#Sonmi-451

[pedroam-bang]

Cloud Atlas (2012)

“Everything is connected”

[deadeyes-o0]

from The Revelation of Sonmi-451 ~ Cloud Atlas by David Mitchell

[starxcxboy]

— Cloud Atlas (2012), written and directed by Lana Wachowski, Lilly Wachowski and Tom Tykwer, based on the novel by David Mitchell.

[metachromia]

2016

Screenshot redraw practice!

[gravity-rainbow]

"Our lives are not our own… we are bound to others, past and present, and by each crime and every kindness, we birth our future."

-- David Mitchell, The Revelation of Sonmi 451, 'Cloud Atlas'

[emiliosandozsequence]

what scifi media do you like?

OH ANON I HAVE SO MANY. i'm so glad you asked 💕💕💕 (tagging @gorydean too so she sees 💕💕💕)

gotta start first and foremost with the sparrow series by mary doria russell as my blog is basically just a shrine to it at this point. amazing book and definitely recommend it if you love found family, first contact, trauma, tragedy, and the abandonment of the faithful by g-d. huge massive trigger warning tho. everyone says the second book isn't as good as the first, but i completely disagree. i think they're bitg equally as good as each other; the second book just takes awhile to get to the most insanity inducing parts whereas the first one starts out strong with that and keeps going until the end of the story.

i would have more books to recommend, but i've only just started REALLY getting back into reading after several years of not reading as much due to a variety of reasons (mostly trauma and chronic and mental illness). that being said, i have an insane amount of films to give you to watch instead of books.

gotta recommend my all time fav film (or one of the two anyway), the fountain. most people...don't like this movie because they think it's hard to understand and doesn't make sense towards the end (i had to watch it several times to get it), but please please please watch it. it's a beautiful film both visually and plotwise as long as you give it a chance 💕

sound of my voice is softer in terms of scifi, but still definitely scifi. it's another film that lets you decide what to believe. it's also another film people tend not to like for whatever reason, but i think it's extremely well done and the ending is so 💕💕💕💕💕💕

cloud atlas. very much a story in the same vein as the fountain taking place over different timelines. another beautifully done story about how everything and everyone is connected throughout space and time. ofc my fav timelines are the ones with robert frobisher and sonmi-451. i do also recommend the book, but i liked the film better because of a few of the changes they made.

sunshine is one of my fav films ever and i've loved it since i was in high school and first saw it. it reminds me a lot of three body problem in the sense that antagonist (idk if i would exactly call him a villain even tbh) is using g-d as a reason for the things he's doing. there's a few deleted scenes i wish they'd kept in because it really emphasizes this, but even so, this film is gorgeous in so many ways.

i origins. if u can't tell already i'm a huge brit marling fan and i think this is one of her best stories. again: you get to choose what to believe and you really have to watch the whole film for the pay off, but it is so very much worth it. i think i've actually only ever watched this film once, tho idk why bc it's genuinely one of my favs.

looper is another film that idk why more people weren't into it. the setting is dystopian. i was trying to think of a way to explain it in a few short sentences like i have the rest of the films here, but it's one of those films also that i think going into it knowing nothing is better. the kid who plays the rainmaker is so fucking good too. he's not even 10, but he played that role perfectly.

elysium. EVERYONE KNOWS DISTRICT 9 BUT NO ONE KNOWS ELYSIUM. i stand by my opinion that this film would be infinitely better if diego luna were the main character instead of matt damon, but even so i really love this film. the score is gorgeous. also lmao we for real might be living in this universe soon if elon fixes up that space hotel he wants to do fucking rip

ender's game. the author is a homophobic and transphobic dickwad who actively gives his money to anti-lgbt organizations, so watch this for free if you can (and buy the books second hand), but i actually really enjoyed what they did with this film. a lot of people thought it was too rushed, but also like....ender's game is a very Dense book, so i understand why they did it the way they did it. also the score is amazing.

signs. another film involving g-d and religion seen through the lens of scifi and first contact. this film gets shit on a ton for reasons i do not know, but it's actually really well done. it scared the ever living shit out of me the first few times i saw it tho bc i did Not grow up watching horror.

knowing. another film involving g-d and religion seen through the lens of scifi and first contact (can you tell i have a type of film/media i like???). this film also scared the ever living shit out of me when i first saw it to the point i had to sleep with the lights on, but in all actuality it isn't scary at all (i was just 14 and had never seen a thriller before lol). i really love disaster films tbh, but this is one of my all time favs (next to greenland).

another earth i did not like when i first saw it. i thought the whole thing was kind of pointless and didn't make very much sense, but the more i've thought about it since then, the more i've understood it. funnily enough, i never watched it a second time, but it's brit marling, so i probably will eventually. again: definitely recommend.

lucy. listen i know this has scarlett johansson in it and none of us like her, but this film is good despite her. i thought it was going to be dumb as hell when i first saw it, but i actually ended up liking it so much that it's heavily inspired the next novel i'm planning on writing (a scifi space opera about a girl becoming g-d).

origami. okay this one is difficult to find and you WILL have to buy it if you want to watch it (trust me: i have searched FAR and wide for this film in any other place and vimeo is the ONLY place i found it; it's only $5 to rent on there tho), but it's so worth it. it's worth it. it's one of my fav films and i watched it purely because of francois arnaud and i'm glad i did. this literally is his best work imo.

ink is my all time hands down favorite film. idk if you would even call it scifi, but i love it so much i just wanted to talk about it. it very obviously had zero budget, but they used what little money they had VERY wisely and the result was this beautiful film. the story makes me sob every single time. actually it's quite similar to origami, so if you like one, you'll probably like the other.

tron: legacy is another film that people shit on and idk why. it has The Best religious imagery. like how are you going to top one of the programs falling to their knees in prayer as flynn passes by????? the whole thing seems to be a jesus/judas metaphor anyway and i'm crazy for that shit. gotta mention the score as always because daft punk knocked it out of the park (people shit on the score too and i really don't get why).

thelma. i watched this one a whim with a friend and i cannot recommend it enough. i feel like it was kind of popular on here when it first came out bc it's a sapphic film, but it's also just very good in general. i've seen people get super upset about it also bc their interpretation makes it lesbophobic (which is crazy to me but whatever.

melancholia. i did Not like this movie for the longest time, but then i watched it recently and finally Got it. i guess you really do have to be a certain level of depressed to understand this film, so if you're insanely suicidal and can barely function like me, then i recommend it. you will probably get some catharsis out of it like i did. it is a very Strange film tho.

the creator came out at the end of last year and it was so good. definitely my fav film to come out in the last few years and involves g-d, religion, and AI. the score also in this is great (everybody say thank you hans zimmer. again.). the ending makes me sob so much.

more that i love a lot, but not as much (apparently there's a character limit, so i can't explain why these are my favs too, but it's for similar reasons as above).

the matrix trilogy

the fifth element

snowpiercer

blade runner 2049

as for tv shows, i don't have as many, but i do have a few that i would highly recommend if you like any of the films above:

halo. again: everyone shits on this show, but the absolute TRAGEDY of it is the fanboys hate it bc they suck and are bigots and everyone else who would like it (LIKE MY MUTUALS) refuses to give it a chance because of its overall reputation, so i'm BEGGING YOU GUYS TO GIVE IT A CHANCE.

foundation. genuinely fucking good. so much of what the creators of this show have done to change the story has been for the better. i read the books and they were okay, but the show is so so good. idk when season 3 will be coming out, but hopefully soon (same for halo, which i actually like better than this show).

the oa. i will forever mourn what we could've had with this show. i can't even talk about it without getting choked up. this getting canceled really truly fucked me up.

castle rock season 1. technically a horror series, but this season is more scifi than horror, i think. everything really comes to a head in episode 9 iirc and that episode still makes me crazy when i think about it. i definitely need to do a rewatch.

firefly/serenity. you've probably heard this one recommended before, but there's a reason for that. it's really so good, but g-d and jesus hate me because it too was canceled before it could even finish ONE SEASON. thankfully there's a film that kind of ties everything together, but WE COULD'VE HAD SO MUCH MORE.

i tried to put in some movies that aren't talked about as much on here!! i also have several letterboxd lists dedicated purely to scifi, which you can find below.

holy holy holy (scifi (and other films) involving religious imagery or straight up just about theology

the sparrow cinematic universe (films that are either discussed in the sparrow or remind me of it or that i could see the main characters watching)

but it was my body. it was my blood. and it was my love. (films that i either genuinely believe could be based off of the sparrow or just remind me of it in some way)

per aspera ad astra (scifi films i have seen or heard of. this literally is every single scifi film i remember ever in existence so it's quite long)

also mainstream scifi that i recommend/am obsessed with

interstellar

dune series (wer'e talking about the books here; not whatever the fuck denis villenueve pulled with the films lmao)

district 9

annihilation/southern reach trilogy

ex machina

prometheus

pacific rim

arrival

event horizon

mad max: fury road

nope

mobile suit gundam series (mostly hathaway and g-witch tho)

star wars (mostly the prequel and sequel trilogies)

nausicaa of the valley of the wind

castle in the sky

inception

tenet

high life

aldnoah zero

hanna

real steel

86: eighty-six

this is so much longer than i meant it to be omg. anyway people do not call me the scifi queen for no reason.

[tallysgreatestfan]

Dystopian heroines lesser known than Katniss Everdeen and Tris Prior

Wanted a small exercise in drawing very different kind of people, using the heroines of amazing dystopias I can recommend, and got a bit carried away.

Tally Youngblood – Uglies Series (Scott Westerfeld)

Mischievous, lonely, but also a bit naïve and sheltered Tally wants nothing more than to be made Pretty, to fit in, to be how she should be. As she meets the unconventional Shay, these ideas get challenged, and for a while, the two carve out every little bit of freedom their world allows them. Then Shay vanishes, and the suddenly not that friendly and utopian anymore government forces Tally to find her.

Uglies has this nice dreamy, almost utopian feeling to it, but you always sense that there is something horrible in the background. But the heart of the series, also in the two following books, is Tally and Shays quite real feeling, somewhat homoerotic (sadly only implied though, not canon) and very dysfunctional relationship. This was one of the first YA dystopias to get big, and even predates The Hunger Games, but is not as famous anymore, even if this year a movie finally will come out. Sadly, despite Tally in the books being chubby to fat, at least in the first book, and her ethnicity never stated, they cast a thin white actress for her though. 1

Sonmi-451 – Cloud Atlas (David Mitchell)

Sonmi was created as a servant in a fast food chain, but despite being as quiet as she was meant to be, she also is curious and smart and seeks justice, and as she wants more of her life than that, she ends up in a conspiracy that could end the rule of the companies governing Neo Seol.

Sonmis tale, told as an interview before her execution, is one of six stories in Cloud Atlas. I love stories of clones and androids coming into their own and realizing that they are people, and this one was one of my favorites as a teen.2

Ria – Die Verratenen (Ursula Poznanski)

Ria, a genius at rhetoric and at reading people, and always rational, is one of the leading students in sphere Hoffnung. But then she finds out about a planned assassination of her and five others, and is forced to flee into the ice-cold wilderness outside and has to bargain with the clans living there. The clans again and again attacking supply trains between the spheres. It turns out there is more to the hostility of the two groups than the spheres let her think. But they are still in danger…

A german book, I remember reading this down in one big train journey. There is always just another cliffhanger, you can’t lay this book down. The criticism of elitism and first world-third world divide is interesting too.3

Aster Grey – An Unkindness of Ghosts (Rivers Solomon)

Smart and adaptive enough to be a healer, but stern and socially awkward enough to be somewhat of an outsider even among her peers on the lower decks of a racially segregated generation ship, Asters life is already hard enough, trying to protect her mentally ill former lover and now best friend Giselle, healing people along with Theo, the bastard child of a higher decks general, avoiding the brutalizing raids. Then she finds new leads about the mysterious death of her mother, and is thrown into the power struggle among the white leaders.

This is not a light read. The discrimination and abuse Aster (and Giselle, and to an only slightly lesser extent Theo) faces, for being black, for being female, for being autistic, for being bi and nonbinary is incredibly intense and the book painfully shows every bit of it. Still, the world felt vivid and real, and Aster is a quite unique heroine. I also felt quite seen in her as a bi autistic woman.4

Mia Wiedemann – Sternenschimmer (Kim Winter)

Optimistic and kind, Mia wants to help in a refugee hostel for the refugees of an civil war on the planet Loduun. She falls in love with Iason, a cold and stern refugee still traumatized from the war, but soon tension between humans and aliens rise, and also the conflicts of the civil war follow the refugees to earth.

More a love story than a dystopian, Sternenschimmer still captured my heart as a teen because it managed to describe how vulnerable and strange and painful first love feels quite well. The worldbuilding is also quite vivid, and I like the humor.5

Also sorry that I don't have more queer heroines, except for Aster, none of them are canonically queer, even if Tally and Shay do seem to be bi, but aren't actually canonically confirmed. Bought another book with a queer heroine, but it turned out to not actually be dystopian.

(trigger warnings below the line)

1 trigger warnings: eating disorders, beauty culture, body dysmorphia, ableism, major trigger warning for the characters in the second and third book massively glorifying self harm and eating disorders and this not being handled particularly well

2 trigger warnings: rape, dehumanization, euthanisia, cannibalism, in the movie: yellowface and blackface. The setting of her story in South Korea could also play into the “cyberpunk orientalism” trope

3 trigger warnings: viruses and germs, child harm, could also possibly play into the noble s*vage trope

4 quite a lot, this book is very heavy and brutal: Most of all racism, police brutality, rape, slavery, ableism, medical gore, depictions of severe mental illness, suicide

5 I am white and not a refugee, so I am not sure about the details, but this surely glosses over a lot of the refugee experience, and also possibly paints some refugees as more dangerous than they are in reality. Also Iason can be somewhat controlling, and its not handled very well. Trigger warnings: mind control, violence (not particulary graphic), in the following books: suicide, mental illness.

[tootiredforaname]

Do you think Sonmi ~451 and Yoona ~939 explored each others bodies

[theaceofdragons]

I got tagged by @musing-and-music and @jedidragonwarriorqueen! 10 characters, 10 fandoms, 10 tags (including some people I barely know, sorry!), all in no particular order.

Roy Mustang / Fullmetal Alchemist

Jaina Solo / Star Wars Legends EU

Zuko / AtLA

Fenris / Dragon Age

Kaladin Stromblessed / Stormlight Archive

Olivia Dunham / Fringe

Kara "Starbuck" Thrace / Battlestar Galactica

Jon Snow / the good parts of Game of Thrones, less so ASoIaF

Sonmi-451 / Cloud Atlas (movie)

Egwene al'Vere / WoT (show)

Can you tell I'm reaching a bit in places? I tend to have several faves in few fandoms.

Tagging @digitaleruckus @lantur @monnigu @peartato @blackinkpen @squirrel-wolf @goneadrift @okiedoketm @swearingintengwar @niconiconina

[jojoxzozo]

Is Cloud Atlas dystopian?

In Cloud Atlas, the story of Sonmi-451 like any other dystopian story is concerned with presenting ideas rather than plot, structure, and characters. For More-  Cloud Atlas by David Mitchell The first recognizable idea is a warning of the consequences of human's playing God, i.e. interfere with nature and the universe as it is.

[pneumanomads]

Sonmi-451: Our lives are not our own. From womb to tomb, we are bound to others. Past and present. And by each crime and every kindness, we birth our future. #cloudatlas #cloudatlasmovie #cloudatlasquote #somni #goddess #higherdimensionalbeings #alienlife #aiart #theaiowl #midjourneyart #prompts #promptart #promptartist (at Cloud Atlas) https://www.instagram.com/p/CnddenNuH1H/?igshid=NGJjMDIxMWI=

[archivyrep]

Film, novels, video games, and more: Archivists and archivy

For today's post, I'd like to highlight some archivists I've found in popular culture, making this similar to my post back in August. None of these archivists are in anime or animation, but they are worth mentioning. Perhaps my prediction of having trouble finding representation, when it comes to archives, won't come to pass after all!

Reprinted from my Wading Through the Cultural Stacks WordPress blog. Originally published on Oct. 17, 2020.

Let's start with Arthur White. He was an English actor who played Ernie Trigg in A Touch of Frost, a crime drama, a character described as a "police archivist" on his Wikipedia page. In the world of film, there's also The King's Case Note, a comedy film from South Korea where a king and his adviser, an archivist search to find the truth behind a crime which, according to the Wikipedia page, "threatens the stability of the kingdom." That reminds me of some plotlines in Tangled, where a number of episodes have archivy themes, which I may focus on as part of an upcoming post on this blog. In terms of other films, there is Cloud Atlas, where Sonmi 451 is an "Archivist" who records the story of a dissident in a device after her trial and arrest, which is also reflected in the novel too.

More subtle is Goronwhy, an unseen archivist in the 2010 miniseries, Wallace and Gromit's World of Invention. Finally, there's "Hyena," the June 2016 episode of 12 Monkeys, a TV series which was based on Terry Gilliam's bizarre 1995 film of the same name, where the protagonists search for an archivist, traveling through time to figure out what was happening.

There are some novels that also feature archivists as well. In the 2018 sci-fi novel, Record of a Spaceborn Few, by Becky Chambers, one of the characters portrayed is an elderly archivist named Isabel. Then there's the epistolary novel titled The Secret History of Twin Peaks which is part of David Lynch's Twin Peaks franchise, where there is a mysterious archivist who brings together a dossier of materials which is examined by an FBI analyst. I don't care much for the franchise, to be honest, or David Lynch, but it's worth mentioning this archivist.

Lynch, as IndieWire pointed out, "fetishizes an outmoded vision of American identity and bemoans its collapse" and was a vocal supporter of Reagan in the 1980s, even if his thoughts elsewhere are a mish-mash of ideas.

I also came across E.T.A. Hoffman's The Golden Pot: A Modern Fairytale, which includes a registrar who copies old manuscripts for an archivist, the latter who apparently cares about document preservation and is later shown to be salamander...who has to find mates for his daughters? This is one strange romantic story, to say the least!

I'd also like to mention the Final Fantasy Record Keeper game, where players control a researcher who works in the history department. So perhaps that has some archivy themes. The description of the game on the official website makes this abundantly clear:

"In a glorious kingdom that thrives on the harmony between magic and art, epic tales of valor and hope have been passed from one generation to the next. The records of these great chronicles uphold the peace and prosperity of all civilization. The kingdom sealed these records inside paintings, to safeguard the balance of the world. That is until, without warning, the records within the paintings began to fade away... Darkness fell upon the world, bringing catastrophe and ruin. The time has come for you to save the kingdom's future. Tyro has restored the Battle Records held in the paintings, protecting the world from a terrible threat from beyond. Now as their investigation continues, they discover an ominous magic emanating from mysterious Corrupted Paintings. But these paintings do not hold Battle Records like the others. These new paintings hold Story Records chronicling the adventures of great heroes from across the realms."

On a totally different note, I found interesting the title of "Majumdar," occasionally used as a surname, which translates to record keeper or archivist from Arabic and Persian, according to the Dictionary of American Family Names. It comes from the words majuma (collection) and dar (possessor).

I would say that archivists are more than collections possessors, although there is occasionally gatekeeping in the profession and among some who are archivists for sure.

That's all for today's post. As always, I look forward to your comments and suggestions on what I should focus on next.

© 2022 Burkely Hermann. All rights reserved.

[pedroam-bang]

Cloud Atlas (2012)

“Everything is connected”

[ascensionvibrations]

“To be is to be perceived, and so to know thyself is only possible through the eyes of the other. The nature of our immortal lives is in the consequences of our words and deeds that go apportioning themselves throughout all time.” ~ “Sonmi-451” in Cloud Atlas (Film)

[noosphe-re]

To enslave an individual troubles your consciences, Archivist, but to enslave a clone is no more troubling than owning the latest six-wheeler ford, ethically. Because you cannot discern our differences, you believe we have none. But make no mistake: even same-stem fabricants cultured in the same wombtank are as singular as snowflakes.

Sonmi~451, Cloud Atlas, by David Mitchell

[vendriin]

Cloud Atlas (2012)