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mediaevalmusereads · 3 years

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Black Sun. By Rebecca Roanhorse. New York: Saga Press, 2020.

Rating: 3/5 stars

Genre: fantasy

Part of a Series? Yes, Between Earth and Sun #1

Summary: In the holy city of Tova, the winter solstice is usually a time for celebration and renewal, but this year it coincides with a solar eclipse, a rare celestial event proscribed by the Sun Priest as an unbalancing of the world. Meanwhile, a ship launches from a distant city bound for Tova and set to arrive on the solstice. The captain of the ship, Xiala, is a disgraced Teek whose song can calm the waters around her as easily as it can warp a man’s mind. Her ship carries one passenger. Described as harmless, the passenger, Serapio, is a young man, blind, scarred, and cloaked in destiny. As Xiala well knows, when a man is described as harmless, he usually ends up being a villain.

***Full review under the cut.***

Content Warnings: blood, violence, gore, body horror, drug/alcohol use, self-harm, suicide, mutilation, reference to child sex slavery

Overview: I came across this book while looking for fantasy novels set in non-European-inspired worlds. I got really exited about the premise: a pre-Columbian, indigenous-inspired story? With multiple perspectives? And crows? It sounded great! Unfortunately, I couldn’t give this book more than 3 stars for a number of reasons: I felt like the writing could have been a little bit better and that character motivations could have been more clear; and I ultimately didn’t feel like the story was a true race-against-the-clock until the end. While I’m intrigued enough to pick up book 2 in the series, I do wish this book had done a little more to make me feel connected to the plot and the characters.

Writing: Roanhorse’s writing reminds me of some New Adult prose styles: it feels straight-forward, clear, and well-balanced, but sometimes tends to tell more than show, especially when it comes to emotion. I really liked that I could follow the prose without issue, but I often felt like Roanhorse was dumping some info on me and expecting me to absorb it right away. For example, Xiala (one of the protagonists) tells us that she’s always felt like an outsider and that’s why she has such an immediate connection with Serapio (another protagonist), but I didn’t exactly feel that. There were also some worldbuilding details that seemed to be inserted to flesh out the world - which was great - but ultimately didn’t feel relevant to what was going on in the plot.

This book is also told from multiple perspectives and flashes forward and backward in time. While I personally was able to follow the voices and time skips just fine, some readers might find it a challenge.

Also, without spoiling anything, the end of this book seemed to rush by WAY too fast, and I honestly didn’t feel like most of the book was building to it.

The worldbuilding, however, was wonderful. I really liked the way Roanhorse described the look and feel of everything from the tastes, smells, sights, etc. and I loved how diverse and rich everything felt. While I don’t know enough about various Indigenous groups to comment on whether or not the cultural elements were incorporated well, I did like that various populations didn’t seem to be monoliths and varied in terms of social structure, dress, and custom.

Plot: The plot of this book follows two-ish threads: in one thread, Xiala must get Serapio to the city of Tova in time for “the Convergence,” a time when the celestial bodies are aligned AND there’s a lunar eclipse. In the other, Naranpa must navigate a plot to oust her from the priesthood while also dealing with rising opposition from clan Carrion Crow (and their cultists, with whom Okoa is involved).

Because of the many POV characters and the flashbacks in time, it was difficult to feel any sense of urgency in either plot thread. Xiala and Serapio’s thread was a travel narrative, and most of the conflict stemmed from the fact that the crew just straight up did not trust Xiala. At first, I thought we were getting a narrative where the crew mistrusts Xiala because she’s Teek, but then they appear to be ok with her in what was a pleasant subversion of my expectations. But then something happens and we’re back to what I expected, and it proves inconvenient for getting Serapio to Tova in time. Because I didn’t feel like I had much of a reason to want Xiala and Serapio to succeed (Serapio’s motivations are mysterious and Xiala mostly wants wealth), I felt pretty “meh” about them potentially missing their deadline. I would have much rather seen Xiala (and perhaps the crew?) be challenged and grow from the setbacks she experiences at sea, and for her to become more personally connected to Serapio so the journey shifts from one done to earn untold wealth to one where Xiala wants to help her friend (even if said friend ends up being deceptive).

The Tovan plot is likewise a little “meh” because there wasn’t a huge sense of urgency or suspense. I felt like I didn’t know the clans enough to feel strongly about their politics (aside from understanding that killing people is bad in the abstract), nor did I have a concrete reason for wanting the institution of the priesthood to remain (once I learned more of their history and the fact that most priests - called “Watchers” - would rather be elitist than minister to the people).

Perhaps that’s why I felt a little underwhelmed by the plot as a whole: while things certainly happened, I ultimately didn’t feel like they impacted the characters’ inner lives much, or if they did, that evolution was told to us more than shown. While I understand that Black Sun is the first book in a series, I still would have liked the plot to have more of an impression on the characters.

Characters: I think it’s safe to say that this book follows 4 main protagonists: Xiala (a Teek sea captain who fills the Han Solo archetype), Serapio (the mysterious blind man with crow-themes magic powers), Naranpa (the Sun Priest who struggles against traditionalists to make the priesthood more active in people’s lives), and Okoa (the son of the murdered Carrion Crow clan matriarch). While I liked all of these characters, I do wish they had been a little less dependent on archetypes (lusty sea captain, Chosen One, etc). Maybe things will change as they develop in later novels, but for now, they’re fun and certainly likeable in their own ways, but not mind-blowing.

Xiala is likeable in that she’s a hot mess with a heart of gold. She drinks, swears, and gets into trouble, all in the pursuit of earning enough wealth to make a living. She is also Teek - a member of a (rumored) all-female island clan, whose members have special sea-based magic. I liked Xiala’s connection to the sea and the way she communicates her people’s stories and cultural values. However, I do wish she was challenged a little more to want something more than material reward.

Serapio is an intriguing character in that he fits the archetype of dark, mysterious Chosen One. While I appreciated that he wasn’t a gruff loner (instead, he seemed eager to connect with people while recognizing that his appearance might unsettle them), I also think his backstory is a little too “edgy” for my tastes. His motivations were somewhat shrouded in mystery, which made it hard to know whether or not I wanted to root for him to succeed, but because he’s not a complete jerk, I found him interesting enough.

The connection between Xiala and Serapio could have been a lot stronger than it was. While I liked that they bonded over their “outsider” statuses, I ultimately felt like this was told to us rather than shown. Thus, when they kind of sort of “get together” later in the novel, it doesn’t feel earned. I didn’t understand what Xiala saw in Serapio other than his physical attractiveness and (maybe?) feeling like he didn’t treat her as a foreigner. While fine, I wanted Xiala to be more attracted to Serapio’s personal qualities, not just that he was nice to her. Same thing for Serapio: I didn’t get the sense that he had genuine feelings for Xiala personally, just that she was intriguing because she was Teek.

Naranpa, the Sun Priest, was an interesting figure in that she was caught up in the politics of the priesthood. While I liked watching her navigate the various setbacks and conflicts with traditionalists, I ultimately wish I had been given a more compelling reason to root for Naranpa to succeed. Trying to make the priesthood more hands-on and philanthropic is all well and good, but it felt too abstract. I wanted Naranpa to have more personal stakes - because she comes from the “gutters” of the city, is she more invested? But if so, how does she reconcile that with her decades-long absence from where she grew up? There was a little of that, but ultimately, I didn’t feel like I had a reason to want the priesthood to continue. I didn’t understand why Naranpa was so attached to the priesthood as an institution; why didn’t didn’t she cut her losses and go elsewhere?

Okoa is something of a late addition. His perspective doesn’t appear right away, but I think that worked out fine, considering when it appeared. Okoa is a warrior who finds himself torn between keeping peace between his clan and the Priesthood and joining a rebellious cult who wants to restore the old religion and seek revenge against the Priesthood for past trauma. While I think his perspective was important, I didn’t personally feel invested in this plot or Okoa’s dilemma. Perhaps it’s because I didn’t feel like the rebels were treated as having a real grievance; we’re told about the past and told that it was harmful, but because we don’t get the perspective of someone dedicated to the Cause, I didn’t feel like I could sympathize with it. Okoa himself is resistant, calling the rebels “cultists” and saying that though he understands their grief, he doesn’t want to support violence. Perhaps if Okoa felt threatened by the cultists, or if their cause was a true threat to the stability and well-being of the clan, then I could feel more involved. But as it stands, Okoa was somewhat wishy-washy, and I couldn’t quite understand the stakes to make his indecision feel justified.

Side or supporting characters were interesting. I really liked that Roanhorse included plenty of queer characters, including trans and non-binary/third gender characters who use pronouns like xe/xir. My favorite was probably Iktan, the head of what is essentially the assassin’s branch of the priesthood.

TL;DR: Black Sun is an intriguing fantasy with intricate worldbuilding and premise. While I personally felt like the inner lives of the characters could have been more developed and the plot more compelling, I think this book (and author) will satisfy many fantasy lovers, and I look forward to picking up the next novel in the series.

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lesbicattiva · 5 years

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araki’s interview at luccacomics&games 2019 part one.

loose & imperfect transcript / translation of araki’s press cafe interview with the italian press (30th oct) at lucca comics & games 2019 about his main work: jojo’s bizarre adventures. (translated from italian to english 1/5).

Q: First of all, it’s a huge honor for us to have you here. We’d like to know what’s the creation process of your characters’ looks, which are really peculiar and unique. A: They are based on my everyday meetings, on everything I’m able to pick up from people. Weird people, dressed in a bizarre fashion, but even people dressed in a brave and colorful way. I even take photos of these people. By looking at the pictures with different angles I can better study the look. About Italy, then, I especially get inspiration from statues, that have a more classical design.

Q: We can see, at the beginning of JOJO, a neoclassical european influence, at first only with the poses and then in its entirety. How was this type of aesthetic greeted by the japanese market? A: A big inspiration were of course my trips to Italy and the museums, with their classical atmosphere. To me drawing like this is now natural, and in my opinion even the japanese readers accept it exactly because of the naturalness with which I do it. If anything, if I tried to write a typically japanese work, it wouldn’t be easy.

Q: You are part of a shortlist chosen to draw the posters for the paralympics. Could you talk about how you were offered this proposal and the project related to the paralympics? A: Honestly I don’t know why I have been chosen, but I’m really grateful [laughs]. I think that the organisational committee was impressed by my works and the exhibitions dedicated to them, like the one about the JOJO’s 30th year anniversary that was held in Tokyo. Regarding the work done on the project, I don’t know what to say, since I’m still doing it [laughs].

Q: What and who gave you the inspiration for the first JOJO, Jonathan Joestar? A: Actually it’s very simple: in Japan there’s a restaurant chain open 24-hour, very famous, that’s called “Jonathan’s”. I just used that name [laughs]. For a lot of reasons, I’m quite fond of it and I wanted to start from there for the name. Regarding the design, I just wanted to draw a ‘macho’, a man with chiseled muscles and proportions similar to those of the classical statues.

Q: Jojolion, the eighth JOJO’s part, is about to end. What will the future of the series be? A: Honestly I don’t know, I still have to think this through. It’s something that needs to be defined.

Q: Do you read, or have you ever read, comics of the superhero kind? If yes, what are the influences that they had on the writing of your series? A: I’m not a big fan of superheroes, even if when I was young I read a lot of french comics. I find superheroes the type of characters that wallow in self-pity too much [laughs], I’d prefer to see a character that is able to look ahead more and is down-to-earth. Even if I really like spider-man.

Q: If someone asked you to contribute in a movie by creating characters and scenes, what genre of movie would you think about and with whom would you like to collaborate? A: I really like horror movies, I think I’d make a very realistic horror. In fact, I really like “The Walking Dead” for this reason, its realism.

Q: This summer the Vento Aureo’s anime, the one part set in Italy, ended. One of the things that stuck with me, already when I read the manga, is the complete disappearance of Fugo Pannacotta after his betrayal to Buccellati’s gang. Why this choice? A: It’s a rather complicated reason. Since Vento Aureo was being published on shōnen jump, its target were boys and teenagers. To them, betrayal, is something very heavy and awful to commit. Continuing to show Fugo in the manga would have saddened the atmosphere and the events of Vento Aureo, and probably ruined the character.

Q: Why at the end of Stone Ocean you decided to reset the entire narrative universe, abandoning like this some of the characters most loved by fans, as Jotaro Kujo and Dio Brando? A: It was hard to abandon those characters, even if actually I never completely abandoned them, they are reborn just slightly different. The reset, as much as hard, it was necessary. The story of JOJO had come to its natural conclusion, and to protract it would have been rather pointless and counter-productive.

Q: The saga of JOJO, during the years, has changed a lot; both stylistically and narratively. I’d like to know if and how you changed too during these years. A: Undoubtedly I changed too. Regarding the characters, even if they change, actually they are all tied by a thread that goes through the whole saga, in other words, the spirituality, the heart and soul of the characters, that gets, from time to time, inherited. During the writing of Phantom Blood, many were left bewildered by Jonathan’s death, but actually, his death is only a metaphor. The soul of Jonathan will keep living forever in his descendants. For example, at the beginning of the series, we have extremely muscular characters, that used their physicality through Hamon. This physicality and spirituality then naturally evolved into Stands as guardian spirits. They are the direct consequence of the soul that the characters pass down to the next generations.

Q: Talking about Stands, it would be nice to know what inspires you for their creation and how long does it take to make a new one. A: It all starts with the character since stands are the physical manifestation of the will and the soul of people. They are invisible to the normal eye, but the power and the spirituality of the characters are so strong that I wouldn’t know how else to portray them.

Q: In the JOJO universe, all the stronger powers, even those of the main villains, deal with time manipulation. Why is time so important to you? A: Basically I think that being able to control time is the strongest power, in each of its variations. For this reason, when I was making the final villains, I studied the ways in which they could manipulate it. The power to bend the flow of time to your will is something that has always fascinated me, and I think that’s the strongest power of all.

Q: What and who gave you the inspiration for the character of Yoshikage Kira? A: When I made Kira, I imagined that my neighbour could be an assassin, but a next-door killer that lives above suspicion is not a flashy character. Quite the opposite, he seems a common person, calm and quiet. He has hobbies and interests as anyone else, maybe he likes to be in his home or maybe he likes to go out. I thought about those things and Kira was born. He's a character that really intrigues me, because he doesn't escape his nature. Kira accepts and doesn't fight himself. He knows himself, knows how he's made and faces his daily life day by day. The topic of serial killers really intrigues me, I read many books on this argument.

Q: Your passion for fashion is well known to everyone. I'd like to know who are your favourite stylists and if, at the moment, you're planning other collaborations with any of them, like you did with Gucci. A: First of all, I was very thankful to Gucci for that collaboration. When I was young I really appreciated Versace's style, with dresses enriched by brooches and decorations. At the moment, however, I'm not thinking about other collaborations, I'm very focused on the paralympics' project [laughs].

Q: What's your favourite JOJO character? A: Shigechi, a character from the fourth part, Diamond Is Unbreakable.

Q: What part of JOJO you're more fond of? A: The aforementioned Diamond Is Unbreakable. Because the city in which is set, Morio-cho, is inspired by the place where I was born and raised. I'm very attached to it because of the nostalgia.

Q: You and Haruki Murakami both often use music in your narrative. Do you think there are things in common between your work methods and his and, in general, your works? A: To be honest I don't know. I don't know Murakami's modus operandi and his creative process, but for me listening to music is something I do every day. I don't know if he does the same. For example, I deeply love Puccini, and I already came to Lucca (note: Puccini's hometown) years ago exactly to listen to him.

Q: Why is the character of Dio a recurring presence in the series, so much so that he's managed to be reincarnated even in the seventh part, Steel Ball Run? A: Dio is very powerful, probably one of the most powerful characters of the JOJO universe. It's a character that instills fear, since he doesn't feel remorse or any sense of responsibility. Dio is literally the antithesis of the Joestar's family, and because of this I made Dio something like a hereditary presence for the Joestar family even through his reincarnation, as if he was a curse. He's so strong he cannot die in an ordinary way, and his rebirth makes him even more frightening, as if he was, indeed, a curse.

#hirohiko araki #jjba #jojo's bizarre adventure #JOJO #hirohiko araki interview #jojo no kimyou na bouken #jojo no kimyō na bōken #jojo interview #luccacomics #luccacomics&games #luccacomics&games2019 #luccacg19 #lucca #jojo translation #my stuff

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smokeybrandreviews · 4 years

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Smokey brand Movie Reviews: Top Men

I’ve never seen all of Raiders of the Lost Arc in it’s entirety. This thing came out when i was a kid and was the opposite of what i was about back then. My thing was giant monsters, space robots, and neon cyberpunk. Indiana Jones spent the majority of his time in a f*cking desert. That sh*t seemed boring to me. As i grew older and my tastes expanded, i found myself kind of into a lot of the things portrayed in that initial film. Archaeology, lost history, biblical mythology; I find that sh*t fascinating. Ancient lien theory actually intrigue me a great deal, mostly it’s utter dismissal on both sides of the argument, so when Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull came out, i was all for it. Once it hit DVD. I did not see that sh*t in theaters. To my surprise, i rather enjoyed it. Apparently, however, that is not what an Indiana Jones film was supposed to be. As i perused Netflix, i noticed that Raiders was available for streaming. I figured, what the hell? It’s been probably thirty years since i last watched this thing. Let me see if i agree with the general consensus that this movie is, indeed, a proper classic of cinema.

The Great

The best thing about this movie, i think, is definitely the score. Holy sh*t, man, the music in this film definitely makes the picture. John Williams is a goddamn genius, man. Dude rarely creates something that isn’t all sorts of classic.

After that absolutely epic score, the next best thing about this film is easily Harrison Ford. If you made a movie about Han Solo but placed it on earth, during the thirties, and turned him into an archaeologist instead of a scoundrel, you’d have Henry Walton “Indiana” Jones, jr. Ford gives such a charming, electric, charismatic performance as Jones, it’s no wonder the character became a staple of the American cinematic lexicon.

The Better

Karen Allen as Marion Ravenwood makes this film for me. She is the standout, only outshined by Ford’s Indiana, himself. She’s outstanding as Indy’s foil and absolutely necessary to sell the character. She’s caught a lot, sure, but it’s almost always by numerous men who probably outweigh her by a few pounds and, even then, she never just surrenders. You rarely hear her scream and she almost always lands her own solid licks in a proper fight. Lucas sure knows how to write dope female leads when he tries. When he doesn’t, we get Willie Scott. I’ll get to THAT broad when i review Temple of Doom. I got A LOT to say about that chick, man.

The action in this thing is brazen, dangerous, and appreciated. They don;t make movies like this anymore. Everything in here is practice, Every stung, fight, explosion, and set piece was done with physical, real life, stuff. You don't see this level of film making anymore because of all the CG effect proliferation which was, in part, championed by both Lucas and Spielberg. That sh*t is kind of hilarious to me. One of the greatest action films ever made, rife with practical effects, is directly responsible for the mitigation of the very thing that makes this movie so special.

Speaking of the direction, Spielberg is in fine form with this one. 80s Spielberg is hard to touch. He sh*tted classics during this decade, solidifying his place as one of the greats to ever do it. ET, Poltergeist (even though people say it’s Toby Hooper was the one who helmed it, Spielberg definitely ghost directed this thing), The Goonies as Second Unit Director, Empire of the Sun, The Color Purple, and Temple of Doom, all came out under his watch. Dude was prolific as f*ck.

The writing on this flick is decent. George Lucas understands how to craft a story. He has a formula and he follows that sh*t religiously but it works. He wrote Star Wars. He wrote Indiana Jones. He wrote American Graffiti. Dude knows his stuff and it really shows in Raiders. The characters feel real and actually pretty charming. I found myself rooting for Marion almost immediately, masterclass in character introduction.

The Good

I like the narrative crafted for this tale, the actual story. There are a lot of great ideas put forth, creative use of biblical imagery and christian mythology. I love that sh*t. It’s why i adore Dan Brown’s stuff so much. Say what you will about The DaVinci Code, i love that mess and it really is kind of a mess. This story is not. It get right to the point, focusing n the characters and their relationships rather than the actual Christ Judaeo-Christian imagery. In the 80s, that was absolutely necessary but i think it makes for a stronger, cleaner, narrative overall.

I rather enjoy this cast. Everyone is quite god in their respective roles, overall. I had no idea Alfred Molina was in this so that was a nice surprise. It’s always fun seeing people i know later in life, in the young, vibrant, beginnings of their careers. John Rhys-Davies was also fun to see. I know him from Sliders but seeing him in this was a real treat.

This movie is absolutely gorgeous. It’s definitely nature porn, even if most of it is sand and brown. The shot composition if this thing is spectacular. I was kind of impressed with how vivid this world looks even though there is so little of it shown. There is a ton of it show, yes, but most of it is in the desert or some sh*t. You can only see the same kinds of rocks so many times before you hate seeing those rocks. Raiders does a great job of shooting those rocks in interesting, dynamic ways, so the setting never overstays it’s welcome.

But them melting Nazis, tho.

The Bad

So, there really isn’t a whole lot of bad in this. Admittedly, Raiders is a near perfect film. I can concede that. But i still wasn’t really entertained by it. I still was gripped with what i saw. I don’t understand the allure of this franchise on a personal level. Objectively, sure, it’s fantastic. But, for me, this sh*t is boring.

Raiders feels like one, long ass, chase scene with spots of exposition before another, long ass, chase scene. The dialogue is charming, the chemistry between the leads is palpable, and the action is some of the best on film, but blergh. I was never captivated nor did i care about anyone in this film.

The Verdict

I don’t like this movie. Absolutely disconnected from it. I find it plodding, pretentious, and a little boring. I do understand why everyone who holds this film so dear, absolutely hates Crystal Skull. There is a distinct shift in tone between the two and it’s actually quite jarring. This is coming from someone who doesn’t even really like the franchise at all. It’s kind of surreal how alien that Indiana feels to this Indiana. That said, as a proper film critique, Raiders is f*cking phenomenal. Objectively, this is a near perfect example of a film in this genre. There is inspired direction, great performances, gorgeous scene composition, rich cinematography, and characters that have stood the test of time to become stalwarts of US culture. I mean, i knew exactly who Marion Ravenwood was when she was introduced in Crystal Skull and i had only seen Raiders once when i was, like, five or six. That tells you exactly how beloved this movie is within the cultural zeitgeist. Raiders f the Lost Ark is an absolutely great film. It is to the action genre as Alien is to sci-fi horror, and y’all know how high in regard i hold Alien. That’s not praise i heap flippantly. All four of these flicks are on Netflix so might check them all out eventually. Maybe. That said, personally, i do not like this movie at all. Still doesn’t do enough to shake my giant monster, space robot, neon cyberpunk sensibilities.

#Indiana Jones #Indiana Jones and the Raiders of the Lost Ark #Raiders of the Lost Ark

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superoddgaming · 5 years

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My Top 10 Games For E3 2019

E3 2019 is on the horizon and you know what that means; endless predictions and guesses and what the hell is gunna be going down from the 8th to the 13th apparently.

A bunch of companies are having their own showcases and conferences except for Sonyand I believe EA this year but I’m not really gunna run through all of the different conferences I’m more so just gunna run through the games that I am most excited about.

10// Session

It’s been almost a decade since we have seen a good skateboarding game on console or PC. Skate 3 released in 2010 and since then nothing has been able to dethrone it as the last well executed skateboarding game.

Tony Hawks Pro Skater sure as hell didn’t even come close. If anything that game made us have even less hope for the genre. But then along came Session, announced at 2018’s E3 slated for a late 2019 release on PC and Xbox.

I hope that we get to see more of Session during Xbox’s conference along with a look into a campaign for the game as well as a final release date.

9// Animal Crossing

I am the most excited about this one mostly because of the Switch’s portability and this will be the perfect drop in drop out game to have on the go with you.

I’m really hoping for an Island or vacation themed one this time around, I think that would be so cool.

8// Control

Control looks all kinds of bizarre, creepy, fun and holy shit the physics they have in this game is just absolutely crazy.

Destructible environments, almost everything is interact-able and they really showcased it at the end of their trailer and where she picks up the projector and shoots it at the wall and each of the boxes and papers all act independently.

I am amazed with this game both technically and from a story standpoint, it looks like a descent into madness mixed with a little government conspiracy.

I’m really excited to see where this one goes and it does look like it will be another PS4 exclusive. Sony is KILLIN IT with the single player experiences.

7// Biomutant

I have had my sights on Biomutant for what it feels like years now. I have eagerly been watching and awaiting more news and insider looks for it. It looks like so much fun, it’s got style, zany humor, really funny narration and the game play looks really promising.

Not only that but the world that your creature exists in is really fascinating with all of these spliced creatures all over the place and interacting with each of them to find out how the world went to a over-polluted corrosive wasteland is sparkin’ some interest in me.

I have a feeling we will get another gameplay demonstration as well as a release date but I’m honestly not expecting this one to come out until 2020 or 21.

This is one of those games that I’m fine with if it takes forever to come out just because I really want it to succeed.

6// Outer Worlds

Space is yours to explore, for a price. Impossibly cool looking monster combinations, beautiful unearthly landscapes and a crazy cast of characters on top of that and you got yourself a new favourite to sink only what I can assume will be over a hundred hours.

They showcased some game play for it and the writing is just awesome. The fact that they has the crowd and myself laughing without and voice acting done in the game yet is a testament to their comedic writing.

What I love most about this game is there’s no real good and evil. You play the game how you want to play it. If that means going along with the story and being a boring upstanding citizen you can do that.

If that means literally murdering actors because of a terrible performance and then disintegrating the director you can do that. Either way you are still rewarded in some fashion for your quests and I just think that is so cool paired with all the other face swapping goodness.

5// Pokemon: Sword & Shield

This will be my first Pokemon game in probably a decade. The last one I played was I think was Ruby and Sapphire.

I’m hoping that Pokemon gets some love during the E3 Direct and we get to see a little bit more of the Region and possibly a look at the starter evolutions.

Y’all know I’m #grookeygang for life. Doesn’t matter what it’s final evolution is look at that little bastard.

They look like they are introducing more RPG elements and the Pokemon franchise could use a refreshing new implication of their pattented Pokemon formula. Hence the reason I haven’t gotten a Pokemon up until this release.

Here is to hoping that they showcase more of the technical improvements beyond just content. I do have a feeling some of the millions of Pokemon IP’ currently being released might get talked about instead though.

4// Cyberpunk 2077

This will come as no surprise it’s in my top 5.

It’s in everybody’s top 5.

It’d be doing this game a dis-service to not have it in your top 5.

CD Project Red, the people who made the Witcher 3, have been working on this game for a millennia now and last year it was showcased and said to be playable from start to finish at that point.

I think we will get a final showcase of all the polishing and finishing touches they’ve put on the game and set it up for a release window.

And I mean what’s not to love about this game?

The concept of cyberpunk the style alone is already badass but a whole dystopian world set around that and knowing that Project Red can do with world building, questing, dynamic abilities and interactions.

If you ask me I don’t think it’s going to be coming until late 2020. This is a game that NEEDS to be perfected. It needs to have a good release. People have been anticipating this game for years, including myself.

My wallet is going to be so empty...

3// Astral Chain

This is what I want to see from Nintendo!

No more Sequelitis, finally an interesting fully developed IP and it looks absolutely badass.

The world, the intricate fighting system, badass robo-cop persona’s on leashes, being a cool ass detective.

This game just looks amazing. We need to see more of it. We know almost nothing about the story so far or even how expansive this game is shaping up to be.

YOU GET TO RIDE ROBO-DOG MECHS! whats not to love?

But hey it’s directed by the dude who did Nier Autmoata and that game was a hidden gem for a while. I’m really hoping this game get to bask in the spotlight a little bit more.

I want this game to be successful so bad. As fun as the Mario and Zelda games can be I know that the Switch can have some serious independent releases like this one.

Astral Chain my just be the trendsetter the Switch needs to prove that it’s not just the Mario console, it’s something that can hold it’s own up against the Xbox and Playstation.

2// The Evil Within 3

This is my wildcard.

I know next to no one is anticipating this game but I LOVE THIS FRANCHISE.

I love the world they have created, the resident evil vibes, the terrifying distorted monsters, the twisted visuals that send a chill down your spine.

The ever looming threat of always being hunted, watched or taunted. The Evil Within masters the atmosphere of never feeling truly safe. You are always on guard and that makes for very interesting game play in a horror narrative.

There was worlds of improvements made between the first and second game and I loved each of them dearly. We were left with a couple unanswered questions at the end of the second game and I really want to see the story come to a close and finish off the trilogy.

I’m not expecting and game play or even a release window but at some point during Bethesda’s conference I really really want to see this pop up. We know they’re not announcing the new Elder Scrolls so there is definitely room there for a surprise release.

This is just me being really really desperate for a third game, the second game had such an incredible world and we saw the characters grow so much it would be a shame to see all of that get stuck in just the second game.

Not to mention that this is the most fun I’ve had playing an actually scary game in a long time. Let’s make it happen Bethesda

1// Square Enix: Avenger’s Project

The long awaited and incredibly mysterious Avenger’s project form Square Enix is the cherry on the cake of this E3.

Square Enix is hosting their own panel and while I know majority of it is going towards the 7 remake and possibly a new final fantasy announcement they would be just plain dumb to not have this ready to announce.

With the MCU concluding it’s current phase with Endgame now is the perfect time to showcase this project. It has been two years since we had the teaser and people were going bat-shit then, imagine what would happen now.

The crazy thing is that this will be the first part of a multi-game deal between marvel and Square Enix which means that this game will just serve as the starting block.

We have seen Marvel make an incredible comeback into the gaming universe and they may be doing exactly that. Creating a gaming universe to pair along side their cinematic universe. This one just might surpass PS4 spidey though. It’s got some serious hype going behind it and we might just finally get to see it at E3 this year.

The Wrap-Up

Anyways that is my top 10 list for this years E3. Are they the biggest announcements or releases? Not by a long shot!

But they are the ones that as of right now I am the most excited about!

Are there anything that you think I’ve missed or forgot about? Are you one of the only other Evil Within fans that want a third instalment?

There’s gotta be someone else out there wanting this as bad as I do!!

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tlbodine · 6 years

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Ableism, Mental Illness, and the Horror Genre

Horror has a problematic history with the mentally ill, and I think there’s a lot to unpack there in terms of ableism and deconstructing harmful tropes.

* For purposes of this discussion, I’ll be using some potentially-triggering terms like “insane” and “crazy” and “lunatic” and “psycho” and I kindly ask that you don’t take that as any sort of endorsement or reflection of my values -- just as a bundle of terms familiar in the genre. Tread forward carefully.

Loosely speaking, I think mental illness has three flavors in the horror genre:

Stories where people with schizophrenia/DID/whatever are the villains

Stories set in or using mental hospitals/asylums as scary plot devices

Stories about people going insane/losing their grip on reality (or thinking they’re going insane because of the supernatural shenanigans happening in the story)

I don’t think that these three tropes are necessarily closely related, and I don’t think that any of them are inherently ableist if dealt with under certain circumstances -- but let’s go back to the beginning and try to break it down a bit.

What is Ableism? Why is it Harmful?

Before we get started, let’s talk about why we should care about this at all. So what actually is ableism?

Ableism -- The practices and dominant attitudes in society that devalue and limit the potential of persons with disabilities. A set of practices and beliefs that assign inferior value (worth) to people who have developmental, emotional, physical or psychiatric disabilities.

(Source: http://www.stopableism.org/p/what-is-ableism.html)

Ableism against the mentally ill stigmatizes people who have mental illnesses. It dehumanizes and “others” them. In horror media in particular, it promotes the concept that “crazy people” are dangerous, which can lead to acts of violence against them or an overall lack of compassion.

I’m a firm believer that there are no bad tropes, and that people are always free to write the stories that speak to them - but I’m also a firm believer that you need to take responsibility for your creations and be aware of the effects your words may have on the world. So we’ll look at how mental illness is portrayed in horror media, why it can be problematic, and some ways to subvert it.

Mental Illness, as a Concept, is Relatively New (and a lot newer than the horror genre)

The concept of ableism is even newer. Many, many tropes are rooted in times when social concepts were different. Human behavior hasn’t changed much, but the way we talk about that behavior has -- and stories have a way of sticking around after the cultures that created them are gone. So we have a whole stack of tropes and narratives and ideas that are tied to older ways of thinking.

So for example: At various points in history and across various cultures, mental illness as we know it today may have been viewed as demonic possession, fae magic, witchcraft, etc. In other words - a lot of the tropes we already associate with horror may in part have been used as an explanation for mental illness symptoms (and the mentally ill may have endured terrible punishments for it throughout history as well).

Then, as more modern medicine started to be practiced, and psychology began to be developed, the concept of mental illness started to develop...and sometimes that, too, was horrifying.

Here are some supplemental reading links on the topic you might find interesting:

http://nobaproject.com/modules/history-of-mental-illness

https://www.healthyplace.com/other-info/mental-illness-overview/the-history-of-mental-illness

http://www.inquiriesjournal.com/articles/1673/the-history-of-mental-illness-from-skull-drills-to-happy-pills

Even in modern times, we still don’t fully understand how the brain works and what causes mental illness and the accompanying behaviors -- and the unknown continues to be scary. All of our fears live inside unanswered questions. And that is why these narratives continue to hold sway.

Why Insanity is Frightening

Let’s go back to my earlier assertion that there are three flavors of mental illness in horror, because I think at their core that each version preys upon entirely different types of fears:

#1 The Psycho Killer Trope:

As seen in: Psycho, Halloween, The Silence of the Lambs

Falls under the TVTrope “Insane Equals Violent” https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/InsaneEqualsViolent

Many urban legends also deal with “escaped lunatic” or “dangerous madman” character tropes. The gist of it is that a mentally unstable person is violent, commits atrocious acts, does not feel remorse (or much of anything else), and may somehow possess superhuman strength.

This scenario is frightening because:

A crazy person has no motive and cannot be reasoned with

Crazy people behave erratically and unpredictably

An insane mind is harder to understand, effectively dehumanizing the villain

People with hallucinations or delusions can experience a twisted view of reality, leading to abnormal behavior (and cool cinematic effects)

Essentially, if you want to turn a human into a monster, making them “crazy” is an easy (lazy) way to do it.

Now, here’s the thing. Sometimes, the mentally ill really are dangerous, such as people who attack their families while experiencing delusions. And if you consider sociopaths to be mentally ill, then a good number of serial killers and other violent people count as mentally ill: https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/wicked-deeds/201409/the-sociopath-serial-killer-connection

All the same, there are many ways that this trope can become ableist and damaging:

The overwhelming majority of mentally ill people are non-violent and are actually much more likely to be victims of violence themselves in real life. There are a lot of reasons for that. For one, many severely mentally ill people end up homeless (or homelessness exacerbates existing mental illness), and the homeless are a common target of violence. For another, people’s fear of insanity can lead to them perpetuating violence against the mentally ill. Nasty cycle, right?

The other big problem with this trope is that it’s not portrayed realistically 99% of the time. Real-world psychopaths are generally not known for their cackling insanity and childish violence. Schizophrenics and people with DID/multiple personalities are statistically very rarely violent, and their violent tendencies are really overblown in media. And that is probably the biggest thing: If the only time we ever see a schizophrenic character in a story is when they’re a crazy killer, then we the audience are going to start thinking that all schizophrenic people are crazy killers. Because most people don’t know anyone with schizophrenia, and they’re not used to ever seeing positive or compassionate portrayals of those people in media.

#2 The Haunted Asylum Trope:

As seen in: The Ward, Session 9, American Horror Story: Asylum, and more video games than I can possibly count

Falls under the TVTrope: Bedlam House https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/BedlamHouse

There are two flavors to the haunted asylum trope, and they can overlap or happen distinctly. The first is where the action takes place in a now-abandoned building that was once a mental institution and is now haunted as shit. The second is where a person is committed to a mental institution that may or may not be haunted and endures all manner of terrifying things up to and including: abusive staff, ghosts, violent patients, and torturous “treatments.”

There are more examples of this trope than I can possibly list out, and its roots dig back real deep into our not-so-distant past. Stories like Poe’s short story “The System of Doctor Tarr and Professor Fether” is an early treatment of the premise (compare and contrast with the film Stonehearst Asylum, which is basically a re-telling); Ken Kesey’s One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, while not precisely horror, is a trope codifier for a lot of things that show up in these stories.

There’s a lot to fear in this setting:

“Treatments” that were dangerous and brutal, like lobotomies and electro-shocks, being essentially forms of torture

The idea of being locked up against your will (a justified fear in certain points of history, when locking up your inconvenient relatives was a viable option)

Being locked up somewhere occupied by those same murderous-madmen from the previous trope

Ghosts and vengeful spirits who are really pissed about all of the above

In some ways, the haunted asylum trope is actually anti-ableist, or at least inverts the ableism of the psycho-killer trope, in that the “madmen” are often sympathetic characters rather than the villains. However, it then creates its own set of problems.

One of the worst issues with the “haunted asylum” trope is it is anachronistic. Modern mental health care isn’t perfect, but it’s a hell of a lot better than it was 100 years ago -- but people don’t have a lot of cultural touchstones for what a modern inpatient care facility looks like. Painting psychiatrists and other mental healthcare staff as sadistic torture-lovers isn’t exactly doing the profession any favors.

If the public associates getting mental health care with the kind of things they see in media...well, they won’t be very supportive of that care, right? And that’s a big problem.

And, of course, if your haunted asylum is also home to crazy psycho-killers, you have a two-for-one ableism problem.

#3 The Am-I-Losing-My-Mind Trope:

As seen in: The Shining, 1408, The Babadook

Falls under the TV Trope Through the Eyes of Madness: https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/ThroughTheEyesOfMadness

The diverse sub-genre of “psychological horror” quite frequently utilizes some form or another of this concept -- “Are these things actually happening, or am I losing my mind?” I’m the first to admit that I’m a sucker for this trope. It’s probably my favorite thing about the horror genre. But that doesn’t mean it’s wholly unproblematic.

There are a few sub-types of this trope:

Gaslighting, where someone purposely manipulates a character to make them feel like they can’t trust their own perceptions of reality

The “I think I’m going crazy but wait actually it’s a supernatural event” trope

The “something happened and it made me go crazy (and possibly violent)” trope

Of these, the third one has the greatest risk of becoming ableist. It’s sometimes used to give a backstory to the psycho-killers in #1, and it has some troubling implications. For one, the idea that trauma can make you go crazy is...overly simplistic at best. We don’t fully understand mental illnesses, but we do know that they are often linked to genetics, brain injury, neurological disorders, childhood experiences, etc. etc. etc. In other words, it’s pretty fucking insensitive and reductionist to suggest that a single traumatic event can “drive someone crazy.”

The other issue is that, in these cases, being crazy (or being viewed as crazy) is the absolute worst thing that could possibly happen to somebody, right? Like how often do we see the harmful trope of someone experiencing something, then being locked away in one of those mental institutions from #2, and then their life is effectively over? That has to feel pretty awful for the people who do suffer from mental illnesses in the real world.

So, Okay, How Do We Fix It?

All right. If you’re still with me after this long exploration, you’re probably wondering: OK, TL, I get it, but what am I -- a horror writer -- supposed to do about this? How do I tell scary stories without falling back on harmful tropes?

Gee, I’m so glad you asked!

Not every story is the same, and there is no single “do this and never be accused of ableism” formula, but there are some tips I think can make a lot of difference:

Ask yourself: Why am I writing this story? What is it about the premise that intrigues and frightens you? Drill down to the core of your motives and mine the untapped potential of fresh ideas rather than regurgitating more well-worn tropes. If you want to write a story about being locked in a place with violent people, can I set it somewhere other than an asylum? If I want to write a story about a murderer, can I make him frightening without him being insane?

Do your research and portray things realistically. Research here means original, real-life cases and events. If you want to write about a mental hospital, look at real mental hospitals and draw your inspiration from them rather than drawing from the stock tropes in other stories. If you have a psychiatrist character, learn about real psychiatric treatments in the time period you’re writing about. If you have a schizophrenic character, research the actual symptoms and behaviors associated with schizophrenia.

Question what your thematic choices are actually saying. Consider the implications of a plot point or character, and decide whether you’re comfortable with them. Be self-aware about what you choose to include.

Practice good representation. A lot of the harm from ableist narratives comes from the mentally ill character being the only representation of that illness - not just in their story, but in every story. Consider including sympathetic, non-villainous characters with (realistically portrayed) mental illnesses. If you have several such characters, it’s not so bad if one of them is indeed a villain.

Get a sensitivity reader. Find somebody who is familiar with what you’re writing about, and get them to read it and tell you if you’re being an asshole. Ideally, get more than one. Someone who has first-hand experience with the topics you’re writing about can tell you whether or not you’ve missed the mark (within reason).

Invert and avoid stereotypes: This goes hand-in-hand with doing your research. Study the tropes that are common in the type of story you’re telling, and think of ways to challenge or invert the most common stereotypes. Not only will you avoid falling in the same traps, you’ll also give your story a fresh and refreshing twist that the reader will enjoy.

I hope this was helpful. If you have more thoughts, feel free to add them below!

Enjoy what I’m doing here? Show your support by buying me a coffee: https://ko-fi.com/A57355UN

#how to write horror #ableism #writing advice #mental illness #tropes #long post #i kind of wrote a treatise there #oops

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thecloserkin · 6 years

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book review: Mira Grant, Feed (2010)

Genre: Sci-Fi

Is it the main pairing: Yes

Is it canon: No

Is it explicit: No

Is it endgame: Yes

Is it shippable: Hell to the yes

Bottom line: Creepily Codependent Siblings Survive the Zombie Apocalypse! They are adopted but the way they refer to each other as “my brother” and “my sister” when they could have used given names instead? I am here for it. While tight plotting is not one of this book’s strengths, you should slog through the infodumps to the ending which packs one hydrogen bomb of an emotional wallop.

This is the first book in the “Newsflash” trilogy about a pair of journalists, Georgia and Shaun Mason, who begin by blogging out of their parents’ basement and end by uncovering a vast governmental conspiracy subtended by various alphabet-soup agencies. The zombie apocalypse itself happened 23 years ago, and it happened the way these things invariably happen: Scientists try to cure cancer/the common cold, unleash freak virus on humanity, cue end of the world as we know it. Georgia and Shaun are the paradigmic products of this remade world: They, like many children born in and around the chaos of the outbreak, were orphans. On their adoption papers their birthdays are given as the same day—an arbitrary made-up date, but it makes them twins even if George is def a few months older. She acts older too, acting as the business brains of their fledgling journalistic operation while Shaun’s job is to “poke dead things with sticks” and look good while doing it. There is a performative aspect to Shaun’s mugging for the camera and flirting with anything in a skirt. He’s doing it because outrageous behavior garners them more hits, obviously, but he’s also doing it for George who gets a kick out of watching him charm the pants off people. She is bemused but not remotely threatened. George is all-business all the time, emotionally guarded and wary of physical contact, and one time when someone tried to hug her Shaun smoothly stepped up to intercept the hug to spare her the discomfort of enduring it. I SCREAMED. Note that George doesn’t mind being touched if it’s Shaun doing it:

I shuddered. Shaun caught the gesture and put a hand at the small of my back, steadying me. I flashed him a smile.

Shaun put a hand on my knee, steadying me, and I covered it with my own.

These small moments of tenderness punctuate an endearingly banterful sibling rapport. This is them reacting to the news of their big break—they’ve been tapped to cover the presidential campaign of an idealistic Wyoming senator:

Shaun was sure we’d get it. I was sure we wouldn’t. Now, staring at the monitor, Shaun said, “George?” “Yeah?” “You owe me twenty bucks.”

This is George shooing Shaun out of her room so she can change her clothes:

I pointed to the door. “Get out. There’s about to be nudity, and you’ll just complicate things.” “Finally, adult content! Should I turn the webcams on?”

This is big sister Georgia mocking Shaun for his youthful indiscretions:

”Remember how pissed you got when we had to do all that reading about the Rising back in sixth grade? I thought you were going to get us both expelled.”

In conclusion I love them sfm they are perfect.

As an aside, the people tagging this book “horror” on Goodreads have either not read the book (which is legit, TBR piles are a thing) or don’t understand what horror is? It’s like they saw the word “zombies” and just auto-completed the genre. What defines horror is not blood, gore, or violence but the fear and loss of agency engendered by that violence. That’s why so many horror film protagonists are women, who experience loss of agency in large and small ways on a daily basis and must learn to survive in the face of it; it’s cathartic to watch them take back control. The point of this digression is that THIS IS NOT A HORROR NOVEL. It’s not about that kind of fear!!! This is a political thriller so buckle in kids we’re going for a ride.

Twenty-three years ago during the outbreak, Georgia and Shaun’s parents lost their eight-year-old biological son. He was bitten by the neighbors’ dog. This was before it was widely understood that the virus could jump between mammalian species, and that anything surpassing the 40 pound threshold was susceptible to its effects. The dog weighed over 40 pounds. The Masons, who were award-winning reporters in their own right, dealt with their grief by channeling their emotional resources into chasing the news ratings. They continued to be phenomenally successful journalists as well as shitty parents to Shaun and Georgia, whom they seem to have adopted entirely for publicity purposes. The narrative invites us to draw the comparison between George and Shaun, who have chosen to pursue this career out of a thirst for THE TRUTH, and their parents who have less lofty motivations. Not to put too fine a point on it but their parents are mercenary motherfuckers. These kids survived their childhood by building an emotional bunker that they never learned to climb out of. This line from the very first chapter is so telling because they’re out in the field and Shaun is being chased by a zombie right?:

I screamed, images of my inevitable future as an only child filling my mind.

When Shaun’s in mortal peril, Georgia doesn’t think of him as “the center of my universe”— which he is—she thinks of the void that would result in the loss of her brother. That’s how they fit together, that’s what they are to each other, and all the other stuff is layered on top of the shared trauma of their childhood. Ffs they even have a ritual for administering each other’s blood tests—you know that thing at wedding toasts where the bride and groom loop their arms together and tip the champagne flute into the other’s mouth? Like that:

Moving with synchronicity born of long practice, we broke the biohazard seals and popped the plastic lids off our testing units

So the protocol for taking blood tests, which everyone has to do all day long to prove they’re not infected, is to come into the foyer/antechamber/vestibule one at a time and once you test clean you proceed into the building while the next person cycles into the chamber. That way, if anyone is found to be infected, they can be isolated. Georgia and Shaun have never once complied with this rule:

Our next-door-neighbor used to call Child Protective Services every six months because our folks wouldn’t stop us from coming in together. But what’s the point of life if you can’t take risks now and then, like coming into the damn house with your brother?

Implying that if one of them ever got bitten by a zombie the other one would rather spend the rest of their short life trapped in a garage with the shambling corpse of their sibling than die in their sleep at a ripe old age. Talk about ride or die.

I said before that this presidential campaign, this is their big break as much as it is the candidate’s. Up till now George and Shaun have been blogging under the umbrella of news aggregation entities (sort of like how BuzzFeed and HuffPost and Medium are populated by user-generated content that isn’t necessarily making the content creator an appreciable pile of money), but now they’ve finally landed the story that will let them strike out on their own. One of the sharpest things about this book is how it depicts journalism as a job, and a tough one to do right. Nashville does the same thing for the music industry, and as over-the-top as that show is, it shows you the nuts and bolts of success in a profession where practitioners are supposedly driven by “passion” alone. Here the distribution of labor is skewed pretty heavily towards George:

I get the administrative junk that Shaun’s too much of a jerk and Buffy’s too much of a flake to deal with.

Buffy is their business partner and some kind of auteur hacker + tech whiz. Shaun is the public face of their media brand. But make no mistake, George is the heart and soul and brains of this operation. You see her business acumen in drive-by observations like “Replacing that much equipment would kill our operating budget for months,” or when she talks about i n s u r a n c e. And George talks about insurance a lot. She mentions how a certain camera covered in zombie body fluids is an insurance write-off, how being present in designated high-risk zones during certain times of day can triple your insurance premium, how a certain treatment for her chronic vision condition isn’t covered by health insurance. I … just wanna point out that the human race has survived a flippin’ zombie apocalypse, but the United States remains wedded to private for-profit health insurance where who and what are “covered” remains a game of Russian roulette?!! Whoever said it was “easier to imagine the end of the world than the end of capitalism” was onto something. This society is functioning cohesively enough that elections are a thing (thus, nation-states are still a thing). If you want to tell me our fragmented, inefficient, fee-for service model of paying for medical care that routinely bankrupts & kills our citizens has weathered the end of civlization and emerged intact from its ashes, you better look me dead in the eye and bring receipts.

What’s really impressive about Georgia is she’ll rattle off exactly what kind of activities (those forbidden by her journalistic licensing) will invalidate her life insurance if she’s stupid enough to get killed while doing them. From which I surmise that she and Shaun are both covered by pretty hefty policies of which they are each other’s sole beneficiary. Which makes sense, they’re in a dangerous line of work, but I feel like it’s a poor investment since whoever was left behind would be doing their damnedest to climb into the grave next to their sibling lol.

Another little requirement of the household insurance—since we leave safe zones all the time in order to do our jobs, we have to be able to prove we’ve been properly sterilized, and that means logged computer verification of our sterilizations.

George is talking about the AI that is apparently located in her showerhead that douses her with a bleach & antiseptic compound when she comes back from being in the field?? That sounds painful but what concerns me is the breathtaking scope of the Internet of Things’ penetration into her life. The AI is in the bathroom. It knows exactly where she’s been bc ofc her GPS location can be tracked via her phone, and it’s merrily sending packets of information off to …. somewhere, where it will doubtless be aggregated with all the data collected about George from other sources, and combed for patterns to predict future behavior. That’s how surveillance capitalism works. if this sounds chillingly familiar it’s because it’s already happening, it’s what the tech giants are already doing—gobbling up as much data about as many people in as many contexts as possible—and leveraging that data for profit. Privacy is a joke. George is not unaware of this, but what choice does she have? It’s either install the damn AI in her showerhead or get her parents’ homeowners’ insurance policy cancelled for being too “high risk.”

I want to circle back to George’s chronic medical condition for a sec. She’s got a disability—what’s a called a “reservoir condition” where the virus takes up residence in a body organ, in her case the retina—meaning essentially that she has zombie vision; she can see ridiculously well in low light situations but direct sunlight will blind her. She has to wear shades even indoors and is literally incapable of crying since her tear ducts are inoperative. So there’s a testy situation where a federal agent tries to get her to take off her sunglasses so he can verify her identity with a retinal scan right? And because they’re standing outside this is obviously a recipe for permanent blindness, quite aside from the fact you wouldn’t be able to get a valid scan anyway due to the virus over-dilating George pupils. But instead of checking George’s files, where her disability & its effects are prominently listed, this grunt insists on making her remove her glasses because Procedure. It’s a pretty tense moment. Shaun goes ballistic. He doesn’t physically threaten the dude, or insult his mom or anything. No, Shaun understands that he needs to make this pencil-pusher more afraid of the consequences of taking George’s glasses than of Not Following Procedure. And it works. YEET.

On the campaign trail the Senator’s aides arrange for sex-segregated hotel rooms but Shaun and George are having none of it:

On the few occasions when I’ve tried sleeping without Shaun in the next room, well, let’s just say that I can go a long way on a six-pack of Coke.

The ostensible reason the sleeping arrangements need to be reshuffled is, Buffy can’t sleep without a nightlight and George’s eyes can’t tolerate a nightlight. Clearly the real reason is George and Shaun are c l i n g y and codependent as FUCK. One night after a zombie attack and the long grueling hours of cleanup/decontamination that followed it, they actually climb into the same bed—I guess this room only had a double instead of two singles?? The scene the next morning, the two of them having predictably overslept:

“Fuck a duck, Buffy, what are you trying to do, blind her?” … Shaun, clad only in his boxer shorts, staring at an unrepentant Buffy.

So Shaun’s beef with Buffy is not that she barged in on them while they were asleep & half-naked but that she opened the curtains, thereby triggering a painful migraine for George’s sensitive eyes. Buffy explains she didn’t shake them awake because they both sleep armed, lmao. George’s disability and Shaun’s practiced ability to help her maneuver around it (like a trusty prosthetic, he’s an extension of herself) serves to highlight how in this partnership they are one unit and they know each other inside out. This is them after their close shave with the dunce who tried to take George’s glasses:

“Fuck you, too,” I muttered as Shaun got his arm around me and hoisted me away from the barn. “You kiss our mother with that mouth?” “Our mother and you both, dickhead. Give me my sunglasses.”

And this is George waking up in their hotel room, eyes squeezed shut against the glare of multiple computer screens:

He touched my hand with the tips of his fingers before he pressed my sunglasses against my palm.

This is absurdly, spine-tinglingly intimate. First he touches her hand with the tip of his fingers, the most fleeting of touches to let her know it’s him, and then he presses the glasses into her palm to restore her agency so she can, you know, open her eyes. And that earlier scene with him guiding her by the elbow in broad daylight!!! I’M NOT CRYING YOU’RE CRYING

Sometimes I can hardly believe that George and Shaun are twenty-three years old. When I was twenty-three I … was not adulting half so well as these kids. But then, giving their barbarous upbringing, that’s not surprising; my parents loved and nurtured me. When I look at George and Shaun and the successful business they’ve built and the professional relationships they’ve cultivated and their expertise and their bravery I just feel this proud parental glow you know?

I want to say a word about Senator Ryman before we move onto spoiler territory. There’s a big controversy initially about whether the Senator is “genuine” or not (spoiler alert: he is). But what does that even mean, genuine? He’s a good egg, sure, but what are his policies, none of which are explored in depth except his support for horse farms??? I’m not kidding. In a world where any animal weighing over 40 pounds is a zombie outbreak waiting to happen, it’s a controversial position to say people should be able to keep pets in residential zones. Here is how George describes our Candidate:

He’s like a big, friendly Boy Scout who just woke up one day and decided to become the President of the United States of America.

I see two major problems with this: One, they say “Personnel is Policy” so who the hell is he planning to appoint to key Cabinet positions and can he trust them to pursue rather than undermine his objectives (and does he even have a deep enough bench of people to draw on)? Two, the Boy Scouts of America are not exactly, er, unproblematic, and while it’s safe to say our faves are always problematic, I think “Boy Scout” is shorthand here for “no skeletons in his closet,” which again puts the focus squarely on his personal qualities rather than what policies he espouses. It’s great that he hasn’t cheated on his wife or his taxes. But morality and ethics are not the same thing:

Morals are how you treat people you know. Ethics are how you treat people you don’t know. Your morality is what makes you a good spouse/friend … Your ethics are what makes you a good politician … Morality dictates that you take care of your family, friends and even acquaintances first … For a large society—a society where you can’t know everyone—to work, ethics must come before morality, or ethics and morality must have a great deal of overlap. By acting morally, you must be able to act ethically.

I think we can all agree that this does not describe how our society is currently constituted, and it doesn’t describe George and Shaun’s America either. So this narrow fixation on whether individual candidates are “genuine” or corrupt imo kinda misses the point. George says:

I haven’t even been able to find proof that his campaign received funding from the tobacco companies, and everyone’s campaign receives funding from the tobacco companies.

I don’t want to undersell how important it is the guy is not taking tobacco money. But is he also eschewing Wall Street money, Big Pharma money, defense contractor money? How could George possibly have time to investigate all this dark money if she is supposed to be covering the actual campaign? Seems like it would be a lot easier to reform the campaign finance laws than to vet every single single candidate’s funding sources.

I think one reason the Senator is long on identity & personal charisma and short on policy is that he’s up against an opponent whose base of support is millenarian-fundamentalist “the Rapture is here, we’re all going to hell”:

it was either Ryman’s brand of “we should all get along while we’re here,” or Tate’s hellfire and damnation.

If that is the main faultline in society, I guess half the voters don’t really wanna hear how a given politician is planning to make a material difference in their lives, since they’ve already got eyes on the prize aka the next life.

So there you have it. George and Shaun are scrappy independent muckrakers digging for the truth. Time and again their allegiance to that holy grail overrides their concern for trivial aims like idk personal safety. There’s a vast, shady conspiracy afoot, and as our heroes get closer to it they start getting shot at. They lose comrades. None of this deters them because they are after THE TRUTH. Oh wait there is in fact one thing George values more than the truth:

”You’re more interested in your brother than figuring out the truth?” “Shaun’s the only thing that concerns me more than the truth does.”

And later:

The sight of him was enough to make my heart beat faster and my throat get tight. I knew he was wearing Kevlar underneath his clothes, but Kevlar wouldn’t protect him from a headshot.

Her first concern is always, always, for him.

SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS

George gets infected. That’s the denouement. George is infected and Shaun has to shoot her before she turns all the way. Every single person who makes it to this scene is just bawling by the end of it:

His lips brushed the top of my head as he bent forward and pressed them to my hair. I wanted to yell at him to get away from me, but I didn’t. The barrel of the gun remained a cool, constant pressure on the back of my neck. When I turned, when I stopped being me, he would end it. He loved me enough to end it. Has any girl ever been luckier than I am?

The reassuring pressure of the gun on the base of her neck??? Has there been a more romantic moment in cinematic history??? I THINK NOT. Shaun is a crack shot—he’s the kind of guy who caresses his guns, names them after pretty women, causes his sister to grouse about digging through a suitcaseful of his weaponry to find her clothes—and yet here he is using his gun to kill the woman he loves most in the world.

It was supposed to be Shaun. They both took it as a given that Shaun would be the one to die first. Now he has to find a reason to continue living other than the obvious (vengeance). Stay tuned for the next installment, narrated by Shaun!

#newsflesh #book review #mira grant

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englishgeek82-blog · 6 years

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Great Scott! Is Back to the Future the best film trilogy ever?

I was watching the Back to the Future films recently, and it dawned on me that I'd forgotten just how brilliantly enjoyable the trilogy is. In fact, I enjoyed it so much that I started to wonder if it just might be the best film trilogy ever made. I know it wouldn’t be first choice for a lot of people, but I thought that nevertheless, it might be worth comparing it to some of the other standard choices to see how it measures up. The major issue of course, is how you define “best”. I’m looking at the films as a collective whole, the overall story and effect of the entire narrative. I’m not judging it on solitary acting performances, or even the depth and development of the major characters, but rather how enjoyable and convincing the story is, and how easy the films make it for the viewer to enter and accept the premise of their world. For instance, the Back to the Future trilogy is about as unrealistic as any films could ever be. But so are Lord of the Rings, Terminator, Star Wars and The Matrix. The Bourne films and the Godfather films have a more realistic feel to them, although I’m not sure anyone would really defend them as being 100% true to life if placed under oath, so let’s remember that suspension of disbelief is an important part of any film experience. But what counts is that once you are inside that world, that the films stay true to it. This is a glaring error in the Matrix trilogy, which seems to make its own rules up as it goes along. The Indiana Jones trilogy seems to suffer the same problem, with Temple of Doom really never making up its mind as to what kind of film it wants to be, and consequently ending up as not much of a film at all. Plus, of course, there’s a fourth film in that particular trilogy but I’m being polite and not mentioning it.

I’m also judging the films as a trilogy, not as single films. Die Hard is an incredibly brilliant film, but the trilogy of which it is a part is not. There’s a fourth AND fifth entry in that trilogy, but I’m being polite and not mentioning them. The same goes for The Godfather, The Empire Strikes Back, and The Matrix. I’m also not counting “unofficial trilogies”, like Baz Luhrmann’s Romeo and Juliet, Strictly Ballroom and Moulin Rouge. Plenty to recommend in all those films, and they have been lumped together by Luhrmann, but as far as I’m concerned, it simply doesn’t count. Even Kevin Smith’s films in the View Askewniverse aren’t going to be counted in this, largely because there are more than 3 of them anyway, and second of all because the films are completely different stories linked tenuously together by supporting characters and locations, which doesn’t quite cut the mustard, and so they too, do not count.

The reason they don’t count is that unofficial trilogies aren’t telling the same story, and so you can’t have sly little references to the other movies therein. One of the many things that impress me about the BTTF trilogy is the self-referential nature of the films, which is common in a lot of sequels and trilogies, but rarely as subtle as it is here. Even the way Marty crosses the road when finding himself in a new time zone by the clock tower is consistent, not to mention the supporting characters such as the Statler family’s horse/car business, and the Texaco filling station, shown in the first two films and referenced in the third. This is one of the cleverest techniques in this trilogy and makes the films feel all the more familiar and makes repeat viewings all the more rewarding.

Now, obviously I realise that when it comes to epic genius in terms of acting and directing, the films may not be up there with The Godfather. That being said, Godfather III is notably poorer than the other two, and it could be argued that it's not even thematically consistent, which I don't think you can say about BTTF. The first two Godfather films are undoubtedly cinematic masterpieces, (though on a recent viewing I was surprised at how the first one has aged) but they certainly don’t have any of the feel-good factor of the Future films. You don’t just channel surf, spot Godfather II and decide to watch it for a laugh – like so many other classics, Citizen Kane, Casablanca, Lawrence of Arabia, Gone with the Wind, to name but a few, you have to make a decision to sit down and watch it. This is all well and good, but it’s a solitary journey. It’s a rewarding one too, but you could never sit down with friends at a party and play those films and expect the humour levels in the room not to nose-dive. Al Pacino is incredible, in all three films, and Brando still sends shivers down the spine in the original, not to mention the more-than-able supporting cast who ply their trade with such style alongside them. But the story and cast of Godfather III seems completely out of kilter with the tone of the original two, and this was commented on heavily by critics. I personally think the third film has much in its corner, another fine performance by Pacino, a fitting conclusion to the epic story of Michael Corleone and Andy Garcia’s impressive turn as the young hot-headed Vincent. But there’s no denying that it stumbles through some very tenuous plot lines and is over-populated with characters that completely fail to enhance the story. Finally, Sofia Coppola, although she is not as bad as everyone says, is still bad. The Godfather is so hugely different from Back to the Future that it’s almost pointless to even hold them up under the same light, but for a trilogy that I would pick to watch when I was at a loose end and wanted cheering up, there is no doubt that I would dive for the Delorean every time.

I also know that in terms of Sci-Fi influence and impact, the films are not up there with the original Star Wars films. And the Star Wars films hold the aces in some areas too. For instance, Biff and the other Tannens are effective villains for their genre of film, but they’re more pantomime than would be allowed in a film that took itself seriously. Darth Vader, on the other hand, is a truly great villain, especially when his story is further revealed and his tragedy brought to the fore. As heroes go, Luke Skywalker certainly undergoes a more immense journey of personal development than Marty McFly, but he doesn’t have Marty’s quick wit and he’s a whiny little so-and-so, a trait that he obviously picked up from his father, if the god-forsaken and indeed critically-forsaken, and indeed audience-forsaken prequels are anything to go by. As for things that are wrong with the films, there’s very little – especially with the first two films, but by the time of Return of the Jedi, the Ewok storyline grates on even the most sympathetic fan. Once you compare the original three to the prequels, the originals look like genuine masterpieces, but then once you compare the home video my grandmother shot of my 10th birthday to the Star Wars prequels, you get the same result. And once you start to bring in the storylines of the prequels, the rule about staying true to the world that you have asked the viewer to enter goes flying out of the window like a drop-kicked Ewok. The prequels are truly three of cinema’s great horrors in my opinion, and sadly because they are prequels, their very existence adversely affects the original films. Incidentally, and strangely, even though the insinuations of incest are much greater in BTTF, and in fact both sets of films contain exactly the same amount of screen-time for blood relatives kissing each other, it’s much more unsettling in Star Wars than it is in Back to the Future.

So, we arrive at this century’s most titanic Sci-fi achievement (if you ask some people) - Christopher Nolan’s Batman trilogy? Batman Begins is one of my favourite films of all time, with Christian Bale’s performance so impressive that I thought I’d never see a better turn in a Batman film, until Heath Ledger’s incredible Joker burned itself into all our minds. I remember thinking If the third Nolan/Bale film was even half as good as the two that precede it, I would find it almost impossible to pick holes in it. Fortunately, it wasn’t. I wanted to like The Dark Knight Rises, I really did – and I did like it, but it was not the conclusion to the story for which I was hoping. Bat Bale’s growl whenever he speaks (which seemed like a good character move on Bale’s part in the first film) is irritating at best by the end of two hours plus of The Dark Knight and another two hours plus of The Dark Knight Rises. Tom Hardy’s Bane is menacing in appearance, but a big softie deep down and also speaks through his (ostentatious, to put it lightly) space mask in a way that makes him sound like the Head Boy of a southern private school who is addressing his prefects via a home-made walkie-talkie. There are also plot holes so massive in both TDK and TDKR that you could quite comfortably drive a DeLorean through them. The plot hole accusation is also true of the BTTF films, but since they never took themselves too seriously anyway, you could argue that the minutiae of time travel physics don’t matter as much as the overall effect of having a really good laugh.

The Back to the Future trilogy might not be considered as impressive, visually, as the Lord of the Rings films, but if you look at the standard of visual effects against the era in which the films were made, I think there’s a fine argument to be made that BTTF was hugely impressive. The LOTR films have been received incredibly well, and have plenty to recommend them, although they're all 16 hours long and if you don't like that particular genre, you'll be asleep before you see your first hobbit. And yes, I know they won a million Oscars, but that doesn’t always equal sheer enjoyment. Titanic won Best Picture because it looked nice, but was it really the best film of that year? Here are some films that didn’t win Best Picture at the Oscars, just for fun.

Citizen Kane, 12 Angry Men, To Kill a Mockingbird, Dr Strangelove, Bonnie & Clyde, Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, Cabaret, The Exorcist, Dog Day Afternoon, Jaws, Taxi Driver, Star Wars, Apocalypse Now, Raging Bull, Raiders of the Lost Ark, Goodfellas, Dangerous Liaisons, Born on the 4th of July, My Left Foot, JFK, A Few Good Men, The Fugitive, Pulp Fiction, The Shawshank Redemption, Fargo, LA Confidential, Saving Private Ryan, The Green Mile, The Sixth Sense, Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, Hudson Hawk. All masterpieces.

For action and adventure, it's possible that the Back To The Future films don't compare with the Indiana Jones films; although they have more than their fair share, they admittedly are not as action-oriented as the Indy films. Sadly, following the below-average-but-probably-still-better-than-Temple-of-Doom “Kingdom of the Crystal Skull”, that trilogy has also been unnecessarily tampered with. Even if it hadn’t been, (or if Crystal Skull had been really good), the fact remains that Temple of Doom is pretty naff compared to the other two original movies. I’m not sure any adventure film will ever rival The Last Crusade, because that film pretty much has everything you could ever want from an action movie. Nazis being crap? Check. Exotic Locations? Check. Sean Connery? Check. Harrison Ford? Check. Biblical epic-ness? Check. And finally, Alison Doody...check. So, on its own, yes I would concede that Last Crusade is a better film than any of the BTTF flicks – but only just. As a trilogy though, our survey still comes back with a big X.

For Biblical allegory, although not for mind bending “ooh, makes you think”-ness (which isn’t really a thing, I just made it up) – the films don’t compare with the Matrix trilogy, but then unlike the Matrix trilogy, the second two BTTF films aren’t redolent of the Chernobyl aftermath. The first Matrix film is a really good (not great) film, with a really good (not great) idea behind it. As a standalone piece of cinema, it must rank as an important contribution to the art. However, the sequels are so mind-bendingly awful and lost in tracts of their own self-righteousness that really the whole concept is ruined and the brilliance of the first film is lost.

Pirates of the Caribbean is probably the closest set of films in terms of the general style, some wacky characters, good old fashioned escapade fun and some funky special effects and pretty far-out plot lines. BUT, the films are long, especially the completely directionless third one. This is nothing compared to the fact that Orlando Bloom AND Keira Knightley “act” in all three films. Now, Keira Knightley is a strangely alluring actress, despite her funny mouth, and in the last decade she has proven some admirable acting chops, but here her wooden stylings are not to my tastes, and for the schoolboy crush factor, she’s certainly no Lea Thompson. As for Orlando Bloom, well, I’m really not a fan. Yes, you could argue that Jack Sparrow is a better single character than any in the BTTF films, and Johnny Depp a more accomplished actor than any of the “Future” cast, but that on its own isn’t enough to rescue it. Also, by the third film, Depp has disappeared so far up his own Black Pearl that the character doesn’t have any of its original charm anymore.

For hard hitting pace and action and gritty realism with intrigue and espionage, it definitely doesn't come close to the Bourne trilogy, and I can't really think of anything bad to say about that one. It’s different, for sure, but the Bourne trilogy actually reminds me of the BTTF films in more than one way. For instance, there’s no single performance in any of the three films that truly stands out. Brian Cox is excellent, as always, as are Joan Allen and Matt Damon, but none of them put in an Oscar-winning turn. This is a good thing, in my opinion, because the films don’t demand it. The story and action is enough. Like BTTF, the cast are brilliant in their roles, but none of them dominate the screen and take away from the rest of the film, like Heath Ledger does in The Dark Knight. When he’s not on screen, all you can think is that you wish he was. This is not the case in the Bourne films, where no single character is so crucial that you can’t live without them. The films are not made for fun, and have little humour in them, and so there is no comparison there, but they stay thematically consistent and tell a story that stays completely true to the world it inhabits. If I had to pick a fault, it would be that the non-linear style of the end of the second film and start of the third is hugely confusing, but then I could hardly deny that certain parts of the third BTTF film could have been trimmed, so let’s not get too close into criticising brilliant trilogies.

Other notable trilogies could include:

· Die Hard (except there's 4 of them now, and the second one is rubbish)

· Home Alone (only joking. The first two are good though.)

· Jurassic Park (maybe if the third one had had some effort put into it by anyone associated with it, director, actors, etc)

· Evil Dead (first one, brilliant – other two, I’m not sure)

· Spiderman (Hmmm, the first two are superb. But any trilogy that includes that pointless “Emo Spidey” section of Spiderman 3 doesn’t deserve a place at this table. I mean, seriously, what the HELL were they thinking? It’s a bad film without that, but that absolutely nails its coffin permanently shut.)

· Terminator (third one rubbish, and there’s a fourth one now anyway)

There are also other film trilogies of course, like High School Musical, Matrix, X-Men, Mission: Impossible, Ace Ventura (yes, they made a third), Austin Powers, Mighty Ducks, Beverly Hills Cop, Blade, The Ocean’s films, Robocop, Rush Hour, Scream, Spy Kids, Transporter, Ice Age, I Know What You Did Last Summer, etc but all of these are discounted for either being a) completely terrible or b) let down by at least one entry in the set.

So, this is obviously a gigantically subjective theme, and a very subjective blog – and I’m fine with that, and I hope that everyone has different ideas about what constitutes the perfect film trilogy. After all, all of the above is only my opinion. But, fellow film lovers, let me ask you this - if someone sat you down and said "Right, you've got to watch an entire trilogy all the way through for pure enjoyment," is there a better choice than Back to the Future?

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sometimesrosy · 7 years

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On this show, if you aren't suffering, then you aren't participating in the plot. The only way to 'protect' Raven would be to sideline her. If Raven were a real person, obviously the best thing for her would be to lead a happy, boring life. The 'best' thing for a character on a show like the 100 is to strive, to fight, to get hurt, to get back up and do it again. If Raven does these things more than other characters, good! It means she's one of the most important characters in the narrative.

ALSO, Raven is my favorite character, and seeing her in pain is painful for me. But that is the whole. point. of. the. show. To make you experience strong emotions, often negative ones. If you, as a viewer, don’t like that, then maybe a violent, dystopian sci-fi show is not for you. No judgment! But I think you came to the wrong place.

This is precisely my point of view. And I know people are up in arms about the POC suffering more on The 100, but I just don’t think that’s so and they’ll go through hoops to make it “the truth,” invalidating some characters suffering and high lighting others. Murphy is the character who has probably seen the most consistent, horrible torture and suffering (while actually killing the fewest number of people surprisingly.) But when people make these declarations, they somehow make it so he doesn’t count. Or Clarke. Who has been imprisoned and kidnapped and tortured and has suffered mental collapse for all the horror probably the worst of anyone, is also discounted, because her pain isn’t as physical. Although she’s been beaten up plenty and imprisoned too.

So like. If you erase the suffering of the characters who DON’T fit your hypothesis. And EMPHASIZE the suffering of the character who DO fit your hypothesis, then you are practicing confirmation bias. And your evidence fails to support your theory.

If you also then IGNORE the ratio of POC characters to white characters on the show, seeing as this is a show that has an IMMENSE proportion of POC characters, compared to the rest of tv, and point only to how many POC characters suffer, without recognizing that there are just MORE POC characters on the show. And MORE LEAD POC characters… which means they are the stars of the show and their stories are important to the plot and for the character development, and means we’re SUPPOSED to feel more for the POC characters than Hollywood usually allows.

If you then erase the representation of NON POC minorities, and ignore the representation of LGBT characters, or characters with a mental illness to prove your point, then you’re hypothesis gets even weaker.

If you invalidate the value of the representation of people with chronic illness, who IRL suffer constant pain, and tell those fans that watching Raven in pain (like they are) is bad, you are putting the “representation” over one group of minorities over the other and saying they don’t matter and that makes your thesis suspect and even harmful.

If you also WHITE WASH mixed POC characters and deny them their ethnicity and racial heritage all together just so your theory works, it is again WEAKER. Marcus Kane (Henry Ian Cusick) is Peruvian. His facial features are indigenous. He’s a POC, whether his skin is lighter or not. But I have heard him declared to be a white man again and again in service of these faulty theories.

If you misunderstand the genre of post apocalyptic survival fiction, in which EVERYONE SUFFERS because it is about a dystopian idea of what happens when all the worst things in humanity win, and how humanity can struggle through the collapse of civilization and human kindness, and you don’t understand the VALUE of this kind of story, well then okay. You need to understand what you are watching so you can be an informed viewer. This genre is VALID and people can get a lot of good out of it. If it hurts you to see suffering, then that is also valid and you should not be watching this show. It is not to your taste. But that doesn’t make it wrong for us. It makes it wrong FOR YOU. And you should not be watching it. And you should not be informing people why it is evil, because you cannot understand the perspective of the people who do find value in it.

If you also have NO IDEA what the purpose of conflict, suffering or struggle is in narrative structure, and equate “feeling bad” with “evil thing” and don’t understand that in order for a character to get stronger, they have to win through their struggle, face their fear, beat their pain and come out transformed, and don’t understand that conflict in the narrative makes for a better story, well then, you have no place speaking as an authority on how stories are told. And I am just no longer going to listen to you at all. Because you don’t know what you’re talking about. You are ignorant about the subject.

If you want to talk about what it means and how it feels to you and how I personally process it and what the genre is about and how you can reconcile the bad feelings with the bigger concepts and it’s something you are struggling with and want help and want to talk about… that’s okay. I welcome that kind of conversation. I might jump to conclusions or be defensive because of other conversations I’ve had, (where I’ve literally been told that I [a latina who lived, studied and taught exactly this subject] must be quiet because I don’t understand the POC experience, and have no right to speak,) but if you explain what you meant, and the struggles you are having I will apologize and try to help. If you jump to calling me names and insulting me I won’t, though. And I’ll block.

#the 100 #the 100 fandom #representation #suffering in the 100 #what part of post apocalyptic survival show do we not understand?#narrative device

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wellhalesbells · 7 years

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If you have the time and if you don't mind, what are some books you really recommend? Doesn't have to be all time faves, but anything that pops into mind that you want more ppl to read and love, Extra points if lgbt+ , i got the whole summer with little to do and i wanna spend it reading some good quality writing and honestly so far your recs have introduced me to so many faves its unbelievable

[blushes profusely] oh wow, thank you!!! i’m so glad you’ve trusted me enough to check out some of the stuff i reblog; that is like the ultimate compliment, i can’t even??? i don’t mind at all(!), fair warning though: i only started recording what i read partway through last year and my mind is like a sieve so i’ll do my absolute best to remember what’s sang to me in the recent past. warning number two: i’m in an open relationship with absolutely every genre out there so i’ll try to note which belongs where so you can avoid those that hold no interest for you.

LGBT+

i’ll give you the sun. i loved this book, the writing is fucking transformative and all the characters are so damn likable, while still being realistically flawed human beings.

the raven cycle (tetralogy). definitely my favorite series since harry potter. the writing, the world-building, the characters, it’s all on top-form. i wrote a little, mini non-spoilery review of it: here, back when i was better (worse?) wordly-wise and my feels were brand new.

more happy than not. i’m still not sure how i feel about this book. it was hard, but it felt very true to the characters and the lingo and style matched the ages of the players and i have a lot of respect for that.

the watchmaker of filigree street. woooow i loved this book. i admit ‘historical fiction’ kind of makes me cringe. it never precludes me from reading a book but it does knock it down the list by a book or five because they’re often very dense and very clunky and end up taking me ages to get through. but this one was gorgeous. i loved the plot, the attention lovingly placed on every character and the historical elements. the surprise gay in an already brilliant book felt like winning the lottery honestly.

captive prince (trilogy). okay, truthfully, i’m only putting this on here because the second book is such a high point for me. it was never bad at any point but it had unfortunately been hyped far too much for it to live up to my, admittedly, very high expectations. hopefully it’ll fare better with you?

everything i never told you. i go back and forth on this one. i like the writing a lot, i like the LGBT aspect a lot, and i like the mystery aspect a lot but there are definitely characters i would cut out entirely for sheer predictability if i could and that killed a lot of my enjoyment at the time (but i think much more highly of it in retrospect?). so, take that as you like.

aristotle and dante discover the secrets of the universe. if there’s a book that handles its characters with more care or respect or consideration then i haven’t run into it. i love the way this is written and the people it’s populated with.

flying lessons & other stories. a bunch of uber talented authors writing a bunch of uber diverse and LGBT-focused stories and, yes, that is exactly as awesome as it sounds.

the song of achilles. it is utterly heart-breaking but so rich, honestly.

FANTASY

the diviners. (also has a minor LGBT character, who may play a bigger role in the sequel?) fair warning, i have not read the sequel, lair of dreams, because it is somehow still not out in paperback (yes, i read physical books, yes, i pretty exclusively read paperbacks so i can lug them everywhere with me, YES, I PRE-ORDERED THIS ALMOST TWO YEARS AGO AND IT’S STILL NOT OUT, NOT THAT I’M BITTER ABOUT THAT OR ANYTHING) so i can’t speak to that one finishing on a high note as i don’t know. but this was the first historical novel i managed to like in a long while. it does such a good job of fusing in 1920s lingo and dress and aspects that i couldn’t help but love it. add in the fantasy elements and i can admit i’m the perfect sucker for it.

the scorpio races. i’m not sure why but it took me a long-ass time to get into this book, i wasn’t flipping pages with gusto until well towards the end but - especially as i was reading so much YA at the time - i really appreciated coming across a romance that lets both people come into it as themselves and stay themselves, neither puck nor sean were ever smashed or crumpled or shaved away to fit into their relationship, which was so refreshing. plus the water horses were fucking cool.

the night circus. the writing, the atmosphere, the circus. just… it is all very whoa.

all the birds in the sky. i loved this writing style and these characters and the magical elements.

CONTEMPORARY

i’ll meet you there. there was something about this and i just… ended up liking it way more than i expected to. i might’ve just read it at exactly the right time, i’m not sure, but i really enjoyed it.

the invoice. this is honestly just hella cute and so freaking surreal. swedes, man.

NON-FICTION

why not me? i like mindy kaling a lot. i make no apologies for that. plus you can read both her books in about five seconds, haha.

SCIENCE FICTION

station eleven. i loved this book. the way the narrative is woven is so refreshing and i wish the comic book miranda was writing in this book was a real thing more than anything else in the woooorld.

illuminae. hot DAMN this book was cool. the plot was rock solid, the characters were hilarious and badass and the graphics made out of text and spiraling words and just the way this thing is put together? shit, it’s worth your money and then some.

a robot in the garden. okay this is just cute as hell. i can’t even with tang, he’s the most adorable robot to ever adorable.

annihilation (southern reach trilogy). (LGBT minor characters.) okay, honestly? i don’t know. this was freaking zany but i was invested as fuck in all the kookiness for reasons i can’t articulately elaborate on.

the martian. hilarious, engaging, SPACE. what more do you want?

HORROR

things we lost in the fire. this is more atmospheric than anything but, damn, could this get me wishing i wasn’t reading this in the dark or looking over my shoulder to make absolutely sure no one was standing behind me. it’s a book of short stories (by the way, i love books of short stories and i definitely realize that is not true for everyone) and each one is so well-delivered and stylized. i really enjoyed reading this.

let the right one in. okay, this is legit horror so definitely stay away if you’re easily squicked out but it is harrrrrd to find good horror (at least in my opinion) and this definitely, definitely qualifies.

horrorstör. i honestly had such low expectations for this, a horror story set in a wannabe-ikea, but it ended up being so ridiculous and strange and funny that i was won over by the finish.

the girl with all the gifts. holy unique and well-executed zombie idea, batman!

SHORT STORIES

the bigness of the world. there were definitely ones here that hit better than others but the ones i liked, i really liked!

GRAPHIC NOVELS (i read a lot of these so, um, prepare yourself)

saga. (LGBT minor characters as well.) this is world-building to a degree that i’m convinced did not exist before. just, i can’t say enough amazing things about this series and the staggering amount of imagination that regularly goes into it.

ms. marvel. heart-warming as fuck. it’s definitely really easy to lose faith in the world these days, luckily kamala is there to remind you that people are primarily and genuinely good.

black science. this is another one that took just an insane amount of imagination to cook up. i got off to kind of a rocky start with this one but the gray-ness of all the characters really speaks to me, and that doesn’t really blossom until later in the series.

spider-man/deadpool. this was very satisfying for my super duper spideypool-shipping mind. joe and ed did us so good, and joe basically said in his sign-off: i made it absolutely as gay as they would let me, haha.

the wicked + the divine. (LGBT minor characters that you’re going to get way too attached to, and retroactively. it’s awful [sobs].) the concept for this, gods reincarnating into teenagers before they burn up their hosts after a predetermined set of time, is so fucking cool. the humor and the characters and the plot is all just aces.

iceman (LGBT MAIN CHARACTER). okay, so this just started. like issue #2 was only released days ago but 1) i am liking it so far and 2) marvel did it so dirty and barely advertised bobby - an openly homosexual superhero - was getting his own series, like, i found out about it the day before it went on sale and i keep my ear fairly close to the ground (not as close as some BY A LOT, but closer than the lay person i’d say) so if you can support it, please do! pre-orders mean a lot in terms of numbers. :))))

descender. admittedly, this starts out rooough. because the main character, TIM-21 (and his little dog too), are annoying as hell. he’s an android so there’s no dimension to him so he’s booooring as all get out but i am so glad i stuck with it through to the next trade because, probably picking up on the unsustainability of him as a main character, he gets shuffled off and the side characters get the stage and they rock so hard.

paper girls. (LGBT main characters.) i’m kind of just convinced that brian k. vaughan can do no wrong at this point. his plots are so tight and mind-blowing and badass.

monstress. here’s a little tid-bit about me: female comic book writers are 100% more likely to get my money and my time because they are so damn rare and this series is unique, badass, and eye-opening.

black monday murders. i’m a little premature with this since there’s only one volume and i usually try to wait until there are at least two but i check up on a volume two a lot so that definitely means something intrigued me!

nailbiter. okay, i haven’t read the final volume yet ‘cause i’m reluctant to let it go but, so far, a series about multiple serial killers all being from the same town has me VERY HOOKED.

i wish i could remember more but this is honestly way better than i expected to do, haha. they’re definitely not all my all-time faves but they’re ones that have stuck with me for one reason or another and that i didn’t feel i wasted my time on, so that’s something, right? i hope this helps get you started and that you don’t think too awfully of me when you inevitably run across ones that aren’t your cup of tea!

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easyhairstylesbest · 4 years

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What’s Happening In 'WandaVision'? Here Are The Most Likely Theories.

By the end of 2020, the Marvel Cinematic Universe had started to feel a bit…stale. Part of what makes the superhero genre so universally captivating is its capacity to go where other mediums can’t. But by the end of Avengers: Endgame, the MCU was closing the door on a chapter that, no matter how wildly successful, had followed a series of predictable patterns. While that doesn’t make watching Tony Stark save the world any less satisfying, it does make it less nerdy. And no matter how mainstream superheroes get, there’s always a part of the genre that deserves its place in the realm of the geek, where fan-fueled calculus thrives.

Now, with the explosion of new MCU series rolling out on Disney+ (at least four by the end of 2021), the superhero empire is reigniting fan theory fervor. When WandaVision dropped on January 15, the sitcom-turned-horror-show experiment heralded a bold new path for comic-book narratives. Turns out, superheroes can make for pretty hilarious sitcoms! But, most importantly, WandaVision—at least initially—seems intent on not spoon-feeding fans a story they’ve seen before. Which means, of course, that the fan theory machine is running hot.

WandaVision takes place after Endgame, and it stars Elizabeth Olsen and Paul Bettany as a delightfully well-matched Wanda Maximoff and Vision, basking in newlywed (?) bliss in the quaint 1950s-era suburb of Westview. They don’t exactly know how they got here, or what they’re doing in the 1950s. But they roll with it: befriending neighbors, hosting talent shows, nearly spoiling dinner with Vision’s boss, and trying not to wither under the critical eye of local Karen, Dottie (Emma Caulfied Ford). But increasingly, Vision gets the sense not all is right in this cookie-cutter suburb.

New episodes drop every Friday, and as the puzzle pieces come together, we’re gathering the best fan theories from around the internet. Here, we’ll try to make sense of what’s happening to Wanda—and why it matters for the next phase of Marvel stories.

Marvel Studios/Disney+

Theory #1: WandaVision is a spin on the comics arc House of M. (Confirmed.)

If you’ve spent any time digging around Marvel fan forums, you’ve probably already stumbled on this theory, and after episode 5 aired on February 5, it’s virtually confirmed.

Here’s the background: In 2005, Marvel Comics released a storyline called House of M, written by comics legend Brian Michael Bendis, in which an insane Scarlet Witch (aka Wanda Maximoff) has a mental breakdown and attempts to recreate the universe. You see, she’s lost her two children, Billy and Tommy (sound familiar?), as well as her grip on reality. The other Avengers and X-Men (in the comics, Wanda is a mutant) realize they must consider killing Wanda, because her reality-shaping powers pose an enormous threat to humanity if she cannot recover her sanity. (Again, we’re seeing hints of this in WandaVision.)

Hearing the news of her pending execution, Wanda manifests a new world, an almost-perfect utopia where her children are alive, her superhero teammates are happy, and mutants rule the world. But it’s a dangerous lie, and when Wanda realizes what she’s done, she decides the solution is to rid the world of mutants like her. (You might have seen a comic panel circulating of Wanda whispering, “No more mutants.” It’s very meme-able.) At that point, the majority of the mutant population lose their powers.

House of M

Brand: Marvel amazon.com

WandaVision can’t and won’t mirror House of M exactly because, at this point in the MCU, the X-Men and Avengers’ worlds have not yet collided. But it certainly seems that Wanda has created her own version of Westview out of grief. If you remember the events of Avengers: Infinity War and Endgame, you’ll recall that Wanda is forced to kill Vision while extracting an Infinity Stone from his forehead. He does not return to life in Endgame, and she tells Thanos, “You took everything from me.”

Given the revelations we witnessed during episodes 4 and 5, this all makes sense. When Monica Rambeau (Teyonah Parris) is sent spiraling back into the “real” world, she whispers, “It’s all Wanda.” We know Wanda’s behind the “hex” surrounding Westview. What we don’t know is how much of it she’s controlling.

Theory #2: Wanda is the show’s villain.

By the end of episode 3, “Now In Color,” we’d watched Wanda “rewind” or “snap” her sitcom reality multiple times. It happens first when she watches a mysterious beekeeper rise from a manhole in episode 2, and again when Vision gets the sense not all is normal in Westview. Then, at the end of episode 3, Geraldine/Monica is banished from town after gently reminding Wanda that her twin brother, Pietro, died at the hands of Ultron in Avengers: Age of Ultron. As episode 4 reveals, Wanda didn’t take kindly to this reminder and physically threw Geraldine out of the suburbs. After, she reminds Vision she has “everything under control.”

We now know that Wanda is perfectly aware of what’s going on, and she’s orchestrating most—if not all—of it. She knows there’s another world beyond Westview where her brother lived and died, and where Vision similarly lived and died. And she would prefer to stay in her sitcom world. Anything—or anyone—who seeks to threaten her fake reality is…well, removable.

Interestingly, in an interview with ELLE.com about WandaVision, Olsen mentioned, “With our show, you don’t know what the villain is, or if there is one at all.” It’s clear the S.W.O.R.D (Sentient World Observation and Response Department) team that’s set up camp outside of Westview think she’s that villain. Vision is starting to get that sense, too. But the pieces don’t add up.

Here’s why: Wanda is tortured by her own grief, by the mistakes she’s made since the Sokovia disaster in Age of Ultron. The likelihood that she’s blatantly disregarding human life for her own gain seems like a trap she wouldn’t allow herself to fall into again—not easily, anyway. (Remember that, in episode 5, Monica says, “I don’t believe this was a premeditated act of aggression.”) That said, Wanda’s desperate, and we all know what they say about desperate people. She might have allowed something supposedly harmless to become brutal by striking a deal with the wrong person.

That’s where we bring in Mephisto.

Chuck Zlotnick

Theory #3: The series’ big bad is Mephisto.

Now let’s get deep into the weeds. WandaVision has given us little to no clues as to its major antagonist this season—except for, of course, Wanda herself.

But it could also be Mephisto. His character has been around since the 1960s, and he’s based on the Mephistopheles of German legend. Basically, he’s a demon-like creature, oft confused for Satan, who can shape-shift and alter time. Once upon a time, he served Thanos, much like Ronan and other big bads. Perhaps he’s manipulating Wanda, but it seems more likely the two of them made a pact—a deal with the devil, if you will. Perhaps, in return for her own sitcom-verse where Vision is alive, Wanda agreed to enter Mephisto’s domain and become trapped under his rule.

Here’s why this theory holds so much weight: In episode 5, Wanda stresses multiple times that she doesn’t know “how any of this started in the first place.” When Vision confronts her, she seems horrified by his accusations, mystified that he thinks she’s capable of controlling everyone in Westview at all times. Sure, she could be bluffing. But there’s likely an element of truth to her defense. Perhaps something outside of her—maybe Mephisto?—is controlling her ability to control.

Theory #4: The Westview citizens know they’re being controlled. Maybe they can do something about it.

Regardless of who is pulling the strings, the Westview denizens have some inkling of strange goings-on about town.

In episode 4, we learn that these kind folks are being “portrayed” by real humans. Darcy Lewis (an astrophysicist you’ll recognize from the Thor films) and Jimmy Woo (a S.H.I.E.L.D.-turned-S.W.O.R.D. agent we met in Ant-Man and the Wasp) assemble a bulletin board covered with profiles of the characters and their real names: Norm is Abilash Tandon, Phil is Harold Proctor, Mr. Hart is Todd Davis, etc. These characters probably didn’t volunteer to perform imaginary lives in Wanda’s sitcom-verse, so they must be—to one degree or another—under her thumb.

But they’re somehow self-aware. In episode 5, Agnes asks Wanda if she wants to “take it from the top” after Vision refuses to accept her questionable babysitting skills. Later, Wanda doesn’t seem concerned about Agnes witnessing her and Vision using their powers—it’s as if hiding doesn’t matter anymore. And at Vision’s office, Norm and Vision intercept an email from Darcy about the “Maximoff anomaly.” Norm laughs it off: “It’s a joke. Can’t you tell? None of it is real.” Then, when Vision clears his mind, he reveals, “She’s in my head. None of it is my own. It hurts.”

We’re meant to assume that “she” is Wanda, of course. But does she know she’s hurting them? And is it possible the Westview residents know more than they’re revealing? Agnes, in particular, seems to have more information than she’s sharing, even if it frightens her.

Chuck Zlotnick/Marvel Studios

Theory #5: Billy and Tommy are the only children in Westview. That’s purposeful.

At the end of episode 3, Wanda gives birth to twins Billy and Tommy. In the comics, these cuties are Billy and Tommy Maximoff, aka Wiccan and Speed, who have superpowers similar to Wanda and Pietro’s—hex abilities and super-speed.

Billy and Tommy are stupendous characters in their own right, and they eventually become leaders of the Young Avengers, another popular franchise that Marvel might have plans to cinema-tize. But they also have complicated origins: They’re actually created from fragments of a demon’s soul, and that realization is part of what originally drives Wanda insane during House of M.

What’s most interesting about Wanda’s relationship with the twins in WandaVision is that she can’t seem to control them. She can’t make them stop crying as infants. She can’t stop their rapid age progression. And they seem to know more than she wants them to—like, for instance, that she “can fix anything,” as Tommy stresses after their puppy, Sparky, dies.

Wanda responds, “I am trying to tell you that there are rules in life. We can’t rush aging just because it’s convenient. And we can’t reverse death, no matter how sad it makes us. Some things are forever.”

But we know from episode 5 this isn’t true. Wanda resurrected Vision. S.W.O.R.D. has proof. She’s rushing through the decades. And the twins can rush their own aging, which seems to imply they’ve inherited their mother’s powers.

What this doesn’t explain is why there are no other children in Westview, something Vision points out during a heated argument with his wife. Did they disappear? What if Wanda can’t control children, as evidenced by her inability to control Billy and Tommy? What if, somehow, the Westview kids have already escaped Wanda’s reality? There are too many missing pieces to understand the implications of that possibility yet. But it sure seems likely.

Marvel Studios/Disney+

Theory #6: Monica Rambeau already has her superpowers. That’s why she’s uncomfortable with mentions of Captain Marvel.

By now, you know, of course, that Geraldine is not, in fact, “Geraldine.” She’s Monica Rambeau, and she disappeared during Thanos’s snap in Endgame.

If you haven’t already googled Monica’s name in a mad fervor, here’s what you need to know: She first appeared as a little girl in Captain Marvel. She was the super-cute daughter of Carol Danvers’s best friend Maria, remember? Lieutenant Trouble? Well, a few years have passed since then, and it would seem Maria went on to found S.W.O.R.D. Maria raised her daughter in the hallways and control rooms of the organization, and Monica went on to become a respected agent in her own right. But, as we learn in episode 4, Maria contracted cancer, and she died during the time Monica disappeared in the “snap.”

In the first moments of episode 4, Monica re-materializes after the Avengers reverse the snap, and she rejoins S.W.O.R.D. But she’s temporarily “grounded,” meaning she’s assigned to lowly earthly tasks. That leads her to the doorstep of Westview, and eventually to Wanda giving her the boot.

Then, in episode 5, she awakens on the S.W.O.R.D. base to discover her lab results are mysteriously blank. The medic requests another blood draw, and Monica refuses. No explanation is given.

If we had to guess, Monica is hiding her own superpowers. WandaVision has yet to reveal if this adult Monica has any abilities, but in the comics, she has skills similar to Danvers—photon blasts, flight, the works. Over the years, Monica has claimed multiple aliases, including Photon, Spectrum, Pulsar, and even—yes—Captain Marvel. An Easter egg in episode 4 reveals that Maria, in fact, used “Photon” as a nickname at S.W.O.R.D. And in episode 5, Monica requests Darcy’s team build a “10,000-pound fallout shelter comprised of lead for photons.” It’s doubtful that’s a throwaway reference. I’m willing to bet Monica is gearing up to unleash her powers.

So, why does she look so remiss when Jimmy mentions Captain Marvel during one of their briefings? We can’t know for sure. But we can assume it has something to do with ’90s-era Danvers leaving Earth to spend 23 years exploring Outer Space. Maybe Maria or Monica had plans to become Earth’s version of Captain Marvel after the real one seemingly jumped ship. It would make sense.

Marvel Studios/Disney+

Theory #7: Pietro’s return opens the doors to the X-Men universe.

If we know anything about the MCU, it’s that the creators aren’t afraid of ambitious storylines. Plus, more franchises = more $. And the X-Men franchise is a money-maker.

Disney owns the rights to X-Men, which is why you’ll see those films on your Disney+ queue. So it’s probably not absurd to assume the Avengers MCU and the X-Men universe will eventually collide on the silver screen, as they do in the comics. WandaVision could be what makes that happen.

By far the biggest reveal of episode 5 is Pietro Maximoff’s return to the screen. Wanda’s brother shows up at her doorstep, completely unexpected—and, apparently, not by her design—when the doorbell rings, she tells Vision, “I didn’t do that.” The door swings open, and there’s Pietro…except not the one from Age of Ultron. This is Evan Peters’ version of Pietro, who first appeared in X-Men: Days of Future Past.

This is the first time the worlds of the X-Men films and the MCU films have collided. Does this mean WandaVision‘s Pietro is from a different reality? Is he aware of where he is and how he got there? Might the mutants finally become a part of the MCU? We’ve got more questions than answers right now. But I’d be shocked if this isn’t a precursor for an enormous crossover.

Theory #8: Agnes is really Agatha Harkness.

Here’s one that requires you to know a bit more comic lore. You first met Agnes (Kathryn Hahn), Wanda and Vision’s deliciously wry neighbor, in the WandaVision pilot. Sure, it’s possible she’s merely a quippy side-character, but I find that doubtful.

Several fans think she must be Agatha Harkness. In the comics universe, Harkness is an old (like, was-alive-before-the-sinking-of-Atlantis old) witch who escaped the Salem Witch Trials and went on to master mystical arts, later teaching them to a young Wanda Maximoff. In other points throughout the comics, she serves as Wanda’s antagonist, and she’s also the one who, after Wanda gives birth to twins Billy and Tommy, reveals to Wanda that the children are not, in fact, hers, but were born of more demonic origins. We don’t need to unpack all of that, but the point stands that Agatha has an important role in Wanda’s life—so it makes sense she’d appear in Wanda’s TV show.

Another interesting detail? In the comics, Agatha has a son named Nicholas Scratch. And the name of Agnes’s bunny in WandaVision? Señor Scratchy.

Marvel Studios

Theory #9: The “missing person” is Mephisto.

In all the excitement of episodes 4 and 5, it’s easy to forget that Monica and Jimmy first showed up in Westview because of a missing person case. But don’t let that detail escape you. It could be a huge clue.

The missing person they’re after—a male—is in the Witness Protection Program, and none of his known associates or relatives have even heard of him.

Bettany mentioned in an interview with the “Lights Camera Barstool” podcast that he works with a special mystery actor in WandaVision: “So many things get leaked, but there’s this thing that has been completely under wrap that happens. I work with this actor that I’ve always wanted to work with and we have fireworks together—the scenes are great and I think people are going to be really excited. I’ve always wanted to work with this guy and the scenes are pretty intense.”

Obviously this is an important character, and there’s a reason he hasn’t been revealed yet. Many fans think this mystery man is “Ralph,” the husband Agnes mentions frequently who has yet to appear onscreen. Others think Ralph might just be Mephisto.

Marvel Studios/Disney+

Theory #10: S.W.O.R.D. started all of this.

We know Mephisto is a solid guess for the show’s villain. But Marvel also loves to reveal how corrupt people in power are the bad guys more often than demigods and mad titans. So what if, like in Captain America: The Winter Soldier, the real villain is someone we’ve already met?

We see in episode 5 that Wanda retrieved Vision’s corpse from a S.W.O.R.D lab. If you look closely, you can see he was in pieces, completely dismantled and likely being experimented with. It’s possible S.W.O.R.D itself was violating Vision’s will and attempting to recreate him, so Wanda stole his body and resurrected him in order to rescue him.

If that’s true, that means S.W.O.R.D. might have had a hand in Wanda’s creation of Westview. And Director Hayward might know more about it than we’ve been led to believe.

Theory #11: WandaVision will tie directly into Doctor Strange in The Multiverse of Madness. (Confirmed.)

This theory is less about if than how. Marvel Studios president Kevin Feige confirmed WandaVision will tie into the film, and Olsen will star alongside Benedict Cumberbatch in March 2022’s The Multiverse of Madness. So, what does that mean? Well, the theory of Wanda creating her own alternate reality within the multiverse could be true. And if she shows up in the next Doctor Strange, someone must pull her out of the sitcom-verse—and it could be the Master of the Mystical Arts himself.

Theory #12: The folks in the WandaVision commercials are Wanda’s parents.

Let’s tackle those fascinating commercials, shall we? Each promises a different Marvel Easter egg, and already, fans are dissecting screenshots for clues.

All the “commercials” different couples advertise different products. The first is a Stark Industries toaster, the second is a Strücker watch, the third is “Hydra Soak,” a specialty bath product, and the fourth is a paper towel brand called “Lagos.” If you’re an avid MCU fan, you’ll of course know Stark Industries is Tony Stark’s company, and Strücker is the last name of Baron von Strücker, the Hydra leader who recruited Wanda and her brother Pietro before Age of Ultron and gave them their powers.

Why is this significant? As one fan pointed out, the ads seem to be revisiting Wanda’s trauma: A Stark Industries bomb killed her parents, and Strücker corrupted Wanda and her brother, recruiting them for Hydra. Lagos is a reference to the town in which she accidentally destroyed a building, killing a number of residents inside.

But who are the man and woman in the Stark Industries commercial? One Twitter user suggested they could be Wanda and Pietro’s deceased parents, alive again in her pseudo-reality. Does this mean she can bring others back to life, such as Vision himself, or perhaps even her brother Pietro? Or is she simply imagining all these ghosts of the dead?

Marvel Studios/Disney+

This story will be updated each week after new episodes of WandaVision drop.

Watch WandaVision on Disney+

Lauren Puckett Lauren Puckett is a writer and assistant for Hearst Magazines, where she covers culture and lifestyle.

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What’s Happening In 'WandaVision'? Here Are The Most Likely Theories.

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cinema-tv-etc · 4 years

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I Am Tired of Films Like Antebellum

By Angelica Jade Bastién - Sept. 14, 2020

This movie had the opportunity to show a more dynamic side of slavery narratives, but it ends up reaffirming the very horror it is trying to critique

I am tired. I am tired of pop-cultural artifacts that render Black people as merely Black bodies onto which the sins of this ragged country are violently mapped. I am tired of suffering being the primary lens through which we understand Black identity. I am tired of being so hungry for Black joy and Black representation that scraps feel like a meal. I am tired of films about slavery refusing to acknowledge the interior lives of Black women even as their beings become tools for filmmakers to explore the horrors of the enslaved.

I am tired of thin characterization and milquetoast social messaging being the kind of representation Black folks receive. I am tired of films like Antebellum.

The feature debut of writer-director duo Gerard Bush and Christopher Renz is seemingly poised — with an overly serious demeanor — to provoke a reckoning. Especially if you ask its directors, who, in an introduction that preceded the version of their film I watched, prattled on about their lofty goal to “activate a conversation” that is “of and for this moment.” Instead, Antebellum reaffirms the very horror it’s trying to critique.

Beginning with the ostentatious opening tracking shot — snaking its way through plantation grounds, noting the hard work of the Black folks on the land and the white Confederate soldiers watching their every move — we are plunged into a world both strange and achingly familiar. A world of picked cotton and casual cruelty, prim southern ritual and uninhibited brutality. But there is something amiss about the plantation on which Eden (Janelle Monáe) is viciously abused and from which she continuously tries to escape. The first cue that things are far from what they seem is the appearance of a golden septum piercing glinting in the light on the face of another enslaved woman as she futilely tries to break free and is unceremoniously killed for it.

But before we learn anything about Eden’s reality, before we even know her actual name, we witness profound violence against her, first in a harrowing scene in which she’s branded. After 40 minutes of unrelenting torture in antebellum dress, the film turns on its axis. Monáe is reintroduced as Veronica Henley, a famous writer and activist of considerable wealth, with a doting husband and young daughter. Here, we get more detail about her lavish home than the actual characters who live there with her, the camera panning across the luxe interior and photographs of Veronica competing in horse-jumping events (a subtle gesture to what’s to come in the third act). At one point in this contemporary setting, Veronica says to a friend, “My nana used to say our ancestors haunt our dreams to see themselves forward.” The line suggests a multitude of fantastical pathways for Antebellum. Is this story like something out of Octavia Butler’s Kindred? Is the Monáe we saw before a figment of the memories of Veronica’s distant relatives? Is there something supernatural afoot? No. Instead, the filmmakers choose a more banal explanation. Her link to the plantation we witness in the first act of the film is less imaginative than that slip of dialogue suggests.

Antebellum ends up being a noxious tour of historic violence against Black folks in service of a story that has nothing novel to say about the obliterating function of whiteness and anti-Black racism. Lacking a strong point of view to grant interiority to its characters, its approach to horror and social commentary becomes deadened. On the level of craft, Antebellum assumes beauty — the film is obsessed with depicting the magic hour in all its sherbet-hued glory — is inherently rich with meaning. As a result, the world-building is slapdash, confusing obfuscation with intrigue. Antebellum is an artistic failure of two directors whose goals supersede their ability to meet them, festering with not only aesthetic and narrative failures but moral ones too: It implicitly argues that depictions of suffering are the best means of understanding what it means to be Black in America.

In the wake of Jordan Peele’s success with his first two films — the exploratory Get Out and the beguiling but messy Us — Hollywood has realized that horror is an apt venue for excavating the grooves of Black identity and the mellifluous, dynamic experience of what it means to be Black throughout the diaspora. There is Misha Green’s overwrought Lovecraft Country currently airing on HBO, as well as Justin Simien’s Bad Hair and Nia Dacosta’s upcoming reimagining of the 1990s Tony Todd classic Candyman. The genre, at its best, lets us explore cultural taboos and fears with an unvarnished alacrity. I still think it’s possible to do a horror film that explores slavery in this country’s history, but that requires a sure hand, a strong point a view, and an even stronger sense of history — none of which is demonstrated in Antebellum. It’s hard to create any tension when the characters are so poorly drawn and the world they inhabit has little internal logic. Sure, there are scant moments of tension, but they fizzle out quickly thanks to the inert dialogue and rank stupidity of the story (much of which I can’t get into without spoiling the majority of the plot).

White people in particular are rendered as caricatures who seem to get an erotic charge from the violence they inflict, including Jack Huston as the leering Hugo Meadows, a Confederate solider of great standing who supervises the plantation — which isn’t necessarily a misguided approach so much as improperly executed, flattening rather than revealing anything about the nature of whiteness and its emptiness in America. Whiteness is an oft-told lie that powers much of the world, yet Antebellum is neither cunning enough nor intellectually ambitious enough to explain such a truth. So the white people have no internal logic, no gravitas. They evoke neither fear nor overwhelming hate, mostly just boredom, except for Jena Malone, who comes the closest to striking the necessary chord by foregrounding white women’s toxicity. But her performance is undone by the odd dishonesty of the film — the N-word is never uttered, for one.

The idea of doing a slave narrative, even one wrapped in a twist that puts a Black woman at the fore, is a risky proposition, given that slavery period films rarely allow the interior life of their characters to rise above the physical and psychological pain they endure. Who even is Veronica? When we see her onstage at a public appearance in New Orleans, staring out at the beaming faces of so many Black women, she speaks in empty, progressive platitudes that make it hard to understand the work she actually does. (I lost count at how many times she shoved the word “patriarchy” into her sentences.) A strange grasp of class snakes its way through the story, too; it’s as if the filmmakers are drawing a line from the worth of a modern-day Black person to the intellectual/financial class they inhabit. (One of the more important deaths in the film is of a character who is only referred to as “professor,” but given no defining features beyond that.)

The effect is wholly distancing. It’s worthwhile to explore the pain and grit of moving through America while being Black, but that exploration shouldn’t come at the expense of the humanity of the characters. Janelle Monáe is entirely miscast; she has been charming in supporting roles like that in Moonlight, but here she lacks the gravitas and precision to make Veronica feel real. But I can’t blame her for not bringing to life what obviously didn’t exist on the page. Antebellum is ultimately a travesty of craft and filmmaking with a perspective that hollows out the Black experience in favor of wan horror.

https://www.vulture.com/2020/09/antebellum-movie-review-i-am-tired-of-films-like-this.html?utm_source=pocket-newtab

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Antebellum is a 2020 American horror film written and directed by Gerard Bush and Christopher Renz in their feature directorial debuts. The film stars Janelle Monáe, Eric Lange, Jena Malone, Jack Huston, Kiersey Clemons, and Gabourey Sidibe, and follows a modern-day African American woman who must escape from what appears to be a 19th-century Southern slave plantation.

Antebellum was released in the United States through video on demand on September 18, 2020. The film received mixed reviews from critics, who criticized the screenplay and lack of nuance, although Bush and Renz's direction and Monáe's performance received some praise.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antebellum_(film)

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The “Antebellum” Directors on Ancestry and Purpose

Antebellum is both jarring and polarizing, and that’s exactly the point. Written and directed by Gerard Bush and Christopher Renz, their debut feature film follows a modern woman named Veronica (Janelle Monáe) as she is seemingly transported to the Antebellum South, where she assumes the name of Eden as an enslaved woman. What unfolds is a horrific and surprising look at slavery through a contemporary lens. The film—which draws from a short story written by Bush, inspired by his nightmare—employs a level of violence that at times feels gratuitous, but as the writer/director duo notes, the horror is meant to trigger and disturb you. “We felt that it was necessary to put the mirror up to this country,” Bush says. “Look at it. Look at it because it’s happening right now. I’d rather for people to be somewhat triggered within the safety of their own homes than for us to continue to lie to each other and live in an open air shooting gallery every time I leave my front door.” Below, Bush and Renz discuss the urgency of Antebellum, casting Janelle Monáe, and the polarizing nature of their film.

https://www.interviewmagazine.com/film/antebellum-gerard-bush-christopher-renz-janelle-monae

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#Antebellum #movie review #Christopher Renz #Gerard Bush

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smokeybrand · 4 years

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Smokey brand Movie Reviews: Top Men

The Great

The Better

The Good

But them melting Nazis, tho.

The Bad

The Verdict

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alternxs · 4 years

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Roleplaying Profile Meme:

PLEASE REPOST, DO NOT REBLOG! Feel free to add to any of your answers! The purpose is to tell your partners about the way you write! For the multiple choice ones, BOLD all that apply and, if you want, italicize if it’s a conditional answer!

ARE YOU OVER 18?

Yes / No

IS YOUR MUSE?

Yes / No / Verse dependant

Oldest to youngest: Fukuzawa (45), Kouyou and Gogol (26), Fyodor (on my other blog but between 26-22), Ryuunosuke (20), Gin (presumed 18)

ARE YOU SELECTIVE ABOUT WHO YOU WRITE WITH ON THIS BLOG?

No (anyone) / Semi / Yes / Highly / Extremely Private (mutuals only)

ARE YOU SELECTIVE ABOUT WHO YOU FOLLOW ON THIS BLOG?

No (anyone) / Semi / Yes

Selective in general, but way more selective with non-BSD blogs cause I want to keep my dash clean and avoid non-BSD fandom drama.

IF YOUR MUSE IS CANON, HOW MUCH TO YOU ADHERE TO CANON?

Not at all / A little / Some / Mostly / Strictly / OC

I stick to canon in terms of personality and behavior but might bend a little here and there if it fits my headcanons.

WHAT POST LENGTHS DO YOU WRITE?

One-Liners / Single-Para / Multi-Para / Novella

One liners for crack. Single-para for short threads. Multi by default and very rarely novella.

DO YOU USE ICONS AND/OR GIFS?

No / Gifs / Icons / Gifcons

DO YOU WRITE ON OTHER PLATFORMS?

No / Yes

WHAT LEVEL OF PLOTS DO YOU WRITE?

Unplotted / Open Ended Plots / Semi-Plotted / Fully Plotted Epics

HOW QUICKLY DO YOU USUALLY RESPOND TO THREADS?

Very Slow (more than a month) / Slow (3-4 Weeks) / Average (1-2 Weeks) / Fast (Less Than One Week) / Very Fast (Less Than Three Days)

It depends on the time I have and what I have going on and how willing my muse it to answer.

WHAT TYPES OF THEMES DO YOU LIKE? (feel free to add!)

Fluff / Angst / Smut / Action / Tragedy / Domestic / Family / Conversational? / Hurt-Comfort / Character Introspection

Action and tragedy need to be past me and plotted or are left for one shots.

WHAT GENRES DO YOU LIKE? (feel free to add!)

High Fantasy / Supernatural / Science Fiction / Historical / Horror / Comedy / Romantic / Drama / Action / Adventure / Espionage / Everything

ARE THERE ANY THEMES YOU’RE UNCOMFORTABLE WRITING ON YOUR BLOG? (not triggers)

No / Yes

Female genital mutilation, teeth and nail pulling, smut, animal abuse or death when it doesn’t have a larger part in the narrative or valid reason and bestiality are the biggies.

DO YOU HAVE ANY TRIGGERS? HOW DO YOU REQUEST IT TAGGED?

No / Yes

– S H I P P I N G –

WHAT TYPES OF RELATIONSHIPS ARE YOU OPEN TO?

Romantic / Platonic / Familial / Physical / Sexual

Implied physical and sexual relationships sure for say Kouyou and maybe some of my other muses aside from Fyodor and Fukuzawa.

WHAT TYPES OF PRE-ESTABLISHED RELATIONSHIPS ARE YOU OPEN TO?

Romantic / Platonic / Familial / Physical / Sexual

All have to be plotted first and only for muses I can see having that kind of relationship.

DO YOU HAVE OTPS?

No / Chemistry only / Yes

I have alot of otps but I like realism first and foremost.

DO YOU HAVE NOTPS?

No / Yes / I don’t know

Dazai x Ryuu or Atsushi (I sowwy ;v;), Kouyou x Chuuya (they are practically family), Naomi x Tanizaki (I know I don’t write either of them but I hate the ship)

ARE YOU COMFORTABLE WRITING SMUT?

No / Selectively / Yes

Yes and for reasons that if someone honestly needs the full answer why then they already know it. But generally I suck at it.

HOW EARLY IN A RELATIONSHIP DO YOU SHIP ROMANTICALLY?

Autoship / During Plotting / After A Couple IC Interactions / Several IC Interactions / Slow Burn / Depends on partner & muse

ARE YOU OPEN TO TOXIC SHIPS?

No / Selectively / Yes

Depends exclusively on the muse, Gogol and Fyodor sure. Ryuu and Gin, no. Kouyou... eh maybe. Fukuzawa absolutely not.

ARE YOU OPEN TO PROBLEMATIC SHIPS? (canon history, age difference, complicated, etc.)

No / Selectively / Yes

Depending on the situation and the dynamics. I am open to ships with massive age gaps (as long as both parties are over 18), or if they hate each other in canon, or if things just aren’t exactly simple. All based off plotting and if I believe it could honestly work.

ARE YOU OPEN TO POLYSHIPPING?

No / Selectively / YES

Come talk to me first, but for sure the only ones off limits are Fyodor and Fukuzawa, since neither one are into that.

ARE YOU AN EXCLUSIVE SHIPPER?

No / Sometimes / Yes

Usually no, but sometimes certain muses just have a spark and I roll with it. But generally no.

DOES CRACK SHIPPING EVER HAPPEN?

No / Sometimes / Yes

DOES CROSSOVER SHIPPING EVER HAPPEN?

No / Yes / Depends

Tagged by: stolen.

Tagging: Steal it.

#Who Said She Can't Sit Still (ooc)

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wingskribes-blog · 6 years

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Annihilation (18/20): A (Near) Near-Perfect Movie

COMPANION FILM: Ex Machina

300-WORD REVIEW (NO SPOILERS)

As suggested by the title of this review, Annihilation is pretty damn close to being a perfect film. (Just short of ‘practically perfect’, as it were.) What makes it so good, you ask? Well, not only are its component parts essentially flawless, they fit together like the perfectly wrought pieces of a well-maintained machine. (By parts, I mean characters, visuals, pacing, acting, action/tension, narrative arcs, etc.) In fact, I don’t even feel the need to get into the specifics of reviewing these. They’re all executed with such artistic competence, I’d just be repeating myself again and again. ‘Couldn’t be much better than this.’

So what can we talk about? Okay, how about: What is Annihilation? What kind of film is it? In short, it’s a monster movie. That is—it’s a monster movie without a monster. (Now to be clear, it has multiple monsters, but none is really ‘the monster’ of the story—in the way the shark is ‘the monster’ of Jaws.) It’s scarier than other monster movies though, because the real monster in Annihilation is the unknown. (And nothing’s scarier than that.) And yes, as per the genre, there’s plenty of blood and guts, and more than a little body horror, but the film draws tension from somewhere much deeper, a stark alienness that pulls you in and wraps itself around you. And you don’t know why.

Beyond that, it’s just a really good film. I have a bit of a quibble with the final scene (it felt cheap. Like an episode of Outer Limits); that’s why it’s only ‘near near-perfect’. Beyond that, it’s only a hair’s breadth from actual perfection because … well at such high a levels that’s just a matter of taste. (And we’re talking the difference between knocking my socks off and blowing my mind, here.) But don’t get hung up on all that. It’s a great film. Really, just go watch it.

(SPOILERS BELOW!)

ANALYSIS (SPOILERS)

What’s really frightening in Annihilation is that it’s not just a journey into the unknown; it’s an encounter with the unknowable. Even as the characters slowly come to understand (intellectually) what seems to be going on inside the Shimmer—i.e. reality apparently refracting across itself—there’s no escaping the horror of something that kills for reasons you can’t possibly comprehend. Something that transforms you, becomes you, steals your mind and your flesh to replace it with alien matter and intent. The film’s expression of this mysterious, this alien … something is goddamn gorgeous.

As is the slow but steady escalation of its alienness.

Of course, the visuals reflect this escalation. From the strange moulds and flowers at the start, to the animals-turned-monster, to the truly bizarre lifeforms and structures as they approach the lighthouse. And finally the inexplicable—and pretty damn freaky, I thought—entity at the Shimmer’s core. But more to the point, we see this escalation in the film’s structure, specifically regarding the characters’ deaths. Superficially, the narrative follows a pretty common monster movie form: the group encounters a mysterious killing force (monster) which picks them off one by one until only the protagonist is left to face it. In this case however, each death demonstrates a deeper grade of envelopment into the very essence of the monster. Let’s look at them in order:

1) Cass (Tuva Novotny) – Killed by a mutant bear. It comes out of the night and drags her away into the darkness. Pretty standard monster movie stuff.

2) Anya (Gina Rodriguez) – Killed by the same bear. But not before losing her mind in a fit of paranoia and turning on her teammates. The Shimmer has become more than a physical presence. It’s begun to affect how they think. Also, with the bear’s human scream, it’s almost like the Shimmer is trying to trick her.

3) Josie(Tessa Thompson) – Transformed into a plant … willingly. Not only have they gone so deep into the alien presence that it’s laid a claim to their flesh, but even their thoughts are becoming its thoughts. Josie doesn’t mind the loss of self she’s about to experience, because even fully cognizant, at this point there’s so little self left in her to give up.

4) Ventress (Jennifer Jason Leigh) – Transforms. (Okay, technically we probably never actually see Ventress die. When we first see her in the cave, she appears to be a faceless Shimmer avatar in the final stages of transformation—as we see again when one mirrors Lena (Natalie Portman).) But also, she acts as the Shimmer’s profit, sermonizing on its unstoppable spread and the inevitable destruction—annihilation—it will bring.

Each death is harder to comprehend, growing more philosophical and less physical. Until finally we come to Lena. (Lena who in fact lives … I think.) Here it becomes impossible to understand exactly what has happened to her. (Any notion of ‘why’ is right out of the question.) And here, the monster’s spread reaches its peak. Where once it only transformed what we are, now it changes who we are. Unknowable already, it becomes unkillable, because how do you kill that which is a part of you?

Equal to the narrative expression of the film’s themes, is the visual storytelling it uses to express its narrative. I am quite certain you could easily mute the film as you watched and have little to no trouble understanding what’s going on. Every shot offers subtle cues which themselves tell a story. From lovers’ hands clasped together—and then withdrawn—behind a clear glass of water (and also, hey, refraction; symbolism, am I right?) all the way to the climax beneath the light house where Shimmer-Ventress is shown standing before throbbing paths leading into darkness and Lena, identical paths, only one leads back toward the light. It’s this craftsmanship of such visuals, I think (along with the not insignificant score) that makes the transformation from Ventress into the light monster a chilling and engrossing moment. (In a lesser film it would most likely have been ruinously cheesy.) Same with the Shimmer-humanoid. It should feel silly, but it doesn’t.

And again. My only gripe is with the end. The very last shot, in fact. Annihilation is too strong in substance for Michael Jackson’s Thriller ending they gave it. And it was so close too. –“You’re not Kane, are you?” –“I don’t know. Are you Lena?” At this point we, the audience, don’t know what’s actually happened. We don’t know what’s happening, or what’s going to happen. Our empathy is with the characters though. The sentiment is, ‘where do we go from here?’ It’s a strange, nuanced, scary and uncomfortable moment. But then it ends. As soon as their eyes start to Shimmer, our empathy shifts from them to the human race. The sentiment becomes, ‘oh-oh, is this the end for humanity?’ And this is so much weaker. It’s a ‘70’s B-horror ending. But again, don’t dwell on that. It’s still a really good movie. Nothing’s perfect.

#Annihilation #Movies #Films #Review

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