores I can truly remember and now we add one more to the list: the dark and beautiful score by Hildur Guðnadóttir. 

She absolutely gave me a much better understanding of how music can not only enhance a scene but be worked around it. Apparently, the music was made first and Todd Philips would shoot scenes with the score playing in the background so that he can craft scenes based on which part of the score he was listening to. This is the first time something like this has ever happened in the filmmaking process and it absolutely worked wonders. No wonder why each scene tied in so beautifully to a specific part of the score.

Hildur has made it and I hope to hear more of her work in future projects. 

6. To a bright future (hopefully)...

This section is more of a call to action than a positive point for the film. That being said, Joker’s success has opened up many possibilities for DC films moving forward. 

Let’s be honest here. The recent attempt of DC keeping up with Marvel in terms of films has not been great. DC is Marvel’s biggest competitor but when you just look purely at movie success, you wouldn’t think that.

That’s because Marvel started something solid over a decade ago and is currently having the biggest and most epic film franchise today and, quite possible, of all time. 

DC tried (and is still trying) to do the same but it has been a roller-coaster with some enjoyable ups (Man of Steel, Wonder Woman, Shazam) and terrible downs (Batman V. Superman, Justice League, Suicide Squad, Birds of Prey). 

Now with the huge commercial and critical success of this film, Warner Bros. need to take advantage of this while they have the chance. Joker is a film that is set in its own universe and not a part of the bigger DCEU and this could be DC’s way of being as successful as Marvel. Elseworld stories. Detective Comics was the first to put huge emphasis on a multiverse in their comics and I believe it’s time to bring that to the films. 

They’ve already implemented a multiverse with the television shows but now is the time to let the silver screen experience this. 

Unlike Disney, Warner Bros. has the movie rights to ALL of the DC characters. All of them. From heavyweights like Superman and Batman to less popular characters like Question and Red Tornado. They need to make use of that advantage because there are plenty of characters who have not had successful film ventures yet. Green Lantern, Martian Manhunter, Batgirl, Constantine (sorry Keanu) Lobo, Zatanna, Static Shock, Booster Gold (a personal favorite) and so many more. Give these characters a chance. They can shine in their own standalone movie that doesn’t have to do with the DCEU. However, if you want to put all of them in the same universe, you’ll need visionary writers capable of that. 

Consider this my call to action for Warner Bros. because I’m admittedly more of a DC fan than a Marvel. Don’t get me wrong, I love both franchises but DC was my first so I am biased towards them. I’m happy that Marvel has continuous success but it also makes me melancholic because it makes me question why DC can’t experience the same. 

Only time will tell if DC can keep this up because right now, they’re doing well overall but even if they ultimately never catch up, they can be proud of this one. 

Overall...

I love this film and its portrayal of an iconic character. They took an overused and overexposed character and somehow made him fresh again without taking away what made him so popular in the first place.

Todd Philips had a vision and he took it to a level that I didn’t think he was capable of. Joaquin Phoenix just absolutely killed with a performance that’s going to be remembered forever. 

As I write this review, talks of a sequel have already begun. I’m honestly not sure if they can do outdo themselves. My expectations will be even higher but they are most certainly welcome to exceed them again. 

[donnerpartyofone]

This is so not a story at all, so get ready for a whole bunch of nothing about what a gigantic snob I am!

I can't stop thinking about this journey I went on with this person on Instagram. I'm obsessed with the area my dad's family is from, which is this weird tiny Finnish-but-culturally-Swedish, autonomous, demilitarized archipelago in the Baltic Sea. I'm always looking for Instagram users who live there, to see what daily life is like. I happened upon this one middle aged guy, and quickly noticed that he liked comics and genre film, which seemed lucky--the smaller a population, the less likely I am to find somebody with all my "weird" interests. So I followed him, even though I objected to his Van Dyke facial hair and consistently douchey uniform of a trench coat and porkpie hat. Then, I slowly began to realize that I didn't think he had very good taste in general; we generally liked the same kind of cult cinema, but he always seemed to find anything remotely cerebral to be really boring, and he skewed more toward Troma-style attention grabs, which *I* find really boring. His preferred comics ranged from boringly mainstream, to weirdly bad--cheapo revivals of musty old strip comics that absolutely nobody cares about. I knew the very slim population of guys who actually bought those books in the states, old duffers who a) think everything is a collector's item, and b) think their encyclopedic knowledge of e.g. seldom-seen silent era actors makes them geniuses. These guys also usually wore trench coats and porkpie hats, so I guess some things stay the same all around the world. On a side note, there's something distinctly European about loving both stuffy old genre material that has pretty much turned to dust by now (sword and sandal dramas, swashbuckling pirate adventures, etc), AND raunchy "in your face" splatterpunk satire. I can't describe why but it's definitely a thing, I encountered it a lot when I was spending time in France on and off, and it always gave me the willies for some unnamable reason. Uh anyway, I eventually figured out that this guy actually WRITES some of these throwback comics. I was thinking to myself, why the fuck would ANYBODY be obsessed with The Phantom, a property so boring that even in our creatively bankrupt post-everything era, the only attempt to mine it for contemporary interest is that forgotten Billy Zane movie? But no, it all makes sense, because this guy occasionally writes for a Phantom series that comes out of Australia. Let's take a quick look at some covers for that series, which will give us a good idea of why most rational people don't do this jungle adventure shit anymore:

I especially "like" the last one, where the Phantom is fucking some girl in a pool of native blood. The other thing this guy writes for occasionally is a comedy serial that I guess has been running forever, that's another kind of thing that lets me know the limits of my own taste. I guess it's kind of an Archie type of thing about conscripted military service:

The drawings are absolutely hideous, the jokes barely exist, and I don't even know how the scenario in the last one is supposed to have happened--did he phase shift through the tree or something? I had two jobs in the span of about 15 years where I saw all kinds of comics, so I'm not unfamiliar with this kind of thing, I just never ever "got" it. Even when the material is actually good, I never had good feelings toward the hairy, bulbous, hyperactive drawings that characterize a lot of European comedy output. Some of this would be forgivable if it were strictly for children, but Wikipedia tells me that this 91:an series is mostly read by older audiences. I would assume that this is because the existing fans mainly caught onto it in THEIR childhood, but who fucking knows, I have no idea what would attract anybody to this stuff in the first place.

Anyway, I just looked at this guy's Twitter page, and it lists him as a journalist and movie critic as well. I scrolled through about a year's worth of tweets to see if I could find any of his movie reviews. I could not. And, it's not an exaggeration to say that 85-90% of his tweets are just links to obituaries (not written by him) of like, every single remotely show business-y person who died, the second they died. This is another classic attribute of the kind of nerd who cares about Prince Valliant and shit, they always know everybody who is dead and they're really pushy about telling you for some reason. I find all of this kind of understandable when the person is in their 70s or something and has seen a lot of changes in the world, but this guy is only in his 40s or so. It's as if he fell in with a "bad crowd" of elderly nerds at a rummage sale (or at the very comic shop where I worked for many years, because they were all friends with the owner!) and just patterned his whole life after them.

Anyway, I don't really know what point I'm coming to. Probably none, I've just been thinking about this obsessively ever since I realized that this guy doesn't just innocently read bad comics, he actually writes them. I always knew there must be people who wrote these comics, I just never imagined them before, and now I got a whole profile going. Apparently this dude has a couple of screenwriting credits too, but I'm too scared to watch them.

[the-good-bad-truth]

I feel that tv shows tend to change every decade from the black &white family friendly shows like I love Lucy or brady bunch to sitcoms like F.r.i.e.n.d.s and full house to the crazy and raunchy reality tv of the 2000s. Each decade of television had it's on type or way of making tv shows or entertaining their audience. I think that from at least 2012 to now, the type of tv shows being made are either dark or very cheesy and wild. When talking about dark themes, I think of shows like euphoria, 13 reasons why, Black mirror, American horror story to name a few. I've watched just about half of these shows and from what I've heard about the others is that they are very graphic and have these very dark storylines. Don't get me wrong some of these shows are really great but it does seem kind of like some storylines or shows are created for shock value or to make people feel uncomfortable watching it. The one show that I felt did this was 13 reasons, where I only watched the first two(barely) seasons but I stopped after what happened in season two because it was too much for me. I can also understand the point that shows like euphoria or black mirror are used to shows the effects of drugs, mental illness, and society but it's a little weird when teens want to dress up like these euphoria characters or only watched it for makeup and outfit inspo. There is also this show type where iconic tv shows will get rebooted but this time dark. The first example is chilling adventures of Sabrina that is the reboot of the popular 90s tv show. I watched all seasons, I even did a review post on it. I just think that the show went down hill after season 2 or when they started to sing like in riverdale. Maybe I should of known better with it being linked to Riverdale but I wanted to give it a try. Another reboot is gossip girl, which I liked the original but I didn't really see the need for a reboot especially since I feel that the show didn't end that long ago. I guess Hollywood just ran out of ideas. The other type is this cheesy but sometimes over the top almost chaotic but comical tv shows/movies. Think to all the boys I loved, kissing booth, Riverdale, Emily in Paris, he's all that(reboot), ginny and Georgia. Now some of these aren't that bad but it's really like the writers are on something when creating the plots. I also think just like the dark tv shows the characters make really bad and stupid mistakes or I have trouble relating to the characters or even liking the main character. However, with these chaotic shows/movies the dialogue or the way they act is very cringe and gives me second hand embarrassment. Regardless, both types sometimes make me uncomfortable or be like what the f am I watching. However, I still watch them and I guess that's because I don't want to be out of the loop when people talk about it. What do you guys think? Do you like the types of movies & tv that are being made or is there another particular show or movie that you shouldn't have wasted your time watching or should have even been made in the first place?

[kimmytalks]

So I basically live on Netflix like any typical university student. I spend a lot of time browsing through the endless catalogue that netflix offers and I completely understand how annoying it can be to spend so much time finding something to watch.  I compiled a list of some of my spring favourites of shows I’ve recently watched!  It’s sorted by genre to make it LOADS easier to find something depending on what you’re feeling. If you find something you like, check it out and spread the word! Let me know what you think of the show! I’d love to discuss your favourite characters and gush about it!

Marvel Shows 

DAREDEVIL

“You were right... what you told me over the radio that night. Not everyone deserves a happy ending. ”

The “devil of hell’s kitchen” A.K.A Matthew Murdock steals the show as New York City’s very own blind vigilante (who also has a job as a defense attorney). It will literally leave you on the edge of your seat. There are two seasons, two villains that Daredevil goes up against while fighting a bigger underlying villain in New York City.  There is SO much action, there’s romance, it’s electric and everything you would want in a TV show. 

Plot: ✰✰✰✰

Action: ✰✰✰✰✰

Favorite Character: Elektra Natchois, Matthew Murdock

Overall: ✰✰✰✰✰

LUKE CAGE

“You know why everyone wants to be the king? Cause of the crown.”

Meet Luke Cage, a bullet-proof black man in NYC. Loyal to Harlem, Luke decides to start using his abilities to start cracking down on the unusual crimes in the area. 

This show has amazing dynamics, all of the characters work hand in hand with each other and the bonus is that you get to meet some other important characters such as Claire Temple, Misty Knight and Jessica Jones. The story line is moving, the action is incredible and i loved how unapologetically black it was. 

Plot: ✰✰✰✰ 

Action: ✰✰✰✰

Favorite Character:  Cornell 'Cottonmouth' Stokes, Luke Cage

Overall: ✰✰✰✰

THE PUNISHER

“Those who do evil to others - the killers, the rapists, psychos, sadists - you will come to know me well. Frank Castle is dead. Call me... The Punisher.”

Frank Castle is a murderous vigilante in NYC. I’m going to give you guys a bit of a warning, it is VERY brutal and gory.  To fully understand the backstory of Frank you have to watch Daredevil Season 2. He’s back from the “dead” and has new battles and villains to face, including someone very close to him. You get to fully understand the way Frank’s mind works...to an extent and how corrupt the U.S government really is.  I’m someone who doesn’t mind gore so I really enjoyed this and the story line will keep you on edge. 

Plot: ✰✰✰✰

Action: ✰✰✰✰✰

Favorite Character:  Frank Castle

Overall: ✰✰✰✰

Drama

DYNASTY

“The Carrington impulse is to throw money at a problem and if that doesn't work, lie.”

From the FIRST episode this show leaves you gasping for air. Who doesn’t love watching rich people’s drama? The Carrington’s are one hell of a family, tons of drama and money crowd them. There’s mistresses, secrets, lies and murder (just like any good drama). 

This show honestly will make you laugh with Fallon’s wits and sarcasm as well as her raunchiness. The show also brings up some good social discussions such as immigration and racism. If you’re a fan of shows like Empire and Scandal you’ll definitely want to check out Dynasty.

Plot: ✰✰✰✰✰

Drama: ✰✰✰✰✰

Favorite Character:  Fallon Carrington, Steven Carrington

Overall: ✰✰✰✰✰

RIVERDALE

“I don't follow the rules. I make them. And when necessary, I break them.”

Riverdale has kind of gotten confusing this season but the drama still prevails. I was a huge fan of the Archie comics as a kid so I do actually really enjoy the spin CW has taken with it.

It’s full of drama, heartbreak, conspiracies and friendship ordeals. The core 4 (Betty, Jughead, Veronica, Archie) solve murder mysteries in their small once innocent town. They stand up in social movements and protest against issues that would ruin the social well-being of the town. 

If you like murder mysteries, witty teens and  small town drama, you’ll want to check this one out if you havent already. 

Plot: ✰✰✰

Drama: ✰✰✰

Favorite Character:  Betty Cooper, Toni 

Overall: ✰✰✰

STAR

“You and I have very different ideas of nothing. I've had to scratch and claw for everything I've got. So when someone hands me a credit card, that street bitch just comes out.”

I’M SO MAD THIS SHOW ISN’T GETTING MORE RECOGNITION. 

It follows three young girls who become a music trio in Atlanta. This show’s acting is incredible and the drama will continue to keep you on your seat. It EVEN deals with very real issues, even incorporating some recent social justice movements in the episodes.

The shows talks about current issues such as: racism (episodes dedicated to Black Lives Matter), the foster care system, sexual assault, domestic abuse, and addiction. I loved every minute of Season 1 and it leaves on such a huge cliffhanger!!! 

Bonus: The music is INCREDIBLE, and can be found on spotify as well.

Plot: ✰✰✰✰

Drama: ✰✰✰✰✰

Favorite Character:  Alex Crane

Overall: ✰✰✰✰✰ 

SCI-FI

THE 100

“Who we are and who we need to be to survive are very different things ”

The 100 is honestly one of my favourite shows ever (with the exception of Season 3). It’s everything I would want in a post-apocalyptic show about delinquents in space. 

These kids are incredibly witty, smart and brave-hearted. Imagine being a kid thrown to a radioactive  Earth and having to fight for your lives against the Earth and enemies. There’s romance, there’s so much action and you get to admire the main characters of the show as if they were your own friends. In the first few seasons they’re fighting against the grounders (people who survived the radiation on Earth), then they make an alliance, it’s broken a few times and now they have to go back to space because Earth is now uninhabitable again. There is a Grounders plot which is also pretty well done but I prefer the scientific plot that the show started with. You’ve probably seen tons of GIFS on here about The 100 so what are you waiting for?

Plot: ✰✰✰✰

Drama/Action: ✰✰✰✰

Favorite Character:  Raven Reyes, Bellamy Blake

Overall: ✰✰✰✰

COMING OF AGE / TEEN TV SHOWS

END OF THE F**KING WORLD

"It’s strange. A lot of the time you don’t register the important moments as they happen. You only see that they were important when you look back."

If you enjoyed Skins you’ll probably enjoy watching James and Alyssa accidentally become fugitives after they get bored and run away from home. 

This show is honestly a mix of everything and I absolutely loved every minute of it. If you have a dark sense of humour, you’ll enjoy the witty remarks from James and Alyssa alike. They’re an odd pair the both of them but they care for each other a lot and watching their relationship progress through ten episodes (needs to be more). 

The quotes are powerful they make you think about life, love, sex, relationships and everything in between.

Plot: ✰✰✰

Drama/Action: ✰✰✰

Favorite Character: James

Overall: ✰✰✰✰

THE GET DOWN

“This ain’t Disneyland, this s*** is the f*****g Bronx. Either you be strong, or you be gone. All I find, all I keep. Either you beat the world, or you get beat.” 

First of all, I am so sad Netflix decided not to renew this gem of a show. It follows a group of kids in the hip-hop/disco scene in New York City, specifically the Bronx. 

I really enjoyed this show, it was really different and I loved the musical numbers included in it. The fashion was everything and every single character is so lovable. 

The show also discusses the poverty in their community and the gang violence that surrounds them. This post doesn’t do it enough justice but seriously, it’s awesome and you should check it out.

Plot: ✰✰✰✰

Drama/Action: ✰✰✰✰

Favorite Character:  Marcus “Dizzee” Kipling, Mylene Cruz

Overall: ✰✰✰✰

ON MY BLOCK

This one is basically hot off of Netlix’s production company, it came out March 16th. It’s currently on it’s first season and has a total of ten episodes! (Super-easy to binge and re-watch) Where do I even begin with this show? It made me so nostalgic of being in high school and I honestly wish I had a squad like this during those years. It follows Monse, Cesar, Olivia, Ruby and Jamal through their first year of high school freshmen and all the ordeals that come with your first year of high school. There’ the boy drama, figuring out who you are, helping your friends and all that stuff everyone remembers from high school. But throw in the fact that these kids live in an inner city, they have more issues they’re dealing with such as gang violence in their community.The show also does a pretty okay job at discussing the racial issues all of the characters face (such as Olivia’s parents deportation) cultural appropriation and Monse’s struggle with her mother leaving her. I honestly fell in love with this show and all of the characters. If you’re looking for a good pick me up show this is the one to watch. They’re a really dynamic group of kids to watch and honestly who can’t help but laugh at Ruby’s sarcastic remarks? Or even Jamal’s constant clap-backs and schemes with Ruby’s Abuelita. The season finale will leave you in tears so don’t say I didn’t warn you! (which is why I need all of you to watch it right now so we can get it renewed for season 2!)

Plot: ✰✰✰✰✰

Drama/Action: ✰✰✰✰

Favorite Character:  Honestly? All of them I can’t choose a favourite.

Overall: ✰✰✰✰✰

[chrismaverickdotcom]

Mavademics: Male Gaze through Visual Signifiers in Comic Art

Last week I saw an image for a cover to a Popeye comic. This version, drawn by Steve Mannion featured Popeye and Bluto with exaggerated vein popping musculatures and Olive Oyl reimagined as a sexy femme fatale in the style that, at least to me, is most close evocative of Salma Hayek‘s character from Deserpado. At the time I thought it was an upcoming series that reimagined Popeye in a modern context in the same way as recent series have done with Flintstones, Scooby Doo and Snagglepuss. I was intrigued and excited. I wanted to see what they were going to do with it. I’ve since come to learn that it was actually an older variant cover to Popeye Classics, IDW Comics‘ series of reprints fo classic Popeye adventures. I’m actually a little disappointed by this, because I was totally interested to see where it would go, but even without a new series to back it up, the image did make me think of some issues that I am working with in my dissertation that I figured it would be worth floating here in my blog to see what people’s thoughts were. In other words, it’s time for another fun round of everyone’s favorite game, “let’s comment on Mav’s dissertation research!”

Namely, I am interested in the fact that when I posted the image to Facebook, the main criticism that people jumped on immediately was the obvious sexualization of Olive Oyl. My friend Cenate pointed out that “A curvaceous Olive Oyl is just so strange. My brain can’t process it.” and a lot of this is because, as in the words of my friend Steve, “Admittedly I expect comic book bodies to be unrealistic, but man, my whole body is in pain just thinking about how deformed and twisted Olive’s skeleton must be. Either her left knee is twisted ninety degrees or she has a goat leg, likely both given the appearance of the silhouette of her right leg…” And while that’s true, my counter argument was that I find it interesting that this is what their attention is called to despite Olive Oyl never being particularly anatomically correct traditionally, and Popeye and Bluto also being extremely non-proportioned in they image. That is, I find it interesting but not surprising. In particular I see it as emblematic of the usage of male gaze in comic art. That is, here I am referring to “comic art” as an art style (or really set of styles collecting a series of like visual tropes) as opposed to the physical media (comic books), or the common genres most often associated with that media (superhero fantasy).

First, I think it’s worth defining the idea of “the male gaze.” I am not using it in the common internety way, of just saying “its bad to portray women as sex objects.” There’s an important conversation to be had there, but that’s not really where I am going with this. At least not directly. It’s an obvious connection that follows, however. When I am using the term I am doing so more in the vein that Laura Mulvey does in her original essay that introduced the term, “Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema”. Specifically, at least here, I am concerned with the techniques by which the art style uses the media to portray female characters as sexual objects inviting a voyeuristic gaze, in contrast to make characters being depicted as subjects capable of active agency, rather than the ramifications of doing so. In her essay, Mulvey focuses on the specifics of how this is done in classic cinema pointing to the manner in which the woman, who’s primary purpose is to-be-looked-at, rather than progress the actual action of the plot, must necessarily freeze the otherwise progressing action of the film in order to invite the audience to partake in the voyeuristic pleasure of admiring her body. Since Mulvey is concerned primarily with classic cinema, she uses examples like Rear Window and Marnie. But I’m a comic book geek, so I’m going to offer Ming the Merciless’s hypnosis of Dale Arden in the cult classic Flash Gordon:

Note that when Ming takes control of Dale, everything else in the film stops so that people can just look at her. No one attempts to save her. The extra-diegetic lighting in the room inexplicably lowers so that the audience we can more easily ignore Flash Gordon and the others and focus on Dale as she runs her hands up and down her body and dances for Ming’s (and transitively our) amusement. She’s fully clothed, and in fact, is far more erotically dressed in nearly every scene that follows this in the film, and yet this scene is inherently sexual. Her movements and slow semi-orgamsic moans expressly tell the viewer that this is about sex, however her explicit lack of consent and even awareness of what’s going on key us to read that her personal sexual enjoyment, or lack thereof is entirely irrelevant. Even Flash, her love interest in the film, who is very much aware of the fact that his girlfriend is being psychically sexually violated against her will, can’t help but acknowledge that looking at her as an object (her explicit purpose in the scene) is “sensational.”

That is not to say that the sexuality on display cannot be germane to the plot, or that even doing so makes it a bad narrative. After all, in Rear Window, Mulvey’s key example, the voyeurism inherent in watching is central plot of the film. This can also be seen in the actual scene from Desperado that I compared Olive Oyl to in the first place:

Here, we’re actually given far less time to focus on Carolina(Hayek) as an erotic object. In my head, before I rewatched the scene, I remembered there being far more time to focus on her than actually occurs. She is introduced at a key moment in the action as the Mariachi (Antonio Banderas) is being pursued by his adversaries. She does not freeze the action, but instead is inserted into it because of her sexuality. She is explicitly scantily dressed to key the audience in to the fact that her sexuality is important. We don’t get much time to focus on her bare midriff, flowing windblown hair, or the fact that her tight shirt is tied to frame her boobs — approximately five seconds while other things are going on — but we are entirely aware of them. Moreover, the car crash that happens as she carelessly walks across the street keys us in to the fact that men are so distracted by her beauty that they can focus on nothing else, and her laugh at the event tells us that not only is she used to this sort of thing, but she enjoys it. Immediately after this, we have all action occurring in slow motion as the Mariachi is transfixed by looking at her, so much so that he (and we) almost ignore the the armed assailant whom we all know is coming to kill him. And yet, from this point onward, Carolina is one of the key characters of the film. But she is defined by her sexuality because the tropes of filmmaking tell us to define her that way.

So that takes us back to the Olive Oyl image. Obviously she is sexualized. But the question becomes why… and how does she command specific attention in the image beyond what the other figures do. After all, Steve commented that “my whole body is in pain just thinking about how deformed and twisted Olive’s skeleton must be. Either her left knee is twisted ninety degrees or she has a goat leg, likely both given the appearance of the silhouette of her right leg…” but Popeye’s suffers from much the same issue, his left leg is raised higher than should be possible with out a dislocated hip. His elbow has been relocated to the bottom of his oversized forearm, which should be breaking both his underdeveloped bicep and shoulder from the sheer weight of support. Given the the relative length of his right upper arm, we must assume that his left lower arm has been severed from the occlude left bicep. Similarly, Bluto, whose left arm is more massive than Olive’s entire frame, appears to be missing a right arm entirely, unless we as readers are to assume he has a congenital birth defect causing an underdeveloped arm, which would then call in to question why Popeye is attacking a disabled man. In a sense, Olive may actually be the most realistically proportioned figure in the entire image.

She is also more realistically rendered than her classic interpretation, a wiry, frail woman with joints that seem irrelevant to the points at which her body is capable of bending. While the new interpretation of Olive, with her ample bosom (again, like Hayek’s framed in a tight, low-cut, midriff exposing blouse), skirt clinging tighter to her legs to suggest her crotch, and leg pointed suggestively to expose her new 4-inch heel Fuck-Me Boots, the classic Olive isn’t actually that far behind. It’s true that Olive was never classically visually depicted as having a body that is conventionally sought after as attractive by women of the current era or her 1919 origin, she was always a sex object. She is designed to be a flapper (hence her hair and skirt), a stereotype that has as much sexual connotation at the time as it does now. It’s just that the specific style that E.C. Segar used when drawing her and the other Popeye/Thimble Theatre characters wasn’t designed to “realistic” so much as expressive. She frequently made it clear from her posture and actions that she was extremely horned up almost all of the time. In fact, a LOT of Popeye strips are pretty much about Olive basically wanting to fuck whoever pays the slightest flattery to her. It’s one of the reasons Bluto and Popeye hate each other. When she is not actively seeking amorous attention, she is the perpetual kidnapped damsel-in-distress from Bluto, who desires her sexually.

The sexual aspect of the Olive Oyl character was so prevalent in the 1930s and 40s that she became one of the most common characters featured in Tijuana Bibles (NSFW, seriously… DO NOT click to enlarge this image unless you really want to see a raunchy, rapey, bisexual, anal threesome between Olive, Popeye and Wimpy that your grandfather or great grandfather probably jacked off to at some point during the during the war… I mean, who are we kidding, we all know you’re going to click on it, but you’ve been warned). While the authors and artists of Tijuana Bibles are generally anonymous, it is widely believe that many of the underground artists creating the pieces were employed by day as the regular artists or assistant artists of these very same strips. So while they are certainly not officially sanctioned, they were very much understood as part of the comic culture of the time in the same way sexualize fan art that you might find on DeviantArt, or commission from an artist at a comicon is today. And Olive became a favorite of these because she was understood to be an innately sexual character.

So if we return to the Mannion cover we see some very specific elements at work that call attention to this sexualization despite Olive taking up comparatively little space in the composition. Obviously, the clothing choices are designed to present a sexualized image consistent with modern 21st century fashion choices. Her her hips, boobs, and legs are extended in such a way as to accentuate her femininity as much as possible. While the other characters are more dynamic, she is positioned in front of them, signaling her importance to the composition. Finally, she is the focal point of a golden spiral, the visual instantiation of the golden ratio, φ. In layman’s terms’s Popeye and Bluto are positioned relative to the rest of composition to form the beginnings of a spiral that causes the eyeline to drift towards a specific focal point, as you follow the action. In this case, specifically you are drawn closer and closer to her torso, which continues the spiral which is now framed by her boobs and crotch. Mathematically, you the image literally signifies to you “tits and pussy, right here kids.” Like Hayek in Desperado, she seems both completely aware and totally disaffected by the effect her sexuality has on Bluto and Popeye behind her. She knows they’re there, but this is regular occurrence for her (and it is) so she is happy to mind her business and rejoice in her function, to be looked at as an object to drive the action rather than a participant in and of herself.

Again, I’m not making a Frederic Wertham argument here. I’m not so much arguing that the objectification inherent in the image is “bad.” In fact, in this case, I think it’s used particularly well. But the argument is more in the fact that it is commonplace enough to have become a specific visual trope. I actually went to the comic book shop, Phantom of the Attic, yesterday to count how many female sexualized covers there were. From a pure blatant eroticization stanpoint, of the 216 covers that were on the shelf yesterday, only eight had covers that I think your common viewer people would claim were blatantly eroticized towards a male gaze, far fewer than I would have expected, honestly (and way less than would have been the case in the 1990s comic boom). However, 42 of them used golden spirals to draw the focus to an at least mildly sexualized female character or body part. While some of these make sense tonally or narratively, (as is the case with the Red Sonja/Tarzan cover pictured below), others (as in the Hit-Girl cover) seem almost incidental but for the fact that because the character is female, the focus on a sexual characteristic must be sexual.

In particular this becomes complicated by the manner in which we view an eroticized male vs an eroticized female, is is the case in two similar bondage covers that happened to be on the shelf, one for Spider-man and another for Breathless. The female cover takes on a much more erotic connotation despite being effectively identical to the male. This appears to be a function of the cultural view of feminine vs. masculine sexuality as portrayed in art. Clearly the sexual aspects of masculinity are as exaggerated, if not more so, in Popeye and Bluto than they are in Olive in the Mannion image, but it is Olive that appears to draw our attention, not only because of the focus of the spiral, but because we are more predisposed to notice the woman as sexual object than the male.

So anyway, that’s what I’m working with right now. I’m curious as to people’s base opinions and thoughts. This may possibly get worked into a future episode of the podcast… which reminds me… I want to end on a cheap plug. Check out my podcast, VoxPopcast which I do with Wayne Wise, Katya Gorecki and whoever else I happen to rope in that week. Subscribe on iTunes and Facebook and leave reviews and comment and all the things that will make me famous so I can just think about sex in funny books all the time. You know…  for you.

Laura Hudson, Cenate Pruitt, Jessica Keller, Vox Popcast liked this post

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Mavademics: Male Gaze through Visual Signifiers in Comic Art was originally published on ChrisMaverick dotcom

[columbuscomicscorner-blog]

The Wonderful World of Tank Girl: Tank Girl Strikes Again #1 Review **Spoilers**

Written by: Alan Martin Art & Letters by: Brett Parson Cover Artist: Brett Parson Publisher: @titancomics NCBD: 11/8/17 Review by: Ryan Douglas

Bartholomew Anchor, Booga's good friend just got released from prison after serving a two-year sentence. Grabbing some fish and chips at Port Peachy, a hive for criminals, the gang is catching up with Booga's friend. Bartholomew informs the characters of his plans post-prison and that includes ripping off Ronnie Dosmond, a local rip-off artist, is sitting on a mountain of money at his home. This perks up Tank Girl's ears, not cause she wants a hefty payload, she has a debt to settle with Ronnie from when tells a tale of Ronnie embarrassing her in high school. The deal is made, Ronnie will provide the blueprints and location of Ronnie's cache of money.

Back at Jet Girl's timeshare, Tank Girl maps out their strategic plan. Ronnie's hauled up at his beach house and this will call for a full-on assault. Tank Girl, Booga, Barney, Sub Girl, and Mr. Precocious "The Shakespearean Mutant", a character who I believe is brand new to this world. But the team provide a full force strike by surfing in machine guns blazing, with Sub Girl and Jet Girl riding in with Sub Girl's armored sub with a plethora of rocket launchers and assault rifles. Truly an action-packed splash page, showing new readers this Brett Parson and characters bring their "A" game with gruesome force. When the team makes contact with the beach, Tank Girl takes lead to enter Ronnie's home, but she's spooked when she enters and is clocked out cold. Outside, Barney and Booga give Tank Girl cover, taking on the next wave of Ronnie's security detail. It's becoming a losing battle as all their ammo is spent. Booga heads inside to grab Tank Girl to make their retreat. But to their surprise, a helicopter containing Tank Girl lifts off and fly away. Realizing it was a set up by Bartholomew, the gang has to retreat to hash out their rescue mission.

After regrouping at Jet Girl's home, the team has found a way to track their good friend. In Alan Martin fashion, he provides a convenient solution to find her. Everything turns up Millhouse, Tank Girl happen to eat an entire box of Cornflakes, which contained a special prize inside and that is a tracking device. It won't be easy for the team but Booga assigns everyone the task of gathering milk and several boxes of Cornflakes. Multiple boxes later, we have a winner and the location of Tank Girl, which will lead to a classic montage preparing to storm Ronnie Dusmonds, Trump-like tower.

While the team preps, we head over to see Tank Girl being tortured by Ronnie and boy the creative team doesn't hold back. Ronnie has taken it upon himself to pull teeth and take a buzz saw to her face. But Tank Girl is tough and eggs on Ronnie, she won't let her believed bully get the best of her.

Hauling ass through the streets, the gang barrels their tank through the front door and from there spreads out, leaving Mr. Precocious at the bar to relax. Booga and Barney make their way to Tank Girl's location, only to be shot at by Ronnie. While he's distracted, Tank Girl is able to get free and haul ass through the vent, Die-Hard style. When Booga and Barney decided to hide out inside a supply closet. Surrounded by the pipes that go throughout the building, Barney uses her "degree" in Advance Plumbing to reroute the sewage to spew through the vents causing a smelly mess. That'll also give Tank Girl the extra push she'll need to escape the vents. The writer hasn't forgotten about the backstabber Bartholomew and he gets sliced in half by Jet Girl. When Mr. Precocious comes to the rescue, he's able to fit the tank into the elevator shaft to pick up Tank Girl, Booga, and Barney from a fesses flooded tower.

Once on the outside, we learn Mr. Precocious's purpose wasn't only to have a few cocktails. But his task was to strap C4 to the ground floor of the tower and flip the switch to destroy the entire tower. Now all that stands is a few bricks and the body of Ronnie, who tell us what really happen back in the day. That being Tank Girl was the true bully. Which scared Ronnie for life, leading him to turn into a villain. Those are his last words before he dies in the rubble, poor guy.

Overall:

Regardless of delays, I can always count on Tank Girl to provide a raunchy, action-packed, and comedic story. This issue felt more contained than the previous World War Tank Girl arc, where that story was fast paced and never a dull moment. That sorta progression is spread out on this issue. Since reading this serious, I've come to come to terms with the sort of convenient plots to push the story along. While its an easy cop out, in a way only ramps up with an adventure feel to the Tank Girl comic. The laws of physic don't make sense. But this isn't your average superhero comic, where you expect everything to sewn together overtime and make logical sense. There's no time for that when Tank Girl's life is on the line. Plus at points, I was truly concerned for her safety.

Every character is still balanced and play a big role in the final solution. Being able to juggle each character and giving them a purpose relevant to the overall story, is a true feat of strength. Honestly, I wouldn't have it any other way.

While I was able to catch on this was a set up from the start. The twist in the end, I had no idea was coming and appreciated that surprise. Previously, the four-issue arcs have provided an overarching story. In this case, this issue seemed to be a one and done. It left me ecstatic to watch on and see what odd ventures the team will tackle next.

What more can I say about the art, it's freaking gorgeous and I hope to never see Brett Parson depart this title. While it's a very cartooned style, that doesn't take away from the gruesomeness when things get hairy for the team. Every panel could be turned into a sticker, button or poster and I'd collect them all. Alan Martin and Brett Parson are one of the best duo's in the comic book game right now. Why this book isn't talked about more, I'll never understand. If you're in the camp of, the movie didn't work for you, so you'll skip the comic series. If you like the current portrayal of Deadpool and Harley Quinn, Tank Girl has been providing that sorta gross humor long before them and do it better.  

8.8/10

[oscopelabs]

‘O.C. and Stiggs’ And The Utterly Unreleasable, Mind-Roasting Summer Of Robert Altman by Keith Phipps

[This month, Musings pays homage to Produced and Abandoned: The Best Films You’ve Never Seen, a review anthology from the National Society of Film Critics that championed studio orphans from the ‘70s and ‘80s. In the days before the Internet, young cinephiles like myself relied on reference books and anthologies to lead us to film we might not have discovered otherwise. Released in 1990, Produced and Abandoned was a foundational piece of work, introducing me to such wonders as Cutter’s Way, Lost in America, High Tide, Choose Me, Housekeeping, and Fat City. (You can find the full list of entries here.) Over the next four weeks, Musings will offer its own selection of tarnished gems, in the hope they’ll get a second look. Or, more likely, a first. —Scott Tobias, editor.]

Robert Altman was happiest working in the shadows. That’s true of his relationship with Hollywood—where he never fit in, except as the town’s designated maverick—but also true of his relationship with other movies. Altman always had a lot to say about his craft, even if he tended to treat interviews as opportunities to reiterate points he made many times. One talking point he returned to, including when I spoke to him in 2000, is the notion that influence could work backwards. “The directors who’ve probably had the most influence on me,” he said, “were probably names I don’t even know, because I looked at a film that was really bad and I would say, ‘Hmm, I’m never going to do that.’ That’s probably the most direct positive influence on the work I do. I don’t even know who those directors are.”

When talking about Altman, it’s always worth talking about what he was trying not to do as much as what he hoped to accomplish. M*A*S*H can be seen as a war film determined to show viewers what other films would not, from the bloody mess left after battles end to the long stretches of wartime boredom to the sometimes ugly sides of the lifesaving heroes. McCabe and Mrs. Miller is a Western without heroes. The Long Goodbye lets a noir play out in the sunny, counterculture-filled ‘70s Los Angeles.

All of which sort of explains how Altman came to direct the teen comedy O.C. and Stiggs—but only sort of. Shot in 1983—while films like Screwballs, Private School, and Losin’ It rolled out in multiplexes across America—it should have been released to catch the wave of raunchy teen comedies stirred by National Lampoon’s Animal House in 1978 and made into a tsunami by Bob Clark’s Porky’s three years later. But Altman was far from on board with the T&A-filled spirit of the times. When approached by producer Peter Newman, he recalled thinking, in an interview conducted for the film’s DVD release, “This isn’t my kind of film. I don’t know how to do these kinds of films.’ But that was a time when these teenage films were kind of in…mode. And I hated them. I just hated them. And I thought, here’s a chance to do a satire on something that I feel strongly about.” “I went after it,” he added, in a telling choice of phrase, “in that matter.”

He at least had slightly more prestigious source material from which to draw, if only slightly. Though the film doesn’t bear the National Lampoon name, its title characters, a pair of prank-happy Arizona teens, come from the magazine’s pages. Created by Lampoon writers Ted Mann and Tod Carroll, Oliver “Out Of Control” Ogilvie and Mark Stiggs became favorite recurring characters in the Lampoon’s last gasp of relevance in the early ’80s. Their stories also embodied the changes to the magazine’s spirit in the Reagan era, when the always freewheeling publication started punching down far more often than it punched up. Two children of privilege, the O.C. and Stiggs of its pages enjoy an adolescence filled with excess, abuse, and casual racism and misogyny. Their adventures climaxed with the novella-length “The Utterly Monstrous, Mind-Roasting Summer of O.C. and Stiggs,” which took up the entirety of the Lampoon’s 1982 issue.

It also provided the backbone to Altman’s film, courtesy of a screenplay credited to Mann and Donald Cantrell. In Hunter Stephenson’s extensive history/appreciation of the film, Mann notes that Carroll worked on the script but took his name off the movie. Altman then reworked the script and allowed it to drift further from the original vision thanks to a typically improvisation-friendly set. Really, he had no choice. Altman was never known for being overly respectful of screenplays, but O.C. and Stiggs plays as if he’s compelled to actively work against the source material while still following the outline of the plot. There’s a brutal wit to Mann and Carroll’s stories*, but the teenage nihilism at their core is hard to square with Altman’s sensibility, which could be unsparing of human behavior while still maintaining an underlying respect for human decency.

As such, Wino Bob, the boys’ “Negro derelict” friend, is given all the dignity a character named Wino Bob can hope to have, thanks to a heartfelt performance from Melvin Van Peebles. The heroes’ attempt to shame a pair of teachers in a gay relationship becomes the occasion for one of the teachers to say he doesn’t care. And the film’s central conflict between O.C. and Stiggs’ and the Schwab family, a grotesque suburban clan that’s grown rich from insurance sales, becomes a battle between haves and have-nots, with O.C. now motivated to exact revenge on the Schwabs thanks to the cancellation of his grandfather’s (Ray Walston) health insurance, a development that will send O.C. off to live with relatives in Arkansas at the end of the summer unless something can be done. What emerged looks more like an Altman movie than, say, Fraternity Vacation, but it’s a strange beast nonetheless, a Brundlefly-like hybrid that’s not really equipped to live in any known movie habitat. There’s too much overlapping dialogue and restless camerawork, to say nothing of the virtual absence of nudity, for Porky’s fans, too many outrageous pranks for the arthouse.

That might explain why MGM didn’t know what to do with the movie, shelving it after disastrous screenings in 1984, which came and went without a release. So did 1985. And 1986. And though the film apparently played some theaters in 1987, it didn’t reach New York until 1988, when it appeared at Film Forum as part of a Dennis Hopper retrospective. Most viewers who encountered it did so on VHS in the late ‘80s, when it already looked like a lost film from a bygone time, the T&A comedies of the early ‘80s having given way to the more sympathetic efforts of another Lampoon alum, John Hughes. (If nothing else, Jon Cryer, who plays the much-tormented Randall Schwab, already looked noticeably younger in his feature debut by the time saw the light of day.)

Yet while O.C. and Stiggs will deservedly never be mentioned near the top of any Altman ranking of the director’s film (or, if we’re being honest, too close to the middle), there’s nothing else quite like it. Both Daniel H. Jenkins and Neil Barry (O.C. and Stiggs, respectively) make for appealing leads, embodying their characters’ screw-it-all, question everything, respect nothing teenage attitude without making them seem heartless. (That spirit in two lines: “I want you to call me Stiggs. It sounds more ridiculous.”) And for every obvious flaw, there’s some compensating element. A big wedding set piece doesn’t really go anywhere, but it does feature a charming dance sequence between Jenkins and Cynthia Nixon (both of whom would stay in Altman’s orbit for a while). The comedy falls flat in the action finale, but it does feature a bizarre, self-parodying performance from Dennis Hopper as a Vietnam vet for whom the war never ended. Some sections drag, but Altman throws in a winning concert scene from King Sunny Ade. Also featured: Jane Curtin as an inventive alcoholic mom for whom every object can double as a place to hide booze, a supremely chill Martin Mull, Bob Uecker, and a cameo from Hal Phillip Walker (Thomas Hal Phillips), the third-party candidate whose cryptic proclamations filled the background of Nashville.

It’s a film that time has only made more intriguing, thanks to its unmistakable Altman-ness, its undeniable eighties-ness, and the uneasy alliance the film forces between the two. Altman “went after” the ‘80s teen movie, and though the genre barely noticed his attack, the resulting film remains a disjointed but spirited critique of Reagan-era values and a salute to the teen spirit of subversion, even if that subversion took the form of driving around in a suped-up car with monster truck tires on it just to annoy the squares.

The film first came to my attention, years after its release, via my friend Todd Hanson, a gifted writer for The Onion whose pop culture enthusiasms had a way of getting passed from co-worker to co-worker. When I got the chance to speak to Altman, I knew I had to devote at least a few of my previous 20-minute slot to what had by then become an office-wide obsession. “I was attacking the teen mentality of the audience,” he said, “and I just was a little too… Nobody got it.”

Looking back, it might be that not enough tried. At that low ebb of Altman’s commercial fortunes—post-Popeye, pre-Player—he’d become too easy to take for granted and an odd, flawed, but undeniably one-of-a-kind film could be dismissed as just another ‘80s misstep. Maybe it seemed like we’d have Altman movies forever, and the era in which studios might somehow find themselves funding impossible-to-define oddities that doubled as single-finger salutes to the bad taste of their intended audience would never end.

* In an odd case of two geniuses drawing inspiration from an unlikely source, Mann and Carroll’s stories also inspired D.R. and Quinch, an early writing effort from comics great Alan Moore.