#fantasy and comics mixup

[slothspamsstuff]

I really liked how Steph looks in this sooo another sneak peak hehe she looks like a mischievous gremlin, and I like gremlins

[thenugapug]

Here is part five of Human Yet Hybrid's A Mixup Hunt!

[meanbossart]

Responding to more asks!

Again just want to thank everyone for enjoying my weird little man and the weird little things i draw, i genuinely did not think my sense of humor and uh horror-y persuasion would jibe with so many other fans of this game... Which, come to think of it might have been my mistake, because 90% of us did pick dark urge and have a great time with it, to be fair. Seriously, anyone else was shocked by how hard larian went with the horror themes and gore descriptions in that game? That's probably what won me over LOL who knew fantasy could be so nasty, god bless them.

THANK YOU though i mostly wanted to point out that i never did any BTD art, so you MIGHT be confusing me for someone else! Unless you're speaking more generally just to reference an specific time online. Either way, im glad you enjoy what i do now! Similarly to the last ask i also did not expect people who knew me from my old stuff to be into my newfound interest in elves LOL

Hell yeah man, i haven't really been edgy like that for over a decade but i can't believe experiences like it shaped so much of the internet in our age bracket. Ridiculous lol. Thank you so much for sticking with me for that long, cheers to growing into mostly functional adults!

ALSO that comic was actually barbatus' work but i don't blame you for the mixup hehe

Wanna give this one a little 1-on-1 attention to say im glad my weird style has such an unusual upside for you 😭 that's something i never considered. Also i wasn't aware of that condition so you've given me a little something interesting to learn more about now.

I wasn't aware of that manga at all and to be completely honest i am usually a little put off by the typical manga art style, but this one specifically seems REALLY pretty and expressive, im obsessed with the cover that keeps coming up on the google search. I might have to take a peek at it! Thank you for the recommendation and i hope you have a lovely day

WRINKLY FUCKERS UNITE naturally people should draw however they want to draw, but i'll always be happy to hear that someone looked at my stuff and thought "hmmm im gonna make my grimaces uglier" LOL

I wasn't aware of wraith but it looks like a riot LOL I actually take great inspiration from the works of Jason Shawn Alexander and Sean Murphy! Also, even more so, I would say my boyfriend's (@barbatusart) highly expressive art style has influenced mine a great deal throughout the years. Thank you so much for the message!

[taiblogcomics]

Continuity Ex Machina

Hey there, chocolate metaphor poems. We're quite nearly done! This is the last regular issue of the New 52 Teen Titans! Before you get too excited, there's still an annual, and we'll be doing that next week. But the end is in sight! The light at the end of the tunnel is visible! We can get through this together~

Here's the cover:

And, I'll admit, it's a pretty good one. Might even be the best cover this series has had. It's very artistic and eye-catching. Big problem with it, though? Fuckin' Harvest is on it. Aren't we sick of that guy yet? After the Culling, I was hoping never to see him again. But no. He's here, he's fear, and no one's gonna let out a cheer. All in all, at least it's a cover worth going out on~

We pick up where last time left off, with everybody having teleported back from the future, right into a mixup with some shadow people. You know, the usual. The shadows attack Raven, and to her shock, it actually hurts her. And she's smiling about it. It's not a masochism thing, it means her connection with Trigon is severed somehow. This is definitely way before that Red Hood issue where Bizarro was the coolest ever, so I dunno what's going on. This is such good news that Beast Boy opts to hug her in the middle of combat, probably to fulfill some shipper's fantasy.

The two idiots staging this battle, the Light and the Way, begin to get frustrated. Oh boy, guys, and you only came in for the last issue. I've been frustrated since the series began! The only thing they want is Solstice, because they need to drain her light powers to survive. Ah, dramatic irony for them, she's in the future! And just to show you what awful villains they are, they bicker with each other as much as with the Titans. Very pleasant to read. The Light also talks like he's from a few comics eras back. Lots of very grand "as you know" expository statements, you know the type. The Way clearly finds it as exasperating as the reader.

The Light starts shooting his energy blasts into the crowd, blasting both the Titans and the Way's shadow people. Bunker shields them, but his bricks can only last so long. Tim considers waiting out the clock, since they need Solstice to charge and she's not here. Unfortunately, the Light and the Way have Wonder Twins powers and increase their powers when holding hands. Well, at least they're close enough brothers that they don't mind doing this. Good for them! No toxic masculinity! But yeah, the Titans kind of need a miracle about now.

So then Skitter turns up and kills the Light.

No, really. Skitter, of all characters, who hasn't been in the book since issue, what, 9? Disappeared without a word during the Culling? Deus ex machinas out of nowhere, slashes open the Light's back, which also causes the Way to fade out of existance. Oh, and remember how when she last appeared, she was barely above feral and communicated with mostly in snarls? She's able to speak normally now. Of course. All her character development happened off-screen, I guess. With the battle over, Bunker gives her a hug. It's a strangely huggy issue, I guess.

So then a portal opens up, and Amanda Waller riding a tank shows up. She's Skitter's mom. I'm just throwing my hands up in the air at this point. This comic just does whatever it wants. It's the last issue, throw everything we got into it! I also forgot that the New 52 made Waller thin, and I still hate it. I also feel like Skitter being Waller's daughter is another asspull, but here we are. The goons Waller brought with her arrest what's left of the Light and the Way, and now there's just the Titans left. Waller and Tim have a dick-measuring contest, but leave off after a merciful single panel.

With her arrests made, Waller and goons pack up their tank and return through the portal. Skitter opts to stay with the Titans, which I gotta say is pretty out of character for her. So! Flashback time? Skitter explains she's actually a supergenius who interned at STAR Labs in her teens. She made a device that could contact other dimensions. Unfortunately, as these things go, she contacts an evil dimension and is possessed by bug people, transformed into an advance scout for their invasion. In another asspull, though, Skitter was just too willful to be controlled, and just kind of turned into a bug person, driving them off.

Unfortunately, wearing an exoskeleton all the time keeps pushing her further down the feral tree. You know, that old chestnut. Anyways, it was Waller that pulled Skitter out of the Culling, because of course she did. Amanda Waller is the one person in the DC universe that can pull more "oh, of course she was prepared for that" than Batman. And since then, Skitter has been in "rehab", clawing her way back to sanity. And now she's back. But before the reunion can continue, more continuity shows up to slap us in the face.

Hey, do you remember Grymm? Of course not, even I barely remember Grymm. But suddenly Grymm is here, announcing he broke out of STAR Labs to track them down and get revenge. Good job, idiot, it only took you 24 issues. To amplify how pathetic he is, Beast Boy turns into a rhino right behind him and plows him down. He's unconscious in one hit. Not that I'd personally do better against a rhino, but I'm also not a scary supervillain. Either way, threat over before it lasted a full page. To compound that, though, the comic ends with the Titans returning to their old base, only for it to explode as they open the door. See you in the annual~!

Ah, but we're not done. There's actually a couple of backup stories in this one, since it's kind of the last issue. In the first one, I can finish this in a sentence, we see Solstice and Kid Flash protecting each other while serving time in their prison camp. They promise that even in this life, they'll always be Titans. They'll also always be in jail, so maybe not the most heartwarming~

In our second backup, we see how Beast Boy and Bunker (BB&B) spending their time together while the rest of the Titans were Quantum Leaping after Forever Evil. Beast Boy returns Bunker home, flying him on his back as a pterodactyl. Still a better flight than Delta. They land in the little Mexico town Bunker hails from, and no sooner does Beast Boy resume human form, Bunker's already back in the arms of his boyfriend Gabe. While they make out, Beast Boy asks Bunker's sister if she wants to make out too, and he's very lucky she doesn't slap him.

It's been a few days now, and Beast Boy's still hanging out. He's got nowhere else to go, and that combined with how the whole town is basically excited to see Bunker (not to mention having a family in the first place), our red Animorph is a bit jealous. No time for it to last, though, since suddenly some jerk named Brutale shows up. He's all edge, too. He's dressed in stitched-together brown leather with an executioner's hood. And then like... You know those big long strings of bullets you see hanging from a minigun? Imagine four strings of those, but they're throwing knives, all attached to his wrists and ankles, connecting at the back of his waist. And then he's got even more knives tied to his shoulders and head and legs, like he's covered in spikes. What a goon~

Brutale here has been hired by someone to kidnap some metas and sell them off. He reaches for Gabe, but Bunker has quick-changed into his costume and punches Brutale away. Brutale immediately drops into "Let me go, or I kill a hostage" mode, holding a knife to Bunker's sister. And then Beast Boy turns into a rhino behind him, and knocks him out with one trample. I'm not even joking. Is this just his go-to move against grandstanding edgelord chumps? Because, I mean, it's kind of working. Gabe uses his limited psychic powers that I didn't even know he had to read off an image of Brutale's employer for them to track down.

However, they never quite find this mysterious woman. I hope we weren't supposed to recognise her either, because I sure didn't. While investigating her last known hideout, however, the TV starts broadcasting an announcement. Dunno why it was even on, but it sure was convenient. Anyways, the TV is reporting on the events of Forever Evil, and Bunker and Beast Boy realise they gotta return to New York for heroic reasons. Or at least plot convenience reasons. And as they fly off, you realise Bunker can fly with his own powers and didn't need to ride Beast Boy there~

Honestly? Other than this being “the asspull, deus ex machina, and continuity convenience playhouse”, this issue is not that bad. It’s very much “Oh crap, series is ending, we gotta cram in as much story as we can”, but somehow it’s in an endearing way. It’s certainly a brisk pace. Like, if the comic had kept going, who knows how long it would’ve taken for any of this to play out~? Who knew it’d take cancellation for this series to actually get stuff done~?

Next week: our very last issue of Teen Titans~

[pooktales]

Sunthrazes Matter

I wrote a Black Lives Matter element into one of my Blood Elf fanfiction stories. So, let me set this up for you...

In the early 2000s, when I first started playing Warcraft, I wrote an alt-universe story about a bunch of Blood Knights on a secret mission to save Kael'thas Sunstrider (from himself) in Outland: My Life For My Prince.

After taking a large break from the game, I decided to write a prequel to that, and focus on just one Blood Knight in that original story: The Embarrassing Story of How I Became a Blood Knight.

Keep in mind, these are all Blood Elf characters...

What Happened to Sunthraze?

Before the fall of Quel’thalas to Arthas and his Scourge, Sunthraze the Sly is a farm boy with an old title that means nothing. One morning while working the field, he gets arrested unfairly by Farstriders who aren't supposed to be on his family's property. Being impoverished, he isn't really able to stop the larger forces that take over his imprisonment, who won't back down even after it's clear there was a mixup, and they eventually hold him in the system mainly to suit political interests.

Everything I do is slightly comical even if it is dramatic, and has a 'heartwarming' feeling, so there are also some shenanigans involved. And there are some future scenes with King Kael’thas who Sunthraze helped redeem a lifetime later (yep, it’s still an alt-universe) as well as these flashbacks. But our hero Sunthraze is a very special man. He eventually inspires his own captors, going all the way up to Ranger General Sylvanas herself (ya know, the good Sylvanas?), to change the system. Sylvanas comes back from a conference in Stormwind to deal with it herself. Protests happen all around Silvermoon at the blatant injustice. It is Sunthraze's wit but also his inherent nobility, his determination to survive, the powerful impression his character makes on his very captors, which motivates the authorities to just cut the crap and let him go home.

From Chapter 8, Syl-van-as:

“Well, then.” Sylvanas slowly curled each finger back into a fist. “We have nothing. Because Britecleff is also too afraid to go over what I already know about Lord Sunthraze. The only thing I care about right now, is that the people’s faith in the Farstriders has been rocked. We cannot police or protect the very people who distrust us. Can we?”

Neither man answered.

“And I don’t care what class they are, this is still an important issue.”

Sorn began to say something in objection to that.

“Sorn—if this were a trial of some kind, class difference may make a difference, but right now, as the signs say, ‘Sunthrazes Matter.’ And speaking of hearings, the same man involved in the king’s inquest, Barrister Lord Mageblade, who’s so set to prove other nobles are regularly mistreated by the Sunstriders, just a few hours ago announced an offer to represent Sunthraze at his upcoming trial, saying it was a classic case of abuse by the military with no evidence to support any claim that Sunthraze is a spy or a menace to society. Halduron told me that. Lord Mageblade says that Sunthraze was a man at the wrong place, at the wrong time and we--we the Farstriders, and the royal Sunspire guard--we all mishandled it.” Sylvanas stood, “And now, I have Clerk Blaize telling me that the queen herself was speaking to Sunthraze, so just how high up does this have to go before you two blockheads can set aside your pride, free the boy, and get back to work!”

And the story isn't done there. It's not complete, but Sunthraze then joins a mission with the Farstriders to save a young Prince Kael'thas in Dalaran (again, from himself.)

When... you set a Black writer like me loose in a fantasy video game universe, this is the kind of gut-punch, yet verge-of-tears endearing plot you can get. And I’ve always loved Sunthraze the Sly as a character. You're welcome.

Now, if I ever logged into Warcraft and was given a quest to help out a guy like Sunthraze, and ultimately we started a beautiful movement and changed the Thalassian system of government itself for the better, I'd be blown away.

Enjoy reading!

Read from the beginning here: The Embarrassing Story of How I Became a Blood Knight

Or jump to the protest bit when Sylvanas returns: Chapter 8, Syl-van-as

[welcometoblackball]

Happy Halloween! I took part in the Webcomic Underdogs 2019 Halloween Exchange, and Tripp Gustin was so kind as to make me this fantastic Halloween skit about costume fails. Every time I read it, I die laughing.

Tripp Gustin makes the very potent and wonderful True Colors,  a modern coming of age story about new beginnings, personal growth, and self-actualization. A room assignment mixup on the first day of Trueman University’s freshman orientation thrusts four incoming college students together, catalyzing new friendships and new conflicts. It’s a great read so give it a go!

So one of my goals is to stay at least 1 week ahead of Black Ball so that I can post early pages on my Patreon. At the $3 level, you can get a look ahead at the next Black Ball page! At the $5 level, you can get that AND my Patreon exclusive comics, such as THE ALCHEMIST OF AURILLIA.  Join today and get more fine fantasy comics and tragic shenanigans in your life!

[sailonmylittlehoneybeesailo-blog]

SAIL ON, MY LITTLE HONEYBEE, SAIL ON...

                          YOU’RE GONNA KEEP ON SAILIN’‘,    

                                                TILL YOU FIND YOU’RE HAPPY  HOMEEEE.

                                                                        ─ albion lailoken cedersen

Hey, did you see that guy? I heard he’s named [ALBION LAILOKEN CEDERSEN]. He’s said to be the nonbinary, demiboy son of an influential beekeeper, born and raised on his fruitful farmlands, but really though? He’s not from around here, he’s from that other side of town named Avalon. He’s in reality much older, around 53 years of chronological age, and is just like anyone there, a fairy, a being of fair background, as he likes to call it. He is their messenger, their mentor, to some extent. He calls himself an Avalonian Melibech, a mixup of both the Greek word ‘meli’ meaning honey, and bech, meaning beehive, in old Irish. Have you ever got the feeling like something weird is happening with the bees of San Francisco? Like you keep getting stings, even if it's mid-winter time? That’s because he, alongside his ‘assumed’ fatherly figure, is the reason for that. They are said so, at least, to change into literal bees when they fall asleep. Other than that? Albion and his father seem pretty harmless, they say they can do weird things with honey, also that they just freaking love it, but besides that they just say they are extremely wise, like they act as if they know EVERYTHING. But do they really, though?

Hey, I’m Leonidas, or just simply Leon. I’m really new to everything tumblr and tumblrrping, so please treat me with kindness and support to go through this but amazing hellhole.  I’m gonna play Albion, an oc based on a mythical bee concept I have had for ages, but it’s just a type of fairy, ofcourse. I’m from the netherlands, so my timezone is CENTRAL EUROPEAN TIME. I accidentally wrote my characters name wrong in the app, so let’s not hope that this is an indication of my future here. Ok enough about me, let’s talk about Albion.

Albion is a seemingly appearing 23-year-old  Cal-Berkeley veterinarian doctoral student. As long as the assumed fake story goes, he was born and raised in a farm nearby a town not so far away from San Francisco, where his assumed father took care of bees as an influential beekeeper.

Little do they know, the story is much weirder. His father is in fact, a far related cousin of his. They’re what they call the ‘Avalonian Melibech’. They come from the fairy realm of Avalon but are destined to leave semipermenantly on Earth,  basically to tell the mundane the stories of the unknown beauty of their homeland. In ancient times, those fairies were bards in Celtic Europe, but in modern times they tell their stories differently. They write fantasy novels, tell stories to kids on the street, or go round houses to tell them about a powerful overlord named Oberon.

Albion, just like his cousin that appears to the public as his father, are blessed with two personalities, so to speak. Their true fairy form is a somewhat larger than average honeybee queen that may fool you into thinking they're a bumblebee by appearance. This fairy form always reveals themselves when the normally human-looking personalities they gift themselves on earth, will fall asleep. Meaning that once their humanoid personalities fall in any sort of natural sleep (except from comas, death, and true unconsciousness), they’re true fairy personalities take the turn, making mischief and chaos as long as the humanoid form doesn’t wake up yet. If they do, the bee form disappears in a magical poof, and the awoken humanoid personality is back in control.

Next, to this, Albion’s fairy type isn’t simply called the mentors of the fairies for nothing. They share a mental hivemind, a connection to every past and present family member. This means they can access the current thoughts of their brothers, parents, first-related cousins, and so on, and in addition, they can access any memory, thought, or knowledge a past family member had for themselves, for up to 3 centuries of generations further down the family tree. Albion can also control honey, a substance he can’t get enough from.

PERSONALITY

He’s trying to be an extreme goofball, but he has a lot of trouble understanding jokes and hidden messages. Imagine it like Brainy from Supergirl. Smart, but entirely useless in keeping secrets or understanding the thoughts behind an expression.

He has, like me in real life, but a lot lesser, a lot of autism spectrum disorder traits, possibly suggesting a kind of Asperger‘s.

He has a great fascination of nature, which is often troubling his mission to write and tell stories instead.

He might be a little too headstrong, somewhat denying views on various subjects of many sources strictly, at least those that aren’t from his ancestors.

He’s truly naive sometimes, rather feeling like a free and cheering but annoying little kid, than a responsible, full-fledged well-adulted individual.

He’s into anything geeky from Earth, comics, movies, pulp fiction, tv shows, he’d probably be hella active on tumblr too, having a lot of online friends to share his fanfiction and slampoems with.

[thementalattic]

In the past few weeks I’ve played my fair share of RPGs, so much so that they seem to be my main genre at the moment. I’m still playing through Xenoblade Chronicles 2, still battling the many multiverse forces in Super Robot Wars V in anticipation of Super Robot Wars X’s English version release in a week or so and recently I finished building a Facebook kingdom and battling ancient evil in Ni No Kuni 2.

But for today and in the spirit of trying something new in terms of review formats, I bring you my reviews of two recently released RPGs. The first, Super Daryl Deluxe, is a Metroidvania-style RPG, with an interesting comic book style look, mostly black & white but with colour used to highlight important stuff, that seems heavily inspired by Napoleon Dynamite. The second, Azure Saga: Pathfinder, is more of a traditional RPG with square interconnected tiles serving as dungeons and random encounters.

To make things better for you, to help you get the relevant information you need I’ve decided to break up the reviews in easy to consume bullet points for each of the games. Will I continue with this style moving forward? I don’t know, but it’s worth a shot as an experiment! One thing I do know is that scores are out the window.

Super Daryl Deluxe

Release Date: April 2018

The Good:

Great look: Comic book style that is mostly black & white but with clever uses for colours, sometimes to highlight and or to make environments feel unique.

Surreal: The school’s campus has entire world and pocket planes within its walls. Paintings lead to bizarre worlds, ducts take you to dungeons filled with giant rats and bats, The Grim Reaper is somewhere out there near a bed of flowers, and the first boss is a character so angry he turns into Donkey Kong. The world, the plot, the backstory and the characters are INSANE.

Destructive Variety: There are dozens of combat and utility powers, all of them with witty names.

Big Tough Game: This is a long game and tough as nails, at least it was for me. But it’s engaging throughout.

It’s all in the Rhythm: Attacks have cooldowns. You can’t spam the same attack so you need to create skill rotations (MMO players will have the easiest time here).

Bad:

No Backup: Manual saves only, so if you forget to do it and die, prepare to redo it all over and over. Happened to me too many times. A simple autosave at the start of the last room you visited would’ve gone a long way, especially since it uses SAVE POINTS.

Bunch of *****: There’s a very large cast but most are completely unlikeable, and Daryl himself is no sweetheart, a physical representation of every creepy nerd stereotype ever conceived.

Rubber Bat: There are dozens of skills, true, but there are too many completely useless or difficult to chain with other attacks.

Gallery:

  Azure Saga: Pathfinder

Release Date: March 2018

The Good:

Genre Mixup: Azure Saga’s premise is a lovely bit of Sci-Fantasy, starting with a heavy space opera theme and then switching to a medieval fantasy setting that has you wondering just what’s going on and if the powers are really magic or high tech.

Solid Teamwork: Pick the right skills for the characters and they’ll create a new one called a Unity skill, which deals more damage than the sum of its parts even if the animation is the same.

Some great art: The art style for character portraits is great, beautiful in fact and very detailed. The art style for the map sprites is also wonderful, tending towards cute, as they’re the classic super-deformed style.

The Bad:

Bunch of ****: Seriously what is it with creating games where every single character deserves a beatdown for being completely insufferable upon first meeting them? Protagonist, unlikeable, Priestess, unlikeable, General, unlikeable. Hell, the only one you can kinda like is the doormat android. Also, too many stereotypes and clearly evil characters. Nuance, people, NUANCE PLEASE!!

Wooden Figurines: The combat sprites are abominable. Not only do they look completely different from the other two character-art styles but they’re incredibly wooden and feel like bad 90s Flash animations.

Skill Amnesia: Use skills in a certain combination for the first time and you create a Unity Skill, use them again in the same combination and it doesn’t automatically trigger the Unity skill, instead going through the individual skills.

Dull Baddies: Bosses are identical, down to the sprite, so a good amount of the fights is essentially against the same boss with increasing difficulty. It’s mechanically and visually boring. At least palette swap them next time, make them feel distinct!

Random Battles: Title says it all. I thought we’d had all moved away from random encounters and the frustration they bring? Apparently not.

No Backup: A tile-specific autosave would’ve been a great idea here.

Gallery

  Let’s try this, #SuperDarylDeluxe and #AzureSagaPathfinder reviews in one article!

In the past few weeks I’ve played my fair share of RPGs, so much so that they seem to be my main genre at the moment.

Let's try this, #SuperDarylDeluxe and #AzureSagaPathfinder reviews in one article! In the past few weeks I’ve played my fair share of RPGs, so much so that they seem to be my main genre at the moment.

[phooll123]

Academy Awards Unfold Amid Changing Movie Business – Variety

Guillermo del Toro won a best director statue at the 90th Annual Academy Awards on Sunday for his work overseeing the fantasy romance “The Shape of Water.” “I am an immigrant,” he noted, in a politically charged speech, “The greatest thing our art does and our industry does is to erase the lines in the sand. We should continue doing that when the world tells us to make them deeper.” Del Toro is the fourth Mexican director to win a best filmmaking Oscar in the last five years, joining his friends, Alfonso Cuaron (“Gravity”) and Alejandro G. Iñárritu (“Birdman,” “The Revenant”). Gary Oldman won the lead actor award for his chameleonic work as Winston Churchill in “Darkest Hour.” “The movies, such is their power, captivated a young man from South London and gave him a dream,” said Oldman. “Darkest Hour” also earned a makeup award, honoring the team that turned the slender Oldman into the portly prime minister. Sam Rockwell and Allison Janney picked up supporting actor and actress honors. Rockwell was recognized for his performance as a bigoted police officer in “Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri,” while Janney was rewarded for her turn as a caustic parent in “I,Tonya.”

Related

Honored for his first nomination, Rockwell thanked his parents for instilling a love of movies in him and dedicated his award to Philip Seymour Hoffman, the Oscar-winning actor who died of a drug overdose in 2014. Both actors gave shout-outs to their fellow nominees, with Janney saying her competitors “represent everything that is good and right and human about this profession.” Jordan Peele, a Comedy Central star, nabbed a best original screenplay honor for “Get Out,” a horror film that examines race relations. “I knew if someone let me make this movie that people would hear it and people would see it,” said Peele. It was an evening of politics, one that overflowed with denunciations of Trumpism, and pledges of support for immigrants and minorities. There were also moments that seemed tailored to pluck the heartstrings of both red and blue states, including a montage dedicated to military films. “Phantom Thread” and “Darkest Hour” got on the board early, picking up costume design and makeup awards, respectively. “Dunkirk” picked up editing, sound editing, and sound mixing honors. “A Fantastic Woman,” a Chilean drama about a trans woman, nabbed a best foreign language film statue. And “Icarus,” a look at Russia’s doping program, earned a best documentary statue, picking up a statue for Netflix, a streaming service that’s viewed warily by more traditional movie studios. “At least we know Putin didn’t rig this competition,” host Jimmy Kimmel joked in one of many Trump administration jabs. Best Animated Feature winner “Coco” also injected politics into the evening. Accepting the award, Darla K. Anderson, the film’s producer, said, “‘Coco’ is proof that art can change and connect the world and this can only be done when we have a place for everyone and anyone who feels like an ‘other’ to be heard.” There were records during a yawning broadcast. At 89, James Ivory became the oldest competitive Oscar winner, picking up a best adapted screenplay Oscar for “Call Me By Your Name.” Sometimes waiting plays off. Roger A. Deakins, finally won an Oscar for lensing “Blade Runner 2049” after 14 previous cinematography Oscars. The science-fiction epic also nabbed a visual effects Oscar. “Blade Runner 2049” may have scored with Oscar voters, but it failed to excite crowds, collapsing at the box office and resulting in an estimated $80 million in losses. Backstage, Deakins said that he wasn’t sure if wanted his name to be called. “I mean, a big part of me was saying, ‘Please no,'” Deakins said. “I find it very hard,” he said of having to get an acceptance speech on the Oscars stage. “I’ve worked with a lot of the same people for years. I think it’s recognition for their work.” Despite unfolding from a stage encrusted with sparkling Swarovski crystals and flanked by glittering Roman columns, there is a shadow over this year’s broadcast. The Oscars unfold at a time of dramatic social and economic change in the movie business. The fall of Harvey Weinstein — arguably the person responsible for inventing modern awards season campaigning of marathon glad-handing and lavish receptions for voters — has triggered an industry-wide conversation about sexual harassment and discrimination. In October, Weinstein was accused by dozens of women of sexual misconduct and assault. He denied all allegations of nonconsensual acts, but in the ensuing scandal he was drummed out of Hollywood, and fired from his perch at the Weinstein Company, which is now being sold after teetering on the verge of bankruptcy. The fallout didn’t stop with Weinstein. Other major media figures, including Dustin Hoffman, Brett Ratner, Louis C.K., James Franco, and Kevin Spacey have been engulfed in their own scandals related to allegations of sexual misdeeds. In the days before the Oscars, Ryan Seacrest, whose genial soft-ball questions are a staple of awards show red carpets, was accused by his former stylist, Suzie Hardy, of harassment and assault. Seacrest has hit back hard, claiming that Hardy extorted him and noting that an independent investigation commissioned by his employer E! could not find “sufficient evidence” that he behaved inappropriately. Seacrest took  his spot on red carpet despite the fact that some publicists privately said they would steer their clients clear of the E! host. He did manage to corral some stars, with the likes of Allison Janney, Christopher Plummer, and Taraji P. Henson stopping to talk to Seacrest, and also avoided any embarrassing on-air confrontations. Kimmel managed to find a way to make light of the litany of alleged abusers, quipping in his opening monologue that the golden Oscar statue is an ideal Hollywood man. “He keeps his hands where you can see them,” said Kimmel. “Never says a rude word. And most importantly no penis at all. He is literally a statue of limitations.” There were many more somber moments. Ashley Judd, Salma Hayek, and Annabella Sciorra, three of Weinstein’s accusers, took the stage to introduce a series of interviews about the Time’s Up movement and the push for more diversity on screen. “This year many spoke their truth and the journey ahead is long, but slowly a new path has emerged,” said Sciorra. That was the hopeful part. But Sciorra, once one of the industry’s rising stars with films like “The Hand That Rocks the Cradle,” also noted the professional consequences for women who turned down powerful predators. “It’s nice to see you all again,” she said, a seeming reference to a career derailed by men like Weinstein. “It’s been awhile.” Despite the theme of the evening, a celebration of women’s empowerment, Kobe Bryant, the former NBA star who was accused of sexual assault in 2003, won an Oscar for best animated short film for his work co-creating “Dear Basketball.” The charges against Bryant were dropped and the case was settled out of court. It wash’t all politics and advocacy. There was still old school glamor. As the Oscars inches towards its centenary, the show was in a nostalgic mood, inviting back past winners from its nine-decade history such as Eva Marie Saint and Rita Moreno. In addition to an industry-wide reckoning about systemic abuse, there are also corporate concerns that are roiling Hollywood. The business is undergoing a period of intense consolidation. AT&T is trying to get government approval for its purchase of Time Warner, Disney is snapping up the bulk of Fox’s film and television assets, and Viacom is flirting with joining forces with CBS. Fox and Fox Searchlight has a leading 27 nominations, but it’s unclear if the company will continue making awards-bait fare after it is folded into Disney, which prefers to be in the tentpole business. All these mega-mergers are taking place while the kinds of films that the Oscars tend to celebrate, smaller, more human-scale dramas are being eclipsed by comic book movies and special effects-driven fantasies. The gap between popular tastes and those of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences, the group that hands out the Oscars, seems to be widening. This year’s crop of best picture nominees are the lowest-grossing since 2011, with only two films, “Get Out” and “Dunkirk,” topping $100 million at the domestic box office. At the same time, fewer people are tuning in for awards show. Last year’s edition was the third-least-watched of the 21st century. Despite the sagging ratings, ABC has brought back Kimmel as host. This year’s broadcast will try to avoid recreating an eleventh hour snafu that made Kimmel’s first stint as emcee so memorable — an envelop mixup that saw presenters Warren Beatty and Faye Dunaway mistakenly proclaim “La La Land” the best picture victor. The real winner, “Moonlight,” was later announced in a moment of sheer pandemonium that will join Cher’s Bob Mackie dress and David Niven’s streaker in Oscars infamy. Kimmel made light of the mistake seen round the world in his opening monologue. “This year when you hear your name called don’t get up right away,” he quipped. “Just give us a minute.” More to come…

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