#It was funny to me how many more instances of 'fail' there was than 'succeed'

[dontjudgemeimawriter]

Find the Word Tag

Tagged by @diphthongsfordays ty!

Succeed (flashback)

I add chips to the center—calling or raising, I don’t remember, but it leads into us revealing our hands, and I watch his cards flip over, and my heart sinks. A face card that elevates his hand above mine, and he pulls the pile close to him, but instead of taking my cards to redeal, he leans forward and taps mine. I lean back in my chair—it’s lesson time. 

“Just because you have a hand that could win doesn’t mean it will,” he says. “You can’t just be thinking about how you can succeed. Look at the cards that are out, think about my actions.”

“I don’t know your bluffs. You don’t have bluffs,” I insist, wanting to move on, wanting to win back the pile of chips he has in front of him. 

“Don’t consider bluffs,” he says. “Decoding my behavior is good, but you can’t rely on it. Think about the deck,” he taps the stock pile, “think about my cards,” he taps his upturned cards, “and think about the actions, how often I raise. Think about what I’ve done in the past. Think I just win out of luck?”

Fail

“Yes, I understand how a hostage negotiation works, Abigail,” Raymond snapped. He looked at Jodi again, but didn’t say anything for a second, like he was looking her over for injuries. I didn't know if he could tell her legs couldn’t move. It might be more obvious on me, but the ropes made it look more due to restraints. “Terran?” He said, his voice full of concern and no, don’t be concerned for me, I failed you and I was trying to get you out of this and now it’s my own fault I’m stuck here.

Purpose

She crossed her arms. “Find anything in Jodi’s dorm?”

Your brother. “No.”

“You know, I didn't think you were like, completely trustworthy after our talk. But I thought you’d at least play it for more than five seconds.”

I could not do this right now. I could not navigate Mika right now. I had to evade Zachary for long enough to save Raymond. I needed my gun— it was in my desk drawer. She’d gotten in the room enough to block it. I tried to reach around her— she didn't move. Stubbornly. 

She continued. “Like really, what purpose did that serve? You could’ve played your game, strung me along for a while, gotten me to really give you something.”

“Mika, move,” I said. 

She didn’t. “Why did you go in my room?”

There wasn’t much use in denying it and that would take way too much effort right then. “I needed something. And I need something now, move.”

Numb

(Okay. So I'm really surprised that I don't have "numb" given the following scene being part of something major happening. I could give you a scene with "number" but instead I'm giving this snippet that says everything but "numb")

And then, in an instant, it was gone.

My muscles stopped twitching, relaxing in the binds, and almost as soon as they did, it was as if my limbs weren’t there. When I’d flinched I’d closed my eyes, but now I opened them again. My limbs were still there, I could see them, but all awareness was gone. I couldn’t feel them. Not my arms, my hands, my legs, my feet. Not even my chest. Everything above was still here— I was moving my head, I could feel my heart racing through the skin of my face and the air being drawn through my nose and down my throat, the pain in my face from Mika’s punch still radiated, and the caffeine headache was going strong. But everything below it was gone.

Even lacking awareness of my limbs, I tried to move. Nothing, even when staring straight at my legs. The way I was tied I could hardly see much of my body, so I can’t say for sure my fingers and toes didn’t respond, but I doubted it.

Protect

She was, as much as she tried to assert herself as better, part of a world that, like Zachary had, saw love as the only excuse for resisting their authority, and killing anyone who threatened them. I wasn’t even that much better, as I’d be happy, in that moment, to take my gun from her belt and pull the trigger right on her chest if it meant Raymond would be safe. But Raymond was better than that, and that was why I protected him. Abigail would never understand that.

Tagging @drippingmoon @calicojackofficial @oh-no-another-idea and anyone else who wants to (feel free to say I tagged you!)

Your words are: Safe, Strain, Stuck, Sink, Stare

[adamwatchesmovies]

Ocean's Twelve (2004)

Making Ocean’s Twelve must’ve been a blast. You can tell the actors were certainly having a good time. Too bad the fun can't extend to the audience as well. This film thinks it’s so clever, so funny. All I want to do is punch it in its smart little face.

Set three years after Ocean’s Eleven, Terry Benedict (Andy García) has located the Ocean's crew and demands they return his money - with interest. Fearful for their lives, the group schemes to pull a few quick jobs to pay him back but their efforts are hindered by the master thief “The Night Fox”. He agrees to help Danny Ocean (George Clooney) and his friends out of their jam if they can best his legendary skills.

Immediately, the film is in trouble. Either Danny and his friends will succeed in their mission and pay back Benedict - which will make us unhappy because we don't like him - or they will fail and the villain will have them all killed - which will make us unhappy because we like them. The only possible way to avoid audience disappointment would be for the scoundrels to somehow steal from the man - again - and beat him so decisively that he gives up trying to get his revenge. Unfortunately, that’s what the first movie was about so you know it’s not going to happen.

Ocean's Twelve can’t even figure out what to do with its characters. The problem is that although we sort of got a vibe that they got along, we never really believed the people rounded up by Danny were friends. It was pretty clear that at the end of the first movie, they were going their separate ways. Maybe some of them would keep in contact but no one was ringing up “The Amazing” Yen (Shaobo Qin) to see how he was doing. Like many others, he was hired to fulfill a role in a con and nothing more… but he was in the first movie so he has to come back again. How does the screenplay by George Nolfi use him? It shoves Yen into a bag and then accidentally ships him off to the wrong country so he can be “in the movie” but off-screen as much as possible.

Forget Twelve. This movie only has a few important characters. There’s Danny and Rusty (Brad Pitt), Danny’s wife Tess (Julia Roberts) and Rusty’s old flame, Isabel Lahiri (Catherine Zeta-Jones). Then, you have the villains with Vincent Cassel as The Night Fox and Andy García. Everyone else could’ve been condensed into one or two people. Similarly, the plot could’ve been thinned a lot. As is, there are so many twists and turns it’ll make your head spin. In another heist film, that would've been good but so many revelations are then revealed to be completely useless by the final scene it makes you feel like you wasted your time. In this instance, the main plan is so dumb you know director Steven Soderbergh is trying to pull a fast one on you and you don’t buy it for a second.

The most infuriating scene is also the unfunniest. The crew's target is the Fabergé Imperial Coronation Egg (quite the step down from a vault full of money if you ask me) so they recruit Tess (who is the twelfth member of the team) to help. Their plan? Capitalize on the running joke that she “sorta” looks like Julia Roberts by distracting the people in the museum while the others steal the egg. Not terribly clever, this gag also breaks one of the unspoken rules of filmmaking. The audience promises to ignore the fact that we know these are actors on-stage as long as the movie doesn’t draw attention to it and pretends the story is set in a world other than ours, “Last Action Hero”-style. As Oceans Twelve does this whole “I don’t look that much like her”, “Oh no! There’s Bruce Willis! Now I have to pretend like I know what he’s talking about” thing, you make a mental promise to hate the film no matter what it does later.

The worst part of Ocean’s Eleven” was the hint at a sequel right at the very end because deep down, you knew the magic couldn’t be replicated, that only the most convoluted of scenarios could bring these people together again. Ocean’s Twelve proves that so thoroughly it’ll make you wish the actors would all retire. (April 28, 2022)

[miraculouscontent]

Y’know, sometimes people ask me why I bother shipping Lukanette at all when it’s not endgame. They wonder why I would bother putting myself through the "pain” of supporting something that won’t be final outside of fanon.

Now, excluding any issues I have with the show itself, I don’t let the canon of anything dictate what I can or cannot ship, nor do I let it tell me what is or isn’t healthy. I look at the dynamics myself and decide from there without listening to what the narrative wants me to think.

That said, it’s about more than that for Miraculous, and “Truth” is the perfect example of it. It’s a culmination of so many issues I have with the love square, not even as a relationship, but as a tool used to push the show in whatever direction it wants.

Look at the episode and watch how much it reminds its audience that Adrien is a character who exists. His pictures are plastered all over Marinette’s wall, Alya brings him up in response to a reaction that Marinette is having (which, for the record, was not Adrien-based at all), and characters insist that Marinette’s “secret” is that she loves Adrien despite the fact that it is anything but a secret.

Cutting out Adrien from the plot changes nothing. He has mere seconds of screentime in the episode as his civilian self, yet the show is so terrified that its audience will forget about him that he gets name-dropped constantly.

What this means for Marinette is that Adrien takes over, even if he isn’t on-screen. Not only that, but every instance of him being mentioned is either for a cruel joke, humiliating/mocking Marinette, or “because love square.” The plot grinds to a halt when Adrien is brought up, dragging dialog out and serving little to no purpose.

Marinette is doomed to fail with Adrien until the show allows her to succeed. No matter what she does, she’ll be stuck in love square limbo and forced to humiliate herself because the writers think it’s funny. Most mistakes she makes revolve around her crush on Adrien (and keep in mind that her worst, irreversible ones are also because of it, meaning her life is made worse by the ship she’s meant to end the show as a part of) even though she has other flaws that could take the focus instead.

Alya suggesting that Marinette’s reaction is due to Adrien when it wasn’t (while not-at-all-subtly mocking her) says exactly what I’m already saying here. When Adrien is mentioned, everything becomes about him. The biracial girl gets sidelined and overshadowed by a white boy who isn’t even on-screen at the time. Her interests, hobbies, and talents suddenly don’t matter because everything turns to Adrien, and even in instances where it tries to incorporate a talent of hers - such as making gifts - it makes sure to add in either it not being signed, him not receiving it properly, him giving it away to someone else, or her being forced to remove evidence that the gift is hers because apparently the world will literally end if she doesn’t.

The love square represents everything I hate about the way Marinette is treated. Its mere existence demands that Marinette be little more than Adrien’s fangirl while other characters mock her for it. She’s not allowed to move on and the writers will force her to backpedal for the sake of keeping her as their metaphorical punching bag.

I cannot, will not, nor will I ever support a ship that does that. Even if Adrien was the most perfect being ever created in fiction, I would stand by the fact that it still wouldn’t be worth it. It wouldn’t be worth watching Marinette suffering so much over a boy, and I can’t want anything out of the love square than for Marinette to be free of it.

Then, as a contrast, look at Lukanette, specifically the scene where they go to the movies together and Adrien isn’t even brought up once.

In the span of one minute, multiple aspects of Marinette’s character are shown in a wholly positive light. She gets to have fun bonding with Luka over Jagged Stone’s music, she gives him a gift that she crafted herself and went so far as to have it signed for him, and - yes - she embarrasses herself by shouting but did not receive a single weird look from Luka; only acceptance that this is who she is and that’s okay.

So, when people ask me why I ship Lukanette despite it not being endgame (outside of all the reasons), this is why. When the show focuses on Lukanette, it’s about Marinette and her bond (whether friendly or romantic) with a boy who understands her and loves her just the way she is.

When the show focuses on the love square, it’s all about Adrien and demonizing Marinette for being the way she is.

[aflyingcontradiction]

The Magnus Archives Relisten: Episode 111 - Family Business

Julia: It’s not a… Trevor doesn’t like using the book. I don’t either. Makes me feel off. Dead should stay dead.

"Dead should stay dead" is a very apt statement for an avatar of the-process-of-methodically-making-things-dead but also I can't say that I disagree, exactly.

Gerard: Nice lighter. You a spider freak, then?

Jon should perhaps have at some point gone "Huh." about the mysterious lighter, shouldn't he? But then again, neither did I.

Gerard: Yeah, the world changes in horrible ways. For you. I’m a book.

This seems perfectly fair, you know!

Gerard: She travelled light. Left things behind.

Oh, ouch, the tone he says that in makes me want to give him a hug, even if he is currently a book. Yeah, she left "things" behind for sure.

Gerard: Well, Fairchild’s just a name, they’re not really family. The Lukases, though, yeah. Thing is, it’s harder than it looks. What’s out there… doesn’t care about blood. Jon: Well, I-I mean, except for the vampires…

I want to say "Oh, Jon" but I can't guarantee I wouldn't have made the exact same dumb comment.

But mum didn’t need the help, and after me she wasn’t able to have kids again, so she killed him in his sleep to practice her bookbinding. I guess she failed. I always thought he was in here, but when I eventually got hold of it, there wasn’t a page in there. - Gerard

That's because Gertrude did for him what Jon later does for Gerard. Weird sort of parallel, that, the father and son, both rescued from undeath by the Archivist of their time.

We met with things that almost made me throw up, I was so afraid, and she’d talk to them like old friends. It was awful, but I suppose in many ways, it worked. Whenever I tried to run away the ‘real’ world seemed so… ignorant I could never be a part of it. So I did my best to find my place within my mum’s world.

God, he was just so fucked up from the start, his whole life tied to the Entities - his death, too - even though he tried so hard to make his own choices.

And honestly, there was a part of me which thought a life in prison was an alright price for freedom.

Damn, that's a gut punch of a line.

Gerard: And if you’re having an omelette for lunch, not every moment is spent eating the omelette. Some things take preparation. Especially if, you know, your spatula has a bit of free will.

I love this run-away metaphor, I really do. Especially the spatula with free will.

Gerard: A lot of it’s kind of arbitrary. I mean, why are navy blue and sky blue both called blue, when pink’s an entirely different colour from red? Y’know? I don’t know, that’s just how it works.

It's kind of funny in an almost-too-perfect way that this is the example that Gerard picks because colours are one of THE go-to examples people always go to for unexpected cultural-linguistic differences and the way they change how we perceive the world. The blue thing, for instance: Russian actually DOES have two entirely separate words for dark blue and light blue (maybe other languages do too, I just happen to know some Russian). I wonder if Johnny knew that when he was writing these lines and this was perhaps deliberate.

Gerard: O-Of course, with these things it’s not a simple spectrum, y’know, it’s more like – Jon: An infinite amorphous blob of terror bleeding out in every direction at once. Gerard: Now you’re getting it. Jon: Like colours, but if colours hated me.

If I add a "Favourite quotes" segment to an episode it's mostly for things that need very little context to feel like pieces of poignant writing and this needs a lot of context but if it weren't for that, the description of "Like colours, but if colours hated me" would DEFINITELY go into the favourite quotes segment!

Gerard: Needing to know, even if your discoveries might destroy you.

An explanation of an almighty terrifying fear Entity. Also an explanation of the reason I try and mostly fail to keep out of the comment section.

Jon: Which is… spiders a-and control. Your, your will not being your own.

I've said this before but the Web always struck me as a bit funny in that way. There's that deep existential fear of being manipulated and controlled from the outside ... and also spiders. Someone needs to make one of those Marge Simpson "I just think they're neat" memes except with the labels "The Web" and "Spiders".

Jon: Yeah, I-I mean, are we really so afraid of being… eaten? Of our bodies being all twisted up, i-i-is that… I mean, some people sure, but… how is it one of the fourteen great fears? Gerard: What? You think people are so special it’s only our fear that counts?

Oh my god, the revelation that some of the fears originate from animals just left me open-mouthed when I first heard it. I'd never even considered it and it's SUCH A GENIUS IDEA! IT MAKES TOTAL SENSE! It's an animal fear and it gets extra-super-weird when it hits humans!

Jon: I suppose. And again, when an animalistic fear touches a human… Gerard: You get the Predator’s granddad out there.

Pffft. I love it. Trevor "The Predator's Granddad" Herbert.

Gerard: They… kind of ‘shift’ the world, just enough for the Power to come through. Merge with reality. Some say, or well, they guess, that it could bring other entities through with them.

Oh god, I didn't realise they seeded this idea THIS EARLY ON!

Gerard: Well, think of it this way: right now all the entities have to act like a hunter, they pick off the weak ones around the edges, the ones that wander too close, and the rest of the time they have to just graze on whatever fear we all passively give away. Jon: And if one of the rituals succeeds? Gerard: The world becomes a factory farm.

... gotta hand it to Gerard, his analogies WORK. Perhaps a little too well, that image really hits the target.

Gerard: Said she thought she’d found him. I tracked him down, but it… well, it wasn’t him. (...) It was just some pathetic old man. Couldn’t have been him.

How on earth does Jon maintain enough of a pokerface to not make Gerard suspicious right then. I mean, this is amazing. Gerard kicked the shit out ouf ACTUAL LEITNER ("Three years ago, I made the mistake of spending a full night outside my safehouses. I was almost beaten to death by an angry goth.") and concluded that he couldn't possibly be Leitner because the man responsible for filling so much of his life with fear and misery surely had to be IMPRESSIVE and POWERFUL, not just some whiny old jerk.

My impression of this episode

This episode is very info-dumpy, but somehow it bothered me a lot less than the other info-dump episode (the Leitner episode). Perhaps it's just because I enjoyed Gerard's voice (again expressed personality rather than voice-voice, I feel the need to clarify this every time because it gets confusing when you're talking about a podcast rather than a book) more and also because learning about the fear categories was genuinely a fun revelation. I mean, give me categories to play with and I will absolutely play with the categories! (Me and most of the rest of the fandom...) All in all, it was a fairly skillful info-dump actually, even though it was very clearly a bit dumpy. Aside from the infodump there's also a lot of plot development, though, and Gerard's statement is genuinely interesting. Damn, I feel bad for Gerard, he was just so fucked from the start.

[beyondstupidityblog]

On March 13th 2021, two friends and I did what never could have imagined possible, I watched Freddy Got Fingered for the ninth time, and it will by no means be the last. I’m explaining this to you, dear reader, so you and I have an important understanding between us. You will be reading the ramblings of one whose brain has curdled like milk left out in the hot afternoon sun. Now that introductions are out of the way, let us begin.

Freddy Got Fingered is a 2001 Comedy starring and directed by Tom Green as the Non-Titular Gordon Brody; an aspiring animator who goes to California to realize his dream, only to be constantly crushed under the weight of his father’s expectations. Sounds tame at first, but what lies beneath the veneer of mediocrity is truly impressive. Completely bombed,  audiences hated it, and critics loathed it. Roger Ebert got angry, saying “it isn’t even below the bottom of the barrel” and “Green should be flipping burgers somewhere.”. “Tasteless”, “appalling”, “offensive”, “gross”, and “poo poo,” are just some of the things people have had to say about this film. Animal genitalia can be seen on screen for much longer than anyone could have expected, Tom Green swinging a baby akin to a morning-star with its umbilical cord, said umbilical cord being stolen and taped onto his stomach, gratuitous caning of a nymphomaniac paraplegic, and the dissection of a deer carcass. It is an abrasive experience that leaves a terrible taste in the mouths of those who mention it. Nonetheless, I love this movie. 

You ever see a contemporary art exhibit that has a piece that just looks like garbage somebody left out but in actuality is a tongue-and-cheek allusion to the pitiful state of modern art? That garbage is Freddy Got Fingered, and that exhibit is Hollywood. At face value it just seems like a poorly done film by a comedian trying to use his name to get a few butts in the seats before his irrelevancy arrives, but when scrutinized as a commentary of comedy films do the pieces start to fall into place. Tropes like the Protagonist being an unremarkable honkey, gross-out designed to get some cheap quick chuckles, side-characters who occupy the space solely for comedic relief, a shoe-horned romantic side-plot, and an equally as shoehorned in happy ending are all present in a mocking fashion. So many of these Hollywood schlockfests that this movie is paying homage to abuse tropes in some vain attempt to trick the audience into thinking they’re having a good time, when in reality it just reminds viewers of films that they’ve already watched before and could be enjoying instead. All of the awkward and uncomfortable scenes of gross-out and romance are purposeful, because nothing is quite as awkward and uncomfortable than a film disengaging the audience with its own mediocrity. “This is what it’s like to endure this trash!” Drunkenly screams Freddy Got Fingered atop the tallest piece of furniture in the room, while also exposing its genitals to keep you from getting too comfortable around it. Unlike the films it is parodying, its obsession with making a fool out of audiences rips them away from the comfort of the cinema, making them genuinely ask if it is worth wasting their time watching a film called Freddy Got Fingered. Even the title is an intentional slight, as it seems to be completely untethered to the actual plotline and is instead a reference to a seemingly inconsequential scene. But then again, that is the point of it all. Tom Green is an artist, and on his canvas is a portrait of Hollywood with all of the ugly little imperfections that cause a movie like this to be created. But this is just the meta-narrative of Freddy Got Fingered, something that you could find all over the internet. Why do I resonate with it so much, and what about it makes it so exceptional that led to this unhealthy fascination?

    Every instance that I’ve rewatched Freddy Got Fingered has always brought about a new side to it, and in the process leaves me craving for more. Gord is an interesting take on the average leading man. He is on the surface bland and inoffensive, made so in order to allow the majority of the audience to immediately identify with him, said group being 20-something skater guys with unrealistic expectations of themselves. Made especially ironic when after the introduction of Gord as an adept skateboarding rebel escaping from authority, he starts to show that in reality he is an unlikeable, bratty, entitled, and all around unpleasant person. Barely a scene passes before we see him masturbate a horse while exclaiming he is a farmer to his father who is not present, seemingly a crude gag but is in reality an insight into his low self worth caused by his imposter syndrome stemming from distant paternal relationship. I would like to remind you, dear reader, that I am still writing of Freddy Got Fingered, in case you were beginning to think I have lost my mind (The answer is yes by the way). All throughout the film Gordon Brody puts on masks for different situations, never allowing himself to be who he is. When infiltrating the Animation studio where he wishes to pitch his cartoons, he pretends to be a mailman to get past reception and then impersonates a police officer when the former stops being effective. Donning the visage of a British Bobby, he dashes into the restaurant where the man he is searching for, Mr. Wallace, is eating. Showing him his cartoons, Wallace is impressed with the potential they have, but says that they are incoherent and lack real substance. Upon rejection, Gord puts a pistol in his mouth before Wallace stops him and advises what he should do to improve. Gord was genuinely ready to blow his brains out the back of his skull if he wasn’t able to get his show greenlit, and it hit me in that moment that he isn’t just some random jackass, but a victim of detrimentally low self-esteem.

The origins of his complex are made apparent when he goes back home to Oregon and are reintroduced to his Family. We see that his father Jim, played by Rip Torn, is disappointed in his return and begins to sneer at him for his failure. This father and son dynamic always has tension in every scene from this point onwards. Gord, who just wants to be accepted for who he is and not judged by what the world expects him to be, is always at the receiving end of Jim’s wrath, who values his idea of a successful life over the happiness of his sons. From here it becomes little wonder why Gord is the way he is, all his life he was told that who he was is not good enough, he has to be what his father wants if he is to be considered worthy of not only love, but being treated with a modicum of dignity. Whenever Gord acts eccentric or divulges his interests to his father, they are met with either resentment supplemented by verbal assault, or physical violence. After a late-night skateboard outing to escape from his father’s wrath goes awry, he visits his convalescing friend in the hospital, whereupon he meets one of the more interesting characters in relation to Gord, the love interest Betty.   

A horny wheelchair bound temptress may not seem like it upon first glance, but Betty is actually the most interesting character out of the entire cast. She feels genuine, introduced as a bored receptionist flipping a coffee creamer idly. Gord immediately strikes up a conversation, whereupon he and the audience find out she has an interest in physics, and apparently an interest in him as well. Betty is strangely well written for what most considered at the time to be a crass sexual joke, so much so that she would actually be a better protagonist than him. She is everything Gord is not, she’s smart, funny, ambitious, and  kind to a fault. Even her side plot to create a rocket powered wheelchair makes for a much more unique plot than the one given. Even Gord reciprocates this sentiment in their meeting, lying that he is a stockbroker in an attempt to impress her. In fact, sectioning her off as just the dull protagonist's love interest is a jab at how women in these movies are only there to serve in the development for the male protagonist, just nothing more than their muse. Nonetheless, without this relationship the movie would lose a lot of its soul. Romantic chemistry in comedy films is always hit or miss, but Gord and Betty do seem to have it surprisingly. They’re both silly and impulsive, creatively driven to a fault, but just different enough to eek out the best and worst in them. Gord  thinks that what he wants to do with his life is wasteful, but Betty doesn’t. Now I don’t mean that she directly affirms that he is worthwhile like most poorly written love interests would, stroking their lover’s(and by extension the director’s) ego, rather she confronts him with her optimism. He asks if she would feel stupid and like a loser if her experiment failed. Taken aback at first, she questions why she would, relaying that her failures are just as important as her successes. Gord’s self-worth is directly tied to his ability to succeed, whereas Betty doesn’t need this affirmation. Their dialogue further cements how detrimental his father’s overbearingness was to his outlook, and how he is slowly beginning to realize how destructive that mindset is. 

At their dinner date, Jim sees Gord and Betty across the restaurant, then reveals that Gord was lying to both him and her about his office job while poking fun at her disability, leading to a father-son scuffle that throws the entire floor into utter chaos. Cops show up, Gord and Jim are detained, and Betty bails Gord out. Most mediocre comedies at this point would have the love interest be upset that her significant other lied to her, leading to him having to make things right to repair their relationship before the happy ending. Breaking the mold, Betty does not get angry with Gord even a smidgen, choosing to be understanding of his situation now that she caught a glimpse into his home-life. She just plain likes Gord, willing to put up with him more than she really should, but still chooses to look past his lies and self-destructive nature for who he truly is, someone who just wants to be accepted by the world around him. Someone just like her.

Right after that enaction of social terrorism performed by the Brody father and son duo, they decide it would be best to go to family therapy and assail the audience with what I fondly refer to it as, “The Scene.” “The Scene” is Freddy Got Fingered’s statement to the world, it is what instills a man with the impetus to rewatch a glorified stoner daydream for the ninth time and leave him wanting more! Gord accuses his father, in a final act of defiance, of molesting his younger brother Freddy. During the ensuing confusion Gord picks up a bust of Sigmund Freud and throws it into the glass window pane, allowing him to escape into the evening sun. The authorities take Freddy away and send him to The Home for Molested Children, and the family slowly unravels from then on. Besides the heavy handed metaphor of Freud’s theories being used as a way for Gord to escape his predicament while simultaneously discrediting them, “The Scene” also recontextualizes Freddy, innocuous of a character as he is, as Gord’s foil. He is in the movie very little but when he is it is to serve one of two purposes: To be compared to Gord, or to be treated as an object. During breakfast much earlier in the film after a fight between Gord and Jim, Freddy tries to explain to his brother that he should grow up. Gord, surprisingly, talks down to him and halts the conversation.

Gord: “He's driving me insane.”

Freddy: “No. No, you're driving him insane. You're older than me and you still live at home. I have a job, you know. I pay my own way.”

Gord: “You work in a bank. Should I be dazzled?”

Freddy: “Well, at least I don't live at home!”

Gord: “No, you live in a tiny shithole and you come here to eat for free.”

With these lines it is plain to see that despite Freddy’s idea of success directly lining up with his father’s, he is even more pitiful than Gord. What little we know of him is to show that his acquiescence to his father’s expectations has left him bereft of not only genuine personal success, but of dignity itself. When child protective services come to take him away, he is half naked, mouth agape, watching open heart surgery on television, a palpable indication of emptiness. He isn’t treated as an adult either, as his protests to the police fall on deaf ears as both them and the psychologist infantilize him. Why would Tom Green name this movie after a character like Freddy, whose lack of presence and characterization make him little more than an afterthought when looking back on the story? Or did I just answer my own question? Freddy is not a character because he is not allowed to be one, he is just too passive and accepting of his circumstances for him to stand out. All he can be is a doll that Jim uses to dress up as the perfect son, and this passiveness leads to Gord, the “failure,” to both pity and resent what he let himself become. That’s why Gord accuses their father of molesting him, after all he does narratively violate Freddy’s autonomy by consistently making decisions for him. Evidently enough, as soon as Gord dons a suit for a quick bit Jim is elated because he believes that his son finally gave in to his demands for him to get a job, because he is acting more like his obedient brother. In this sense Freddy is the most tragic member of the Brody clan, a literal manchild whose growth was stunted by overbearing guardians. When I think of him, a bonsai tree comes to mind. Sure, it looks healthy, but when you realize that it could have grown into a much bigger plant if it were not for its small pot, that realization of wasted potential comes with a tinge of melancholy.

I want to end this essay with a moral that I took away from Freddy Got Fingered, as strange enough as that sounds, and what it has to say about art as a whole. Put simply, this is a story about revenge. Despite and because of his Father’s harsh ways, Gord managed to take from the trauma he sustained throughout his life and sublimated it into his animation. Creation not only lets him heal, but also acts as retaliation against Jim once he becomes successful. So long as you have the drive to prove everyone’s doubts and admonishments wrong by persevering out of wicked spite, you will have the last laugh. Freddy Got Fingered is a story about revenge through artistic expression, and I think that is quite beautiful.

[vonaegiremblem]

Now that I have 100%’d Ring Fit Adventure (at least the base game -- I’ve just started the new game plus, and I hear there’s a new game plus plus), it is now time for me to collect my thoughts and spew them at you, the reader.

I think Ring Fit Adventure really succeeds where I assume Wii Fit failed. I say “assume” because my family never actually owned the game or its peripheral. From what I’ve seen, however, there really wasn’t much to keep you playing. You either did the exercises or you played the minigames, which didn’t seem like all that great of exercise. I think there may have been some record of improvement and weight lost, but frankly I don’t really know. Ring Fit Adventure, on the other hand, keeps you coming back because it has so much palpable progress, mostly due to the combination of RPG elements and exercising. Both RPGs and working out have self-motivation factors. With working out, it’s things like having an easier time doing the exercises, seeing how many calories you’ve burned, and seeing how far you’ve run. With RPGs, you have things like seeing your level go up, progressing through the story, and, specifically in Ring Fit, clearing courses. 

Now, I’m not going to touch on every little motivating factor, but I do want to talk about how the story for the most part is just stupid and funny enough for most of the worlds that you want to keep playing to find out what happens. For instance, one of the characters literally turns a bunch of kids into ghosts because they called him old, and he got upset because he’s in his mid-to-late twenties. That is so funny to me. Another character became a biceps master just because he wanted a girlfriend, and he got sad when people only came to his dojo to learn how to train their biceps. This game just has a lot of charm.

Speaking of charm, there’s a ton of small touches that the game does really well. Weaker enemies will start to shake with fear as you charge up certain attacks. You attack with these sort of projections of the body parts that you are working out. Other characters that use these have their own versions of these based off of their proportions. Half of the enemies are some weird fusion of animal and exercise equipment. These little things elevate a somewhat average looking (ironically it kind of looks like the food kingdom in Mario Odyssey) game with a somewhat average soundtrack (excluding the Battle Gym Theme, that’s a fucking bop) to something higher.   

I think what the game does best, however, is its take on exercise culture. The game never mocks or scorns you for failure. It is always happy that you return even if its been a couple days. It even encourages you not to play if you don’t feel up to it that day. The game perhaps shows its best hand with Dragaux, the main antagonist of the game, and a huge buff dragon that probably awoke some things in some people. He is the natural end point of someone who exercises too much. He constantly beats himself up when you defeat him in battles and actively tries to force people to exercise in an unhealthy way. As you play through the game, you learn that he used to be kind and wanted to open special exercise arenas for public use. When you finally beat him after 23 worlds of chasing him down, he admits that he basically got taken over by feelings of self-doubt and spiraled into what you ended up facing throughout the game. The game ends with various characters realizing many of their own faults and working to overcome them. It the ends with messages like, “You’re never too old to improve”, “it’s okay to trust other people and show weakness”, and “it’s okay to be a little jealous of others, but you should also examine how much you yourself have grown.”

Now, the game isn’t all perfect. I do think there are some areas that could have been improved upon. There are only so many levels and themes. After a while you run into repeats . . . a lot. Now, I never felt any fatigue from seeing and running the same levels a bunch of times, since, you know, I was exercising during them, but I think that could have been a turn off for some. My other big gripe is that the game balance is a little screwy. Yeah, I know it’s kinda up to the player to diversify their moveset, but the game hands you options that are just far better than anything else on more than one occasion. I remember getting the Overhead Hip Shake fairly early, and it was just so much easier and stronger than everything else I had that it was kind of hard not to just choose it at the start of every battle. The last, like, 4/5 of the skills I got before beating the game were abs/core based and all of them were of equal or greater power compared to all my other skills, so I either had to let my set be weaker or throw off its color balance by putting a bunch of extra ab skills in it. In the end, it also seems like various exercise types kinda got relegated to specific purposes. Arm skills were for hitting single enemies, leg skills were for hitting 3 enemies, yoga skills were for hitting all enemies, and ab skills could kinda do everything. It just kind of seems like ab skills are just favored a little bit over the others. 

Oh, this is kind of a minor complaint, but you basically never have to use the healing fit skills. Since you can use smoothies with no penalty, you basically do not need them, and eventually you get so many hearts and damage blocking skills that you rarely ever lose more than 4 hearts. At least you can actually just do them in the various exercise fits outside of Adventure mode.

Overall, though, even with my complaints, Ring Fit Adventure is an excellent game for exercising and the $80 dollar price tag is understandable given that you can still just use the Ring Con as a Pilates ring after you stop playing. And I didn’t even touch on the fact that this game teaches you how to do a ton of exercises you can just do without equipment. This game is easily the best take I’ve seen on an exercise game, and you should absolutely try and pick it up if you want to exercise and are interested in the game

[lovelyirony]

roommates au for ironhawk (tony/clint) if u like them thank u

Clint Barton swore to himself. He didn’t actually think that they’d stick him with Stark as a roommate for the training course. 

It wasn’t that he disliked him. It’s just that…well. Tony Stark wasn’t really known for his skill. 

He was known for being a rule-breaker. A serial party guy. And someone who didn’t exactly fit SHIELD standards. 

There was the common theory that daddy bought him in. Wanted his son to have the distinctive bragging rights that SHIELD training gave. 

Higher-ups had already told Tony that he was not to receive special treatment. 

“If I wanted any I would’ve talked to the US military recruitment officers,” Tony snarks back.

Clint nods at that. At least he knows he won’t be getting any preferential treatment. 

But knowing and experiencing are two very different things. 

Clint also doesn’t want to get into trouble. He was already a bit of an oddball; they had brought him in from a failing circus where he was hailed as the best marksman in all of North America. (And if he really wanted to brag, probably in most of Europe as well.) 

Most everyone else has been in training since they were young. Or they know the right people. 

Both he and Stark are alienated a bit. 

Tony, quite frankly, doesn’t give a singular shit about how many people steal what meager dessert he gets from the cafeteria. 

“Yeah, yeah, go take my pudding cup and fuck right off,” Tony says to Rumlow. “I’m sure that your CO will simply love the extra sweets you’re gonna put into yourself right before we run.” 

Tony gets pudding thrown into his hair. A couple of flicks land on Clint’s shirt. 

“Barton, why hang out with the rich kid? Hoping he pays your way in?” Rumlow sneers. 

Clint would like people to pay for many things. But he doesn’t ask and he doesn’t hope because he likes earning his own shit, and most of all this position in SHIELD. 

He earns a trip to the office of Director Fury when he lands a clean upper-cut to Rumlow’s jaw. The guy cries. Clint scoffs. 

“He’ll pay for your funeral when we kill you at the obstacle course,” Clint says. “Tony, let’s get going.” 

Tony looks impressed to say the least. 

“Well damn, Barton. I didn’t even think you tolerated me.” 

“I’ve tolerated worse.” 

“I don’t know whether to like that or know that I could have the potential to be terrible.” 

“Let’s get going. I’ll hang back just in case I get called.” 

“You will. Might as well walk to Hill’s office now. I’ll steal you an extra dinner roll.” 

“Thanks, man.” 

Clint is early for one thing in his life, and it is this meeting with Fury. 

Fury looks at him over one eye, a black eye-patch on the other one. That is new. Very new. 

“What happened to your eye?” 

“I trusted somebody.” 

“Hill finally get you?” 

Fury doesn’t laugh. Clint does. It’s habitual, part of being nervous. 

“I understand that you punched Rumlow in the face?” 

“Yes sir. Couldn’t control my temper.” 

“Rumlow shouldn’t have been a little shit,” Fury says, snorting. “Don’t tell him that. He’s Pierce’s problem, thank god. Tell them I whooped your ass. Because I did. But I don’t give a shit what goes on so long as you get away with it.” 

Fury will come to regret these words in many instances, including one about four years later when Tony steals a coffee machine during a mission. But that’s ofur years from now. 

Clint gets back to training. Says he got roasted within an inch of his life. 

“You’re a shit liar,” Tony says. 

“Dude has an eye-patch now. Said it’s because he trusted somebody.” 

“Fury doesn’t even trust Girl Scout cookies, there’s no way he trusts an actual living human,” Tony says. “We have to find out.” 

Tony and Clint bond over two things: 

1.) They both feel terribly out of sync with everyone else because they are funny and also are not used to anything due to life experiences. 

2.) They are underestimated. 

Everyone thinks Clint has no fucking clue what’s going on. He’s spacey, most often forgets anything in the morning but coffee, and turned in one of their practice reports in green ink. Maria Hill nearly had an aneurysm. 

Tony is the rich kid who everyone thinks bought his way in and has only passed due to Benjamins or higher. 

Tony has not, because his dad actually hates that he’s in training and his mother thinks that he’s at an elite boarding school that Howard chose. They also happen to think that due to media presence, that is who he is. 

They can use their skills to advantage. Clint sees more than what people want and Tony knows more than what people want. 

They pair up for a mission. The objective is to rescue a hostage in under twenty minutes. 

The pairing before them has Rumlow, who is incredibly smug about how he incapacitated the attackers with brute force and rescued the hostage in ten minutes. 

“Beat that,” Rumlow says. 

“What’s the money?” Clint asks. 

“Two hundred bucks,” Rumlow says. “Lookin’ to take a girl out on a nice date.” 

“Hope you tell her you might have to cancel,” Tony says. 

-

They finish in four minutes. 

Tony disarms security in one minute, Clint paintballs the attack team in a matter of moments, and the hardest part is untying the agent acting as the hostage. 

Clint tosses the rope to Rumlow. 

“Tell your date you’ve gotten tied up at the moment and to take a rain check. You also owe us a hundred each. We’re nice like that.” 

- 

When it comes to partnering, Clint has to deny the opportunity to team up with Tony. 

“And why would that be? You both get along reasonably well,” Maria says. “Hell, you still beat records that were set decades back.” 

“Well usually SHIELD doesn’t like relationships to be part of partnership,” Clint says. “And to use the worst term possible, I’m banging Tony like a goddamn screendoor.” 

“I detest you every single day,” Maria says. “But noted. Tell Phil that I owe him fifty when you go out, okay?” 

Clint laughs. 

“Will do, Maria.” 

“Don’t call me that.” 

- 

Clint slinks back into their apartment, dropping keys in the bowl on the counter and leaning over the couch to give his boyfriend a kiss. 

“How much money did Phil owe?” 

“Fifty. We got him good. Also, Fury said no to the possibility of a cat scratch. I think there’s more to that, though.” 

“He’s lying,” Tony says. “I bet if we found an agent he worked with then we could probably figure out the truth.” 

“Phil and Maria both won’t tell us, we’re screwed,” Clint says with a sigh. 

“Then we’ll just have to try Danvers,” Tony says, teasing. 

He pulls his boyfriend over the couch. 

“Ugh, I was gonna get coffee.” 

“Not your fucking death wish type caffeinated shit,” Tony says. “You already had a morning cup. I refuse it. I’ll make you tea.” 

“Tea tastes disgusting.” 

“Hush, the only tea you ever had was when we stayed at that shitty motel.”

“Still. Don’t like it. It’s like they forgot to flavor hot water for a moment.” 

“I’m going to kick your ass and make you love herbal tea.” 

(Tony succeeds in this.) 

- 

No one actually knows of Tony’s history in SHIELD. Or that he’s dating Hawkeye. He usually works in the offices or on updating the computers, which SHIELD always needs. 

Natasha blinks after a mission that went on for a month. She sees the ever-elusive tech, who embraces Clint in a hug. Clint takes it one step farther and dips Tony into a kiss. 

“You’re so dramatic,” Tony grumbles. “By the way, your asshole dog misses you.” 

“Lucky?! Aw, I knew you kept him,” Clint teases. 

“He ate your pizza. I got him dog food and chipped. He’s as much a disaster as you are.” 

“I…did not see this coming,” Natasha says. 

“Heh, maybe I can surprise you,” Clint says, smiling. “Nat, this is Tony. My boyfriend. Also the best employee here.” 

“Even better than Phil?” 

“Who do you think enables his caffeine addiction?” Tony asks. “And who can get you good soup and catering?” 

“I will do literally whatever you want if you can get me good food,” Natasha says. “Or good coffee.” 

“I’ll set something up for next week,” Tony says. “For now, I’m dragging my man home and not letting him leave for the entire weekend.” 

“Now that I’m not opposed to,” Clint says, tugging on his shirt. “Bye Nat!” 

There’s a maniacal cackle as Clint tickles Tony, who responds in kind by signing “fuck you” at Clint. 

[an-emo-on-emo-site]

time for a dumb critique of stranger things written by a dumb emo 13 year old

aight so since im a massive film/tv nerd lets talk about stranger things 

YOUNG BOY STRANGER THINGS

so basically the first season is nearly perfect imo. the cinematography is phenomenal and every. single. shot. serves the mood of the scene really well. the show has excellent writing that makes teens feel like actual people which a lot of other teen shows fail at, and it can be really funny without actually sacrificing the mood of the show as a whole or detracting from the severity of the situation. it can also be genuinely scary (the first watch through) without relying too much on gore to induce a cheaper “shock scare”. It maintains tension expertly throughout the whole show until the resolution and the ending cliffhanger is a perfect end. There really isnt much more i can say, the entire season is just chef’s kiss

DEMOGORGON 2: ELECTRIC BOOGALOO

while season 2 is still decent and succeeds in some of the aforementioned manners (cinematography and humour), there are quite a few g l a r i n g flaws in the show which kinda take it down quite a few pegs for me. Season one was almost a mystery show disguised as horror, and therefore was a lot more engaging because you wanted to solve the mystery just as much as the characters did. While you were still invested in the show and liked the characters, most of the enjoyment (for me at least) came from trying to figure out what happened to will. While Season 2 does have some of this carry over with the Mind Flayer infection, the mystery never really progresses, they just figure something out in the last hour of the show. Season 2 relies a lot more on the characters to carry the show and keep the audience engaged. While this does work a lot of the time, especially with the dynamics between Dustin and Steve (we stan), a lot of the enjoyment from the show was taken away (for me) when the mystery aspect was toned down. Additionally, there wasn't really any particularly scary threat for the majority of the season. In Season 1 we are aware of the existence of the Demogorgon throughout the show and we are consistently shown that it is a severe threat to the protagonists, but in Season 2 we only really have a threat at the very end (last two episodes), and even those are literally just tiny demogorgons. While they obviously can still be harmful, they’re much tamer considering how hyped up big boy demogorgon was in the first season. 

While the characters are a big reason why stranger things is such a well loved show, Season 2 kinda screwed a lot of them up. Joyce is still the distressed mother (while she has reason to be, she literally doesn't change at a l l after the first season), Mike is kinda just an edgier version of who he was last season, Will doesn't have any character at all (the mind flayer does take him over but thats a slow process in the beginning, he should be more prominent but he isn't and we therefore never get to connect with him like we did with the other characters in the first season), and Eleven...

well Eleven is a child. she has every reason to be disappointed or angry that she cant see mike but she behaves like a toddler. she   - throws tantrums  - breaks windows when she doesn't get what she wants

and yells “i hate you!” at her parental guardian who is just trying to keep her safe from murderous government officials. While her motivations are there and are valid, her behavior is extremely immature, and she definitely devolves after the first season.

whoo that was long. i still like the season but the characters don't really evolve or develop at all after the first season which kinda sucks considering the first season was so good and characters did develop during it, but for some reason they just abruptly stopped. Fortunately, the writing is still decent and the cinematography is still great so its still an enjoyable watch.

SEASON 3: COMMUNISM IS THE REAL ENEMY

okay.

this is probably the worst season of the show (worst for stranger things is still pretty good though), but i still enjoyed watching it more than i enjoyed watching any other part of the show because i was laughing the entire time.

The writing in this season is either amazing or terrible. There are some parts to this show where they��re trying to write a joke but it fails so hard i start laughing. The best example I can think of this is the scene where Billy is trying to convince Mrs. Wheeler to get private lessons from him. He launches into a monologue of how he could “teach her” and starts listing strokes like the sensual man he is 

“freestyle..

breaststroke” *proceeds to eye mrs. wheeler from head to toe*

and the joke made me cringe so hard i fell out of my chair laughing. This is just the example i thought of off the top of my head, but so many scenes have similar writing that makes me cringe hard.

BUT

the actor’s performances in this season are phenomenal. Every actor sells their lines so hard that I enjoy every. single. second of the show even when the writing is dumb. the only times when the writing is actually bothersome is in the serious scenes (like the infamous “new coke” scene which made me shake my head so fast my glasses flew off my head). Apart from those few instances, however, almost every second of the show is enjoyable. This season also fixes the problem with the second season and actually ups the ante this time with the mind flayer which is absolutely, positively, terrifying. The damn thing is literally made out of the melted corpses of the people it infected. This brings another problem into the show, however, which is

too

much

gore.

I should probably start out by saying that in general i don't really like over the top gore in media. A few months ago i tried to watch Kill Bill and got freaked out by the first scene. Regardless of my wimpiness, however, I think that the show begins to rely too much on gore to be scary. Some scenes have people feeling around in a cut open leg, some scenes have people literally melting into chunks of blood and flesh, some have scenes of a guy getting his head shoved into a fan and having his face ripped open. The show tries to put all this off as “horror” but in reality its just something that grosses me out a bit but then i move on. Some scenes have actual scary moments, (especially with the mind flayer in billy’s form), but a lot of the horror in the third season relies on either gore or jumpscares which are still really enjoyable to watch but aren't really scary as they’re intended to be.

I still loved watching season three, but i feel like it shouldn't be gone into as a horror show as the first two could have been. The first few episodes are like a corny teen dramedy with some scary elements, and the last few are literally just slasher 80s camp the whole way through and i'm living for it

anyway this was long winded and dumb. stranger things is a great show watch it just don't expect anything to top the first season

hell yeah abuse tumblr algorithm with hashtags

[ournewoverlords]

Booksmart slaps. It’s just a huge amount of fun to watch - the key word here for me is “good-natured”. This is a good-natured movie that teases and pokes fun at a lot of people - a lot of *kinds* of people, from the queer drama kids to the dopey jocks to the Gen Z overachieving feminist types who have pictures of Michelle Obama on their wall and can quote Susan B Anthony from memory - without ever making fun of anyone in a mean-spirited way, and highlighting that no one is ever “just” their tribe. The ending ties the story up neatly with a feel-good bow about how no one is really what they seem on the surface, especially not in high school, when everyone’s trying so hard to be invulnerable… which also means they can’t be *seen*. There’s a lot of great character work here that I think could’ve been fleshed out even more (the 1 hour 45 min runtime feels shockingly short in the day and age of Endgame) but still feels natural and sincere, and the huge array of secondary characters - real characters, not just insert-famous-cameos - gives this movie not just humor but so much life and buoyancy.

(Warning: light spoilers beneath cut)

What keeps it from reaching the top tier for me, though, is that it somehow still feels like something I’ve seen before, even though the window dressing is so different. It’s definitely rare to see female best-friendship displayed so frankly, genuinely, and *hilariously* on the big screen, and I can’t remember another movie where the nerdy valedictorian is a boss and knows it, not to mention one where one of them is a lesbian (my young baby lesbian Amy!! protect that cinnamon roll), but the story of two blood-sworn, childhood-, everything-friends reaching the last chapter of their adolescence together in fun and games and boozy celebration, all while the fear of how they’ll face the great unknown without the other is this silent undercurrent churning beneath… that feels familiar to me? That doesn’t keep me from loving this particular theme, because it IS a great one, I just mean it’s not as original as Ladybird, so it lends itself to comparison more easily. 

Superbad, for instance. I actually kinda hate how every review (including the one linked here, which is totally in line with my sentiments) keeps calling this “the female Superbad”. Yes, it’s a coming-of-age comedy about two friends at the end of the senior year trying to go out with a bang together, and yes, it’s a little raunchy, and yes, it really is all about the friendship between the two main characters at its core… but the whole texture, color, and point of Booksmart are completely different. 

By texture, I mean that even as the two girls are the “heroes” of this quest, it’s still interested in the characters outside them, such that you really get the sense that they are their own people, with their own lives and inner life. In the briefest of screentimes you grasp instantly why someone like Molly would be attracted to easygoing jock Nick (but then connects to the hopelessly-messy-but-sweet Jared), and why Amy likes the skatergirl with the big toothy grin. The other kids and love interests aren’t just vessels for Molly and Amy’s own awakenings. In fact, some of them have their own troubles, and they’re all really pretty good kids.

It’s interested in the way that the two mains are, in their own way, not the most perfect people. How the world’s really not out to get them; in fact, they’re the ones who have to learn to fit into it. I talk more about this below, but this was the part I liked the most, because it feels particularly true to life in a way that I don’t think I’ve seen in many other coming-of-age narratives, much less light-hearted comedies.

Speaking of light-hearted, the whole tone of the humor is waay different from Superbad’s too. It’s funny as hell, which is probably the most important thing at the end of the day — there were a few scenes that had me and my entire theater howling — but amazingly for a coming-of-age comedy, I remember very few of the jokes being gross-out or sexual, or even all that cringe. Booksmart mines a lot of physical humor just in their sheer facial expressions (if a picture is a thousand words, Beanie Feldstein’s face does the work of a thousand punchlines), but it’s mostly the little throw-away lines and hilarious sketches (the attempted robbery in the car! Amy’s overly-well-meaning parents! everything GiGi and Jared do) that string everything together and carry the day. That’s not to say that there aren’t serious moments that are given due weight too — Amy under the water, submerged in that song is just an absolutely beautiful shot. 

It reminds me a little of Bo Burnham’s Eighth Grade, which I think is a more interesting comparison than Superbad here. Booksmart tries to capture some of that raw realness that Eighth Grade had, underneath all the silliness and humor; it is, in many ways, about how hard it is to be vulnerable to someone else, even (especially) the people you love. It pulls at a lot of strands and among them are the idea that this is what high school is really like, that to be honest all these boys (and girls!) who hold your heart in their clumsy, sweaty fingers will be like leaves in the wind years from now, that standing on the entrance to adulthood isn’t a physical change, it’s not about booze, or losing your virginity, or getting accepted by your peers. Becoming an adult is inner work, alright, but it’s also not work you can do on your own. Because it’s about how you treat yourself, but it’s about how you treat other people too. 

But I think where Eighth Grade really succeeds is this it has this kind of specificity to it — it really, really is about this awkward girl, and her lonely existence, and about being a girl who is becoming a woman in a certain context. And that specificity gives it a kind of honesty that rings painfully true to me. Booksmart — probably because it is trying to avoid stereotypes and do something entirely new here, which is totally commendable — almost feels a little too universal. It feels like you could replace Molly and Amy here with dudes, and it wouldn’t be a huge change in dynamics outside the pussy hats and Malalia worship, because these two are defined more by their identities as “overachieving party-pooping best-friend NERDS” than by being girls per se. These are two whipsmart dorks who are best friends, and happen to be female, rather than a portrayal of female best friendship per se. And the other kids treat them that way too: no one gives a shit Molly’s chubby or Amy’s a lesbian, they give a shit that they’re exasperating know-it-alls.

Which is REALLY refreshing. I’m being unfair here — it’s *because* it’s so rare to see female friendships or just girls in general depicted this way on screen that I think it doesn’t quite “fit” my own intuitions about real life. But I’m a weird case of someone who really struggled in high school, and definitely didn’t have friends much less deep ones like theirs, and I bet other women would recognize themselves in these two and their relationship much more. The frank vagina talk and the fact that Molly and Amy are actually really self-assured and even pretty damn well-liked are just super freakin’ cool anyways. In particular I LOVE the way they’re still dorky, in a way I so rarely see female characters allowed to be because female characters written by dudes tend to be so poised and “above” the main male protagonist (probably because the screenwriters are thinking back to their own high-school crushes, who must’ve seemed so mature and unattainable to a nerdy teenage boy). 

It goes back to what I said about this being an affectionate, feel-good movie where everyone turns out to be pretty decent in the end. It doesn’t set out to be much more than that, and I’m not sure if I wanted it to be, but I think it’s that fact they didn’t go all out that keeps it from being a 10/10 for me. It’s just very sweet and knowing and funny and always making sure to laugh with these oddball kids, but that same gentleness keeps it from being something great; it’s like you need some claws to expose something “real”.

It’s a little strange to me, for example, that the movie dishes out a lot of high-school tropes — all the kids are playful representatives of some stereotype — but doesn’t seem to have any real bullies, and happily accepts the two not-very-outcasted outcasts at the party with open arms. And the girls each get their heart crushed, but only for like five minutes before they (tbqh) each get an upgrade. Every Gen Z tribe gets represented — from the failing stoner who actually has an offer from Google to the misunderstood school slut to poor Jared, my sweet beautiful mess of an unloved richboy — in this kind of Glee grab-bag kinda way, but without Glee’s sense that what ties us all together is this fucking shared suffering called high school; Booksmart’s high school is more like a utopia where everyone wears what they want and gets to be quirky and different and much cooler than you think in their own individualistic way. (They even have Jessica Williams as a teacher! UGH, so jelly.)

There’s something that’s actually really subversive about this, because 1) no one’s a villain and 2) to the extent that Molly and Amy are unpopular, it’s kinda brought on by themselves. *They* were the ones who chose never to hang out with the other kids, because studying was more important. *They* are the ones who have to learn something. Molly was the one who judged everyone by the school they got into, even as the others never gave a shit about it. Amy came out two years ago, but the reason she’s never had a kiss isn’t so much because she’s a lesbian, but because she’s too timid and unassertive as a person. Molly’s character arc is discovering that she’s too freaking judgey and she needs to stop assuming she knows everything from the cover, Amy’s is to realize herself as her own person outside of the (admittedly powerful) centrifugal force of her best friend. 

Those are GREAT ideas for arcs, it’s just that the execution of them didn’t completely land for me — maybe because the jokes were competing so much with the serious bits for screentime, it had to scramble at the end for the moment of character growth. So it didn’t feel fully “earned” to me, even as it worked on the thematic level of truly seeing people when you aren’t blinded by your own assumptions. 

Still, it’s a really satisfying movie with a different take on a common trope, and packed with killer lines and secondary characters like Jared that are just so great (he’s one that feels especially on-point to me because I recognize one of my old classmates in him — a great kid, just… swimming through life in a different lane). The cameos by the adult actors — Jessica Williams, Lisa Kudrow, Jason Sudeikis, Will Forte — were predictably fantastic. In fact all the acting and casting was SO GOOD (I found out later that the casting director was the one who did Freaks and Geeks!). I’m impressed by Olivia Wilde in her directorial debut here, it’s clear that she has an ear for comedic beats and some of the shots were wonderful — in a lot of comedies the camera is just kinda static and it’s all talking heads, but here the angles, the POV shots, the longer takes that move in and out of sound add so much dynamism. Excited for what she does next.

[kkintle]

Misbehaving: The Making of Behavioural Economics by Richard H. Thaler; Quotes

One day on a phone call I asked him how he was feeling. He said, “You know, it’s funny. When you have the flu you feel like you are going to die, but when you are dying, most of the time you feel just fine.”

Let a six-year-old girl with brown hair need thousands of dollars for an operation that will prolong her life until Christmas, and the post office will be swamped with nickels and dimes to save her. But let it be reported that without sales tax the hospital facilities of Massachusetts will deteriorate and cause a barely perceptible increase in preventable deaths—not many will drop a tear or reach for their checkbooks.

“willingness to pay” or “willingness to accept.”

Opportunity costs are vague and abstract when compared to handing over actual cash.

The Weber-Fechner Law holds that the just-noticeable difference in any variable is proportional to the magnitude of that variable. If I gain one ounce, I don’t notice it, but if I am buying fresh herbs, the difference between 2 ounces and 3 ounces is obvious. Psychologists refer to a just noticeable difference as a JND.

So, we experience life in terms of changes, we feel diminishing sensitivity to both gains and losses, and losses sting more than equivalently-sized gains feel good.

Big ideas are fine, but I needed to publish papers to stay employed. Looking back, I had what science writer Steven Johnson calls a “slow hunch.” A slow hunch is not one of those “aha” insights when everything becomes clear. Instead, it is more of a vague impression that there is something interesting going on, and an intuition that there could be something important lurking not far away. The problem with a slow hunch is you have no way to know whether it will lead to a dead end. I felt like I had arrived on the shores of a new world with no map, no idea where I should be looking, and no idea whether I would find anything of value.

Economists don’t care whether you like a firm mattress better than a soft one or vice versa, but they cannot tolerate you saying that you like a firm mattress better than a soft one and a soft one better than a firm one.

Psychologists tell us that in order to learn from experience, two ingredients are necessary: frequent practice and immediate feedback.

Many people have made money selling magic potions and Ponzi schemes, but few have gotten rich selling the advice, “Don’t buy that stuff.”

acquisition utility and transaction utility.

Expressions such as “don’t cry over spilt milk” and “let bygones be bygones” are another way of putting economists’ advice to ignore sunk costs.

Many mentioned the advice, often attributed to William Faulkner, but apparently said by many, that writers have to learn to “kill their darlings.” The advice has been given so often, I suspect, because it is hard for any writer to do.

The bigger lesson is that once you understand a behavioral problem, you can sometimes invent a behavioral solution to it. Mental accounting is not always a fool’s game.

A good rule to remember is that people who are threatened with big losses and have a chance to break even will be unusually willing to take risks, even if they are normally quite risk averse.

Although it is never stated explicitly as an assumption in an economics textbook, in practice economic theory presumes that self-control problems do not exist.

Some early economists viewed any discounting of future consumption as a mistake—a failure of some type. It could be a failure of willpower, or, as Arthur Pigou famously wrote in 1921, it could be a failure of imagination: “Our telescopic faculty is defective and . . . we, therefore, see future pleasures, as it were, on a diminished scale.”

The economics training the students receive provides enormous insights into the behavior of Econs, but at the expense of losing common-sense intuition about human nature and social interactions. Graduates no longer realize that they live in a world populated by Humans.

I once gave a talk about self-control to a group of economists at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem. At one point I used the word “temptation,” and one of the audience members asked me to define it. Someone else in the audience jumped in to say, “It’s in the Bible.” But it was not in the economists’ dictionary.

Ainslie’s paper also provides a long discussion of various strategies for dealing with self-control problems. One course of action is commitment: removing the cashews or tying yourself to the mast. Another is to raise the cost of submitting to temptation. For example, if you want to quit smoking, you could write a large check to someone you see often with permission to cash the check if you are seen smoking. Or you can make that bet with yourself, what Ainslie calls a “private side bet.” You could say to yourself, “I won’t watch the game on television tonight until I finish [some task you are tempted to postpone].”

We all have occasions on which we change our minds, but usually we do not go to extraordinary steps to prevent ourselves from deviating from the original plan. The only circumstances in which you would want to commit yourself to your planned course of action is when you have good reason to believe that if you change your preferences later, this change of preferences will be a mistake.

At some point in pondering these questions, I came across a quote from social scientist Donald McIntosh that profoundly influenced my thinking: “The idea of self-control is paradoxical unless it is assumed that the psyche contains more than one energy system, and that these energy systems have some degree of independence from each other.” The passage is from an obscure book, The Foundations of Human Society. I do not know how I came by the quote, but it seemed to me to be obviously true. Self-control is, centrally, about conflict. And, like tango, it takes (at least) two to have a conflict.

One principle that emerged from our research is that perceptions of fairness are related to the endowment effect.

“If you gouge them at Christmas they won’t come back in March.” That remains good advice for any business that is interested in building a loyal clientele.

Although it is true that in the Ultimatum Game the most common offer is often 50%, one cannot conclude that Proposers are trying to be fair. Instead, they may be quite rationally worried about being rejected.

Further research by Ernst Fehr and his colleagues has shown that, consistent with Andreoni’s finding, a large proportion of people can be categorized as conditional cooperators, meaning that they are willing to cooperate if enough others do. People start out these games willing to give their fellow players the benefit of the doubt, but if cooperation rates are low, these conditional cooperators turn into free riders. However, cooperation can be maintained even in repeated games if players are given the opportunity to punish those who do not cooperate. As illustrated by the Punishment Game, described earlier, people are willing to spend some of their own money to teach a lesson to those who behave unfairly, and this willingness to punish disciplines potential free riders and keeps robust cooperation rates stable.

Not everyone will free ride all the time, but some people are ready to pick your pocket if you are not careful.

Shefrin and Statman’s answer relied on a combination of self-control and mental accounting. The notion was that some shareholders—retirees, for instance—like the idea of getting inflows that are mentally categorized as “income” so that they don’t feel bad spending that money to live on. In a rational world, this makes no sense. A retired Econ could buy shares in companies that do not pay dividends, sell off a portion of his stock holdings periodically, and live off of those proceeds while paying less in taxes.

“Discovery commences with the awareness of anomaly, i.e., with the recognition that nature has somehow violated the paradigm-induced expectations that govern normal science.” —Thomas Kuhn

the Journal of Economic Perspectives is available free online to anyone at www.aeaweb.org/jep, including all the back issues. It is a great place to learn about economics. 

If the outside view is fleshed out carefully and informed with appropriate baseline data, it will be far more reliable than the inside view. The problem is that the inside view is so natural and accessible that it can influence the judgments even of people who understand the concept—indeed, even of the person who coined the term.

Flip a coin, heads you win $200, tails you lose $100. As Samuelson had anticipated, Brown declined this bet, saying: “I won’t bet because I would feel the $100 loss more than the $200 gain.” In other words, Brown was saying: “I am loss averse.” But then Brown said something that surprised Samuelson. He said that he did not like one bet, but would be happy to take 100 such bets.

“If it does not pay to do an act once, it will not pay to do it twice, thrice, . . . or at all.”

“myopic loss aversion.” The only way you can ever take 100 attractive bets is by first taking the first one, and it is only thinking about the bet in isolation that fools you into turning it down.

One reason is that it is risky to be a contrarian. “Worldly wisdom teaches that is it is better for reputation to fail conventionally than to succeed unconventionally.”

Remember another of Keynes’s famous lines. “In the long run, we are all dead.”

In a rational world there would not be very much trading—in fact, hardly any. Economists sometimes call this the Groucho Marx theorem. Groucho famously said that he would never want to belong to any club that would have him as a member. The economist’s version of this joke—predictably, not as funny—is that no rational agent will want to buy a stock that some other rational agent is willing to sell. Imagine two financial analysts, Tom and Jerry, are playing a round of golf. Tom mentions that he is thinking of buying 100 shares of Apple. Jerry says, that’s convenient, I was thinking of selling 100 shares. I could sell my shares to you and avoid the commission to my broker. Before they can agree on a deal, both think better of it. Tom realizes that Jerry is a smart guy, so asks himself, why is he selling? Jerry is thinking the same about Tom, so they call off the trade. Similarly, if everyone believed that every stock was correctly priced already—and always would be correctly priced—there would not be very much point in trading, at least not with the intent of beating the market. No one takes the extreme version of this “no trade theorem” literally, but most financial economists agree, at least when pressed, that trading volume is surprisingly high. There is room for differences of opinion on price in a rational model, but it is hard to explain why shares would turn over at a rate of about 5% per month in a world of Econs. However, if you assume that some investors are overconfident, high trading volume emerges naturally.

The key lesson is that prices can get out of whack, and smart money cannot always set things right.

“the three bounds”: bounded rationality, bounded willpower, and bounded self-interest.

When people are given what they consider to be unfair offers, they can get angry enough to punish the other party, even at some cost to themselves.

The winner’s curse. When many bidders compete for the same object, the winner of the auction is often the bidder who most overvalues the object being sold. The same will be true for players, especially the highly touted players picked early in the first round. The winner’s curse says that those players will be good, but not as good as the teams picking them think.

The false consensus effect. Put basically, people tend to think that other people share their preferences.

A competitive labor market does do a pretty good job of channeling people into jobs that suit them. But ironically, this logic may become less compelling as we move up the managerial ladder. All economists are at least pretty good at economics, but many who are chosen to be department chair fail miserably at that job. This is the famous Peter Principle: people keep getting promoted until they reach their level of incompetence.

“I am not the sort of person who would steal, and I hope you are not one of those evil types either.” This is an example of what game theorists call “cheap talk.” In the absence of a penalty for lying, everyone promises to be nice. However, there turns out to be one reliable signal in all this noise. If someone makes an explicit promise to split, she is 30 percentage points more likely to do so. (An example of such a statement: “I promise you I am going to split it, 120%.”) This reflects a general tendency. People are more willing to lie by omission than commission.

(...) he said he was planning to steal right up until the last minute. The hosts reminded him that he had given an impassioned speech about his father telling him that a man is only as good as his word. “What about that?” the hosts asked, somewhat aghast at this revelation. “Oh, that,” Ibrahim said. “Actually, I never met my father. I just thought it would be an effective story.” People are interesting.

Someone turning sixty who finds herself flush with surplus savings has numerous remedies, from taking an early retirement, to going on lavish vacations, to spoiling the grandchildren. But someone who learns at sixty that she has not saved enough has very little time to make up lost ground, and may find that retirement must be postponed indefinitely.

When dealing with Humans, words matter.

standard recommendation from the Cialdini bible: if you want people to comply with some norm or rule, it is a good strategy to inform them (if true) that most other people comply.

Ethical nudges must be both transparent and true.

If you want to encourage someone to do something, make it easy.

“big peanuts” fallacy

Those looking for behavioral interventions that have a high probability of working should seek out other environments in which a one-time action can accomplish the job. If no one-time solution yet exists, invent one!

As Gene Fama often says when he is asked about our competing views: we agree about the facts, we just disagree about the interpretation.

Mark Twain once said, “It ain’t what you don’t know that gets you into trouble. It’s what you know for sure that just ain’t so.”

[litteriae-moved]

“you can’t save me from this.” // mipha & link !

              from the moment they bore that royal cloth their destines were set in stone. no — long before that, he had an inescapable fate, one that many foolishly envied him for. link hadn’t chosen to be hyrule’s future savior, it was the sword that choose him. he gained new friends and lost them along the way because of it ( even the royal guard captain began to look at him more as a trainee than a son anymore. ) the same sentiment applied to the princess of the zora, mipha, who was handpicked by princess zelda herself to wield the divine beast vah ruta. an honor to most, but a burden to many more. her peoples lives were in her hands more than ever if they wanted to defeat calamity ganon. and all it took was one loud boom, devastating enough to shake the land around them for everything to go in complete disarray. no, it can’t be — except it was.

              he’s already here. calamity ganon was awake.

                at that moment all of his training came flooding back. countless hours of sword and knight training, blood mixed with sweat and tears, felt all for naught. he had nearly toppled over from the earthquake but miraculously kept firm on his feet. soon, all of the guardians were ordered to their divine beasts to take immediate action. his first priority beyond protecting the land of hyrule was to keep princess zelda safe. while mipha’s duty lied in maneuvering her divine beast. they were bound to go their separate ways eventually he just hadn’t it expect to happen so fast, so abruptly — but life has a funny way of dealing it’s cards; it never works in your favor. he had learned that lesson at a very young age. right now it was dire, time of the utmost essence, but link couldn’t help but seek her out specifically. her guidance and company always lead him to the answers he desperately needed.

               even in times of darkness she was a calming melody, a healing lullaby that could soothe even the deepest and most life-threatening wounds. as she had for him countless instances throughout his reckless endeavors as a young knight, whenever it got grim. before he knew it, she had become an irreplaceable ally and friend. in a lonesome journey he thought he had to do all by himself, within it, he found a light worth protecting and dying for. despite the anxieties wrecking havoc inside his brain, slowly, she began to soothe him. they look at each other and link cannot help but see the conflicted feelings manifest in her golden eyes. the doubt, uncertainty, all emotions that have clouded his thinking once before many times in the past. however, their lives weren’t simply their own. even he can’t help but think about the zora while looking at her, about little sidon who’s probably wondering where his sister is at a time like this. but they had to put those thoughts aside and focus on the bigger picture: protecting all of hyrule. before he could get a word out her soft voice breaks the unforgiving silence. yet this time she sounds dead-serious, perhaps even a little sad.

              ‘ you can’t save me from this. ’ that sentence alone makes his eyes go wide, has his heart thumping a million miles a minute. her gaze spoke one thing, while her expression took the form of determination in the midst of their fear. mipha never failed to amaze him. his fingers can’t help but tremble as they clench into a shaking fist. how did she know him so well? it’s as if he were a puzzle, one easy to construct and reassemble again, because this isn’t the first time she’s seen through his act. through his disbelief, he cannot help but to reflect back on her words from mere seconds ago. it was as if she knew this wouldn’t go well. it was almost as if she knew the clock was ticking, and the hour hand of her life was about to strike midnight, one final time. the sweat rolling down his face was cold. same for the chill that sends down his spine and makes his very soul shiver. surely their training would aid them in this trying time, they had beat the odds the before, so why was this time any different?

             why did it feel like his heart was cracking piece by piece? his expression remains stoic, but our warrior can’t shake the feeling that there was more to this. lips purse in worrisome thought, before he addresses it head on:

             ❛ mipha, you — ❜ at that moment another strong quake strikes, followed by a downright vile roar, one that could be described as the end itself. subsequently, the guardians all break their separate conversations instantaneously. right after, he hears zelda immediately call for him. it was time. he looks back at everyone beginning to take their leave, then back at the princess mipha’s face, which adorned a melancholy smile. as we speak she was still here, grinning, taking angel-soft breathes and emitting life. she was still alive and within his reach, so why did she feel so distant, like a ghost slipping through his fingertips? before he could even attempt anything, zelda jerks urgently on his arm, hastily reminding him of his duties. his fists clench more, resistance threatening taking over, but once again that smile makes him remember again. if he succeeds on his end, then without a doubt, they’ll meet again. this won’t be the last time. he’ll make sure of it. it’s times like these were optimism was needed the most, she taught him that long ago. ❛ i promise we’ll see each other soon. don’t give up hope … goodbye. ❜ with one last look of acknowledge he nods sagely, then begins to run alongside zelda, without daring to look back. 

            at long last, whether he was truly ready or not, it was time to face his destiny —— best of luck to you too, princess mipha. 

[mylonelyangel]

Good Omens: A Study in Comedy

A couple years ago in my senior year of high school, my English teacher had told us for our last essay of the year, to pick any novel by any notable author, and write about it. I picked Good Omens cause i happened to be reading it at the time, but this essay was legit the most fun I’ve ever had writing an essay. I figured with the show coming out at @neil-gaiman being on tumblr, I might as well post it here were people might enjoy it.

Its about why Good Omens is successful as a comedy. It’s kinda long so it’s gonna go beneath a cut. But yeah here it is. (Also apologies for the formatting I cant figure out how to make this thing readable. rn it looks a lot better on desktop than mobile. Any suggestions on that are welcome)

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In the world of entertainment-- be that film, TV, literature, etc. -- comedy is hard. It’s hard to act, it’s hard to write, and it takes real talent to do comedy well. Often, comedy goes underappreciated in the professional world; however, Good Omens seems to be an exception. In writing the forward to their book, Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman describe the many well-read and deteriorating copies of Good Omens that they have had the pleasure of signing. From books dropped in bathtubs and puddles, to pages being held together by packing tape, clearly, the book is well loved by many. The unique quality of this novel is that rather than a “laugh-out-loud” humor, Pratchett and Gaiman aimed for a more subtle, ironic humor adding up to a satire that teaches a lesson on the importance of humanity and compassion. All in all, Good Omens is a delightfully witty and entertaining book that is sure to please any avid reader.

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Biography

It was the year 1989 when Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett decided to combine efforts in writing Good Omens. At the time, Gaiman was 29. He was born in Hampshire UK in 1960 and grew up frequently visiting his local library, developing a life-long love for reading. After briefly pursuing a career in journalism, he soon became interested in writing comic books. The Sandman is one of Gaiman’s most notable graphic novel works. It won several awards including three Harvey Awards, nine Will Eisner Comic Industry Awards, and the 1991 World Fantasy Award for Best Short Story, becoming the first comic to every receive a literary award.  After gaining this success, Gaiman has gone on to expand his resume by working in film and television. He’s written and directed two films: A Short Film About John Bolton (2002) and Statueque (2009). Most recently, Gaiman is writing for the television series adaption of his book, American Gods, set to premier on April 30, 2017 on Starz.

Gaiman’s writing companion, Terry Pratchett, was born in Beaconsfield, Buckinghamshire in 1948. He had a passion for writing from a young age, publishing his first story, “The Hades Business” in his school magazine at age thirteen. Four years later at age seventeen, Pratchett dropped out of school to pursue journalism. It was in this line of work that he came into contact with his first publisher, Colin Smythe, and through him published his first book in 1971, The Carpet People. Smythe remained a close friend of Pratchett and in 1983 published the first book of Pratchett’s phenomenally successful series: Discworld. At this time, Pratchett worked for the Central Electricity Generating Board as a press officer. Four books into his Discworld series, Pratchett decided to become a full time writer. After a long and successful career, unfortunately in 2007 Pratchett was diagnosed with a rare form of Alzheimer’s called Posterior Cortical Atrophy. He lived the last years of his life very well; in 2009, he was knighted by the Queen for his services to literature and in 2013 he presented a documentary discussing the controversial topic of assisted dying. Terry Pratchett: Choosing to Die won both an Emmy and a BAFTA. Despite campaigning for assisted dying, Terry did not choose to take his own life and died peacefully surrounded by family in March 2015.

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Extended Analysis

The comedy collaboration Good Omens has been deemed by many to be a great novel. Critics praise the unique blend of writing styles for making this novel a success, but to understand what makes the comedic genius of Good Omens, one must ask what precisely makes it funny. This novel is a satire; it comments on existentialist ideas surrounding humanity and the responsibility humans have over their own actions for better or for worse. In order to emphasize their novel as an unexpectedly witty and socially relevant satire, Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett use several literary devices such as repetition, mood, and irony. In a remarkable world belonging to angels and demons who wish to bring about the apocalypse, the air of abnormality must be maintained throughout the novel; comedy only follows naturally.  

In order to emphasize the absurdity of the events in Good Omens, the authors often used repetition in describing people or events. Given that this book revolves around the events of Armageddon, absurdity is not hard to come by; it is precisely what enforces the satire nature of the novel. For instance, the Antichrist is first described to the reader as “a golden haired male baby we will call the Adversary, Destroyer of Kings, Angel of the Bottomless Pit, Great Beast that is called Dragon, Prince of this World, Father of Lies, Spawn of Satan, and Lord of Darkness” (Gaiman 27). Not only does the baby have this long list of titles, but he is referred to as such several more times in the next few pages. This description is a means to bring attention to the oddness of the situation and the repetition serves to emphasize it. Another interesting use of repetition is a scene in which the events of the evening are being narrated by an irritable man named R. P. Tyler; a man who not only believes himself to be the sole decider of right and wrong in the world, but that it is his responsibility to pronounce his wisdom unto others via the letter column of the Tadfield Adviser. This man is the epitome of arrogant old men and on the afternoon of Armageddon, finds himself directing several parties of odd people to the same location. In the eyes of the reader, all of the characters introduced thus far are arriving to the small English town of Tadfield for the start of the apocalypse. The events are rumored to take place at the Lower Tadfield Air Base and in succession, R. P. Tyler encounters four groups of people going to the Airfield within a span of 30 minutes (Gaiman 325-336). The result is a comedic effect that brings all separate storylines back to the same page. The repetition of events is what brought to R. P. Tyler’s attention to the odd occurrences in Tadfield. As the man met group after group, he quickly becomes more flustered and his figurative bubble of normality is cracking until Crowley’s arrival: “There was a large once-black car on fire in the lane and a man in sunglasses was leaning out the window, saying through the smoke “I’m sorry, I’ve managed to get a little lost. Can you direct me to the Lower Tadfield Air Base? I know it’s around here somewhere”” (Gaiman 334). One can safely say that after this event, R. P. Tyler no longer has a figurative bubble of normality.

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One of the highlights of Good Omens is the comical language in which it is written, setting an air for the absurd to be normalized and the mundane to receive an exaggerated retelling. An ambiance of abnormality is maintained throughout the entire novel through methods of over-explaining minute details. For instance, as the first proceedings of Armageddon are set into motion, the scene is set with the following depiction:

“It wasn’t a dark and stormy night. It should have been, but that’s the weather for you. For every mad scientist who’s had a convenient thunderstorm just on the night his Great Work is finished and lying on the slab, there have been dozens who’s sat around aimlessly under the peaceful stars while Igor clocks up the overtime” (Gaiman 14).

This description of the setting contributes to a lighthearted mood despite the impending apocalypse. It feels as though the authors are making polite conversation as the story progresses, and this style of writing is used throughout the novel. Later on, a scene occurs in which a demon kills a room full of telemarketers and the aftermath is described as follows: “. . . a wave of low-grade goodness started to spread exponentially through the population and millions of people who ultimately would not have suffered minor bruises of the soul did not in fact do so” (Gaiman 308). The elegance in which that sentence is written gives the reader a sense of understanding in that the authors are not technically wrong in their description. The line is satirical and for many readers, felt on a personal level. The witty line does not fail in upholding the absurd and exceedingly nonchalant atmosphere. This style brings to light underlying truths of humanity that one may not acknowledge in a day to day basis, but are true nonetheless. Through this recognition of distinctly human emotions and struggles, Gaiman and Pratchett succeed in creating an engaging environment in which the reader is both reflective and entertained by their story.

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The irony in Good Omens lies within the ongoing discussion of humanity and the importance of free will. As Heaven and Hell prepare for Armageddon, the key to its commencement lies in the hands of the Antichrist. However, the Antichrist ends up being much more human than either side predicted. As usual, the demon Crowley and angel Aziraphale come to this conclusion long before their superiors:

““Because if I know anything,” said Crowley urgently, “it’s that the birth is just the start. It’s the upbringing that’s important. It’s the influences. Otherwise it will never learn to use its powers.” . . .

“You’re saying the child isn’t evil of itself?” [Aziraphale] said slowly.

“Potentially evil.  Potentially good, too, I suppose. Just this huge powerful potentiality, waiting to be shaped.” said Crowley” (Gaiman 58).  

Given that Adam the Antichrist grew up in the absence of any supernatural influence, he naturally became a very pure and innocent child who only wanted save the environment and read conspiracy theory magazines. In fact, unaware of his power and heritage, he was involuntarily at fault for the rise of Atlantis and the visitations of aliens. His deep love for the planet also allowed for his subconscious to grow rain forests in the thick of cities and to turn 500 tons of Uranium into a lemon drop. In a book that satirizes the meanings of good and evil, it is very ironic that the Antichrist has the greatest amount of love to give. As observed by local witch, Anathema: “Something or someone loves this place. Loves every inch of it so powerfully that it shields and protects it. A deep-down, huge, fierce love. How can anything bad start here?” (Gaiman 229). It is reiterated several times throughout the book that humans are their own worst enemy. They are the ones who have free will, therefore they choose whether to act good or evil. Demons and angels have no choice in this respect. Gaiman and Pratchett make clear to their audience that humans must value their free will, spread love and live life to its fullest. If the Antichrist can do it, so can you.

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When reflecting on the comedic success of Good Omens, one can conclude that Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett are masters at their craft. This wonderfully composed work of fiction succeeds in satirizing the inner workings of human nature in that the supernatural can do no worse to humans than humans already do to themselves. Stylistically, Gaiman and Pratchett create a casual environment that highlights the absurd events by using techniques such as irony, mood, and repetition. The result is a clever and profound lesson on the importance of love in the human experience taught not by those who are human, but those who act with the most humanity.

[alligaytorrr-reviews]

A Retrospective on Ace Attorney: Dual Destinies

               Being someone whose online presence began in 2006, gaining a peripheral knowledge of the Ace Attorney series was unavoidable. Still, I knew relatively little for quite a while: I knew that there were attorneys, and that two of them were named Phoenix Wright and Miles Edgeworth; I knew (from the many memes) of “Objection!”; and I knew that at one point, Phoenix cross-examines a parrot. This, along with its popularity in general, was enough to give me a mild interest in the series, but not one strong enough to inspire me to ever make the effort to try it out, at least not until that effort became considerably easier with the release of a free demo for Dual Destinies on the Nintendo 3DS eShop. Everything about this demo instantly endeared the series to me: the immediately charming characters, the excellently funny writing, and the series’ hallmark rush of endorphins from uncovering a lie and watching a cornered witness squirm. I had been in the market for something new to play, as I would shortly be spending three months studying abroad and knew in my down time I’d want the comfort of sitting in bed with my 3DS, and this demo solidified Ace Attorney as that something new. Being about to leave the country, I unfortunately had no time to track down a physical copy of the then-nine-year-old first game in the series, limiting my selection to what was available through the 3DS eShop: Dual Destinies.

                Dual Destinies, being the fifth main entry in the series, is by no means an entry point. But it was mine, and I fell in love with it. My first playthrough was overwhelmingly positive. I was enamored with everything about it, completely surprised to learn that beneath the often wacky exterior, both of the characters and the plot, there was a real depth to the game. I even considered it among my top ten favorites of all time. Later in the year, Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney Trilogy would release on the 3DS eShop, and I would also acquire a copy of Apollo Justice: Ace Attorney. Through playing them, I would learn that this depth is the core of the series’ identity – that is, fun, lighthearted, and clever murder mysteries hiding truly emotional storytelling and excellent character arcs. I would also learn that all of those games were better at this than Dual Destinies, as my second playthrough of it was overwhelmingly unremarkable. My third playthrough, just recently completed, seemingly confirmed this and resulted in a 3,500 word critical essay exploring how the game shoots itself in the foot by attempting to do to much and succeeding at none of it. Yet, unbelievably, as I spent this time elaborating on my negative feelings, I found I had more to say about my positive ones. This doesn’t mean the game doesn’t do too much, because, oh, it does. But there’s just enough good in Dual Destinies that the end result is not one that entirely fails to succeed at what it attempts, just one that fails to capitalize fully on its potential.

               To understand Dual Destinies, it’s necessary to understand where the Ace Attorney series stood just before its release. The original trilogy of games is frequently and rightfully lauded for its stunningly well done ending, which manages to neatly wrap up major plot points and give nearly every character arc a satisfying conclusion – namely, that of main character Phoenix Wright. For all intents and purposes, Ace Attorney could have ended right there, and series creator Shu Takumi indeed intended as much. When it was decided that a new game would be produced, however, Takumi smartly breathed life into it by introducing an almost entirely new cast for what became Apollo Justice: Ace Attorney: newcomer lawyer Apollo Justice, along with a new investigation partner, detective, prosecutor, and… Phoenix Wright. Phoenix’s inclusion came at the insistence of Takumi’s colleagues and against his wishes, but I’m of the opinion that the final product works. Thanks to a seven-year timeskip, the game avoids stepping on the toes of his character arc from the original trilogy while managing to still do interesting things with him. His role as mentor to Apollo creates a fine (if not strictly necessary) through line for the series, and the overarching plot of him having been set up to lose his attorney’s badge and working to prove his innocence is a good one. Some complain that Apollo himself never really does much in the game, and this isn’t an inaccurate assessment, but a protagonist whose agency is constantly usurped by people with a better grasp of what’s going on is a great setup for interesting character development. Only, the game never really feels like it’s making that point (and, spoiler alert: Dual Destinies does nothing with that, specifically, either). Rather, the problem is not that Apollo lacks agency in and of itself, but that he lacks agency specifically because at the end of the day, this is not his game – it’s Phoenix’s.

               It’s for this reason – that Apollo Justice is not really a story about Apollo Justice – that Dual Destinies raises eyebrows with its first moments. Granted, Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney is not so much about Phoenix as it is about Miles Edgeworth, but unlike Dual Destinies, its sequel, Ace Attorney: Justice for All, doesn’t immediately introduce a new playable character. This character is Athena Cykes, a fledgling attorney who stands out well enough, being more energetic and chipper than Phoenix or Apollo. The setup for this case, Turnabout Countdown, is one of the more interesting for an introductory episode: a courtroom has been bombed, Apollo’s injuries sustained in the bombing make him unable to lead the case at the last minute, and Athena is thrust into the courtroom alone with her childhood friend’s freedom on the line. The game uses the same shortcut as it has in Phoenix Wright and Apollo Justice to help the player connect with Athena (that is, making her terribly nervous) and as a whole, she’s a fine character. It’s nothing about Athena herself that causes unease – it’s the fact that her existing at all begs the question of whether or not Apollo with get justice (pardon the pun) in this game, and if Athena is doomed to suffer the same fate that he did in his debut. The game spares no time compounding these fears, as Athena, struggling in court, is soon saved by none other than Phoenix Wright, who takes over as the playable character halfway through the episode. Not even a full episode into the game, it begs the question of how it will manage to be all that it wants to be: sequel to Apollo Justice, introduction of Athena Cykes, and return of Phoenix Wright. Already, it feels like Apollo has been shoved aside for Athena, who is soon shoved aside for Phoenix. The game will eventually do interesting things with all three, but it never quite assuages the suspicion that it could’ve done better had it narrowed its focus.

               Turnabout Countdown now moves Athena into her alternate role as co-counsel (and investigation partner in later episodes), which causes the unfortunate shelving of Trucy Wright, whose relationship with Apollo after the previous game had plenty of unexplored territory that this game is uninterested in touching. For this loss, Athena offers something to gain: the Mood Matrix, this game’s new gimmick. This is a step up from Apollo’s Perceive ability as it involves some amount of critical thinking, but not much. The Mood Matrix is an admirable attempt to innovate and provide new gameplay for trial chapters, but unfortunately only seldom amounts to more difficult thought processes than “a witness wouldn’t normally feel happy when something bad is happening” and “a witness wouldn’t normally feel surprised when nothing surprising is happening.” Additionally, the explanation for how Athena makes it work is a bit goofy – it relies on her “special hearing” and “listening to a witness’ heart,” which feel like clunky ways to describe hyper empathy. Coupled with the sensory overload she’s described as having experienced as a child, it seems obvious Athena could be autistic, but the game doesn’t confirm this, which is a missed opportunity, especially when it results in such awkward ways of describing her “special ability.” The Mood Matrix has no penalty for wrong answers, so in the few instances where there’s a semblance of a challenge to these segments, a guessing game suffices, which doesn’t help it feel like any more of a worthwhile addition to the game. While on the topic of penalties, this episode provides the first opportunity to experience the excellent quality of life improvement to Game Overs, no longer bumping you back to the last save point, but simply starting over from the point where the player failed. Having to hold the B button to skip through a mountain of text you’ve already read has always been more of an annoyance than a fitting punishment. The penalty system is effectively meaningless because of this, but it can still serve as a personal measure of skill, which is ultimately for the better.

               The Monstrous Turnabout turns the clock back to show how Apollo (playable this time – a relief) and Athena first meet. Like all “filler episodes,” this provides an opportunity to enjoy some character interactions and have their personalities shine. It feels the most like it belongs in a sequel to Apollo Justice out of any episode in the game, starting with Apollo and Trucy taking a casual trip together, before Apollo is once again turned into errand boy, tasked with tracking down new hire, Athena. The fact that Phoenix has been traveling and looking out for new recruits is a nice detail that fits well with the mentor role he took on in Apollo Justice, and as Ace Attorney has always had a found family aspect to it, seeing the Wright Anything Agency expand is welcome. Plus, Apollo and Athena play off each other well, so though it’s unfortunate to see Trucy out of the spotlight, this episode is an overall win in terms of characterization. The case itself, despite featuring the novel premise of a murderous yokai, is mostly unremarkable. It, like all second episodes, begins the inclusion of investigation chapters, which are disappointingly neutered in this game. While other entries have occasionally whisked you away to your next destination, much of where to go and who to talk to was left up to the player. This game constantly ferries you around to exactly where you need to be, which may have been an attempt to streamline and avoid frustration, but ends up robbing the player of a sense that they’re leading the investigation on their own. None of this is helped by the fact that the Examine option is now restricted to only vital areas, especially a shame because all the scenes in the game are beautifully rendered and look great with the 3DS’s stereoscopic 3D turned on too. This case is also the first to show off the new Revisualization mechanic, which tends to come at the end of a case where a previous game would have had a character talk through “turning the case around” and is a fun way of adding visual flair to those moments.

              The most important contribution from this case, though, is the debut of new prosecutor, Simon Blackquill. As with every prosecutor following the first game, he’s equal parts actual character as he is gimmick. This time around, the gimmick is that Blackquill is a convicted felon, standing in court with shackles and having to rely on his pet hawk to deliver evidence and harass others in the room, as opposed to, say, a whip or a cup of coffee. It’s a fun new idea, and the moments where he inevitably breaks out of his shackles in each episode are consistently entertaining. He’s additionally accompanied by his minder and new detective for the game, Bobby Fulbright. It’s unfortunate to not have endlessly unhappy, but always amusing Ema Skye return from Apollo Justice, but Fulbright is a solid replacement. His “commitment to justice” schtick is grating, but in a good way, making him sufficiently annoying but easily enough manipulated into being valuable for the defense’s investigations.

              Now is the best time to talk about the DLC case, since after the second episode is the best time to play it. For Ace Attorney’s first foray into paid DLC, this is definitely a success. It enriches the main game, but the five episodes that comprise Dual Destinies are by all means a complete story on their own. For its price and length, it’s certainly worthwhile, especially given that Turnabout Reclaimed is the best case in Dual Destinies. It tells the story of Phoenix’s first case after regaining his attorney’s badge, so I’ll take this opportunity to say that this is a great plot point. The ending of Apollo Justice hinted that it would happen, and it just feels right to see Phoenix back in his iconic blue suit (especially with a spiffy update that helps sell his role as an older, seasoned mentor). As with everything in this game, though, it feels like a plot point that would have been better served by having more time and focus devoted to it, rather than sharing the stage with the development of two more protagonists. Ignoring that, it’s an excellent case on its own. Taking on the defense of an orca in court feels like only a logically step for Phoenix, and in an obvious callback to one of the best moments in the first game he even cross-examines the whale, though an earlier fake-out where you can either request to do the same, only to have your request shot down by the judge, or choose the correct option and have the judge express surprise that you didn’t make the request, cheapens its impact a bit. Sasha Buckler, the second defendant in the case, is the most likeable defendant in the game (besides Athena, anyway), and Marlon Rimes is the only culprit with any degree of pathos this time around. A revenge plot against a whale is a little silly, but at least it’s something, and it’s nice to see Rimes’ coworkers sympathize with his grief and welcome him back to the aquarium openly. More than the rest of the game’s episodes, it feels like it tells an impactful story on its own, something that makes for the best Ace Attorney cases. Pearl Fey also makes a return here, with welcome confirmation that she and Phoenix have remained friends over the eight years since her last appearance, but her personality is bafflingly untouched despite having last been seen as a nine-year-old. Considering the traumatic events she experienced at the end of Ace Attorney: Trials and Tribulations, this is disappointing. Truthfully though, exploring her character any further would have only made an already-bloated game feel even more stuffed.

              Periodically, Dual Destinies has been making references to the so-called “dark age of the law.” This is ostensibly a major plot point, but in practice is more the vague idea of a plot point. The game cites the fact that a felon is serving as a prosecutor as evidence of this “dark age,” but this fails to sell the idea well when Blackquill doesn’t particularly stand out among the series’ existing cast of equally wacky prosecutors. It also claims that Phoenix’s case at the center of Apollo Justice’s story, where he presents forged evidence, helped usher in the “dark age,” which at least means that these two games have something to do with each other, but Phoenix never appears to feel any responsibility for this until the end of the game, so it too falls flat. The only time the game actually properly shows what this “dark age” entails is during Turnabout Academy, which is the episode’s strongest point. Professor Aristotle Means, with his “the ends justify the means” preaching, feels like an embodiment of actually tangible ramifications of the “dark age.” That attorneys shamelessly forge evidence to win their cases is bad, but that Means is successfully indoctrinating high school students into his mindset shows the sorry state of the Ace Attorney world’s legal system far better.

              Means is instantly hateable, and his ideological differences with victim Constance Courte make him particularly suspect, but the writing does a good job of forcing doubt that anyone could have done it but Juniper Woods, Hugh O’Conner, or Robin Newman. The case constantly jerks you around as the three friends pile lies upon lies in their attempts to take the fall for each other. This is never as emotionally impactful as the game desperately hopes it is, but it makes for a fun case where it’s hard to find your footing, and it’s satisfying when you prove they’re all innocent and get to take down Means, the true culprit. This is chronologically the first case where Athena leads the defense, though it feels as though the themes and character beats could have been the culmination of her character arc. Means frequently sowing doubt in her that she’ll be able to save all three friends without resorting to his underhanded tactics is a fitting challenge for her as a brand new lawyer. It makes for great character development as she remains determined to do things the right way and proves her capabilities to herself when she succeeds.

              The game now moves on to its penultimate case, though in actuality The Cosmic Turnabout and the next, Turnabout for Tomorrow, are one large case cut in two. The only notable parts of The Cosmic Turnabout specifically are that it’s the second instance of a bait-and-switch where one lawyer (Apollo this time) starts out the case only to have Phoenix come along and take over, which is frustrating even if it makes sense for story reasons, and the reveal at the last minute that Athena is the only suspect that fits your argument, which is an excellently disheartening moment. Besides those points, these two episodes are best talked about as a whole. Wrapping up the game, they attempt to do nearly all of the legwork for character development, which is far from a new occurrence in Ace Attorney, but no finale has ever had three attorneys and a prosecutor to tackle all at once. Despite this, it’s a great case that, through what could only be a divine miracle, manages to do all of this to some satisfactory degree, though it begs the question yet again of what it could have accomplished if only Dual Destinies would ever stop trying to do so much. In a way, it’s a microcosm of how the game holds itself back.

              Turnabout for Tomorrow begins with an investigation chapter featuring Phoenix and daughter Trucy. This is wonderful – Phoenix has always felt like he fit the role of a dad since as early as Justice for All, but it’s nice to have this dedicated father/daughter bonding time, something that hadn’t happened yet. They eventually come upon Apollo conducting his own investigation, having taken a leave of absence from the Wright Anything Agency to pursue the killer of his friend, Clay Terran, alone due to his personal connection to the case. This is the game attempting to provide a backstory for Apollo, but for the most part, the game is content to do little more than say that Apollo did indeed have a friend named Clay, show a brief flashback of the two as middle school students, and hope that it suffices. It doesn’t, but it serves as an excuse for Apollo to potentially be at odds with Phoenix, which provides decent drama and facilitates good development later in the episode. At this point, Trucy decides to stay with Apollo because she’s worried about him, which is an appreciated reminder that the two have a meaningful relationship, even if the rest of the game doesn’t care to explore it, but it does unfortunately cut short the time Phoenix gets to spend with her.

              After this, Phoenix returns to the office alone for one of the best moments in the game. He’s lost the trust of one of his employees and his own argument in court helped implicate the other in a crime. It’s a low point, by his own account the loneliest he’s felt since the start of his career, until he finds a letter from his friend and former assistant Maya Fey, reminding him that even without anybody physically by his side, he’s not truly alone. It’s a moment that could only happen to Phoenix now, as he reminisces about years gone by and reflects on how he’s handled his role as a mentor, which is what makes it so spectacular. It feels like proof that there are still interesting things to be done with the character. The strength of this scene is dampened a bit when it turns out that Maya’s letter doubles as an excuse for Pearl to show up. Having Phoenix investigate on his own, determined to do right by his employees, could have been powerful, but Pearl is here instead, presumably for no reason other than that fans like Pearl. Soon after, another familiar face returns, in the form of Miles Edgeworth. This is more forgivable, as it makes sense that the chief prosecutor would involve himself in a case concerning an international spy, and he’s a more fittingly challenging final opponent for Phoenix than Blackquill would have been.

              The investigation ends with Athena producing five black Psyche-Locks, a moment that feels like a genuine defeat. Despite spending the game with her, she’s still a relatively new character that the player doesn’t really know too much about, and it’s hard not to question if she may have just been responsible for her mother’s murder after all. It’s a fantastic setup for the excellent trial chapters making use of Edgeworth that follow it. Somehow, after all these years Ace Attorney has never managed (perhaps intentionally) to unseat Edgeworth as the prosecutor who is most in control and confident, and the way that he constantly turns Phoenix’s logic back around to prove his own assertions creates a lot of tension between the player’s attachment to Athena and uncertainty about the truth. It’s a direct reflection of Phoenix’s feelings, and it’s times like this where the player’s and the player character’s emotions are in sync that are Ace Attorney at its finest. The focus of these chapters is an exploration of Athena’s past and her trauma, which isn’t the most nuanced, though probably best for a game that wants to stay mostly relatively lighthearted. Besides, it’s already heart wrenchingly painful to watch her have what appears to be panic attacks throughout the game. The bulk of Athena’s character development comes from this, with Phoenix helping her to overcome her trauma. It’s good enough, but for a playable character, it feels like too much of this development comes at the hands of Phoenix powering through the case to uncover the truth. It feels more befitting of a supporting character, which Athena is not.

              Prosecutor Blackquill also receives his backstory here, revealing that he intentionally accepted a false conviction for the murder of Athena’s mother in order to protect Athena as well as the evidence that would help him take down the elusive true culprit. His concern for Athena makes him an immediately more likeable person, and his method of laying in wait for seven years to take down the criminal who wronged him draws obvious parallels to Phoenix and Kristoph Gavin in Apollo Justice, which sets the stage well as the two work together in the final chapter to put an end to the “dark age of the law” that their cases ushered in. The parallel, and even Phoenix’s culpability for helping cause the “dark age,” is never elaborated on as much as it could be, but this conclusion ties together Apollo Justice and Dual Destinies with an overarching plot that works. At this point it’s also revealed that the real Bobby Fulbright is dead, and has been impersonated by the spy and murderer of Athena’s mother known as “the phantom” all along. This twist isn’t particularly impactful as it doesn’t recontextualize much about Fulbright’s behavior aside from his willingness to help the defense.

              None of this, however, comes before Apollo gets his development too. This sequence is excellent, which makes it something of a tragedy. If Apollo’s arc had been laid out more gradually and his backstory fleshed out more, rather than it all coming at the tail end of the game, this might have been even more powerful. Still, what’s there is great: this is Apollo’s moment to decide what being a lawyer means to him, and it helps to define him more clearly as a character apart from Phoenix. This is Apollo’s answer to Phoenix’s Farewell, My Turnabout from Justice for All, which is to say it pushes his beliefs to an extreme and challenges him to reexamine what he stands for. For Phoenix, his unwavering belief in his clients is put to the test when he learns that he’s defending an unquestionably guilty man, forcing him to learn to balance that belief with the pursuit of the truth. For Apollo, his endless pursuit of the truth narrows his view to the point that he doubts even his own friend’s innocence, something he shows he desperately doesn’t want with the best line in the game: “It’s fine, Mr. Wright… even a bluff would suit me just fine…” This singular moment does more for Apollo’s character than the entirety of his own game and the rest of Dual Destinies, and it’s ever so satisfying.

              It was at this point when originally writing this essay that I realized I had made a terrible, terrible mistake. I had set out to discuss every way Dual Destinies sets itself up for failure in its lofty hopes of doing more than it was capable of, yet as I went through, case-by-case, and examined what worked and what didn’t, I discovered that there was a solid story here and that each of its protagonists is developed – if only a little. Originally, I had thought Apollo got the short end of the stick, receiving only one case that didn’t contribute to any sort of character arc and a paper-thin backstory. What I didn’t see was that the game does manage to use it to facilitate some amount of meaningful growth, even if it comes at the very end of the game. I started to think that maybe Athena was the worst off, and given that she’s supposed to be a main character on par with Phoenix or Apollo, I’m inclined to maintain that view, but as a character, divorced from expectations, her story is a touching one. And as for Phoenix, the game shows that his continued relevance has value.

              With one final, fist-pumping-ly exciting triple objection from our lawyers, Dual Destinies just about reaches its end and demonstrates what the game is really about. To some extent, it’s the continuation of Apollo Justice, challenging Apollo to develop as a lawyer. To some extent, it’s the introduction of Athena Cykes, exploring who she is and how she comes to stand confidently in court. And to some extent, it’s the return of Phoenix Wright, as he learns to serve his role as mentor and right the wrongs of his past. Maybe it should have been only one of those things – a more focused story might have made bigger strides for the characters’ development. But above all, Dual Destinies is a story of all three as a team. Unlike how Apollo Justice centered Phoenix over Apollo, no one character outshines both the others this time; each character’s growth is built off their relationships with the each other. Regardless of if this was the right direction, it was the direction nonetheless. In the end, for all its unused potential, Dual Destinies is at the very least, an Ace Attorney game through and through. The themes of discovering who one is and figuring out what one stands for are as present as they’ve ever been, even if they don’t get exactly as much time and attention as they deserve. The game is overly ambitious, certainly, but it crams enough goodness to just barely make it work – that, if nothing else, is an admirable feat.

[filmista]

Lost In Translation (2003)

“You’re probably just having a midlife crisis. Did you buy a Porsche yet?”

Lost in Translation, Sofia Coppola’s second feature film seems to prove that talent does perhaps lie in the genes to some degree, after all, her attempt at acting with her father directing her, proved unsuccessful and earned her a Razzie.

It was just like her father with directing that she would find her way in life, her passion and she probably certainly picked up some elements from her father’s filming style.

I think that’s only normal when you literally grow up in that world, for instance when her father made Apocalypse Now she was taken along with her dad and her mom. So ever since she was a little girl she has seen her father behind the camera, of course, that was going to have an influence on her.

Her first ever film was The Virgin Suicides, which I think is a good adaptation of the book with the same name, and while some consider it her masterpiece, for me up until now and according to many others as well that’s Lost In Translation.

Lost In Translation is one of my all-time favorite films and one of those films that I can keep on revisiting time after time I think I’ve seen it about eight times by now, not sure exactly, definitely many times.

It’s one of those films that makes me calm when I’m watching it, I can watch it when I’m really agitated and I’ll be calm after just a few minutes of watching the film…

I find that there’s something soothing and comforting in the familiarity of the emotions and the feelings of the two main characters. There’s something universal about the things they feel, most of us have felt like at least either one of the characters at least once in our lives.

Visually Coppola is calm, there’s great attention to the aesthetic of the environment and Coppola shows us her two characters and their dynamic naturally so that when we feel like we know them, they really almost have become real people and it really, actually almost hurts to say goodbye to them.

While Coppola takes her time, and while at first sight not really that much seems to happen at all, there’s really many different subjects and the human emotions attached to them explored. While Sofia’s father Francis Ford Coppola, is sometimes poetic in the brutality in his films; he makes violent stuff look extremely beautiful and pleasing to the eyes.

She, on the other hand, is sometimes brutal, in the calmness of which she shows us certain emotional states with such spot on, merciless precision. In a way succeeds in making you feel like her characters, or getting that certain emotion, that you already had in you out of you.

Lost in Translation for me at least, is a film that can make you feel utterly alone even if you may be watching it with an entire classroom. Because it painfully confronts with the fact that few people really truly care about us and know us, and that certain subjects are really truly explored best with strangers, who for a particular moment in time, might connect with us deeply, perhaps better than anyone has before…

So while Lost In Translation seems to be about not all that much at first glance, it treats relationships, difficulties in marriage, or feeling alone next to your partner, your friends even your family. Feeling completely alone in the world even when you are next to people because you can’t really talk about what really matters to you, or fully share the things that occupy your mind the most.

Or being tired of the repetitiveness that may inevitably to some degree come with certain things in your life like your profession, or on the contrary being young, inexperienced when it comes to certain things, and feeling hopeless and scared.

Because you don’t yet know how It’s all going to work, and you fear that it might not even work at all, and being awake and unable to sleep at night because It’s all mulling around in your head, driving you insane…

Now, in this case, all this angst, insomnia and loneliness, are felt by two Americans, (but they could literally be from any country) a middle-aged actor who’s very likely experiencing a middle life crisis, and a young woman.

That doesn’t fully know what she wants to be and how she should live her life, she is somewhat impulsive and has tried her hand at numerous things, and now slowly comes to realize she may have married the wrong man.

That he doesn’t really know her, or even sees or cares about what goes on in her mind, and that he probably won’t ever do so, she has a deep depression; her husband can’t even tell his wife is suffering on the inside…

He has more in common with an airhead starlet (who my intuition suspects he was having an affair with, why else wouldn’t want his wife to come with, if there’s nothing to hide?, according to him It’s because she’ll get bored) who stars in bad films and he seems to love his camera and his own ego more than her.

She’s afraid she’s never going to have a purpose, that she’s never going to find a place, her niche in the world, something that fits her and that fulfills her. She’s afraid she’s never going to amount to anything, and that she’s never going to be fully loved, that no one is ever going to see and hear her.

He’s tired, afraid that It’s all been for nothing, that he’s never been much at all, and that his wife doesn’t really get him, and that he perhaps wasn’t ever fully loved, he doesn’t see the sense and the purpose in it all anymore. These two people find each other, meet and they connect, in each other, they find comfort and support.

They find someone who has tolerance, patience and who wants to listen, someone who perhaps doesn’t necessarily offer that many solutions, but who understands how the other feels completely and who won’t ever judge.

With each other they talk about all that stuff that they can’t talk about with anyone else because those people press for details, they criticize and judge, from the existing perspective that they have on them, not even always with bad intentions.

Bill Murray plays Bob Harris, an actor who parts with ill-concealed reluctance to Tokyo to film a commercial for whiskey. In fact, he would rather be on stage, but as he would later say, “This gave me the chance to escape from my wife, miss the birthday of my child and to pocket two million dollars.”

Let’s say that Bob has become a bit cynical about his profession. But the whiskey does at least what it should do, and Bob retires at the chic hotel bar where he resides, lonely, sad and almost continuously drunk.

There, he meets Charlotte (Scarlett Johansson), a young woman who has just graduated and now does not know what to do next. She is in Tokyo with her husband, a photographer for whom she is clearly a burden, and while he goes to work, she spends, just like Bob, too much time alone.

In her room in the crazy, chaotic city that Tokyo is apparently,  and in the hotel bar, where she meets Bob. The two differ thirty years in age, but together they finally find some kind of support and understanding. During the next few days, they disappear into the city together, and they talk about their life, marriage, children and all those things which you can apparently only discuss fully with strangers.

Coppola’s personal experiences color the whole film - she travels to Japan, her (notoriously) failed marriage with director Spike Jonze, her background as a photographer … From beginning to end you feel that this is a very personal project, you sense that she was in a way trying to rid herself of some of her demons.

She is not interested in telling a traditional story - she just has these two characters, who she knows through and through like they’re her own children and she wants to present them to us and share them with us. Coppola knows how to lead us into the life of Bob and Charlotte, and by the end of the ride, we know them they are our friends.

How does she do that? First, she gives the two characters time to spend alone in some scenes. We see Charlotte sitting melancholy, lonely in front of her huge, panoramic window or lying on her bed, always in a fetal position.

Hugging herself, as if to protect herself against all that is outside her room, and maybe also as a way to console herself. Because her husband won’t ever do it and won’t give her, the whole measure of affection she needs and craves and in my eyes deserves!

The last time they slept together literally seems ages ago, and they’ve unfortunately only been married two years… she tries, but she only receives a sporadical hug or a sporadical kiss once or twice a day, if he remembers or cares to do it at all.

Her husband might just as well not have been there, and when they come together with friends, we are seeing her almost out of her mind, visibly suffering from the banality of their “hip” actually painfully self-righteous, egotistical conversations. And no one sees it… Fundamentally she is alone, and Coppola gives her, especially at the beginning of the film, the time to be alone.

She needs that, otherwise, her later scenes with Bob wouldn’t have worked as well. Visually Coppola stressed that feeling by always surrounding Charlotte with vertical lines, the space in which she is located, seems to make her smaller, and gives off a claustrophobic, stifling feeling.

Bob gets more of the same, almost psychopathic of the jet-lag and sleep deprivation, he is overwhelmed and exhausted by the relentless, somewhat practiced, friendliness of everyone around him. But no one with whom he can talk. Tokyo as a city is also not very helpful for our hero and our heroine.

From the hotel rooms to the streets, the metropolis comes out here as a kind of hellish amusement park for adults, full of neon lights, where technology has swept away all sense of humanity and personality

Early scenes in the film, in which Bob is woken up at night by a fax machine, and in which he delivers a desperate fight with a shower and a training device are particularly funny - but on another level at the same time yet again very sad.

Bob arises from this as a man who could be funny and hugely charming but who doesn’t feel like it anymore, doesn’t see the sense in it anymore and Bill Murray knows precisely how to play him.

Murray is probably the only Saturday Night Live (I’ve actually never seen an episode, not that it isn’t available in the cave in which I’m living, I just never have for whatever reason, but I know Murray appeared on it ), comedian from the eighties who has prevailed in both comedic and dramatic roles and has retained his credibility. And here he is smart enough not to be overtly funny, that would have been distasteful.

That would not fit his character at all. Lost In Translation is often a  genuinely hilarious film, but the humor comes precisely from the way Murray responds to the very different behavior of the Japanese in a somewhat undercooled way. A people that he does not understand, he does not understand the language and customs.

Scarlett Johansson is just as understatedly, silently powerful, at the time of filming she was only eighteen, nineteen years old, but she plays emotions and thoughts that are older than that, without losing her credibility. As a couple, the opportunity of a sexual relationship is presented right from the beginning, but no.

That obvious trap, is avoided skillfully, elegantly the whole story would have fallen dead if the two had gone to bed with each other since all the tension between the characters would have disappeared. And the tension between the characters there is it crackles between Murray and Johansson from their first to their last scene.

Especially they’re last. The farewell that they share is one of the nicest, most sincere emotional scenes I’ve seen in a film in a long time, Lost In Translation ends with a kiss and Murray’s character that whispers something in Johanson’s ear and her saying okay, then she is teary-eyed and smiling simultaneously.

We never know what he whispered, and you do not need to because we know that it was something positive, otherwise she would not smile at him would she? And they feel so real that they deserve their privacy.

The kiss they share is not intended to turn each other on sexually, no foreplay and sex will follow even though it is right in the mouth. It is a calm, friendly, kind of kiss, there’s no get your shirt and your pants off right now! the urgency to it, it is a sort of kiss between friends which literally says: I love you, thanks for everything, I will never forget you, I will miss you.

There are many people that say that what Bob and Charlotte have is an affair of the mind, an emotional affair. they can’t find emotional understanding and support with their own spouse, they don’t sleep with each other, but they get intimate in a mental way, they share the stuff with each other that’s on their minds that their spouse doesn’t have the time for.

Murray’s character at one point has a one night stand, It’s not with Charlotte, and It’s only sex, nothing more to it for him, it was to fulfill a sexual need, with Charlotte he fulfills an emotional need. Charlotte comes to know about the one night stand, and seems a little annoyed, perhaps even somewhat jealous and hurt, perhaps she in that instant wanted to be that other woman, or it could even be anger at the other woman for taking Bob away from her, even if it was only for a few hours.

To some degree there is the attraction there, otherwise, she would not have reacted the way she did:

- Charlotte: “She’s older. At least you’ll have lots to talk about…” - Bob: “I can’t believe you couldn’t find anyone else to lavish you with attention.”She then after Bob’s answer, brusquely takes the menu, almost buries her face in it, turns away from Bob and refuses to face him for a while. No woman reacts like this with a man she doesn’t give a fuck about, or perhaps she’s silently judging him for having cheated on his wife.

There’s definitely an attraction of the mind, they think and feel alike and probably to some degree physical attraction, but they respect each other too much to ever act on it.

And after a while when they get to know each other fully, the sexual tension that might have been there seemingly has dissipated, they no longer feel any need to sleep with each other, It’s about being intimate on a level that goes beyond pure physical contact.

They find an understanding with each other that they don’t have with their spouse, in a good relationship or good marriage, your partner should be able to satisfy both your bodily and your mental needs, ideally, in a perfect, beautiful utopia.

To put it like this: Good sex every now and again, a good conversation, a genuine exchange of thoughts or a nice trip to some museum or a good dinner at a restaurant. If the latter is left unsatisfied and you go to another man or woman for that is that cheating? According to some people, it is.

I think It’s the case if It’s really constantly like that… But you can’t think like that all the time, because then any really good friendship, of the kind where the two people share all that’s on their own mind, between a man and a woman can be regarded as a form of cheating.

And that would incredibly limit people in their relationships with each other and even their way of viewing the world, men and women can learn from each other, help and support each other, so if you demonize they’re being friends, only friends literally a whole world of beautiful, enriching possibilities fall away…

Through Bob Charlotte really begins to realize that she married the wrong man because in this man she finds what she’s been missing emotionally, there’s a theory that what Bob whispers to the end to Charlotte is something along the lines of:

Tell that man the truth, or you do the right thing and you tell that man the truth, meaning that she should ask him for a divorce because she feels unloved. I don’t know if he directly said that, and it doesn’t matter because indirectly he has made her realize it, and Charlotte has also made Bob realize certain things.

And maybe if there hadn’t been that 30-year difference between them, both would have divorced and ended up together, but I don’t think so. What they had was just a genuine, deep friendship that lasted for a certain time, and they both helped each other realize certain things.

As I’ve said before they don’t really offer many solutions, because both are lost in their own way, but they reassure each other. Make each other feel better and make the perspective of what’s to come lighter, bearable they have given each other a renewed mental strength because now they both know that is possible to be understood by someone else.

There’s no doubt that they love each other but It’s as friends, there’s initially a few scenes where they seem somewhat physically attracted to each other, but as time progresses, it evolves and moves past that, in a way that feels completely unforced and believable.

It is possible for a man and a woman to love each other, in a non-physical way, for instance the love that a father feels for his daughter, (if there’s certain physical stuff going on there, something’s very seriously wrong) or that a brother feels for his sister, or that a son feels for his mother, it is not the same as a couple’s love, but it is strong and it is love nonetheless….

So I find what Coppola did really interesting, she doesn’t deny the possibility of a physical attraction (because maybe that to a certain extent is always gonna exist between a man a woman, that aren’t related, that’s simple biology) It’s explored a little, subtly but the characters accept the situation as it is and naturally move past that.

They no longer feel any need to consume the love they have for each other physically and they’re perfectly comfortable in each other’s company, they can stare into each other’s face for minutes and not feel the need to move in for the kiss.

Lost in Translation is a beautiful film, in every sense of the word and in all of its aspects. It’s a film with a sensitive yet acid, quite dark humor, a humor that’s based on loneliness and confusion.

It knows how to make busyness look calm and strangely serene in an almost otherworldly way. And how to capture the sometimes overwhelming emotion, the mental busyness of calmness, of utter tranquility. Of being completely on your own, or sitting by yourself and hearing your own thoughts deafeningly loud in your head.

In its cinematography and soundtrack, it adapts to the mood of its characters with ease, reflecting the city and the places that surround the characters according to their emotional perception, often by playing with contrasts. Coppola knows how to capture both pieces of mind and feeling locked in and stuck, just with her camera, while all the way preserving a tranquil, though never tiresome pace.

One of my favorite scenes: an attempt at conversation between Murray and an old Japanese man in a waiting room of a hospital. The Japanese man is incessantly talking, Murray understands zero, but agrees calmly and nicely with everything the man says as if he spoke perfect Japanese.

In the background we see two extras choke with uncontrollable laughter, and immediately we get the impression that at the time it was not planned, that the two Japanese ladies had indeed gotten the giggles and that Coppola simply chose to keep it that scene. And rightly so, because it is a wonderful piece of spontaneous cinema.

Lost In Translation is emotional in a good way, captivating, witty, honest, intelligent, … you can still throw in a few more adjectives if you wish to but it remains without a doubt one of Sofia Coppola’s best and my personal favorite of hers.

“The more you know who you are, and what you want, the less you let things upset you.”

[popwasabi]

Remembering My Hero, Robin Williams, Five Years Later

Not terribly long ago I used to deride others for feeling sad in the wake of a famous celebrity’s death.

My argument would go something like in the grand scheme of things their deaths “didn’t matter” when compared to various other atrocities and terrible, tragic things going on in the world. I even wrote an entire opinion piece poo-pooing the general populace for being sad in the wake of Whitney Houston’s death waaay back in 2012 for my University paper back in the day all largely because since I didn’t feel anything no one else should essentially.

Then Robin Williams died.

Well, more accurately Robin Williams committed suicide then everything changed for me.

To this day, I can’t recall a single death that has affected or beat me down more than this famous, larger than life comedian’s all too early passing and it still eats me up every time I think about it even five years later. You see, Robin was something of a hero of mine, an uber talented and charismatic funny man who seemed to perform his comedy with the kinetic energy of a hurricane and his humor often brightened my darkest moments growing up.

For him to die the way he did was beyond devastating for me.

Every 90s kid grew up on his various memorable performances. Whether it was “Aladdin” as the Genie, Peter Pan in “Hook” or masquerading as a nannie to win his family back in “Mrs. Doubtfire” we all had one performance that made us all fans early on.

(For some reason I always remember “Flubber” first though haha)

I didn’t start to truly appreciate him though until high school when I discovered his comic stand-up routines from his earlier years. 

Despite not growing up in 70s or 80s his humor was nonetheless electric, unlike any previous comic I had seen up until that point and his impressions of Ronald Reagan, Henry Kissinger and Richard Nixon are still among my favorites. Live at the Met is an all-time favorite comic stand-up performance and much later Live on Broadway still has one of the greatest closing jokes ever:

(”Harder than Chinese Algebra” is definitely a line I’ve used in my college years)

What I loved most about his performances was that he could be boisterous and sincere at the same time. Being both genuine and vulgar simultaneously and in the best way. Weave bizarre character references into personal tales of his own life. Tell a multitude of hilarious stories and references at 100 miles a minute like a comedic roller-coaster ride that lasted the duration of his performances and you never wanted to get off it. It’s true when Time Magazine referred to his comedy as something all comedians loved and respected but could never in a million years duplicate. Robin was a one of a kind talent, the penultimate original, and fans loved him for it.

Robin did his performances with such natural gusto and spontaneous hilarity that it might shock you to know he always wrote virtually every line of his stand-ups before his performances. To bring that humor to life with such infectious joy takes real talent and no one can ever deny Robin was one of the best if not the best at it.

The remarkable thing is on top of his stand-up the dude was an all-time great actor on top of that displaying ranges from as absurd as “Death to Smoochie”  and “World’s Greatest Dad” to as sensitive and thought provoking as “Good Will Hunting” and “Dead Poet’s Society.” Robin wasn’t afraid to show a darker side either in famous roles such as “Insomnia” and “One Hour Photo.” His range was simply amazing.

(Personally my favorite^)

Like many high-schoolers, I was angsty teenager prone to hormonal anger and twitches, depressed I couldn’t score girls and that I wasn’t popular but at the end of the day I always had Robin to cheer me up. 

As I became more and more a fan I’d read more into his life learning I actually had quite a few things in common with the famous funny man from a love of all things sci-fi including even anime and Warhammer to a deep appreciation of video games as he famously named his daughter Zelda after the titular Nintendo princess of the same name.

He was not just a comedian to me; he was one of us. America’s favorite funny, semi-secretly nerdy uncle and I loved him for it.

(The sweetest Nintendo commercial ever. #uglycrying)

I would carry my love of this magnificent comedian into college where I would routinely re-listen to his greatest hits when I was at my lowest of lows and boy did I have plenty of them during this period of my life and many of them revolved around suicide.

For reasons that are too personal to expand on, I had a friend who I was close with early in college who had some deep mental health and abandonment issues. She would constantly fear the worst out of others’ intentions and whether I would stick around with her to help her through it all in life. This put a heavy drain on myself and eventually it broke me enough to just attempt to cut her out of my life.

So, she threatened to kill herself when that happened.

If you’ve never tried talking someone down out of suicide before it is by far the scariest thing I have ever had to do and I wouldn’t wish it on anyone. To try to reason with someone who is convinced that their life is meaningless that no one cares about them that they are better off dead than alive is unlike any terror I’ve ever experienced. What scared me the most was what I would do with myself if I failed to talk her down. Could I live with myself if I couldn’t do enough to save this person? Is the blood on my hands too since it was my actions that drove her to this point?

Well, long story short, I did succeed in talking her down but it left a tremendous mark on my soul that I don’t think I’ll ever forget (it also would not be the last time this would happen). I did eventually move on from this person (for both our sakes) but the depression it left within in me still stings.

There are limits to emotional dependency that we should all understand and in my need to fix everything for those I cared about I started not to care about myself and it damn near killed me. You should always try to feel empathy and help those who are need but you can’t forget about yourself in this regard because it will destroy you too. Painfully and slowly.

That semester I listened to probably more Robin Williams than I ever had in the past. His humor keeping me from being an unfeeling zombie and my mind from breaking from the stress of that year (there were other events that compounded what was going on.) Robin kept me going, kept me laughing in a period I didn’t have a lot to feel joyful about and I’ll always be grateful to him for that.

Then a few years later, as well know now, on August 11, 2014 Robin took his own life.

Like most everyone else I was shocked, distraught, and in total disbelief. How could a man who had seemingly endless joy and lived by all measures a far more successful life than most people ever would feel the need to kill himself? 

It was tragic beyond comprehension.

The aftermath of course was an outpouring of love and support to the Williams family particularly his children but there was also the detractors as well. People who denounced him as some sort of coward for taking his own life, Christian zealots who believed he was rotting in hell for his sin and all matter of bad takes regarding him being too privileged to be depressed. It was infuriating and broke my heart all at once. Here was a man who more than most probably deserved a happy ending, dead by his own hands and now subjected to dumb moronic statements by people who probably will never understand what depression does to someone.

You’d would only need to a modest amount of research to understand where Robin’s depression could come from though. Despite growing up in an affluent household his father and mother were rarely there with him, raised practically by the maids in his household and by himself most of his childhood. He had survivor’s guilt for being in the same room John Belushi died in many decades prior (which would become a wake-up call for his own drug addictions). Also, he was great friends with the late Christopher Reeves who went to school with him Julliard and that shouldn’t require too much explaining there.

(Personal pain never stopped Robin from lampooning himself of course)

But the real death knell probably came at the end when months prior Robin’s suicide he was diagnosed with Lewy Body Dementia Association and early stages of Parkinson’s disease. Now anyone being diagnosed with these conditions would be devastating by itself but if you frame it in the mind of Robin Williams, a man who’s comedy and charm relies almost entirely on spontaneous-ness, extreme attention to detail and constant joy this is like losing the very thing that made you who are, what people love you for; your core identity. 

Robin was no longer going to be Robin.

I’m not asking people to like suicide or accept every instance of it but people should try to understand why and not judge others for it. Sometimes the demons are just too strong and we can’t fault others especially a mind as crippled as Robin’s was at the end.

If there’s one positive that came out of Robin’s suicide, it’s that the conversation on depression and mental health has notably shifted since that time. In the years since, it’s more acceptable now to feel sad no matter what your background is; you didn’t need to be a coal miner with black lung or a soldier with PSTD to be acceptably depressed anymore (and no, before any of you start I’m not judging those people). Athletes and celebrities alike such as Demar Derozan, Ryan Reynolds, Serena Williams, and Chris Evans have all come out about their own personal struggles with their inner demons. It’s now okay more than ever to feel inadequate even if on paper you have ever reason not to feel that way.

Though society hasn’t become completely understanding of mental health issues yet society is still a lot more open about it than it was before at least. It’s not a silver lining, don’t make that mistake with what I’m saying, but it’s comforting in a strange way knowing that even in death Robin can inspire positivity.

It’s a shame and tragic that Robin didn’t get age gracefully into his twilight years and given the current state of the country and the world as a whole we could definitely use that trademark wit to lampoon our reality right now but I’m glad that Robin helped keep me going in my most formative years.

(I mean seriously though, could you imagine Robin getting a crack at this motherfucker today on stage?)

It’s not hyperbole to call Robin Williams one of the greatest entertainers of all-time and though his time in this world was cut short by his own hand he has still left an indelible mark on myself, his fans and the rest of the world. Depression and mental health is a fact of life, generally speaking all of us will struggle with it at some point but if we can get help early and not be afraid to ask for it or even cry for it then maybe the world won’t feel so dark for us all.

So please, let’s all remember to take care of ourselves whether that’s seeking friends or professional guidance. There is strength in sadness, power in grief and love when you are lonely. You owe it to yourself to seek help and trust me, there’ll be arms open to bring you in.

Because you matter.

Thanks, Captain.

[perispinel]

Mellowframes Review: Is it Funny?

@mellowfilmmaker: This is not meant as a diss on you or your opinions on the show, and I can tell you do put work into making these high quality- this is just meant as some criticism, as I don’t think parodies are immune to it either. And if Steven Universe deserves it, so does a parody of Steven Universe! So let’s jump into it!

Now, just to make things fair so I don’t seem like I’m just using this as a rant, I’m going to be referring to examples of funny Mellowframes comics in my eyes and discuss why I think they succeed, and then refer to some that I find to not work on that level. It’s all my opinion, so take it with a grain of salt, but tell me if you agree or disagree. 

A parody should be able to be understood and enjoyed not just by the people who watched the original, but by people who have never seen the original too. If you’re relying to heavily on the readers/watchers knowing the source material, it’ll just come off as you using the mere fact that the characters are there as a joke. It’s sort of like how a lot of CinemaSins clones call themselves ‘parodies of CinemaSins’ even though they aren’t parodies at all, they’re just using the Everything Wrong With brand to get some views and clicks.

That doesn’t mean that there should be no enjoyment to be found from fans of the source material, or even people who aren’t fans, but it just means that you have to try and make the jokes you make work in a way that’ll both be a funny premise on its own and a funny twist on the original. 

As an example of a joke that works both for people who are unfamiliar with the source and for people who are, here is a comic that was parodying the episode Rose’s Healing Tears: http://mellowfilmmaker.tumblr.com/post/125408363589/mellow-frames-roses-healing-tears

The joke of the comic (if you didn’t get it) is basically explaining why Steven has healing spit by saying that Rose actually had healing spit instead of healing tears; I present this as an example of this because it’s both a funny premise (as you can totally see why someone would prefer to tell people they have healing tears instead of healing spit) and because it gives a fun twist to the original episode. Even the joke with Pearl is funny in a non sequitur way without needing to know about Pearl’s dedication to Rose in the show!

Now, what’s an example of a comic in this series I think fails at this? Well, look none other than this recent one: http://mellowfilmmaker.tumblr.com/post/175525041409/mellow-framesrose-is-not-bad-we-swear

Some people didn’t like this because it ‘misinterpreted her character,’ and admittedly I had an overreaction to it before regretting it minutes later, but now that I’ve settled down, I dislike it for a different reason: for me, it just fails comedically. 

While it is true that you shouldn’t exactly be jumping into this comic series this late and expect to understand everything, you shouldn’t need to know everything about the show to find some humor from a parody. Look at SAO Abridged- I never watched the original, and it’s still hilarious because of its stellar writing, plus it adds in serious moments when needed which is rare for an abridged series!

On that respect, this comic (and many others) lacks in any appeal it could have for people who aren’t familiar with Steven Universe. Just look at the panel where Pearl talks about her plan to overthrow the Diamonds with their army: if you went into this comic with no knowledge of Steven Universe and you read that, would you find it funny, or just confusing? And even with the knowledge of Steven Universe, you’d need to also agree with what the writer (mellowfilmmaker) is saying, and then find it funny to hear him say it. You’ll probably be too focused questioning what you’re reading and if it makes any sense (both as an SU Fan and as someone unfamiliar) to find humor out of it.

That doesn’t mean the whole comic fails- the joke where Ruby starts saying she understands Sapphire needs space only to be cut off was pretty good even out of context- but it generally doesn’t work, and it’s not the only one to have this problem. It won’t be productive to list every comic he’s made to suffer from this issue, because at that point it isn’t really helping, it’s just pointing out things I dislike. 

Coincidentally, that’s an issue I have with a lot of the comics in Mellowframes- they can sometimes be less about telling jokes and more about pointing out things he dislikes in the episodes, while using the characters as a way to talk about them easier. Yeah, it’s not always the case, and as he’s said in response to my ask about The Question, “an episode doesn’t need to have flaws to have material.” That’s a very good way to look at it, and it gives me the idea that he’s most likely already aware of some of the issues in some of his older comics.

I think one of the biggest things that holds back Mellowframes from being great is its medium- since it’s a webcomic that just uses screenshots of the episodes to parody them, there’s little room to diverge from the original episode’s plot to make jokes about ‘what if’s. That’s actually why I believe some of the funniest comics in Mellowframes have been the non-canon ones, because they delved into very funny ideas to twist around the originals. For instance, what if the floor-triggered escape pod we see Peridot use in Jail Break turned out to be a big issue for the people who were on board the ship? You don’t even need to know who Peridot is to find that funny! He can’t exactly delve into those ideas often though, because he still wants to tell a cohesive story, which essentially means he’s stuck on a railroad track where he can just change around some dialogue. That doesn’t open doors for a lot of great humor to me.

In conclusion, I think Mellowframes isn’t a bad webcomic, but it often has problems with relying too much on the readers knowing the source material for the humor, sometimes spends too much time criticizing and not enough time writing jokes, and is limited by its medium and its lack of freedom to change things around. He can either use these criticisms of mine to change his comic, or change nothing, and either way I’m not going to get mad. It’s his comic, I can’t boss him around about how to write it. I hope he still appreciates the criticisms either way!