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spiderpussinc · 1 year

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I don’t think it’s very fair for you to try and knock others from reading Miguel’s OG run because truthfully that’s the only place you’re going to get his full character since every run after that is just “Let’s place him in different time scenarios to fix other people’s problems”. I’ve read ur reasonings and some of the issues I just don’t see and that’s coming from someone who’s ALSO half Hispanic and had similar family experiences. Idk I guess comic Miguel is rlly important and relatable to me and you shouldn’t turn others away from having that potential connection too. :/

NAH LOL it is *not* the only place to get his character truthfully -- his character is not consistent between runs, or between comic and movie! Not even Pdavid's runs have an unified version of Miguel since he just becomes an author self-insert after one point. The way Pdavid writes '92 Miguel - Gabriel is also shamelessly almost the same as he wrote Bruce Banner - Rick Jones. (another series where he ended up being pushed off the book after he started making really weird decisions; and notice these last two are white guys, which is how pdavid depicts Miguel all the time.)

I haven't even told people to not read them. In multiple posts i say 'read the first ones to see how it is, stop when you get annoyed, look up summaries, don't feel obligated to treat it as canon because it isn't.' If anyone feels threatened by this they should examine where that defensiveness is coming from.

I'm gonna be real with you that's like saying "the only way to REALLY understand Miles Morales is to read his ultimates run." You know, the one where his mother gets eaten alive by Venom, his dad thinks he's at fault for killing her and nearly beats him with a cane, where the closest thing he has to peter is a clone named jessica drew, and that eventually gets completely retconned in a universe explosion so main universe Miles can be rewritten. Do you remember seeing any of the things above in ITSV? Would you call them *the only real way to fundamentally understand Miles as a character?*

I keep seeing the rhetoric that 'real fans' have to subscribe to the very first script of these characters and that somehow enjoying their ATSV versions is fake-stanning and that is just... not true. That's not how comics work. Our most iconic, definitive, memorable traits for MANY of these superheroes have come from subsequent comic runs, rewrites, feats of adaptation and the interaction between fanwork-becoming-canon. Even uncle Ben's 'power and responsibility' schtick is NOT an original part of Peter's first draft. That came from re-imaginings and rewrites.

I'm really, truly not a fan of the argument that 'relating to parts of a character' completely absolves the text from criticism. It's not a good comic. It barely tries to be latino rep and frankly, I'm not going to praise it for just placing a label on him and doing nothing with it. I don't care for this white man's truth. It's racist and creepy and I should be paid reparations for having to read a storyline where the same girl gets paired up with two different brothers and then their father just to end up getting killed for a sexier token love interest. I am constantly frustrated by the argument that new fans should be forced to read it and potentially get turned away from comics forever; it's one of the worst offerings you could give them. 90's Marvel and DC are a public fandom joke and nearly led the market into bankruptcy!!!!! (Marvel filled for loss in 1996. IT WAS BAD. That's part of why the whole 2099 line went up in flames! The money was going down the drain.)

I've been a comic reader for a long time and I just can't give them blissful innocence passes like that. The current editor-in-chief at Marvel did yellowface and pretended to be a japanese man for years to write some shitty superhero weeb comics with no accountability whatsoever. He still has a job. RUNNING the company!

And here's the thing: I like Miguel too. I have a shitty family and I empathize with that but I KNOW he deserves much better than to be confined by white people's scripts and fetishes. I *want* him to have a chance, multiple chances even, to be completely rewritten and remolded by latine voices without the need for them to constantly refer or tie back into that white man's work; It is our right just as any other.

ATSV throws away most of Miguel's baggage, and straight up refuses to refer to the weird indepth sludge pdavid had going on; the artbook doesn't mention these first comics or most of his runs, they actually talk about other groundbreaking sci-fi concept work and the idea of basically rebuilding the landscape from scratch, and I am deeply thankful they do that. One of the biggest themes of the movie *is* that the idea of comic canon is fraught and full of holes, and that we should subvert it into joyful and honest expressions of these characters' cultures. These are movies that begin with the Comics Code Authority stamp, a censorship marker that among other things explicitly prohibited the positive depiction of pro-civil rights narratives and homosexual relationships, and actively turned their nose at protagonist black characters — & proceed to rip it to shreds. That's what we should be doing!

#miguel ohara #miguel o'hara #spiderman 2099 #atsv #spider man: across the spider verse #spiderverse #marvel comics #spiderman #meta tag #miles morales

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bitimdrake · 2 years

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So what’s with the fanon antagonism from Bruce toward Hal Jordan? It’s not something I see in canon outside of a little bit in GL Rebirth which is kind of justified because Hal, y’know, turned into a megalomaniac. But even in fanon depictions where the timeline is in some sort of pseudo-Bronze Age stasis where the League is the Big Seven plus maybe Ollie and they’re operating from the satellite and also the Batfamily exists somehow, I’ve seen a lot of Bruce hating Hal for no good reason.

Also, the depiction of Billy Batson in fandom, namely the tendency to have him act like a young child as Captain Marvel and get adopted by Bruce, leads me to believe that nobody’s ever read a Shazam comic. Post-crisis Billy is in high school - he’s canonically the same age as Stargirl. In both post-Crisis and New 52, he has his own adoptive families, and even when he didn’t, he worked at WHIZ Radio to rent an apartment on his own. Meanwhile, fanon Billy is homeless until Bruce adopts him.

I’ve also noticed a weird tendency in fandom to… not know who was in the League at any given time, or even attempt to set things in a particular period? Like, the JLA is almost always the Big 7 + maybe Ollie, Dinah, and Zatanna if you’re lucky. Even in the Satellite era, J’onn and Bruce both took long leaves of absence, and there were other people around. And that’s not even taking into account the Detroit League, the JLA/JLE split, the Morrison League, the Obsidian Age team, etc.

(lost this one in my drafts oops. sorry.)

Yeah god so. Two of these things I think are pretty reasonable results of people focusing in on their preferred characters and not knowing much about the rest of the universe.

And that's not hard! Even if you read comics--hell, even if you read a lot of comics--you can remain completely ignorant about one area of the universe. It's a big universe. (Hi! I know almost nothing about Green Lanterns except when they show up in massive crossovers or interact with my Titans blorbos.)

Personally, I'm annoyed when people are very wrong about the actual subject of the fic (e.g. if they're writing a fic about the JLA but getting everything wrong). And I'm really annoyed when they unfairly demonize someone.

But if the fic is about, say, the batfam, and the writer is spot on about them, but not so accurate when the JLA makes a brief appearance? I get it. It's a big universe.

Certain things about the JLA are better known than others, and people who don't actually know specifics about the JLA just kinda...assume all those things are Always True. Thus the perpetual Bronze Age, and perpetual Bruce vs Hal.

For those wondering what is true then: the JLA has a LOT of rotation. The team is constantly swapping out. They've had many different bases. I can't tell you who's on the JLA and where unless you first tell me when.

So the more we comics readers know, the more little annoyances you will get from fic inaccuracies. (For me, it's when people refer to Barry as the Flash in fics set mid post-Crisis and I'm like Barry Allen Has Been Dead For Years.) But I'm honestly very forgiving of those!

The Bruce adopts Billy Batson thing is hot garbage though. Like, c'mon guys. I don't expect you to know everything! It's okay if you don't know much about the Marvel family while writing batfam fics! But for god's sake stop making everything about Batman and the batfam. Other characters can exist without being spagettified by their gravity. Please let them be. And please stop trying to give Bruce new kids; he already doesn't deserve the ones he has.

#*#ask #thatsastepladder #dc #*dc #canon vs fanon

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alirhi · 3 years

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okay. let's do this shit.

Guess what, bitches? Mama bear's back and angry all over again. Remember when I said I might dive into a ragepost about how Bucky's treated after completing the one about Loki? This is it. This is the post. Welcome to fucking Thunderdome.

I will actually try to keep it civil. No promises, but I'll try. and I will not be accepting "constructive criticism" about my rage. Just so we're clear.

Got it? Good. Let's dive in.

In case you don't want to read the whole thing (I know I get wordy) here's what this whole post will boil down to: BUCKY NEVER HAD A FUCKING CHOICE. NEVER. NOT ONCE IN HIS ENTIRE ADULT LIFE.

Now, quick reminder: I don't read comics. I know nothing about Bucky's comic canon, except what Sebastian liked to bring up as often as possible during TWS/CW promotions: at some point, Bucky boned Nat. XD Since Bucky only exists as a Marvel property, I won't be bitching about other source material being disrespected like I did with Loki. This is all MCU, my dudes. And honestly? That's enough, because though we don't see nearly enough of Bucky for my liking, we do manage to get a rich, deep backstory to him in the material we're given, partly thanks to better writing in the early days of the MCU, and partly thanks to Sebastian Stan's phenomenal acting. Unlike the writers of the Loki series, Seb knows how to show, not tell. And gods, what stories those eyes show...

Let's start with the army. In an old post illustrating what an absolute BAMF Bucky Barnes truly is, I mistakenly said he enlisted, and a kind soul educated me on the incredible attention to detail Marvel used to pay - in this case, Bucky's ID number. 32557038. As this kind, eagle-eyed soul pointed out to me, the first two digits of that number - 32 - signify that Bucky was drafted, specifically from the NY, NJ, DE area (that last part is rather obvious, as Bucky and Steve are from Brooklyn lol). Bucky didn't choose to go to war. He was drafted. He was forced to fight, or go to prison.

Bucky was born in 1917, which means - again, as someone pointed out to me a while back - he came of age during the Great Depression. As a child, he would likely have seen his parents living comfortably and able to shower each other and him and his sister with gifts and fun memories, and then POOF. Stock market crashes when he's only 12-years-old, and life becomes brutal and painful. He manages to have some fun with his best friend Steve, and spends his teens/early 20s chasing girls and keeping his stupid, stubborn, tiny friend from getting beaten to death.

Steve constantly has something to prove. He's absolutely got what my mom always called "little man's disease", and Bucky's just doing his best not to roll his eyes too much at this asthmatic chihuahua constantly trying to beat up Tibetan mastiffs. While Steve keeps lying on his enlistment forms (an actual crime) trying again and again to get into the army and prove what a badass he is (definitely not), Bucky's had enough trauma and upheaval in his life and he just wants his stupid friend to calm tf down and live. Enjoy the fact that he doesn't have to go to war and get his limbs blown off.

And then he gets fucking drafted. This sweet, resigned realist who knows exactly how dangerous the war really is, is forced to put on a uniform and go fight strangers alongside other strangers thousands of miles from everything he knows. And on his last night of freedom, when he just wants to hang out with his friend, see some cool gadgets, and dance with a pretty girl, his stupid angry chihuahua friend feels the need to lie and try to enlist again.

Okay. Gotta get back on track. Ragepost about mistreatment of Bucky, not how much Steve annoys me. Sorry. Anyway...

Bucky's drafted, accepts his shitty lot with a brave smile, and is shipped off to Europe, where he is captured by HYDRA and presumed by the Allies to be KIA. Instead, he's strapped down, tortured, and given the HYDRA version of the super serum against his will. Steve rescues him, and Bucky knows he can't leave his idiot friend to his own devices to get his head blown off, so he dives right back into the fray. And then he falls off a cliff, loses most of his left arm, and is declared dead...again. This one's pretty damn valid, though lol. Without the serum no one knew he'd been shot up with, there is no way he would have survived that fall.

Here is where Bucky's story gets truly heartbreaking: His autonomy, his ability to consent is stripped from him through electroshock torture/brainwashing. The trigger words are conditioned into him during this process, and boom. Ten words in Russian, and Bucky Barnes is gone. Even the confused, hurting shadow of him is gone, leaving only a perfectly obedient killing machine, with Bucky's pretty face. He's strong as all hell, though, so they can't keep him fully under their control for long, not without more torture, when the disorientation of being fucking frozen wears off on longer missions.

I cannot stress this point enough, guys: Bucky. Had. No. Choice. Not like the draft, where his choices (go and get shot at, refuse and go to jail, or dodge and run to Canada) just suck. No, he literally didn't have a choice. He had his ability to choose stripped from him. If that's too complex a concept to really sink in, try this: His brain was fucking raped. Repeatedly. For decades. Nothing the Winter Soldier ever did was Bucky's fault. Nothing. Ever. Not remotely, no matter how you fucking slice it. Bucky is not an assassin. I almost said "not a killer", but he was a soldier, and a sharpshooter. He definitely killed when he was himself, but that was in a war, not a series of assassinations.

So far, imo, so good. This is just a rundown of Bucky's pre-show backstory. I don't love what he had to suffer, but I do love how it was treated in the movies. People were afraid of him, but when they knew the whole situation, Steve, Nat, and Sam rallied behind him. Natasha had plenty of reason to want the Winter Soldier dead; he'd tried to kill her multiple times and almost succeeded. Sam had no reason to help Bucky at all; he didn't know him, didn't trust him, and again, TWS had tried to kill him. But he stood by Steve, and when Bucky showed the clear difference between himself and TWS, Sam stood by him, too, and fought alongside him.

And it's very realistic, imo, that Tony didn't give a single fuck that Bucky had no choice. He watched this man murder both of his parents on tape. If TWS had killed my dad and I saw proof of it, I'd try to kill Bucky, too. Grief wins out over logic. Most emotions usually do. And that's a very important point we're going to come back to in a few minutes.

Bucky was really only in like ten minutes at most of IW and Endgame, and for multiple reasons I hate those movies, so I'm just gonna skip them, kay? Kay. On to the main event!

Here's where I get pissed off. Even if I didn't have an unhealthy attachment to this character, or the depth of appreciation for his tragic backstory that I do, the lack of continuity between the movies and the show alone would still piss me off. It always does. Don't even get me started on Joss "Continuity? What continuity?" Whedon and his (iconic, but flawed) shows. Ahem. Back on track...

Let me just get one little thing out of the way real quick: I fucking LOVE The Falcon and the Winter Soldier. I love it. This show amazed me when I first watched it, and I still love it after many more viewings lol. I have only ever watched it all the way through without skipping over as much John Walker shit as possible the one time lol but I love how Sam and Bucky interact, and I fucking adore how Sam's arc was treated. I just wish they'd show the same care and attention to Bucky.

Because what they did to Bucky in this show is a fucking travesty. There was a tiny ray of hope in the pilot, when he called out Dr. Bitchface for being a terrible shrink. I thought that would be the start of him realizing he needed to find someone else and ignore the damaging shit that woman was telling him. But...nope. No such luck.

The show really had a strong start, I'll give it that. We see Bucky having nightmares of his time as TWS and struggling to hide how his traumatic memories are affecting him as he tries to live in the world again. He befriends the father of one of HYDRA's victims, which can't be good for Bucky (and we're shown it's definitely not when he sees the shrine in Yori's home to his late son) but it's sweet, how he's trying to connect and reach out to someone who's hurting and lonely.

They drop the ball a little with the whole... Bucky can hack a fucking car, but can't figure out Tinder thing. Had they just run with the fandom interpretation of the tiger photos line, that it shows that Bucky is bi and left it at that, I'd have been okay with it (and no, that is not because I ship Sam/Bucky. it's because Bucky is and always has been a certified nerd who loves technology and has consistently shown very little issue learning to use new gadgets). The outdated flip phone he handed his terrible court-mandated shrink was a burner; I liked that theory when I read it, especially since it's the only time we see him even holding a phone that old lol. This all could have fit the "Bucky is a sassy bisexual nerd" narrative and it'd be okay. Instead, the director was like "NOOOOOO that line was just to show how old he is and how he can't figure out all this newfangled technology!" Woman, you had him remotely driving someone else's vehicle with a tablet. That is NOT a man who can't figure out a damn smart phone!

But that's just a minor annoyance. What fills me with absolute rage is how everyone - not just the shitty therapist who lashes out at and purposely triggers her traumatized patients, but EVERYONE - Sam, Zemo, people who should fucking know better ALL treat him like he's a psychopath and a ticking time bomb. Like he chose to take the serum and he chose to kill for HYDRA, and he's just seen the error of his ways. *barf*

Bucky in the movies is established to be a victim, through and through. His guilt over what he was forced to do is natural, and that he sees himself as a monster makes sense... but that doesn't mean it's correct. The one and only thing I ever liked about Steve Rogers is at least he got it. He pointed out that none of it was Bucky's fault, he tried to show him that he was worth saving. That's the other reason I refuse to talk about Endgame. This post will get a WHOLE LOT LONGER and a lot fucking angrier if I open that door.

Zemo supposedly knows everything about HYDRA and super soldiers... So why does he treat Bucky like he's a corrupt serial killer? (this, for the record, is why I don't like Zemo) Why does he never point out that Bucky was given the serum against his will, or that his actions, when he had control of them, proved that he was never corrupted? Bucky never wanted to become superhuman. Bucky didn't even want to fucking fight!

Sam, despite constantly resisting the label, is shown very clearly to be Bucky's friend. By episode 3, he cares. He worries about how Bucky is getting lumped in with the other super soldiers in Zemo's speech... But he never really defends him. He says "what about Bucky?" but he doesn't point out that Bucky's a good man, he's fought so hard to help people, he does everything he can to avoid killing... And that fucking speech in episode 5. I was with him on "you gotta stop looking to other people to tell you who you are." I was like "YEAH! Tell him, Sam! Bucky, you're WORTH SAVING, boo! Your value does not hinge on someone else's opinion of you!" And then... Sam dropped the ball.

He not only continued the disturbing pattern of victim-blaming in this show, and in Marvel/Disney properties in general, but he gave really dangerously bad advice! No one in their right mind, mental health professional or no, would EVER tell a traumatized former assassin (whether he was responsible for his actions or not) to go confront his victims' families out of the blue with no warning and no one to mediate and keep things from going to shit. Yori already knew his son had been murdered because he was in the "wrong place, wrong time." How is it being "of service" to tell him you're the one who killed him?! Remember how I said Tony's reaction to learning the full truth about his parents' deaths was valid and would be an important point later? Hi! Welcome to later. THAT is the natural reaction to facing the man who murdered your loved one(s). And even if Yori didn't get angry and lash out, HOW IS IT "HELPING" HIM OR BRINGING HIM "CLOSURE" TO KNOW THAT HIS FRIEND KILLED HIS FUCKING SON?!?!?! This man befriended him, bonded with him, watched him grieve... And now he's learning this is the man who caused all his pain and heartache to begin with? That is so toxic and psycho I just... I can't even... UGH.

And then there's the equally toxic and damaging "deeply traumatized person just needed a stern talking to and a hug to be ALL BETTER AGAIN" ending. I loved seeing Bucky happy and socializing, but it was too soon, and it was unearned. And it sends a fucking awful message to people actually struggling with PTSD, and to their loved ones who don't know how to help them. Heaping more blame on them and then hugging it out is NOT helpful!

This show could have been damn near perfect with just two changes. That's all. Just two. 1) Someone, anyone, bringing up the reasons why Bucky was never a villain in his presence. Someone being in his corner and reminding him, like Steve did, that it wasn't his fault and he's not going to "snap". 2) More time devoted to Bucky's healing. Actual fucking healing, not the shit they tried to pass off as a magic fix-all. He can have his happy barbecue moment, just don't frame it as "everything's great now!" Healing isn't linear, and there will be both good days and bad. Some of the most fragile people in the world have the brightest smiles.

If we get a season 2, which this amazing show absolutely deserves, and they address this stuff, all will be forgiven in my book. Expanding on his story and his journey toward healing will help to reframe that "happily ever after" garbage as something more realistic. But as it stands now... Fuck Marvel.

#fan rant #ragepost #long post #bucky barnes #mcu #captain america #the first avenger #the winter soldier #civil war #tfatws #mcu spoilers #stop victim blaming #victim not villain #never a fucking villain #bucky deserved better #fuck marvel #fuck disney

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genaleah · 3 years

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ANSWERING WILDCARD QUESTIONS

For the first time in about a year maybe??? Some of these might be even older than that.

Yes, it is Korka! I definitely want her involved, she’s a wonderful character and there is a *lot* of fun paranormal stuff going on in this setting that she can help them research. Also, I’d just love for her and Nelson to become friends!

Thank you! I love him a lot, and it’s fun to picture him interacting with the other guys. They’d all make for some interesting uncle figures, but they might not be that great in terms of role models.

OHOHO. Devilish laugh. That’s a wonderful idea, and a good way to keep him occupied at some point. He’s a great character, but he’s incredibly powerful, and I want these dudes to solve their own problems whenever possible.

A good question! I don’t remember most of my dreams, but there’s usually a consistent look to the vivid ones. Lots of water, mountains, creeks, and high, winding roads. There are also a lot of buildings that are closely integrated with nature, even though I have almost never seen construction like that.

I had not, but now I have! Here’s a trailer, for anyone else that missed it:

https://youtu.be/33HXHaaagsw

I really like these new models! I’m looking forward to watching a playthrough when that’s available. Just like with Rhombus of Ruin, I don’t think I’ll be able to play this one myself.

DOUBLE FINE, I WISH TO SPEAK WITH YOU- no, I’m kidding! I think great minds think alike. But I’m really excited to learn more about that character and possibly involve them in this whole au eventually.

I’ve actually tried to avoid almost any info about Psychonauts 2 so I can go in mostly-blind, and a lot of the characters are vague to me. It’s fun to look forward to, but it’s also a little harrowing because I don’t know how to anticipate for it!

N...NO..... I NEED TO... Honestly those are old enough that it might be a good idea for me to re-make them, as well as the playing cards I made for the mega playlist cover. I think it’d be nice to remake them as vectors... that might make for a nice art stream sometime. I’ll mention publicly if I start doing that, and sharing any of these conceptual Wildcards arts when they’re done.

And if you’re just curious about what the tarot cards for the other characters are going to be, it’s this:

Eddie: Judgement, The Magician, The Emperor

Manny: Death, Justice, The World

Sam: The Chariot, The Tower, Strength

Max: The Devil, Wheel of Fortune, Joker

Although! I may actually give the Moon card to Max instead of the Devil, and replace the missing card from Nelson’s selection with the High Priestess? 🤔 I’ll decide when I get to it.

Could be! I’ve flip-flopped occasionally on if I want the split-a-cab gang to participate much in the story. I think they deserve a break, and splitting an apartment in New York seems like a good situation for the four of them.

Oh boy, that must be so disorienting for him. The Psychonauts deal with a lot of hippy-dippy weirdness in a seemingly organized way, but it seems like they’re not as paranoid about safety as a real federal organization would be. Not necessarily a good thing, considering one of their camp counselors went AWOL one day, and the head of the Psychonauts got kidnapped the next. They kinda need to get their act together.

Fun fact, in one of the earlier drafts of Chapter 3 I was actually going to make Nelson get scanned by the equivalent of a metal-detector for malevolent thoughts at the door and get really spooked by it, but I decided against it.

YEAH IT’S ON THE LIST

Honestly, a big bulk of the plot in this just regards characters having to face their mental health struggles... via facing it as literal internal demons, unstable powers, etc. It’s going to take a little while for any of Eddie’s teammates to realize how MUCH he has going on under the surface because he does a pretty good job of hiding it. “Needing to help others above ever helping themselves” is a hard issue to notice if you’re not looking for it. But it’s a guarantee that once they find out he needs help, they’ll give it; whether that’s making sure he’s not working himself too hard, or fighting off demonic cultists. Care comes in many forms.

SHE NEEDS TO REST.... POOR SYBIL (on the upside, they don’t TECHNICALLY work there, so she might be fine most of the time.)

Strong Bad isn’t a Psychonaut! He’s just a vlogger and a petty (psychic) criminal. It’s honestly not very different from canon.

Free Country, USA is a smalltown hotbed of psychic activity. Nearly everyone there has some mild capacity for supernatural powers, but nobody really notices or cares. Strong Bad just pops the tops off of cold ones and.... sometimes alters reality, a tiny bit. But mostly just in regards to media. The cartoons, comics, etc, that he invents and talks about have a tendency to suddenly voip into existence and nobody knows how. I swear, there’s actually a line of him saying something to this effect, but I can’t find it anywhere. Don’t worry about it! Nobody in town is ever going to do anything truly nefarious with their powers, so it’s not a high priority on the Psychonauts’ radar, just a weird footnote.

The only reason Homestar is an actual agent is because he seems like exactly the kind of guy to sign up for a job like that on accident and then stick with it. And he’s a talented telekinetic! None of his other friends know about his job or notice his absences.

And just for fun, here’s some weird instances of psychic overpowering that happened in the cartoon:

---

(Poor Strong Sad)

I’ve actually answered this one before! BAM Pretty sure all of it is still accurate.

Nelson: He sees floating sheets of paper containing notes, questions, etc. Anything that he wants to know more about regarding that person. The notes are subject to edits, cross-outs, ripped pages, etc.

Guybrush: He sees the item that the person is carrying that he wants most. As he gets to know people better, he sees them for their useful skills first.

Manny: His view of most living people is not very kind...

The people he’s closest to will eventually look a lot less garish. More like a flattering, camera-ready versions of themselves.

Eddie: Sickass sketch drawings that look like they belong in the margins of a composition book. The illustrations improve as he gets a better picture of where they’d fit in the internal lore of his mental world.

Sam: A lot like Nelson; Sam pictures case files, though his are a bit more in-depth.

Max: Max’s visions of people are highly personal and uncomfortable for those who witness them. He sees Nelson as a puzzle with a piece missing. Guybrush is a ripped up voodoo doll. Manny is a forgotten ofrenda. Eddie is a powder keg with a long, lit fuse. Sam is Sam, but he’s the wrong one.

I also got two questions that were pretty big subjects, or that I didn’t want to repeat, so I’m gonna cover them pretty broadly:

REGARDING [X] CHARACTER OR SERIES INCLUDED IN THE AU

Sure, I support it! I’ve gotten this question a few times in regards to things that I haven’t had time to delve into yet, or I’m not interested in, so I’m not going to include it into the AU myself. But if you want to explore an idea like that, feel free! This AU is pretty dang collaborative.

My main focus is just on the main 6 properties: Psychonauts, Puzzle Agent, Monkey Island, Grim Fandango, Brutal Legend, and Sam & Max.

But my general rule of thumb for “characters that exist somewhere within the background of this story” are any other properties owned by Telltale, Lucasarts, or Double Fine. And considering all of the licensed games that Telltale was getting into before it kicked the bucket, that includes some really weird characters, even up to the Venture Bros. I loved that series, but I’m not really interested in doing anything with them for this story! Partly for my sanity, the canon I’ve picked are already a lot of content to play with.

ASSORTED QUESTIONS ABOUT THE WILDCARD AU DISCORD

There’s no particular criteria needed to join the discord, and it’s not strictly on a need-to-know basis! Because it’s been a long while since anyone has joined, I've been hesitant about adding new people in... But I‘ve decided to try sending invitations again! Everyone who had asked about it in the past will be getting a ping by me in about a day or so, since I want to double-check if you’re still interested. If you’ve been nervous to ask you can reply to this post or message me privately.

Some things to keep in mind before asking or accepting the invite:

If you’re not a friend or a follower I recognize, I will likely double-check your tumblr along with some other current members before sending the invite.

Here’s the Rules page, so you know what to expect before you join:

Be Mindful - Respect other people's boundaries, don't do or say things that would cross the line. If your behavior makes other people feel uncomfortable or unsafe, I will remove you from the chat. In most cases I will try to resolve things with you and offer a chance to do better, but that will depend on the severity of the situation. And if you have any concerns regarding another member of the chat, you can contact me privately.

Health Boundaries - While discussions of mental health do occasionally pop up, do not rely on the chat for help. None of us are equipped to handle serious mental health concerns, and it will only cause distress for everyone. Please seek real help if it is needed! If you rely on people beyond the point that they have asked you to stop, I will remove you from the chat.

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The canon series involved with the Wildcard AU are Psychonauts, Puzzle Agent, Monkey Island, Grim Fandango, Brutal Legend, and Sam & Max. Please be mindful of story spoilers!

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We’re a group of approx. a half dozen to a dozen people, either posting very very quickly in a span of a few hours or barely anything for a few days. We’ve been in an activity uptick lately and there’s about a year and half of back content, too. If it’s hard to keep up on, not that interesting to read through, or you just have a hard time gelling with the group that's already there, there’s no shame in just lurking or dipping out if you need to.

We also talk a lot about Psychonauts OCs, so anticipate that.

#wildcard au #wildcard hcs

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laynemorgan · 3 years

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I'm sure you've already provided it, but I'd be curious to hear your road to becoming a staffed writer. What first got you interested in it? Does it go back to school days?

Man it goes back far. I mean, I guess in some ways it doesn't. Since you asked more about what got me interested in where it goes back to, I'll give you the lest technical and more biographicl explanatin. My first goal was just to become a writer. I've been writing since I was a really little kid. I actually recently found journals from like the elementary and middle school days just filled with them. And it was never small scale, I'd always be planning out the whole fucking setting, how all the characters were connected, full universes. I made a fake fantasy. land in my backyard because my parents live on a lot of land. I called it Teleterania. I remember very little about it besides that that was the name hahah but I did do it!!! Everything I read only made me want to write. Everything I watched made me want to write.

Sometime around late middle school and early high school, I started watching more TV. I found soap operas and was OBSESSSED with their flare for drama. I found BTVS, Charmed, Smallville, Veronica Mars, OTH, etc. And all of those shows really got me actually looking at TV in a way I had never before. I got obsessed with their worlds and into their fandoms. I became the liek TV guy in my high school. There was even a group of girls I never got to really hang out with that would always call me over to their table to ask about what I knew about OTH stuff hahaha and 17 year old me thought that was awesome. Before my sister passed away, she and I took a road trip down to North Carolina to tour the One Tree Hill set. OTH was like the one thing that she and I agreed on. And it was so awesome. For me it was a first look at what the industry actually looked like, to see the sets and what went into it and all of that.

But I don't think my eyes really opened to actually WORKING in tv until college. I went to school for English Lit and Creative Writing in New Hampshire. My school had a great writing program and I was right at home there. i still credit my first writing professor who was only a grad student for really teaching me what I know about writing and editing and reading my own work for error and she passed me on to her favorite professor which was a hugely flattering moment for me. AND THEN -- I fell in love with PLL. And for me, that was really where shit started. I didn't realize it at the time and it wasn't even the show that did it it was what the show showed me. Through my tumblr at the time which had very little to do with fandom, I actually wound up running into Patrick Adams and Troian Bellisario. We all were always sharing each other's posts and at the time I was working for a journalist covering random TV out of a shitty free magazine in Boston doing work for peanuts. But I was going out to LA to meet up with a friend and we all decided to meet for lunch and they let me interview them for my magazine and stayed really rad people. They also helped boost my PLL photo recaps which I was doing at the time and those got the attention of the Director, Normal Buckley who asked me out to coffee and talked to me about my goals and what I was doing. He was the person who first really helped me understand that there's an approachability to the TV world that to me had always been this like magical hollywood bubble I didn't understand.

I went home THRILLED about LA, dropped out of college and set out to go to film school. From there, I hated film school because it was too technical adjacent, dropped out again, spent all the money I had on that move twice, and went home to boston broke and lost. I spent two years after that maybe more saving money, working in fandom, and waitressing while I went back to college online. That era wasn't super writing focused but it's where I found myself. I realized I was queer, I came out, I got into tumblr rpg, I met my fandom friends, I found tumblr fandom in a way I hadn't before. And then a couple years later I found tl100.

From there, the rest is kind of wonky. I had a big fan blog for the show and talked a lot about it on my twitter which lead me to many interactions with the writers who then invited me to dinner at comic con one year. I had a long talk with Shumway abut my goals and what I wanted to do with my life. I knew I wanted to be in TV somehow. I knew I wanted to be in writing somehow but I couldn't figure out how those two things aligned. I was doing a lot of journalism and critic stuff because that felt like the clsoest way to be both a fan and workin in the world I loved but it was really Kim and Shawna that opened my eyes to the ability to just .... be a TV writer. Film school had made me terrified of the wrtiing side but I think it was because film school was so much more about writing for film which I learned isn't my thing. But TV is a writers' medium, unlike film which is more fo a directors medium and suddenly I was like -- MIND BLOWN. It was everything I wanted in a career and married all of the things I loved. It was something that had previously felt like unattainable but they made it seem human and approachable.

They helped me get my first WPA job, I saved up 3 grand working and with the help of some friends and moved to LA to start that. And suddenly I was in a whirlwind of catching up on everything I felt like I had missed. I was reading scripts, learning what the process looked like, doing everything I coudl to figure out what being a TV writer looked like. After that job, I got another WPA job at Millar Gough on Into the Badlands and later Shannara.

THEN I got hired on Daybreak which I can fully credit with being a huge stepping stone for me and changing my life in a lot of ways. Aron was the best showrunner. He was educational and he taught us shit, he let us in the room, he let us write stuff, he let us pitch and try and fall on our faces and never judged us for it. My second season there he moved me up to writers assitant and patiently walked me through all the stuff I didn't know yet because he had faith in me and my voice and my ideas. He let me writ e afreelance episode that year and pitch it in the room and do all the things that real w riters get to do.

So after Daybreak season 2 got cancelled I was pretty ready to spend my next year or two just writing, finding an agent and moving forawrd. And then I got an email to go and work for Moira Walley Beckett. She was looking for an assistant with serious room experience to help develop something in a small room and stay on with her later. I took the job becuase she's MOIRA and I was stoked to learn from her and work for a woman for once. I ernded up very fortunate becuase a month later we were all surprised by the covid mess and I was fully employed that whole year while many people weren't which was a huge help. Moira was a STELLAR boss. I had thought I was ready and what she taught me was that ther's always so much more to learn. She walked me through the process of applying notes and taking notes and changing draft after draft of your story. SHe walked me through breaking a whole season of television. We had a great partnership for the year and I'm so grateful. And then that project didn't end up seeing hte light of day and we our separate ways as well.

Cut to a few months ago, I was still at home in Boston, post-covid, having been sick for most of january. My friend Rachel dared me to write a spec in a weekend for the Warner Bros fellowship deadline. So I did. It was a Legacies Spec. Given that we didn't have access to the WGA library because of the pandemic, Legacies was an easy and obvious choice. I had already seen it inside and out and didn't need as much access to learning a show from scratch. So I wrote what I loved, wrote a season 2 legacies spec that embraced my favorite things about legacies: the high school soap of one tree hill, Lizzie doing wild dialogue, buffy-esque monsters, and themes of grief and humanity.

AND THE REST you know.

Here we are. I'm still lost as fuck. I'm still running full speed through a world I don't always feel like I"m ready for. I'm still a perfectionist and an obsessive overworker. I still take notes I don't need to take and do work at 10pm and come in early and stare at the story boards. There's a whole journey in all of this about representation and coming to find myself and queer media and wanting to make more of it but that's one I don't feel like I can fully get into until I'm decades out of it and the world is truly made better. But I'm here. And it feels like the end of a journey and liek I'm standing at the edge of a brand new clif because I've only just started.

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mrpenguinpants · 4 years

Text

Alright, I finally read Reincarnation no Kaben

AFTER MONTHS (it’s probably been a month? My mind doesn’t keep track of the days) I FINALLY CAUGHT UP TO RNK. Ty to Okita anon for the recommendation (*￣3￣)╭💕💕💕 I absolutely loved it.

After this I’ll start on the other recommendation you gave me. I kept a bit of a log of my reading journey under the read more tag.

Major spoilers for literally everything in RNK up to ch 53 “Withdrawal”.

Oh, and I’ll finish answering all my leftover asks and I SHOULD have a fic done by tomorrow. I was so ready to write and then I got up. Now I’m back to bed.

I’m just gonna write this as a log since I read super super slow and I’m only on ch 7 at the start of writing this but I’m really liking it already. Though to be fair. I love everything okita anon recommends haha. I remember you saying you were simping over Kouu and I haven’t gotten to the part where he appears but I wanted to quickly google what he looked like to prepare myself and I see this:

Well. That’s reassuring.

I was actually kinda surprised by how many western figures were in the manga since I know there are only like 7? Around 7 western figures that pop up in any anime/manga but seeing people like Albert Fish was kinda surprising but I really liked it. Also, at the end of certain chapters they write little bio’s on them so you get to know more about them was such a nice touch. I also love that the tradition of making males -> females still stays strong even outside the fate universe hehe.

---

Literally, the next chapter I see him. AHHHHHHHHH. Well maybe not him but his eyeballs.

This guy lowkey reminds me of the MC’s brother but it’s 99% because he has the same long ponytail. I wouldn’t be surprised if the brother was apart of the the Greats. Honestly, Ein reminds me of those really hard headed girls that are actually really kind on the inside but aren’t good at expressing themselves (maybe because that’s pretty much her character). I also like that Ein doesn’t like males but she’s hiding behind this guy. At least, I’m..99% sure this is Ein.

I FUCKING KNEW IT. AS SOON AS I SAW HE GOT A THEIF TALENT I COULD FEEL THE SOLO LEVELING VIBES IN ME. HE CAN STEAL TALENTS I FUCKING KNEW IT!!! I’m surprised that Neumann didn’t say anything and Haito seems to be aware of it.

Edit: Ah okay, I understand a bit now but it almost seems like Haito is the only one aware of Toya’s second talent.

Edit 2: Okay, as much as I love power hungry MC’s I’m really glad they didn’t make Toya into that. I am such a softie for sympathetic and kind MC’s like these even though it’s been done so many times. I’m really glad this didn’t feel like a rehash. I mean, some points some of the stuff Toya says it does but it’s fine, I don’t mind that. I actually gave a crap about him since I usually prefer the side characters (I UNDERSTAND ANON, I CARE ABOUT KOUU SO MUCH AHHHHH) but HAITO?? AHHHHH.

---

I like that Izo always has the same hat in every adaptation he’s in lol. Istg, cats are always op. Schrodinger seems so strong and the parallel universes are my absolute shit. Sometimes I think, in one universe I did this and in this universe I’m not. Would I rather stay in this universe or be in the one where I am actually productive. Usually I pick the productive universe and actually work but sometimes I’m a bit of a slacker haha. I think this is my approach to a lot of things in life. But I digress, I don’t wanna get too deep into my life.

I can sorta sympathize with the sinners. At least the ripper guy to say the least. I love love love unhinged characters that just want to basically destroy the world or at least have fun. But then you find out- wait they are actually sympathetic oh no. That’s how I felt about Djoser in “im the great priest imhotep” (please...i beg...someone read this...I’m so starved).

As much as character development and rooting for the hero is cool and all, I just want to simp for the crazy “let’s burn the world to the ground” kinda character. I’m also so glad Toya doesn’t automatically become evil and try and steal everyone’s talents because he does seem like a good person and I really don’t see him suddenly switching fields so when he saved (I don’t remember names I’m sorry), the undead solider it was really nice. Proves that he still has his humanity and isn’t strictly relying on the branch of sin.

It makes sense that he wants to steal talents since he never had one (and it was kinda out of left field when he killed Vlad and we just never addressed that ever again haha) but to see him actually consider his actions and if he actually want’s to steal his teammates talents feels right to me. Poor guy doesn’t seem to have a lot of friends so this is the first time he’s ever seemed to have companionship, aside from Haito, so I really hope he doesn’t attempt to steal their talents. I think I’m thinking of the slime? That time I got reincarnated as a slime manga/anime. Where he’s the pokemon catcher of skills. I thought that was where it was going.

But I do kinda like how selfish Haito and Toya’s talent stealing relationship is (I mean, later it develops but my first draft of writing this I wasn’t there yet). I’m not sure if selfish or like self-gratitude/pride is the right word but it’s kind of a breath of fresh air. Rather than Haito trying to contain or “help” Toya’s inferiority she’s actually encouraging it and using her own talent for her own...acknowledgement? Er, yeah let’s go with that.

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This. This interaction. I love this. Like, genuinely love this. We need more of this. Two people from opposite sides finding some common ground and their fight to the death is less about morals or whose on whose side but for themselves. I love that. This is actually some wholesome stuff.

Edit: AHHHHH CATCH MY UGLY CRYING IN THE BACK BECAUSE ALL THE “SINNERS” ARE ACTUALLY AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH. IM DEAD. YOU’VE KILLED ME.

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I KNEW IT! YOU CAN NEVER TRUST THESE KIND OF PEOPLE!! I’m going to slap the whiteboard on this but if I see any “goofy” character I’m immediately sus of them.

As much as I hate that Hitler is getting drawn as a small child I really like this. I know the whole, oh I killed your friends but I’m letting you go because you express humanity but I’m gonna finish my death with a sympathetic line, can be annoying to people but idk I really liked this.

Honestly this and the undead soldiers death hit me hard ngl. This manga might not have my favourite art style during some points compared to like main stream manga but it has some really beautiful scenes.

BOOM CALLED IT, though it’s pretty obvious lol.

THE PONY TAIL NEVER LIES AND HES DA VINCI IT MAKES SENSE NOW

He looks so cute lol. I like that Seiya has the talent of being talented in everything while Toya has the talent to steal other talents. Seiya can probably only cap his power by his own physical/mental abilities with Toya can pull a solo leveling and go further beyond. Thinking of it like jack of trades vs master of none type deals. Though, I might be thinking too hard on this. I like that this man is actually humble but I really wish there was a tiny bit more to him since we only get this one interaction/backstory but the manga isn’t completed yet. I really hope we get to know about Seiya more;; like how he became da vinci or etc.

Everytime I see Neumann I look at that comic sans type and it kills me on the inside. But I love that her eyes are 01 just, mwah perfection. These little details that aren’t that big but it’s soooo nice. I also ahem, unhinged character heart be still. It’s really nice reading manga in bursts because you can see the art progression and damn does she look good.

tiny fang appreciation post.

ngl i’M HARD SIMPING FOR THIS MAN. It’s the pony tail, I have such a thing for guys with long hair (and this is why genshin broke me) but man the art really picked up here.

I didn’t get into it but OKITA ANON I GET IT. KOUU??? AHHHH. WHY DID YOU HAVE TO DIE??? As much as his whole “war” was a bit questionable in the beginning and tbh I still don’t really get it I like that he knows he’s not the same as the other Greats but still tries to help the other “sinners” in a way only he knows. That’s why Seiya was so important;; I get that he wanted them to have a fun death and to be understood but idk, the whole war idea and having them kill each other (especially the Hitler fights because I understand the others since they reached some kind of acknowledgement) but nonetheless, what a great guy.

Nightingale gives me mad masaki vibes from chainsawman. I hate them and I can’t wait for you to fail, but the inner part of my is cheering for you because unhinged characters are my shit. I feel really bad for Neumann, I had suspicions she wasn’t actually like that since it’s sooo out of left field but I’m really glad the manga seems to know what it’s doing. I really wish we got more Kouu interactions with everyone tho.

NOW THIS. THIS IS SOME WHOLESOME STUFF. I WANT THIS. I REALLY WANT SPIN-OFF OF REALLY SAD ANIME/MANGA/STORIES WHERE ALL THE DEAD PEOPLE HANG OUT. That’s how I’m feeling about JJK and the scroll segments or BSD WAN that just came out. IT’S SO WHOLESOME TO SEE EVERYONE NOT TRYING TO KILL EACH OTHER.

UGLY SOBBING IN THE CLUBBB AND KOUU AND CHARLOTTE AHHHH. I hate how this is phrased but the respect I have for Hitler?? YOU HAVE ANY IDEA HOW HARD THAT IS TO TYPE?? Kitazuka is cool tho, I really like him. Some god given talent. I’m hard simping over him but I really hope we get to know more about him later.

Getting smug mona vibes, I love this.

AHHH IVE NEVER FELT THIS UPSET OVER AN APPLEEEE. I’M ACTUALLY UPSET. IF HE DIES IM ACTUALLY GOING TO CRY MY HEART OUT.

THE FAMOUS SLAP

I’M SORRY WHA- SLENDERMAN?

Oh..wow. Okay, be still my heart. When I first saw her I thought she was really pretty but now I’m absolutely smitten. God damn, can I please have some more crumbs on these characters before they die;;

AHHH SAME GIRL FUCKING SAME????? I adore these small panels and translator notes. It’s a real breather after the sad 3am hours talk these characters go through.

Yagyuu. Jesus christ. WHY ARE ALL THE DEATH SCENES IN THIS MANGA ACTUALLY SO PRETTY AND STABS ME IN THE HEART??? that’s it. goodbye. im fucking out. im actually so upset rn. WHAT HAVE YOU DONE TO ME?

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In conclusion, and I should probably re-read what the characters say and not go off on memory because I’m about to get really deep. I really like how they phrased why they wanted to stop the branch of sin. That there are people just like Toya and Haito who, if they never found the branch of sin, could still probably lead respectable and okay lives. That there was a “them” in another universe that didn’t go down that road and that they want to be in the same universe as “them”. I know this sounds really confusing if you haven’t read the manga but going back to what I said about the parallel universe stuff.

There was a universe where Toya and Haito didn’t rely on the branch of sin, that even without their talents from becoming a returner, they could still live a happy life given their own personalities and attitudes. It was kinda moving since in the beginning, Toya wanted a talent so badly and now that he has one. He’s realizing that wait, I don’t need a past life talent in order to live. Honestly, I hard relate to that because I totally agree with him. If you have a talent you can probably live a very happy and comfortable life that other factors wouldn’t matter if you just have that incredible talent. Thinking of it as a painter or artist, if you had actual god-given talent you wouldn’t need to worry about other factors since people would naturally seek that talent. So you end up comparing yourself to others and setting that limit on yourself.

But that’s okay, it’s completely natural and I’m not saying it’s horrible if you do this. Fuck, I do this all the time. I’m not saying the manga is changing my life but it’s kind of refreshing that it get’s talked about since other adaptations of this just make the character super OP. I understand wanting to have that incredible talent, fuck who doesn’t? but you don’t need it in order to live earnestly in the bigger picture sense. Not everything you do has to be productive and honestly, learning to be okay with having fun is nice. Just being okay with who you are right now, even if it isn’t perfect in your eyes, you still have time to build upon yourself and your own talents but doing it for yourself.

But I probably missed the point and I’m going way to deep haha. But I really enjoyed reading this and thank you once again to okita anon for the recommendation^^ I always love everything you send me and I’ll start reading the next one. If anyone else has any recommendations let me know!

#WOW WHAT A FUCKING TRAIN RIDE #AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH #ALRIGHT TIME TO GO CRY MY HEART OUT #JESUS THIS ACTUALLY SO BEAUTIFUL???#PLEAE PLEASE PLEASE READ IT #IK THE BEGINNING MIGHT SEEM A BIT WEIRD WITH SO MUCH INFORMATION THROWN AT YOU BUT DO IT #IT GETS SOOOO GOOD LATER #ITS GETTING SO GOOD RN BUT I NEED TO WAIT FOR UPDATES #OKITA ANON YOU ARE SUCH AN MVP FUCK I LOVE IT #BUT YOURE ALSO KILLING ME #super duper fucking i love you i actually love you mwha #okita anon #lovely anon #anon ask #reincarnation no kaben

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recentanimenews · 3 years

Text

ESSAY: Berserk's Journey of Acceptance Over 30 Years of Fandom

My descent into anime fandom began in the '90s, and just as watching Neon Genesis Evangelion caused my first revelation that cartoons could be art, reading Berserk gave me the same realization about comics. The news of Kentaro Miura’s death, who passed on May 6, has been emotionally complicated for me, as it's the first time a celebrity's death has hit truly close to home. In addition to being the lynchpin for several important personal revelations, Berserk is one of the longest-lasting works I’ve followed and that I must suddenly bid farewell to after existing alongside it for two-thirds of my life.

Berserk is a monolith not only for anime and manga, but also fantasy literature, video games, you name it. It might be one of the single most influential works of the ‘80s — on a level similar to Blade Runner — to a degree where it’s difficult to imagine what the world might look like without it, and the generations of creators the series inspired.

Although not the first, Guts is the prototypical large sword anime boy: Final Fantasy VII's Cloud Strife, Siegfried/Nightmare from Soulcalibur, and Black Clover's Asta are all links in the same chain, with other series like Dark Souls and Claymore taking clear inspiration from Berserk. But even deeper than that, the three-character dynamic between Guts, Griffith, and Casca, the monster designs, the grotesque violence, Miura’s image of hell — all of them can be spotted in countless pieces of media across the globe.

Despite this, it just doesn’t seem like people talk about it very much. For over 20 years, Berserk has stood among the critical pantheon for both anime and manga, but it doesn’t spur conversations in the same way as Neon Genesis Evangelion, Akira, or Dragon Ball Z still do today. Its graphic depictions certainly represent a barrier to entry much higher than even the aforementioned company.

Seeing the internet exude sympathy and fond reminiscing about Berserk was immensely validating and has been my single most therapeutic experience online. Moreso, it reminded me that the fans have always been there. And even looking into it, Berserk is the single best-selling property in the 35-year history of Dark Horse. My feeling is that Berserk just has something about it that reaches deep into you and gets stuck there.

I recall introducing one of my housemates to Berserk a few years ago — a person with all the intelligence and personal drive to both work on cancer research at Stanford while pursuing his own MD and maintaining a level of physical fitness that was frankly unreasonable for the hours that he kept. He was NOT in any way analytical about the media he consumed, but watching him sitting on the floor turning all his considerable willpower and intellect toward delivering an off-the-cuff treatise on how Berserk had so deeply touched him was a sight in itself to behold. His thoughts on the series' portrayal of sex as fundamentally violent leading up to Guts and Casca’s first moment of intimacy in the Golden Age movies was one of the most beautiful sentiments I’d ever heard in reaction to a piece of fiction.

I don’t think I’d ever heard him provide anything but a surface-level take on a piece of media before or since. He was a pretty forthright guy, but the way he just cut into himself and let his feelings pour out onto the floor left me awestruck. The process of reading Berserk can strike emotional chords within you that are tough to untangle. I’ve been writing analysis and experiential pieces related to anime and manga for almost ten years — and interacting with Berserk’s world for almost 30 years — and writing may just be yet another attempt for me to pull my own twisted-up feelings about it apart.

Berserk is one of the most deeply personal works I’ve ever read, both for myself and in my perception of Miura's works. The series' transformation in the past 30 years artistically and thematically is so singular it's difficult to find another work that comes close. The author of Hajime no Ippo, who was among the first to see Berserk as Miura presented him with some early drafts working as his assistant, claimed that the design for Guts and Puck had come from a mess of ideas Miura had been working on since his early school days.

写真は三浦建太郎君が寄稿してくれた鷹村です。今かなり感傷的になっています。思い出話をさせて下さい。僕が初めての週刊連載でスタッフが一人もいなくて困っていたら手伝いにきてくれました。彼が18で僕が19です。某大学の芸術学部の学生で講義明けにスケッチブックを片手に来てくれました。 pic.twitter.com/hT1JCWBTKu

— 森川ジョージ (@WANPOWANWAN) May 20, 2021

Miura claimed two of his big influences were Go Nagai’s Violence Jack and Tetsuo Hara and Buronson’s Fist of the North Star. Miura wears these influences on his sleeve, discovering the early concepts that had percolated in his mind just felt right. The beginning of Berserk, despite its amazing visual power, feels like it sprang from a very juvenile concept: Guts is a hypermasculine lone traveler breaking his body against nightmarish creatures in his single-minded pursuit of revenge, rigidly independent and distrustful of others due to his dark past.

Uncompromising, rugged, independent, a really big sword ... Guts is a romantic ideal of masculinity on a quest to personally serve justice against the one who wronged him. Almost nefarious in the manner in which his character checked these boxes, especially when it came to his grim stoicism, unblinkingly facing his struggle against literal cosmic forces. Never doubting himself, never trusting others, never weeping for what he had lost.

Miura said he sketched out most of the backstory when the manga began publication, so I have to assume the larger strokes of the Golden Arc were pretty well figured out from the outset, but I’m less sure if he had fully realized where he wanted to take the story to where we are now. After the introductory mini-arcs of demon-slaying, Berserk encounters Griffith and the story draws us back to a massive flashback arc. We see the same Guts living as a lone mercenary who Griffith persuades to join the Band of the Hawk to help realize his ambitions of rising above the circumstances of his birth to join the nobility.

We discover the horrific abuses of Guts’ adoptive father and eventually learn that Guts, Griffith, and Casca are all victims of sexual violence. The story develops into a sprawling semi-historical epic featuring politics and war, but the real narrative is in the growing companionship between Guts and the members of the band. Directionless and traumatized by his childhood, Guts slowly finds a purpose helping Griffith realize his dream and the courage to allow others to grow close to him.

Miura mentioned that many Band of the Hawk members were based on his early friend groups. Although he was always sparse with details about his personal life, he has spoken about how many of them referred to themselves as aspiring manga authors and how he felt an intense sense of competition, admitting that among them he may have been the only one seriously working toward that goal, desperately keeping ahead in his perceived race against them. It’s intriguing thinking about how much of this angst may have made it to the pages, as it's almost impossible not to imagine Miura put quite a bit of himself in Guts.

Perhaps this is why it feels so real and makes The Eclipse — the quintessential anime betrayal at the hands of Griffith — all the more heartbreaking. The raw violence and macabre imagery certainly helped. While Miura owed Hellraiser’s Cenobites much in the designs of the God Hand, his macabre portrayal of the Band of the Hawk’s eradication within the literal bowels of hell, the massive hand, the black sun, the Skull Knight, and even Miura’s page compositions have been endlessly referenced, copied, and outright plagiarized since.

The events were tragic in any context and I have heard many deeply personal experiences others drew from The Eclipse sympathizing with Guts, Casca, or even Griffith’s spiral driven by his perceived rejection by Guts. Mine were most closely aligned with the tragedy of Guts having overcome such painful circumstances to not only reject his own self enforced solitude, but to fearlessly express his affection for his loved ones.

The Golden Age was a methodical destruction of Guts’ self-destructive methods of preservation ruined in a single selfish act by his most trusted friend, leaving him once again alone and afraid of growing close to those around him. It ripped the romance of Guts’ mission and eventually took the story down a course I never expected. Berserk wasn’t a story of revenge but one of recovery.

Guess that’s enough beating around the bush, as I should talk about how this shift affected me personally. When I was young, when I began reading Berserk I found Guts’ unflagging stoicism to be really cool, not just aesthetically but in how I understood guys were supposed to be. I was slow to make friends during school and my rapidly gentrifying neighborhood had my friends' parents moving away faster than I could find new ones. At some point I think I became too afraid of putting myself out there anymore, risking rejection when even acceptance was so fleeting. It began to feel easier just to resign myself to solitude and pretend my circumstances were beyond my own power to correct.

Unfortunately, I became the stereotypical kid who ate alone during lunch break. Under the invisible expectations demanding I not display weakness, my loneliness was compounded by shame for feeling loneliness. My only recourse was to reveal none of those feelings and pretend the whole thing didn't bother me at all. Needless to say my attempts to cope probably fooled no one and only made things even worse, but I really didn’t know of any better way to handle my situation. I felt bad, I felt even worse about feeling bad and had been provided with zero tools to cope, much less even admit that I had a problem at all.

The arcs following the Golden Age completely changed my perspective. Guts had tragically, yet understandably, cut himself off from others to save himself from experiencing that trauma again and, in effect, denied himself any opportunity to allow himself to be happy again. As he began to meet other characters that attached themselves to him, between Rickert and Erica spending months waiting worried for his return, and even the slimmest hope to rescuing Casca began to seed itself into the story, I could only see Guts as a fool pursuing a grim and hopeless task rather than appreciating everything that he had managed to hold onto.

The same attributes that made Guts so compelling in the opening chapters were revealed as his true enemy. Griffith had committed an unforgivable act but Guts’ journey for revenge was one of self-inflicted pain and fear. The romanticism was gone.

Farnese’s inclusion in the Conviction arc was a revelation. Among the many brilliant aspects of her character, I identified with her simply for how she acted as a stand-in for myself as the reader: Plagued by self-doubt and fear, desperate to maintain her own stoic and uncompromising image, and resentful of her place in the world. She sees Guts’ fearlessness in the face of cosmic horror and believes she might be able to learn his confidence.

But in following Guts, Farnese instead finds a teacher in Casca. In taking care of her, Farnese develops a connection and is able to experience genuine sympathy that develops into a sense of responsibility. Caring for Casca allows Farnese to develop the courage she was lacking not out of reckless self-abandon but compassion.

I can’t exactly credit Berserk with turning my life around, but I feel that it genuinely helped crystallize within me a sense of growing doubts about my maladjusted high school days. My growing awareness of Guts' undeniable role in his own suffering forced me to admit my own role in mine and created a determination to take action to fix it rather than pretending enough stoicism might actually result in some sort of solution.

I visited the Berserk subreddit from time to time and always enjoyed the group's penchant for referring to all the members of the board as “fellow strugglers,” owing both to Skull Knight’s label for Guts and their own tongue-in-cheek humor at waiting through extended hiatuses. Only in retrospect did it feel truly fitting to me. Trying to avoid the pitfalls of Guts’ path is a constant struggle. Today I’m blessed with many good friends but still feel primal pangs of fear holding me back nearly every time I meet someone, the idea of telling others how much they mean to me or even sharing my thoughts and feelings about something I care about deeply as if each action will expose me to attack.

It’s taken time to pull myself away from the behaviors that were so deeply ingrained and it’s a journey where I’m not sure the work will ever be truly done, but witnessing Guts’ own slow progress has been a constant source of reassurance. My sense of admiration for Miura’s epic tale of a man allowing himself to let go after suffering such devastating circumstances brought my own humble problems and their way out into focus.

Over the years I, and many others, have been forced to come to terms with the fact that Berserk would likely never finish. The pattern of long, unexplained hiatuses and the solemn recognition that any of them could be the last is a familiar one. The double-edged sword of manga largely being works created by a single individual is that there is rarely anyone in a position to pick up the torch when the creator calls it quits. Takehiko Inoue’s Vagabond, Ai Yazawa’s Nana, and likely Yoshihiro Togashi’s Hunter X Hunter all frozen in indefinite hiatus, the publishers respectfully holding the door open should the creators ever decide to return, leaving it in a liminal space with no sense of conclusion for the fans except what we can make for ourselves.

The reason for Miura’s hiatuses was unclear. Fans liked to joke that he would take long breaks to play The Idolmaster, but Miura was also infamous for taking “breaks” spent minutely illustrating panels to his exacting artistic standard, creating a tumultuous release schedule during the wars featuring thousands of tiny soldiers all dressed in period-appropriate armor. If his health was becoming an issue, it’s uncommon that news would be shared with fans for most authors, much less one as private as Miura.

Even without delays, the story Miura was building just seemed to be getting too big. The scale continued to grow, his narrative ambition swelling even faster after 20 years of publication, the depth and breadth of his universe constantly expanding. The fan-dubbed “Millennium Falcon Arc” was massive, changing the landscape of Berserk from a low fantasy plagued by roaming demons to a high fantasy where godlike beings of sanity-defying size battled for control of the world. How could Guts even meet Griffith again? What might Casca want to do when her sanity returned? What are the origins of the Skull Knight? And would he do battle with the God Hand? There was too much left to happen and Miura’s art only grew more and more elaborate. It would take decades to resolve all this.

But it didn’t need to. I imagine we’ll never get a precise picture of the final years of Miura’s life leading up to his tragic passing. In the final chapters he released, it felt as if he had directed the story to some conclusion. The unfinished Fantasia arc finds Guts and his newfound band finding a way to finally restore Casca’s sanity and — although there is still unmistakably a boundary separating them — both seem resolute in finding a way to mend their shared wounds together.

One of the final chapters features Guts drinking around the campfire with the two other men of his group, Serpico and Roderick, as he entrusts the recovery of Casca to Schierke and Farnese. It's a scene that, in the original Band of the Hawk, would have found Guts brooding as his fellows engage in bluster. The tone of this conversation, however, is completely different. The three commiserate over how much has changed and the strength each has found in the companionship of the others. After everything that has happened, Guts declares that he is grateful.

The suicidal dedication to his quest for vengeance and dispassionate pragmatism that defined Guts in the earliest chapters is gone. Although they first appeared to be a source of strength as the Black Swordsman, he has learned that they rose from the fear of losing his friends again, from letting others close enough to harm him, and from having no other purpose without others. Whether or not Guts and Griffith were to ever meet again, Guts has rediscovered the strength to no longer carry his burdens alone.

All that has happened is all there will ever be. We too must be grateful.

Peter Fobian is an Associate Manager of Social Video at Crunchyroll, writer for Anime Academy and Anime in America, and an editor at Anime Feminist. You can follow him on Twitter @PeterFobian.

By: Peter Fobian

#Anime #News #Latest in Anime News by Crunchyroll!

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imaginingsoftly · 4 years

Text

It Seemed Like a Good Idea at the Time Pt. 7 - Morgan Reilly

Type: roommates to lovers, Y/N insert shorts

Requested: No

Warnings: concussions

(Y/N = Your name, Y/L/N = Your Last Name, Y/N’s POV to Morgans, POV change marked with a line)

A/N: Apparently I suck at writing deadlines, and I’m really sorry about that. Hopefully once my semester is over I’ll be able to write at a more consistent pace, but trying to do University online is different and challenging. Enjoy!

Y/N’s family was nothing like her, her brothers’ noise a sharp contrast to her quiet, and she was trying not to panic over the madness that was about to ensue. It was four days after Morgan’s concussion diagnosis, and it was only yesterday that he stopped cringing at the brightness of the sunlight coming into the apartment. The house and its inhabitants were going to be loud when her and Morgan showed up, no matter how much she had told them to tone it down for the sake of Morgan’s brain. She also knew that her brothers were more than likely suspicious of the kind of relationship she and Morgan really had, and that they would be observing her and Morgan’s interactions pretty closely.

“Remind me again how many brothers you have?” Morgan’s question brought Y/N back to the present.

“Four. All older. They played baseball and don’t watch much hockey, so they shouldn’t bombard you too much.” Morgan chuckled in the passenger seat as they sped down the highway towards Charlotte.

“I’m living with their baby sister, Y/N. I have a feeling they’re not going to leave me alone no matter how indifferent they are to my sport.” He was right, though it wasn’t that they didn’t want her to date (not that her and Mo were dating) so much as they didn’t trust athletes. They had loved her first college boyfriend, a guy from her dorm Freshman year that surfed and worked as a barista at one of the local beach cafes. Her second boyfriend was a baseball player, however, and the boys had freaked out. She guessed it was because they had been college baseball players themselves, and they didn’t want their sister going out with the type of guys that their teammates were in college. He had cheated on her after one weekend series on the road, so they ended up being right.

“They’ll get over it. They base everything off of their experiences in college baseball locker rooms, and those aren’t great places to be.” Morgan laughed, and Y/N turned off the highway and towards her house. The winding roads to get to her neighborhood were peaceful, and she could see Morgan relax into his seat as he stared at the leaves turning orange all around them.

“Tell me about your brothers. Were they good athletes?”

“They were good baseball players, though Bo was probably the best all around athlete. He could play any sport well. He’s the oldest, and he was the only one to go pro, got drafted out of Carolina in the second round by Seattle. Cal probably would have gone second round too, but he blew out his knee his junior year of college. He tried to play after that, but he was meant to be a catcher. His knees couldn’t take the position anymore and he wasn’t as good elsewhere in the field.” Y/N caught Morgan bending his left knee in discomfort, probably empathizing with Cal. It had been a gruesome recovery, and watching him try to re-learn how to walk had been one of the worst things Y/N had ever watched, though it was nothing compared to watching him realize he couldn’t play his position anymore.

“Davie was always a better lacrosse player, but they don’t really have lacrosse down here. He moved to baseball so he could hang out with the other kids in the neighborhood and maybe get a college scholarship. Josh was a pitcher until he needed Tommy Johns. He threw hard, like mid- 90’s by his Freshman year at State.” Come on, Y/N. Like Morgan was gonna know the significance of a fastball speed by a college kid. “That’s really rare,” she added quickly. “For a Freshman to have that kind of speed, with the location control he had? He was on a fast track to being drafted in the first round. He actually got drafted pretty low out of high school, but mom convinced him to go to college for a few years to at least start a degree.”

“Two of your brothers had career-ending injuries? That really sucks.” Morgan was looking at her incredulously, almost like he didn’t believe her.

“The knee thing runs in the family. My dad and his two brothers all had knee replacements before they turned thirty.” Morgan shuddered, and Y/N was inclined to do the same. Knee surgery was no joke. “I actually need one as well, but I’m trying to hold off for as long as I can. They don’t last forever, and I don’t want to go through the surgery twice.” Morgan shuddered again at her words, glancing at Y/N’s knees in alarm.

She turned the Jeep into her parent’s driveway as she spoke. It was long and twisting, and more than a little excessive. The original owners of the house must have really had a flair for the dramatic. The house came into view as they rounded the last corner, a shingled beauty that looked like it belonged on Nantucket rather than in the South.

Y/N grinned at the shock that entered Morgan’s face, and the grin grew even larger when three tall bodies came flying out of the house and into the driveway. Her brothers were about as different as baseball players could look, and each looked like their position. Cal was a bit slimmer than he had been as a catcher, his legs not the tree trunks they’d been for most of her life. Josh was a beanpole, there was no other word for it. He was tall and all limbs, especially in contrast to Davie, who was compact and reminiscent of his hero Pedroia. Bo was absent, probably busy doing whatever professional athletes did in the offseason when they thought they were too good for their family.

Morgan hung back as Y/N ran forward, and she almost felt bad for leaving him behind until her brothers swept her up into a group hug. It was comforting to be surrounded by them again, even if she was disappointed at the missing eldest. They were all yelling in her ears as she pulled back, gesturing for Morgan to come forward. “This is Morgan. He’s concussed, so please be gentle.” Morgan rolled his eyes at her words and she could tell he wanted to protest her instructions.

Josh was the first to step forward, and he was the only one who even remotely matched Morgan in height. It was comical to her, seeing the boys that usually dwarfed her looking small themselves, especially as they tried to puff up and look vaguely threatening.

“I’m Josh. It’s nice to meet you, man.” Morgan shook his hand with a smile as Josh was jostled out of the way by Cal, who opted for a fist-bump instead.

“Cal. What exactly are your intentions with my sister?” Y/N groaned and punched Cal’s shoulder from her place to Morgan’s left as the other boys laughed. Morgan turned red, gaping at Cal.

“Told you they would do this, bud. Good luck.” Y/N clapped his shoulder and took off in the direction of the house, hoping that Morgan would follow her. He did, thankfully, but so did the rest of the boys. The moved as a clump of noise into the house and through to the kitchen in the back, where Y/N’s mother was grumbling to herself over the stove. She looked up when Y/N entered, and dropped the spoon she was holding to hug her youngest child.

________________________________________________________________

More than anyone else, Y/N looked like her mother. Those same curls tumbled down her mom’s back, though they were strands which had escaped from the messy bun sitting at her neck. They were nearly the same height, and the laugh lines at the corner of Y/N’s mom’s eyes and mouth were the same that would probably grace Y/N’s face as she got older. Y/N squeezed her mom one more time before letting go, though she kept an arm around her mother’s waist as she turned towards Morgan. “Ma, this is Morgan. Morgan, my mom.”

“Call me Jo, honey,” she said, startling Morgan as she swept him into a hug as well. It surprised him, how much he needed the hug, though he supposed that mom hugs just meant more than any other kind. “I’ve heard a lot about you.” Morgan looked up to find Y/N blushing slightly, and she stuck her tongue out at him when he raised an eyebrow at her over Jo’s shoulder.

Y/N’s house was loud with the presence of her brothers, no matter how much Y/N and Jo tried to shush them. They eventually took their noise outside, where they constructed a makeshift batting cage and took turns hitting against Josh’s pitching. Jo tried to get Morgan to relax on the couch until dinner, going athlete-mom-mode with the whole “resting a head injury” spiel, though she finally relented when he said he’d sit on a stool and not try to help anymore. Y/N laughed as Morgan bickered with her mom, and he was almost tempted to keep it going just to hear her laugh some more. It was nice to see her relaxed in the place she grew up, floating around the kitchen with the person who’d taught her how to cook.

It was like watching a ballet as they cooked. They would come so close to colliding that Morgan almost shouted out warnings several times, but yet somehow they’d always managed to dance out of the way in time to avoid each other. The longer he sat there on the stool, the more Jo threw over random questions about his life, and hockey, and his own family. It felt home-y in a way that Thanksgiving, American or Canadian, hadn’t felt since he was a kid.

Y/N’s dad came home right as Jo finished telling a story about Y/N breaking her finger trying to catch a foul ball. Morgan was doubled over in his stool, nearly crying with laughter as Jo choked out the story in between her own laughs. Y/N happily interrupted the story to run to her father, shouting out a “hey” as she launched herself at him. Her dad was intimidating, tall and well-built with gray hair that somehow managed to look youthful and not old. He was obviously a former athlete, and Y/N’s stories about him playing college ball came to mind.

“You must be Morgan.” Y/N’s father stepped away from Y/N to hold his hand out at Morgan, who stood hastily.

“Yes, sir. It’s nice to meet you.” Y/N and Jo laughed behind their hands at the exchange.

“Sir? It’s Bill. I’m not old enough to be called sir.” Y/N laughed, patting him on the shoulder. Morgan nodded at Bill, and tried not to look as intimidated as he felt. He was never nervous around his actual girlfriends’ parents, and now his roommate’s had him all flustered. Maybe his concussion was actually as bad as the doctor said.

Bill’s casual stare-down with Morgan ended as a small towel smacked the side of Bill’s head. “You’re a hell of a lot older than you think you are, Billy. Now help me with the dishes.” Morgan met Y/N’s eyes to find her smiling at him already. He smiled back, and the two missed the knowing look exchanged between Jo and Bill.

Dinner was fantastic, and Morgan almost didn’t want to leave at the end of the night. The Y/L/N family table was chaotic, for sure, and sometimes a little too loud for his concussion to appreciate, but it felt like family. He was grateful to have been accepted into the fold so easily, like he’d been there for years.

“Thank you, Jo and Bill, this was fantastic.” Jo swept Morgan into another tight hug with a whispered “good luck on the rest of the season” and a brief kiss on the cheek. Bill was a little more formal, shaking his hand firmly.

Y/N’s brothers finally showed their true stripes. They all bro-hugged him, and all three had a whispered threat and a “take care of her” to mumble into his ear. Clearly they hadn’t bought that they were just friends. He nodded anyway. Y/N was his roommate, after all, so he would take care of her.

They were secure in Y/N’s Jeep and on the highway before either spoke. “Thanks, Red Sox. I really needed that.” Morgan stared out at the road in front of them. “It’s easy to forget just how much you miss your family, and then the holidays come around and it’s like a punch to the face.”

Y/N reached out with her right hand and found Morgan’s, squeezing gently. “I’ve got your back, bud, remember? My family is yours.” Morgan tried to ignore the jolt sent through his body when she took his hand, especially as his heart thudded over her willingness to share her family with him.

They didn’t speak again after that, and Morgan fell asleep in the passenger’s seat, as was apparently becoming tradition for them. He woke when Y/N shook his shoulder gently, and he trudged sleepily behind her back up to the apartment.

It was something Morgan never would have done fully awake, but he was sleepy and there are no rules after midnight, so he pulled Y/N into a hug once she had locked the door behind them. She pulled him closer instantly, squeezing just a little. Y/N really gave the best hugs. She squeezed people just enough, and she was never the first to let go. Her hugs were therapeutic, and for a second he forgot about the concussion and missing his team and his family as his mind narrowed onto the feeling of her arms wrapped around his waist and her head tucked just under his shoulder. “Goodnight, Y/N,” he whispered.

“Goodnight, Morgan.”

#morgan rielly imagine #good idea ML #nhl imagines #nhl imagine

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thedeaditeslayer · 4 years

Photo

Exclusive interview: Bruce Campbell is having a renaissance.

Here’s a highly recommended interview which discusses what Bruce Campbell has in store for fans in the future.

Bruce Campbell is experiencing a creative renaissance, of sorts. In a recent chat with the actor, he discussed a return to his horror roots, cutting a comedy album with Ted Raimi and so much more.

Bruce Campbell hasn’t been idle during his time in self-isolation. The actor has been experiencing a creative renaissance of sorts. So, we figured now would be a perfect time to reach out and get some of our burning questions answered.

With so much uncertainty in the entertainment industry at present, rumors are running rampant. We gave Campbell a chance to clear the air so to speak and address some of the myriad of questions that fans have regarding Mortal Kombat 11, the latest Evil Dead incarnation, Ripley’s and whether or not he will work with Sam Raimi in front of the camera again.

The actor also surprised us with some monumental news. He will be returning to his horror roots with the sequel to My Name Is Bruce as well as several other projects that he has on his docket including a comedy album with one of his closest friends.

Get comfy, grab your favorite beverage and let’s catch up with Bruce Campbell.

Mortal Kombat 11, Ripley’s and the State of the Industry

1428 Elm: Thanks for speaking with us, Bruce. It’s always a pleasure. We have so many things to discuss. Recently, a site came out and said that you were definitely going to be Ash in Mortal Kombat 11. It seemed like a done deal the way it was reported. Can you comment on that?

Bruce Campbell: I probably shouldn’t emphasize yes or no because I don’t know. I have not been told. If it is not through my agent or proper channels than it usually means its wishful thinking.

1428 Elm: Apparently, an email from Warner Brothers Interactive was sent to a well-known entertainment site and Ash as well as Army of Darkness was mentioned in it with the trademark from MGM.

BC: The reason why it may not happen, just so you and the readers can know this, a lot of time for legal purposes, that character cannot appear in other things because of the license. If you can’t make a deal, that character is not going to show up. So, we may have been talked to about it.

But I do know with MGM that handles the Army of Darkness licensing that they’re hasn’t been a discussion with them about it. They’re pretty touchy. We have to be careful of ownership.

I honestly don’t know. I think I would have heard something. It’s not like my agent books me without consulting with me.

Even if Mortal Kombat came to me and said they want to put me in it, you still have to make a deal. If my agent says, “Bruce Campbell wants a hundred billion dollars,” and then they say no, the deal is dead.

The answer is we don’t know. No point in beating around about that.

1428 Elm: You might not be able to discuss this but what’s going on with Ripley’s Believe It or Not!? Will there be a Season 2?

BC: We’re one and done. It’s not your father’s Travel Channel anymore. If I wanted to host a ghost hunting show, I’d be on the air right now.

Ripley’s was made for the older school Travel Channel like Drive-Ins and Dive Bars where you go to wacky places around the country. There is a big push for paranormal, mystery and science-fiction, Discovery type stuff. I think we just “out aged” ourselves.

1428 Elm: It would have been nice if the Science Channel would have picked it up.

BC: It’s all good. I remain philosophical about all shows that come and go. There are so many factors involved. You change executives and things change, companies get bought and sold and things change, ratings aren’t what you expected…

After this virus, we’re going to see what shape the motion picture industry is in. It’s going to be a wounded beast. Projects are going to go away.

You’re going to have fewer tentpole movies too. I am hopeful we’ll have a return to low budget filmmaking.

That’s what I hope comes out of it. Each studio will start a low budget division and spend the money wisely.

Number One on the Charts with a Bullet

BC (Cont.): In the meantime, what is nice, I’m finishing up a couple of projects. I’m hoping by the end of the year to put a book of essays out and a comedy album with Ted Raimi.

1428 Elm: A comedy album?

BC: Yeah, we finished it. I’m in post-production on it. I’m putting all the sound effects in now.

1428 Elm: That sounds great!

BC: Who knows? We’ve never done one before so we’re going to find out.

1428 Elm: So, you guys are harkening back to the 1960’s when comedians like Bob Newhart had hit albums?

BC: It’s our version of that. I used to listen to the top comedy albums during the 60’s and 70’s. I wouldn’t dare compare myself to any of the masters like Mel Brooks and the 2,000-Year-Old Man with Carl Reiner. We gave it a shot. I love audio and I like radio plays.

Bruce Campbell vs the Classic Monsters

1428 Elm: So, tell us what is going on with your political satire, House Divided. Are you still working on pitching that once everything gets back to business as usual?

BC: It will be on the sales block. It’s a harder sell. There’s no blood. It’s not a horror movie, it’s a political satire. Associating Bruce Campbell with political satire isn’t the first thing investors whip out their checkbooks for.

To combat that, I just finished writing a sequel to My Name Is Bruce. The idea is we want to take Bruce and have him go through each of the classic film monsters. The sequel is Bruce vs Frankenstein.

We’re done. I finished my draft and sent it to Mike Richardson, my partner at Dark Horse Comics. We’re actively looking for money on that one. It is the Expendables of Horror. I fully intend to load the cast with so many familiar horror faces. It should be a lot of fun.

It would be a cavalcade of genre stars, old, young, on TV now. We really want to cover the bases. A lot of people will be getting killed. Guest star kills. Basically, Bruce bumbles his way into being a hero.

1428 Elm: Will you have to go through Universal to get permission to use the classic monsters?

BC: Some stuff is public domain. I’m not a lawyer but we would figure out a way to do this.

I think the bolts on Frankenstein’s neck are trademarked, as well as certain looks. But you can make a Frankenstein. That story is under public domain.

It’s also a parody of a Frankenstein movie and that gives a lot of leeway legally as well. I don’t think you can say, “Wolfman,” but I think you can say Bruce vs the Werewolf. This is my version of the Bob Hope road movies.

Ted has two parts; I have two parts for Robert Englund and I have a couple of parts for Kane Hodder. If they’re a name, I am going to put them in it.

After we come out of the zombie apocalypse that we’re in and everyone gets back to work, that is what I will be actively pitching. There’s plenty going on. So, I have been self-isolating in a constructive way.

It’s an Evil Dead World

1428 Elm: We’re curious about the 1970’s period piece that you were working on when we talked to you last year. What happened with that?

BC: It’s currently on my action board. I will eventually get to it. I am going to finish my book of essays first and then I am going to get to that one.

The story is set in 1979. The idea behind it is what would have happened if us raising money for Evil Dead went horribly, horribly wrong. It becomes a horror movie in and of itself.

1428 Elm: How did this idea come to fruition?

BC: I was going through projects in my computer. People who have a lot of downtime do spring cleaning. Clean out your woodshed, toolshed when you have extra time. In this case, I went to the head of my projects folder.

This one popped up and it was just an outline that I had written 15 years ago. I thought, wait a minute, this is pretty well thought out.

In the 70’s, filmmaking was real, you didn’t have a lot of options. You had to get cameras from a certain place, you had to have insurance. There were a lot of steps that you had to take that made the process really difficult.

I remember making calls for money from payphones in blizzards and s*** like that. You had to leave messages, you’re getting busy signals, you’re not texting anyone. There are no computers, there’s no email, its old school. You sent things in the mail.

Today, filmmaking is not difficult. I can go to a store and buy a 4K camera. I can make a movie with $5,000 worth of equipment. Probably less.

1428 Elm: Well, you can do it on your phone too. Sam Raimi is on Quibi now with 50 States of Fright, which is entertainment tailored to your device. If his series continues once everything settles, do you think there’s a chance you might appear on the show?

BC: Never say never, that’s all verbally at this point. They have to succeed; they have to survive. Any new format, any new platform, I’m game and if Sam’s involved all the more reason.

1428 Elm: Have you ever thought of doing anything like Quibi?

BC: Not yet. I’m used to writing 90-page screenplays with a three-act format. I can adapt anything too.

I was thinking the other day, I have a few screenplays that might be tough sells but maybe I might convert them to a fricking novel and put them out as books. There’s lots to do. I’ve got plenty going on.

1428 Elm: Has the current situation affected the new Evil Dead? We remember that you talked about possibly going into production at the end of this year. Is that pushed back like everything else?

BC: No, not really. It was so early in the stages that we can keep going. I just read the first official draft today. So, then we’ll give notes and additional writing will take place.

Then you have to budget the thing so you know how much money you need to raise and then you have to get the money. Nothing will stop any of that.

You can make calls for money, you can send the script to people, you can do budgets. The only thing that will be affected will be the actual start date. Which we didn’t know anyway. We may end up not being delayed at all.

Many thanks to Bruce Campbell for chatting with us.

#Bruce Campbell #Ted Raimi

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spaceorphan18 · 5 years

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Marvel Movie Night: X-Men The Last Stand

So - when this came out, I worked at a theater. We got to see an early screening of it. When we walked my mom turned to me and said -- that wasn’t good, right? I had to agree.

So. Here we are. I feel like I have a very complicated relationship with this film, because I know a crap ton about X-Men and knowing more means this film feels like even more of a mess than maybe a general audience would know. It’s hard to really comment on whether or not this is a good film. It’s definitely far more watchable than the Fantastic Four, or the other Marvel related films coming out at the time that weren’t Spider-Man. However, it doesn’t hold together too well overall.

The biggest issue this film has is that it’s trying to shove too many story lines with too many mutants into one film, and it kind of fails at everything that it’s trying to do.

But first - a comment on production. It was kind of a mess (though, I’m super fascinated that there was an original draft of this that Emma Frost played by Sigourney Weaver. Damn, I’m sad we didn’t get that). Directors switched, writers switched, actors were no longer under contract -- and I mean, most productions have things change, but all of this resulted in this film getting pulled in fifteen different directions, and I do thing that did have an effect on the final result.

So - let’s talk about what this film is trying to do.

The Dark Phoenix saga. One of the most iconic X-Men stories ever told, and it is for a reason. Having just reread it last month, it’s egregious to me how much this movie misses the point. Look - I’m fine, in general, when other media changes original stories for adaptations. Film is not comics, but I do think you need to understand the essence of the story in order to do it well in an adaptation. And The Last Stand just doesn’t understand the Phoenix story.

See - in the comics, it’s a lot about manipulation, control, and power - and how Jean Grey is being manipulated, but breaks out of it with her extreme power. (There’s also a ton about crazy space forces, but I understand why they didn’t go there, it’s... uber complicated.) But, the point is that this ends up being an internal story -- how Jean deals with the power once she’s broken free from the manipulation, how how her relationships with various X-Men help her cope with split identity. At the end -- with her friends behind her, she decides to end her own life, and her sacrifice is make sure she doesn’t destroy the universe. And it’s very beautifully told.

There are three things (major) things I have issue with in this film -- 1. With the exception of Cyclops, in a limited role, and slightly Xavier, Jean’s relationships with other people are just not explored enough to have an emotional impact; 2. At no point is Jean ever back in control of her own agency. Xavier manipulates her, then Magneto, then she just stands around for a long time until Wolverine finally kills her. It cheapens everything about Jean Grey and agency the original story has, and I hate it. 3. The story in the movie seems to service the goddamn Logan/Jean Grey love story that I hate in the comics, and I hate it more here - but I’ll spare you the diatribe.

The other thing, though... The animated series got this right -- but it could because it had time to. See, the comics drew this whole story out for years, and it’s emotional pay off works better over a long period of time, which a two hour movie just doesn’t have. And it’s especially hurt when it’s truncated due to a whole other plot in the film. Which leads me to...

The Cure - the second plot of the film. Joss Whedon’s Astonishing X-Men at the time was a big hit, so they decided to use this story. It’s not a bad story -- it has to do with the big political element that the X-Men always are dealing with, and that’s fine. But, because it can’t be the full focus, it too feels overstuffed. (Really the film wants to be this plot, and should have never done Dark Phoenix in the first place.)

Unfortunately, because they need to shoehorn in Magneto, the brotherhood, the Morlocks, and every other mutant in the X-Universe (except Gambit for some reason) - this turns into a mess, where Magneto is his Silver Age, scenery chewing self, and a whole lot of people punch each other because that’s what these third acts usually devolve into. The Cure story line is and can be a much smaller story, too, and maybe works better as such, but this is a major blockbuster - which I’m sure studio mandates a certain amount of CGI nonsense. Ah well.

Other Thoughts (dear god, get ready for all the thoughts!):

The Danger Room scene at the beginning of the film is a goddamn delight -- that is how you use the X-Men working as a team, and that’s how you use Wolverine in a good capacity.

One thing I’ll credit this film - it does better with its action sequences, and specifically letting the X-Men actually work as a team.

I can’t help but feel, though, that I wish more of the classic X-Men teams had been together for their last stand. Something about Wolverine’s little pep talk felt hollow - maybe because these characters we’ve barely met and/or interacted with and the emotional resonance isn’t there.

FWIW - the special effects in this film are such an upgrade than all the crud had has come before it -- especially Fantastic Four, which was only a year or so earlier.

Hugh Jackman has finally really settled in his role as Wolverine, he’s great, yadda, yadda

Famke Janssen continues to be an excellent Jean Grey, and I’m sorry her story line stunk so badly. The scene with her and Wolverine, where she goes through the gamut of emotions, is really quite wonderful. It’s a shame she spends half the movie just standing (or sitting) there.

I understand that James Marsden kind of tapped out of the franchise to go do Superman, but I’m so sad that they really didn’t do Cyclops well in any of these films. He’s such a great character, and you wouldn’t know it at all by these films.

The Beast! Who’d have thought that Kelsey Grammer would have been a good choice for Beast -- but it works.

I think Halle Berry asked for more to do as Storm. Well -- she has more to do, but she still doesn’t feel like Storm. I want an X-Men film where she Ororo Monrue is given the proper chance to shine.

Oh - I should mention Storm vs Callisto is a thing here, as an easter egg to long time fans, but it’s not satisfying to me as a long time fan because, like, most everything in this film, they kind of fucked it up.

Meanwhile... oh Rogue, maybe we shouldn’t get me started on how my favorite X-Man is the utter worst in this film. Not only is she barely in this film but... this is such a complicated issue for this character -- to be given five minutes of screen time is just the utter worst. And no, Rogue would never do that. No, no, no.

Ellen Page as Kitty Pryde is amazing, and she should have had her own movie. I find it hilarious, though, that she and Iceman kinda flirt with each other here -- since Iceman is canonically gay, and Kitty is subtextually bi. It’s just... funny.

Iceman - in his ice form. Yes, more of this.

Angel is here! He literally does nothing, but he doesn’t do much in the comics either, so it kinda hilariously works. I like the actor, too, he’s a great match.

The dude playing Colossus is a delight - again, more screen time needed! I kinda love that he’s just carrying around a TV to show his strength.

Lord help me - the Juggernaut is the worst. I hated that meme. I hate that he looks like a literal dick head. I hate that he’s portrayed as a mutant when he’s not, etc, etc.

There’s so much more to comment on, but I’ll spare you the time -- I mean there’s Moira MacTaggart, and the Morlocks - who are also the Omega Gang?, and Leech, and Eric Dane playing Multiple Man, and really... they brought in Stacey X (you guys ask me about Stacey X...), and apparently Psylocke is supposed to be in here somewhere, and sentinel camoes, and Trask, and Mystique... But, this review is long enough.

I do need to point out - the President is played by Josef Somer, who played Ducksworth in The Mighty Ducks, and I can only think of ‘quacking’ whenever I look at him.

Final Thoughts: It’s probably more enjoyable for a non-fan than a hardcore X-Man fan. It’s not as bad as people make it out to seem, but it’s not good either. Overall, there’s a lot of potential that gets squandered and exploded. Ah well.

#marvel movie nights

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pwoops · 5 years

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Although I enjoy omgcp as a light read, I like reading your critiques and thinking about it deeply. If you could make Parswoops canon in the story, what do you think their storyline would be like and how would they fit in? (You know assuming they got the screen time needed)

Hey anon! I’m so flattered to be thought of as an omgcp critical and Parswoops blog, and I really appreciate this ask!

I would LOVE to see canon Parswoops, but I’m not really sure how that would work out since I don’t want them to interact with Bitty or Jack much. I usually think of them as being drafted to the Aces in the same year OR Jeff gets called up after playing a year in the AHL in the same year that Kent gets drafted. I’m a sucker for friends to lovers so I can see them slowly developing feelings for each other but not really doing much about it because there’s so much to consider: their friendship, the team, being in a relationship, being gay in the NHL, etc. But I think a lot of this would be off screen because it has nothing to do with Bitty or the SMH. Maybe if anything, we could see Kent talking to Jeff about his past with Jack, while not outing Jack to Kent, and the reader would only find out that Jack is the guy Kent was talking about in an aside. (Maybe in a similar style to ‘The Hockey Prince’ comic? Now THAT would be good storytelling.)

I think the stuff that happens at Epikegster would be the first time their story could really interact with the current canon. I think maybe that could prompt Kent to get his shit together and see what’s been in front of him the whole time (Jeff). At this point I just want them to be living their best lives together and being HAPPY (Kent/happiness is such a good ship).

I think they could have a really significant role when Jack comes out after winning the Cup. They’d have a lot to deal with, like all the rumors about Jack and Kent that would resurface, and all the people looking into their own relationship, because fans will ship any two people that have the slightest chemistry. So I think that would be some good insight on what it’s like to be closeted in the NHL and having to deal with reporters and fans poking their noses into Kent and Jeff’s personal lives.

I also think they’d publicly support Jack , and I love the headcanon that the Aces have always worked closely with You Can Play, while still personally resenting him because of how his choices affected them. I’m also bitter about Jack’s “hockey is fun” response during the presser, because he had the chance to impact so many people with his decision and then with how he responded to those reporters, so I think Parswoops would do a lot more to support LGBT youth.

Other than that, I don’t really see them having much of a role in the comic, since it follows Bitty and SMH, but it would be nice to see them interacting with the Aces and maybe being friends with some of the Falconers. And I also think they’d become friends with Whiskey who is an Aces prospect, and stay in contact with him. There’s a fic where Whiskey’s calling Kent to bitch about Bitty and I would love to see this in canon. I also think they’d be great for Whiskey, they’d give him his space and I think he’d feel a lot more comfortable going to them about his sexuality, if he chooses to do so, because their story is a lot more similar to his. I also think that Parswoops would make the choice to not come out publicly, because they don’t want to invite the entire hockey world into their relationship. It would be a nice contrast to the ‘being out = being happy’ message that the comic is selling, and we would see Jeff and Kent being so insanely happy because they have each other, and love and support of the Aces who are a family.

OH, give me an Aces vs. Falcs SCF with the Aces winning the cup, that would be an amazing ending.

#i hope this is what you were asking!#i feel like i just wrote my own canon compliant parswoops fic lol #sort of omgcp critical?#mostly me just talking about how great parswoops is and how they'd fix the wrongs of the comic #anonymous #answered #kent parson #parswoops

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bakugou-protection-squad · 6 years

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Okay so...

I feel like KiriBaku will just became The Ship™️ of My Hero Academia, mostly because I see most everyone accepting it based on their interactions.

But just in case there are any reservations, I personally want to point out some things.

First and foremost, I would like to mention I am certified to make these claims because I have a degree in "Everything is a dick, and everything is about sex, and everyone is gay." In other words, an English degree where I have spent hours and days on end analysing every single line of a book and come up with an interpretation of it (The door was not red because it signified red-hot passion. It was red because it was just god damn red, for fucks sake!)

Anyway. Now that my unnessesary but nessesary egotistical claim is out of the way, here is why KiriBaku is (at least) the most narratively canon gay ship. ***Obligatory warning that this will get long***

*Spoilers*

1) Concepts to Canon. Kirishima was originally said to apply to UA to impress Mina. But as we can see, that changed. We see very minimal interactions between them. Even in the manga (I am a manga reader fyi) So honestly, I don't think Horikoshi kept that interest interest as part of Kirishima's character. Hell there are more cute interactions between Mina and Aoyama than Kiri and Mina. And coming from the writer's perspective, someone who is in the process of writing and drafting her own material for publication and creating her own characters, I can see Horikoshi's own writing process when designing the characters. I can especially see a reason for ditching the interest in Mina. I can sum it up I four words: It simply didn't click. Something I had experienced 1st hand was scraping the idea of a female love interest for my main character because I something just didn't feel right about it. It would have been forced and I would have gotten nowhere with my story. So when I discovered that my main character was gay, everything fell into place and I was able to move on with a concept that worked. So that may be had happened with Kirishima towards Bakugou.

2) World Building. I know this is Shonen, so romance is not the main focus. But honestly, MHA could be considered a slice of life/school life anime at times. And what do normal school-age students do? Have crushes and date. To the MHA crew, this is their normal. Their life. It's not like, say, Assassination Classroom where the idea of training to kill their teacher is a normal concept. No. Those kids were thrown into it, so their mindset changes a bit to adapt to that special situation. MHA, being a hero is just another profession they can study to become. Just like a doctor or lawyer. Yeah they get roped into the something big, but under everything, this would be their life once they become heros. One thing I have particularly noticed is Horikoshi's attention to detail when it comes to his world building. The way it appears to me, it seems as though the story moves forward based on his complex characters interacting with their world rather than them jusy being placed into it. Probably doesn't make much sense. But it's there (Kiri ordering night vision goggles for a rescue mission, a kid being turned into a meme in response to Endeavor's fight, Todoroki and his brother savagly slurping noodles, Recovery Girl offering a Snickers to students after training. Those types of things.) These little things are unnecessary, but are still included. Long-winded way to get to my point. Whose to say that the MHA kids can't find a chance to go on dates on off days, develop crushes organically based on hanging out with each other and training? Their world allows something like that to exist simultaneously with the danger they face.

3) Horikoshi's subtle progressiveness. I always use this point every time I talk about KiriBaku. There are already two confirmed Lgbtq+ characters who are legit characters and not written off as joke characters. Tiger and Magne are both trans. One is a hero. One is a villian. Horikoshi seems to include that fact to show that a trans person can be either side, instead of either being simply good or simply bad (or a joke that so many series tend to do.) I'm not going into the problematic part of Hori killing off Magne, because that's a different rant. The point of this is saying that there is a possibility, based on that point, that someone from the main cast would be gay. Because, like I mentioned in the previous point, this is their normal world. I know homosexuality is usually played off as comic relief, but I feel as though Horikoshi wouldn't do that, based on the world he's built. Tiger and Magne were accepted by their peers with no one saying anything about it. So I doubt any homosexual moments will be treated like comic relief. Which brings me to my next point.

4) Kirishima and Bakugou's steady relationship build up. I am not going to go too into detail about their relationship, but I will give a general gist. These two have had the most character development between the two of them. Even more than Bakugou and Deku. It's slow, but natural. They go from negative first impressions to being pretty much joined at the hip. Bakugou, as we've seen, presents us with a certain way to determine his opinion of characters: names. If he doesn't care for them, he calls them nicknames or "extras" yet when he has respect for them, he calls them by name. Kirishima is arguably the first one to gain Bakugou's upmost respect. Started from the USJ, then the sports festival, all the way to Kamino and post that. This is a fact Deku, good old insightful, analytical Deku, has pointed out when they rescued Bakugou. Deku knows how Bakugou is, so the fact he picked up on how Bakugou has changed says something. Not to mention all the promotional art of them (Google some. They are always paired and next to each other.) They are so close that Kirishima seems to know Bakugou's SUIT-SIZE. Listen. I talked with the guys from my friend group. And even if they act gay around each other all the time, they all agree that Kirishima knowing Bakugou's measurements is a bit too much for them to just be best friends. It's one thing to get matching t-shirts. It's a whole different monster when it comes to to formal wear. And if that doesn't say anything, the fact Kirishima got himself a normal looking suit yet took one look at a vest covered in white roses and thought "gee that would look great on Bakugou" says something. And the kicker is he didn't even do it ironically. He didn't do it for a joke to humiliate Bakugou, he was serious about it and got it because he KNEW Bakugou wouldn't bring one. They've only known each other for half a term at this point, and Kirishima already knew what to expect. THAT says something. Without going too much into it, the moments when Bakugou shows concern for Kirishima. Bakugou is still an ass to his classmates, yet shows he does deeply care about his friends.

Thanks for reading my little word vomit post. Where was I going with this long-ass response? More or less, KiriBaku has the most narrative support for the ship and it is because of the world in which they live in. Hopefully it made sense 😅

#kiribaku #kirishima #kirishima eijirou #bnha kirishima #bakugou x kirishima #bakushima #bakugou #katsuki bakugou #bakukiri #bnha bakugou #bakusquad #my hero academia #bnha movie #bnha spoilers #bnha #mha #mha bakugou #mha spoilers

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renzywenzy · 5 years

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Joker Review

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

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

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

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

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

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

Ladies and gentlemen... please welcome Joker.

The Tragedy

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The Comedy

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

...Phoenix

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

2.) Familiar punchline, fresh set-up

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

3. A problem tackled with grace

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

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

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

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

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

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

4. He directed what??

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

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

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

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

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

5. The sound of laughter

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Overall...

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

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

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

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terra-writes · 5 years

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Blog FAQ

Figured I would set one of these up this time around! If I make any additions or edits to this I’ll make a post letting you guys know!

You’ve said “Terra” is just the name you go by online, so can we know your real name?

Simply put? No. My real name is incredibly unique and I would rather keep my online life and real life as separate as I can since where I live, fic writing is largely frowned upon. Also, I’m probably going to explain this bad, but I was told if I wanted to get published I’d have to delete all my fics or write under a different name so there was no crossover between the two. I choose instead to write my fic under a different name to save myself some trouble later on. To those that have learned my real name, I ask that you please don’t spread it around.

What is your general activity like on this blog?

Well last November I started a job where I work a standard 40 hour week. I’m generally away from home from 11am to about 9pm 5 days a week. I do have a pretty set schedule, so for now I’m always off Mondays and Fridays. This blog isn’t my main one, so the only times I’m online and able to check it, is when I’m at home and on my laptop. So except for the days that I’m off, I’ll likely only ever be online in the evenings. If I go to post a work, I’ll likely always schedule it to post between 12 and 1pm the following day.

What is your timezone?

I live in, and operate out of US Central Time. If you don’t quite know how much to add/subtract, the United states is divided into 4 timezones: Eastern time is one hour ahead of me, Mountain Time is one hour behind, and Pacific Time is 2 hours behind me. I don’t quite know how to calculate it for overseas timezones but if people send in the calculations for their timezone I can always edit them in here.

What is your uploading schedule like?

I can’t really say I have one. Every time I’ve tried to keep to one It hasn’t always worked out for me for some reason or another.

How does your tagging system operate?

I always try to keep the tags as relevant and to the point as possible, since tumblr has a limited amount of tags you can add to a post. Here is a small list of what I will tag:

Characters with a significant relevance/presence to the current plot. I might not tag certain characters if they show up in a work if their plot relevance was minor/they only spoke like once in the entire thing to save space.

The fandom

The type of work (Headcanon, ask game, etc. This might be combined with he above bullet point ex: “mha headcanons”)

if the work is fluff, angst, nsfw. Side note, my nsfw tag for this blog will be the word “sin” so works would be tagged with “mha sin” or “haikyuu sin” and things like that.

If the work is part of a series, I will tag the name of it.

If the work involves any oc’s of mine, I will tag their name like I would any other character.

If I reblog a work from someone else, I will try to include all the tags they used as well as what type of work it is, such as “AU,” “reader insert,” “oc story,” etc. Reblogged works will always contain the tag “other people’s writing”

I will always try to tag trigger warnings/any potential triggering content. However, if I run out of space in the tags, all potentially triggering content will always be listed at the top of the work in bold. And all content of the work will always be below a “read more.” If there is anything you want me to tag/list at the top of my work. Please DM or send in an ask letting me know what content you want me to provide additional warnings for. I will never purposefully not tag a trigger, so if a work I’ve posted is missing a tag, please notify me as soon as you notice it so I can add it!

Writing will always be tagged with “terra writes” while almost every other kind of post will be tagged with “terra says.” This includes asks, announcements, updates, etc. I don’t recommend blacklisting the “terra says” tag, but most of the time other types of posts will be tagged with an additional secondary tag (update time, answered asks, poll time) So if you don’t want to see specific types of posts like polls, I would recommend blacklisting the “poll time” tag instead of the “terra says” tag.

You didn’t tag x trigger in your story/Can you please tag x in stories going forward?

Of course! If I forgot to tag something/tagged something wrong, please notify me! I often use the New X-Kit tag bundle extension and don’t always remember to delete a tag or include one. I’m only human and am prone to making mistakes even when trying to be as diligent as possible! I am also aware that people can have very different triggers, and I’m not always aware of what may or may not be a trigger. So if there’s something you want me to tag, send me an ask! I’ll always tag thins as “cw: <insert trigger>”

Also please don’t ever assume I’m purposefully not tagging a trigger. Sometimes I genuinely miss putting the tag in/didn’t know the story needed it included.

Do you have a tag list?

Not currently! If you’re interested in being added please feel free to send me an ask or IM letting me know if you just wanted to be tagged in stuff involving a certain character, fandom, type of writing (drabble/headcanon), or series or any combination. I’ll keep a list in my drafts of the usernames and what you want to be tagged in. If you ever want to be removed, you’ll have to send me an ask letting me know.

What fandoms are you in?/What fandoms will you write for?

You can find a complete list of fandoms that I will write for here!

However, there are a few other fandoms I’m in that I just don’t feel like writing for. Those include: DC comics (mainly Young Justice), Pokemon, and Attack on Titan. I’m probably forgetting some, so I’ll update this list as I remember them. If you want to know if I’m in a fandom/will write for one, please send me an ask!

Do you write m/m, w/w, nonbinary, different ethnicities, etc?

Yes! If I’m writing a reader-insert story, I always try to keep the reader as gender-neutral and vague as possible unless something is specifically ask of me in the request itself. However to some degree I take liberties with the background of the reader. I will often make up a family situation, living arrangement etc. Again if there is anything specific about the reader you want me to include, please let me know.

In the case of sin, I always default to a female gender/parts since that is what I am most familiar with. If you would like it to be non-specified/male parts/etc. you will need to tell me in the request itself.

Can I get a shout out?

You can! There’s absolutely 0 things wrong with asking for one and don’t let other people make you feel like shit for it. I know it can be hard starting a blog and getting your name out there, especially after the most recent updates which make it even harder for works to show up in the tumblr search function. This is why reblogging people’s works is even more important now than it had been in the past. I’m more than willing to give your blog a shout out if you need it! Feel free to send me an ask off anon from the blog, send an IM so I can make a post with the blog’s name, or even just ask me to reblog a story I liked from your blog.

Do you have any Fic/Blog recs?

I’m pretty terrible about having the time to go and read as much fic as I used to be able to do, so I can’t really promote many other blogs than one’s I’ve already been following for a while/blogs of friends. Maybe one day that will change and I hope it does but as of right now I don’t think I’d be able to put together a very good list for people.

Do you write Dark Content?

I do not! However, this doesn’t mean I’m on a crusade against writers that do. As long as the people who write content like that keep everything tagged so that people who don’t want to read it, can skip over it, I literally do not care what they write about. But on a personal level, I do not want to write content like that, so I will not write or reblog dark content works on this blog.

If any dark content blog want to interact with my blog/works, they can do so. Just because I choose not to engage in dark content does not mean I am going to bar people that do from reading/interacting with my works if they enjoy it. I do ask that any dark content writers don’t reblog/reply to any nsfw posts of mine and add dark content to them.

#faq

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