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Power Rider Paradox

(Logo by @riceyhot)

In 2019 a man who would be known as Master X used technology he stole from his time with organization X to ambush and slaughter the earth Riders (Deca through Hybrid) and used a machine to transfer the power from their belts into small hand held discs. Outraged, a group of alien riders (Adalve through Vamp) confronted him only to be slaughtered too and their powers turned into discs.

As Master X he began a 50 year reign, he began by slaughtering the remaining rangers and riders on earth as well as all the world leaders. He used his new god like powers to seal the earth off from the universe by literally placing a barrier around it that only opened in certain places he allowed it.

The other riders (1-Jiga) managed to sneak in but were found and slaughtered save for Dex and Donais and they were only spared because Donais bartered his belt for their lives. X demanded they never step foot on earth again. From their belts another series of discs was created (the Masked Rider Rex belt was used to create a disc for PR Rex and the Masked Rider while the Shadow Rider belt was destroyed in the battle)

Master X had four unique discs made for his most trusted Generals, each given power over a domain (Wild, Science, Warriors, Supernatural). However during his rule new riders rose up. Shadowstrike, Mystery, Roborg, and Xtera all gained their power and in one way or another tried to end Master X’s rule. They stood no chance against his power. Their belts were stolen off their corpses and discs were made.

After this Master X ordered his scientists to find any remaining rider powers on earth leading to them finding a series of ancient belts in museums. The fourth and final set of discs was made.

During his 50th year in power Master X’s grandchildren, Stephanie and Gerald witnessed him slaughter a group of rebels. Disgusted they defected and with the aid of a rebel scientist named Kenji and his grandchildren Tiffany and Travis, they stole the first set of discs (Adalve-Hybrid) as well as a group of R.A.V.E (Rider Armor Vehicle Exoskeleton) and escaped into the time stream to make sure he never rose to power.

Arriving in late 2018 in Century City they set up base with Kenji’s younger self in his repair shop. The two Kenjis made belts and discs for the two as they realized their mission would create a paradox erasing their own births. Stephanie became Power Rider Paradox with the goal of saving the Riders from the lethal ambush and Gerald became Power Rider Quantum with the goal of murdering his own grandfather before he could become Master X. However they realized that due to Master X’s paranoia nobody had even seen his face or heard his actual name in decades. Even the siblings had no knowledge of their grandfather’s true identity.

His generals were sent back with a set of discs containing corrupted versions of the rider’s powers to create soldiers called X Riders to fight for them. The portal was kept open in the future thus preventing any changes from sticking. This allowed Tiffany and Travis to sneak to the future and steal the other discs (1-Jiga) leading to them becoming Power Rider Chrono and Power Rider Epoch.

Eventually Master X had one of his best soldiers fitted with a belt and sent back as Power Rider Eternity. he was given the discs for Shadowstrike/Mystery/Roborg/Xtera to succeed where the Generals had failed. However the soldier would eventually turn on Master X when he learned the truth about his reign of terror.

Soon Master X had a box sent back with the past discs (Hardrock/Coatl/Smith/Sheriff) to assist the generals but they were scattered throughout history. Eventually they were found and ended up in the possession of a scholar of heroic myths and legends named Lauren. She thought they were just neat relics until she saw a close up image of one of Eternity’s future discs on the news and realized they shared a similar design. She then tracked the riders down and ended up as Power Rider Ancient

During some of their battles against the X-Riders the six are aided by various Riders from Deca through Hybrid. These six Riders are all that stand between Master X and his goals of conquest. Will history be changed or has fate already been written?

Power Rider Paradox- Stephanie- Kind and caring, the younger of the siblings. Once she witnessed her grandfather’s true nature she made it her mission to prevent him from ever coming to power. Though she still loves him she knows he has to be stopped and wishes to do so with as little violence as possible. After meeting some of the previous riders she discovers that she’s bisexual. Face Claim: Liana Ramirez Transformation Device: Mirai Belt Transformation Call: Let’s Ride! Transformation: When she spins her belt a giant energy clock appears and as the hands spins the armor forms Finishing Moves: Paradox Kick- As she leaps in the air the numbers 1-12 spin around the enemy forming a clock face (POV facing Paradox) keeping them in place as she lands the kick Paradox Slash- As she begins to slash a clock appears with both hands spinning fast (POV lining up with Paradox). When they line up she slashes in that direction Paradox Blast- As she begins the blast a clock appears (POV lining up with Paradox). Energy shoots from the numbers to her blaster charging it until she fires through the clock Vehicle: Clockwork Cycle When a Rider activates a Rider Disc an image of that Rider appears and poses before becoming the armor and forming around the Rider who used the disc.

“Armor of Adaption! Adalve!”- By using the Adalve Rider Disc Paradox gains armor based on Power Rider Adalve’s base form Finishing Move- Paradox Adalve Kick- A kick charged with the power of Adalve. When the hit lands it leaves the mark of Adalve which explodes

“Armor of Reflections! MirWar!”- By using the MirWar Rider Disc Paradox gains armor based on Power Rider Drago’s base form Finishing Move- Paradox Drago Kick- A kick charged with the power of Drago. The kick is accompanied by a fireball by Dragogard

“Armor of Insects! S.W.A.R.M!”- By using the S.W.A.R.M Rider Disc Paradox gains armor based on Power Rider Beetle’s base form Finishing Move- Paradox Beetle Kick- A kick charged with the power of Beetle. The attack is charged by lighting.

“Armor of Wishes! Djand!”- By using the Djand Rider Disc Paradox gains armor based on Power Rider Djand’s base form Finishing Move- Paradox Djand Kick- A kick charged with the power of Djand. The kick sends the enemy flying into a projection of Djand’s train.

“Armor of Power! Deca!”- By using the Deca Rider Disc Paradox gains armor based on Power Rider Deca’s base form Finishing Move- Paradox Deca Slash- A slash powered by the power of Deca. The enemy is surrounded by Deca Cards before they slash and cut them finished with the slash itself.

“Armor of Memories! Duow!”- By using the Duow Rider Disc Paradox gains armor based on Power Rider Duow’s base form Finishing Move- Paradox Duow Kick- A kick charged with the power of Duow. The shoulder armor splits into two units (Wind and Warrior) that join with Paradox for the kick.

“Armor of Beasts! Animaster!”- By using the Animaster Rider Disc Paradox gains armor based on Power Rider Animaster’s base form Finishing Move- Paradox Animaster Kick- A kick charged with the power of Animaster. Three Animal Medals appear and Paradox kicks through them into the enemy.

“Armor of Space! 4Z!”- By using the 4Z Rider Disc Paradox gains armor based on Power Rider 4Z’s base form Finishing Move- Paradox 4Z Kick- A kick charged by the power of 4Z. Paradox turns into a rocket flying around the enemy before flying feet first into them

“Armor of Nature! Warruit!”- By using the Warruit Rider Disc Paradox gains armor based on Power Rider Warruit’s base form Finishing Move- Paradox Warruit Slash- A slash charged with the power of Warruit. The enemy is trapped in an energy orange which explodes when slashed.

“Armor of Fusion! Hybrid!”- By using the Hybrid Rider Disc Paradox gains armor based on Power Rider Hybrid’s base form Finishing Move- Paradox Hybrid Kick- A kick charged by the power of Hybrid. A vortex of red and blue energy surrounds the enemy pushing Paradox into them.

“Armor of the Time Stream!” Time Stream Armor- During a battle with the generals she’s knocked into the Time Stream where the power grants her the Time Stream Armor boosting her power. Time Stream gives her the ability to pause, rewind and see into the future no more than five minutes either way. Finishing Move: Time Stream Slash- Twin clocks appear representing the past and future (POV lines up with Paradox) they combine and when all four hands line up she slashes in that direction.

“Armor of History!” Era Armor- After the Four Generals begin to enter the battle the two Kenji’s decide Stephanie needs a new edge. They use spare parts from the other belts to create the Era Armor. The Era Armor allows her to summon weapons or copy attacks from any of the Riders from the past present and future. Finishing Move: Era Kick- Three clocks appear, one spinning backwards, one stopped and one spinning forwards. When she lands the kick the numbers send energy into the enemy causing an explosion Era Slash- Three clocks appear, one spinning backwards, one stopped and one spinning forwards. When all the hands are aligned she slashes.

“Let’s Ride! [voice clip of every primary rider from Adalve through Hybrid shouting “let’s ride” as one] Armor of Riders! RIDERS FOREVER!” Forever Armor- During a daring mission to the future Stephanie steals a prototype armor from Master X’s personal armory. By using it she is able to tap into the power of all the Riders from Adalve- Hybrid however she learns that X rejected the armor because it was not a true union of the power instead it only gave him access to the powers all at once. Thus he labeled it Imperfect and had his scientists create a better version. Even imperfect the Forever Armor becomes Stephanie’s final form.

In time however it becomes necessary to unite the power of all the riders from Adalve through Paradox herself. The two Kenji’s create a new Rider Disc allowing them to channel the power of the Forever Armor into a more perfect form. In this perfect form Stephanie is able to unleash the full potential of the Forever Armor. For example by using a Rider Disc in this form she gains access to ALL that Rider’s various forms. Both versions are able to summon copies of the Riders themselves to fight by her side. Finishing Moves: Paradox Forever Kick- Energy versions of Paradox’s past forms (Default, Deca Armor, Time Stream Armor, Era Armor) all join in the kick converging as one at the moment of impact. Perfect Form only Riders Forever Kick- Variant 1- Energy versions of every Rider from Adalve through Hybrid appear and join in the kick converging as one at the moment of impact. Variant 2- Various Riders in various forms appear attacking with their finishing moves. Final Forever Kick- Energy versions of the riders from Adalve through Hybrid appear in their final forms and merge over Paradox charging them with power for the kick. Perfect Form only

Power Rider Quantum- Gerald- Stern and serious, the older of the siblings. When he witnessed the truth about his grandfather he swore to stop him no matter the cost. He is fully prepared to use whatever means to prevent the rise of Master X. His willingness to resort to violent means sometimes puts him at odds with his sister.

Face Claim: Colby Strong Transformation Device: Mirai Belt Transformation Call: Let’s Ride! Transformation: When he spins his belt a giant energy clock appears and as the hands spins the armor forms Finishing Moves: Quantum Kick- As he leaps in the air the numbers 1-12 spin around the enemy forming a clock face (POV facing Quantum) keeping them in place as he lands the kick Quantum Chop-As he begins to chop a clock appears with both hands spinning fast (POV lining up with Quantum). When they line up he slashes in that direction Quantum Arrow- As he begins the arrow a clock appears (POV lining up with Quantum). Energy shoots from the numbers to his bow charging it until he fires through the clock Vehicle: Clockwork Cycle

“Armor of Myths! Wyvern!”- By using the Wyvern Rider Disc Quantum gains armor based on Power Rider Wyvern’s base form Finishing Move- Quantum Wyvern Kick- A kick charged by the power of Wyvern. The kick impacts with a charge of power.

“Armor of Revival! Phi!”- By using the Phi Rider Disc Quantum gains armor based on Power Rider Phi’s base form Finishing Move- Quantum Phi Kick- A kick charged with the power of Phi. An energy drill appears and Quantum kicks with it into the enemy.

“Armor of Occult! Arcane!”- By using the Arcane Rider Disc Quantum gains armor based on Power Rider Arcane Spade’s base form Finishing Move- Quantum Arcane Kick- A kick charged with the power of Arcane. Various Arcane cards charge the kick with various attributes.

“Armor of Sound! Meloni!”- By using the Meloni Rider Disc Quantum gains armor based on Power Rider Meloni’s base form Finishing Move- Quantum Meloni Kick- A kick charged with the power of Meloni. A Demuse drum appears on the enemy and Quantum kicks it sending vibrations into the enemy.

“Armor of Darkness! Vamp!”- By using the Vamp Rider Disc Quantum gains armor based on Power Rider Vamp’s base form Finishing Move- Quantum Vamp Kick- A kick charged by the power of Vamp. The enemy is wrapped in chains as Quantum jumps and kicks.

“Armor of Magic! Mystic!”- By using the Mystic Rider Disc Quantum gains armor based on Power Rider Mystic’s base form Finishing Move- Quantum Mystic Kick- A kick charged by the power of Mystic. A mystic rune appears and Quantum kicks through it charging their body with power.

“Armor of Speed! Racer!”- By using the Racer Rider Disc Quantum gains armor based on Power Rider Racer’s base form Finishing Move- Quantum Racer Kick- A kick charged by the power of Racer. A series of automodels appear and Quantum bounces off of them kicking the enemy each time.

“Armor of Spirits! Phantom!”- By using the Phantom Rider Disc Quantum gains armor based on Power Rider Phantom’s base form

Finishing Move- Quantum Phantom Kick- A kick charged by the power of Phantom. Quantum’s body is charged with ghostly energy as they kick the enemy.

“Armor of Data! Arcade!”- By using the Arcade Rider Disc Quantum gains armor based on Power Rider Arcade Player 1′s base form Finishing Move-Quantum Arcade Punch- A series of punches charged by the power of Arcade. Each hit registers a higher and higher score before a final blow.

AM/PM- A twin mode suit with an Aero Mode setting that boosts speed and grants flight and a Powered Mode setting that increases power. Finishing Moves: Aero Claw- At the moment of impact a clock face appears (POV lines up with Quantum) Powered Saw- At the moment of impact a clock face appears (POV lines up with the saw)

Eon Armor: About a decade into his reign Master X ordered his scientists to take the belts collected from the fallen secondary Riders and harness their power into a single Rider Disc. Dubbing it the Eon Armor he intended to bestow it to his heir one day, however when his son betrayed him he abandoned this plan. Later after Stephanie stole the Forever Armor he had the Eon Disc sent to the Four Generals as part of a plan to sway Gerald back to his side. The plan failed however and Gerald claimed the power for himself.

Finishing Move: Quantum Eon Kick- A kick charged by the power of all the secondary riders.

Power Rider Chrono and Power Rider Epoch- Tiffany and Travis- Kenji’s adopted grandchildren, he took them in after their parents were killed when they were young. They try to remain optimistic and are the quickest to adapt the present day. While doing research Tiffany discovers there were Riders before Adalve and the two grow curious why none of them were recorded in their time. Eventually they learns they sneaked onto earth a few years after Master X took over and confronted him, however his power was too much even for them. The only survivors were King Dex and Prince Donais and that was because Donais gave up his belt in return for his father’s life. The two were also forced to vow to never return to the earth. From Donais’s belt X’s scientists pulled out the power for PR Rex and the Masked Rider. The scientists were even able to replicate Biocide’s abilities onto a device. With this knowledge the two borrow one of the R.A.V.E’s and goes back through the portal to the future and steals the discs with those rider’s powers on them. When they returns to the present their grandfather creates two belts for the pair to become Power Rider Chrono and Power Rider Epoch. Chrono is armed with a pocket watch based staff that turns into a chain whip and Epoch is armed with a sundial based shield and dagger. Each of them can place a Rider Disc in their weapon to charge it with the power of that rider. Tiffany is the more level headed of the two, she enjoys studying history and planning strategy. Travis is the more impulsive of the two, he enjoys losing himself in fantasy books and tends to rush into action. Face Claims: Tiffany- Erika Fong Travis- Yoshi Sudarso Transformation Devices: Timeless Belt Transformation Call: Let’s Ride! Transformation: When they spins their belt a giant energy clock appears and as the hands spins the armor forms Finishing Moves: Chrono Whip- She whips her chain whip at the enemy, at the moment of impact a pocket watch appears as they explode Chrono Kick- She sends an energy pocket watch at the enemy as the chain wraps them up the pocket watch itself is hit by her kick sending the energy into them Epoch Slice- A beam of sunlight charges his dagger as he slices Epoch Kick- A beam of sunlight hits him and pushes him into the enemy Chrono’s Rider Discs

“Armor of Winds! Rider 1!”- By using the Rider 1 Disc Chrono gains armor based on Power Rider 1 Finishing Move- Chrono Royal Kick- A kick charged by the power of Rider 1. A strong wind is created upon impact.

“Armor of Tornadoes! Rider V3!”- By using the Rider V3 Disc Chrono gains armor based on Power Rider V3 Finishing Move- Chrono V3 Kick- A kick charged by the power of Rider V3. A tornado is created upon impact.

“Armor of Jungles! Roarior!”- By using the Roarior Rider Disc Chrono gains armor based on Power Rider Roarior. Finishing Move- Chrono Roarior Slash- A savage slash charged by the power of Roarior.

“Armor of Flight! Zephyr!”- By using the Zephyr Rider Disc Chrono gains armor based on Power Rider Zephyr. Finishing Move- Chrono Zephyr Kick- A flying kick charged by the power of Zephyr.

“Armor of Ninja! Ninobi!”- By using the Ninobi Rider Disc Chrono gains armor based on Power Rider Ninobi. Finishing Move- Chrono Ninobi Kick- A kick charged by the power of Ninobi.

“Armor of Change! Masked Rider!”- By using the Masked Rider Disc Chrono gains armor based on The Masked Rider. Finishing Move- Chrono Masked Kick- A kick charged by the power of the Masked Rider.

“Armor of Disguise! Zer0!”- By using the Zer0 Rider Disc Chrono gains armor based on Power Rider Zer0. Finishing Move- Chrono Zer0 Kick- A kick charged by the power of Zer0 Epoch’s Rider Discs

“Armor of Cyclones! Rider 2!”- By using the Rider 2 Disc Epoch gains armor based on Power Rider 2. Finishing Move- Epoch Royal Kick- A kick charged by the power of Rider 2. A cyclone is created upon impact.

“Armor of Environments! E.X.E!”- By using the E.X.E Rider Disc Epoch gains armor based on Power Rider E.X.E Finishing Move- Epoch E.X.E Kick- A kick charged by the power of E.X.E. An energy “X” appears upon impact.

“Armor of Thunder! Surge!”- By using the Surge Rider Disc Epoch gains armor based on Power Rider Surge. Finishing Move- Epoch Surge Kick- A kick charged by the power of Surge. Upon impact the enemy is shocked by a powerful charge.

“Armor of Cosmos! Eclipse!”- By using the Eclipse Rider Disc Epoch gains armor based on Power Rider Eclipse. Finishing Move- Epoch Eclipse Punch- A double punch charged by the power of Eclipse. One fist is charged with solar power while the other is charged with lunar power.

“Armor of Royalty! Rex!”- By using the Rex Rider Disc Epoch gains armor based on Power Rider Rex. Finishing Move- Epoch Rex Kick- A kick charged by the power of Rex.

“Armor of Monsters! Biocide!”- By using the Biocide Rider Disc Epoch gains armor based on Power Rider Biocide. Finishing Move- Epoch Biocide Slash- A powerful slash charged by the power of Biocide.

“Armor of Giants! Jiga!”- By using the Jiga Rider Disc Epoch gains armor based on Power Rider Jiga Finishing Move- Epoch Jiga Kick- A kick charged by the power of Jiga.

Power Rider Eternity- Warren- One of Master X’s best soldiers, Warren genuinely believes Master X is making the world a better place and gives his all. He was sent back to stop Stephanie and Gerald and uses the power of Riders who rose up during Master X’s rule but were defeated. He attacks the siblings but when the X-Riders sent to assist him go on rampages he works with them to stop the monsters and protect civilians. It takes time to convince him of the truth about Master X but the Riders willingness to help others convinces him. When he accepts it he decides to help stop Master X as a way to make up for his past actions serving him. Face Claim: Najee De-Tiege Transformation Device: Eternity Belt Transformation Call: Let’s Ride! Transformation: When he slides the handle into place a digital clock counts down as his armor forms Finishing Move: Eternity Kick- Four digital numbers spin around the enemy counting at various times until the kick is delivered when they all hit zero.

“Armor of Shadows! Shadowstrike!”- Power Rider Shadowstrike- Last survivor of a ninja clan used mystic scrolls and relics to become a Rider. Gained his power 15 years into Master X’s rule. Fell during a failed assassination attempt. Their armor grants Eternity heightened speed and agility. Shadowstrike Transformation: A scroll opens up and shadows flow out covering them forming the suit Shadowstrike Finishing Move: Kage Katana Strike- A slash charged with shadows Armor Finishing Move: Shadowstrike Slash- A shadow infused strike

“Armor of Puzzles! Mystery!”- Power Rider Mystery- Gained her power by opening an impossible to solve puzzle. Gained her power 24 years into Master X’s rule. Fell while infiltrating his fortress in an attempt to sabotage it. Their armor grants Eternity illusion and puzzle skills. Mystery Transformation: A giant question mark appears behind them sending many smaller ones to form the suit Mystery Finishing Move: Mystery Kick- Two panels appear, one marked true the other false, after a question is asked Mystery appears out of that answer hitting the foe. Armor Finishing Move: Mystery Illusion- A series of question marks restrains the enemy for a spear strike

“Armor of Machines! Roborg!”- Power Rider Roborg- Survivor of an attack lead by the generals. Rebuilt as a cyborg and made his base in a junkyard. Gained his power 37 years into Master X’s rule. Fell while trying to hijack an army of R.A.V.E suits. Their armor grants Eternity enhanced strength. Roborg Transformation: He activates the circuits on his belt sending electric currents through his body creating the suit Roborg Finishing Move: Electric Burst- Electric energy charges up until they strike Armor Finishing Move: Roborg Breaker- Electric energy charges his attack.

“Armor of Aliens! Xtera!”- Power Rider Xtera- An alien crashed to earth hidden in a meteor 45 years into Master X’s rule and bonded with a person. She fell while trying to free prisoners. Their armor grants Eternity power of various cosmic objects such as planets and stars.

Xtera Transformation: The alien comes out of the belt and merges with them as an orb surrounds them. Xtera Finishing Move: Galaxy Charge- A kick charged with the power of the galaxy

Armor Finishing Moves: Xtera Galaxy- A cosmically charged kick explodes in the shape of a galaxy Xtera Shower- Meteors of various size rain down Xtera Nova- A large burst of extreme heat

Power Rider Ancient- Lauren Matthews- Scholar of heroic myths and legends from around the world. She found the ancient Rider Discs at various antique shops without knowing their true purpose. When she saw a news report with an image of a Rider Disc she tracked down the Riders and ended up becoming a Rider herself. Face Claim: Claire Blackwelder Transformation Device: Ancient Belt Transformation Call: Let’s Ride! Transformation: As she slides the handle into place a analog clock spins its hands as her armor forms. Finishing Move: Ancient Kick- The Roman Numerals for 1-12 spin around the enemy until she lands the kick

“Armor of Stone! Hardrock!”- Power Rider Hardrock- A Caveman who found a powerful gem deep in a cave and used it to transform in order to fend off skeletal dinosaurs attacking his people- Arms Ancient with a stone spear Hardrock Transformation: Stone emerges from the gem covering him until he breaks free revealing the armor Hardrock Finishing Move: Stone Spear- He throws his spear at the enemy turning them to stone as they crumble. Armor Finishing Move: Hardrock Spear- She throws the spear at the enemy turning them to stone.

“Armor of the Rain Forest! Coatl!”- Power Rider Coatl- A Mesoamerican warrior blessed by the gods to aid in her fight against elemental spirits- Arms Ancient with an obsidian ax. Coatl Transformation: A jaguar roars as her armor is formed around her by the aura of a jaguar. Coatl Finishing Move: Roaring Chop- A spiritually charged ax chop Armor Finishing Move: Coatl Chop- Chops at the enemy

“Armor of the Forge! Smith!”- Power Rider Smith- A blacksmith blessed by deities to create incredible weapons to defend against demons who possesses objects to create monsters- Arms Ancient with a metallic mallet Smith Transformation: Steam shoots out the belt turning to metal around him creating the armor Smith Finishing Move: Forge Crusher- Hits the enemy with their mallet Armor Finishing Move: Smith Smash- Smashes the enemy with the mallet

“Armor of the Law! Sheriff!”- Power Rider Sheriff- In the old west a native shaman cast a curse upon the settlers who attacked his people however in their rage their curse created beasts that endangered all life, native and settler. A lawman uses the latest in scientific marvels to arm himself against this threat. Utilizes steam powered blasters- Arms Ancient with twin blasters Sheriff Transformation: Steam shoots from the pack as a brief sandstorm forms the armor Sheriff Finishing Move: Sheriff Shooter- A steam powered bullet shot at the enemy Armor Finishing Move: Sheriff Shot- Shoots the enemy with a steam powered blast. The X-Riders Twisted versions of the powers of the Riders. Created by Master X to act as warriors for his Generals to use to stop the Riders. An X Rider can only truly be defeated with the power that spawned them, either in the form of the original Rider or by a Rider using that Rider’s Disc. Any other method will not destroy them. When an X-Soldier uses one of the X-Discs to transform the effect is a twisted version of the original. For example while Hybrid transforms in a spiral of swirling energy Hybrid X transforms in a rushing geyser of energy. When Warren is sent back he is accompanied by four X-Soldiers he personally trained who are armed with the X-Discs for his Rider Discs. When he defected they pledged their loyalty to the Four Generals. When Lauren appeared as Ancient the Generals requested Master X create X-Discs to counter her own Rider Discs. The four soldiers to wield them were the top of the elite troops for each General When an X-Rider is defeated the X-Disc is drained of power until it recharges. There are no set users for the X-Discs, the Generals pick an X-Soldier to use them and when they fail they’re recalled to the future to face Master X’s wrath. The X-Disc is then passed onto a new solider to use once it recharges. As X-Riders get stronger they gain the power to summon forth enemies fought by the original Rider. (Note: In universe the Kamen Rider names on the X-Riders are replaced by their title and the year is replaced by Master X’s symbol. E.G instead of Kuuga it now says Adalve X) The Four Generals- The strongest of all of Master X’s warriors. Each General is given control over a territory to do with as they please. Master X regularly sends prisoners to them to punish as they wish. When the Four went back in time to stop the Riders they are given a series of X Discs containing corrupted versions of the power of various Riders. They have their soldiers use the discs to create the X Riders to fight the Riders.

General of the Wild "The Huntress”- Mistress of the hunt, the top tracker of Master X. She regularly holds a hunt within an artificial preserve of her own design. Her quarry are the prisoners sent to her domain. X Riders:

MirWar X- A twisted version of Power Rider Drago. A dark reflection of the original. They share the original’s ability to travel inside reflections. Transformation- A cracked reflection of the armor appears forming around the user turning them into MirWar X.

S.W.A.R.M X- A twisted version of Power Rider Beetle. More worm than rider. Like the original they can enter a state of hyperspeed. Transformation- The armor crawls across their body like bugs before attaching turning them into S.W.A.R.M X.

Animaster X- A twisted version of Power Rider Animaster. Acts like a beast on the hunt. Transformation- Three medals with twisted versions of the symbols for the hawk, tiger, and grasshopper appear before merging on the user’s chest turning them into Animaster X. Face Claim: Jenna Coleman

General of the Sciences “The Doctor”- Top scientist and inventor for Master X, an expert in all fields of science. It’s rumored that he subjects those sent to his domain to inhumane experimentation. All in the name of Master X of course. X Riders:

Djand X- A twisted version of Power Rider Djand. Like a dark wish brought to life. Transformation- Sand covers the user turning them into Djand X.

4Z X- A twisted version of Power Rider 4Z. Dark cosmic energy fills their body. They can utilize dark copies of the Cosmic Switches Transformation- The user is surrounded by a storm of cosmic energy as they’re turned into 4Z X.

Racer X- A twisted version of Power Rider Racer. A swift and lethal warrior. They can summon a dark version of A.U.T.O Transformation- The armor appears broke and shattered around the user before attaching to them turning them into Racer X.

Arcade X- A twisted version of Power Rider Arcade Player One. Acts like the boss character in a game. Transformation- A field of virus infected binary floods over the user turning them into Arcade X.

Hybrid X- A twisted version of Power Rider Hybrid. A disturbing balance of hare and artillery. They are able to scan objects and people to create new Fuelsion to use in battle. Transformation- A rising gusher of energy sprays them turning the user into Hybrid X. Face Claim: David Tennant

General of the Warriors- “The Gladiator”- Master of all fighting styles and strongest warrior under Master X. His domain contains a massive Colosseum he uses to hold regular gladiatorial games with those sent to him. X Riders:

Adalve X- A twisted version of Power Rider Adalve. Power grows as it fights. Transformation- Intense flame covers the user causing them to change into Adalve X

Wyvern X- A twisted version of Power Rider Wyvern. The dragon’s power has gone wild. Transformation- A demonic dragon appears breathing fire on the user changing them into Wyvern X

Deca X- A twisted version of Power Rider Deca. Able to use the abilities of other X Riders. They are one of the strongest X Riders but still pale in comparison to the Generals and especially to Master X. Transformation- A card depicting their X form flies around the user turning them into Deca X.

Duow X- A twisted version of Power Rider Duow. A warrior of the winds without humanity. Transformation- A burst of universal energy forms the suit halves as they’re stitched together turning the user into Duow X.

Warruit X- A twisted version of Power Rider Warruit. A twisted warrior powered by nature. Transformation- An orange appears around the user pealing to reveal them turned into Warruit X. Face Claim: Arthur Darvill

General of the Supernatural- “The Oracle” - The top mystic of Master X, she is versed in all schools of the magical arts. She uses her connection to the paranormal to torment those sent to her realm. The air in her domain is filled with mystic power. X Riders

Phi X- A twisted version of Power Rider Phi. More Necrive than rider now. Transformation- Blood like plasma flows around the user turning them into Phi X.

Arcane X- A twisted version of Power Rider Arcane Spade. Their body is filled with arcane power. Transformation- A dark arcane symbol passes over them turning them into Arcane X.

Meloni X- A twisted version of Power Rider Meloni. More demon than rider. Transformation- Dark flame engulfs them turning them into Meloni X.

Vamp X- A twisted version of Power Rider Vamp. Acts like the bloodsucking vampire of earth instead of the darkness draining vamp. Transformation- Darkness covers them before bat wings turn them into Vamp X.

Mystic X- A twisted version of Power Rider Mystic. A dark look at what Mystic would have been had the Dragon won. They can use dark copies of Mystic’s spell rings. Transformation- The mystic symbol of the dragon appears and shoots flames all over the user turning them into Mystic X.

Phantom X- A twisted version of Power Rider Phantom. A ghostly warrior wielding dark powers. Transformation- Dark energy surrounds them as the twisted soul of the hero forces itself onto the user turning them into Phantom X. Face Claim: Alex Kingston All four command the X-Riders created to counter Eternity and Ancient

Shadowstrike X- A twisted version of Power Rider Shadowstrike. A lethal assassin hiding in the shadows. Transformation- A scroll appears and the user’s own shadow leaps onto their body turning them into Shadowstrike X.

Mystery X- A twisted version of Power Rider Mystery. Full of impossible questions. Transformation- A field of question marks swarm the user turning them into Mystery X.

Roborg X- A twisted version of Power Rider Roborg. A twisted parody using natural materials instead of metal and gears. Transformation- An electric current surges through the user turning them into Roborg X.

Xtera X- A twisted version of Power Rider Xtera. Represents the alien that bonded with the original Xtera. Transformation- Orbs orbit the user sending energy into them turning them into Xtera X.

Hardrock X- A twisted version of Power Rider Hardrock. More dinosaur than human. Transformation- Bone and stone surrounds the user turning them into Hardrock X.

Coatl X- A twisted version of Power Rider Coatl. The jungle beast gone wild. Transformation- The jaguar roars as the user is wrapped in vines turning them into Coatl X.

Smith X- A twisted version of Power Rider Smith. A dark blacksmith filled with evil flame. Transformation- Cracks appear on the user sending waves of heat as the user turns into metal becoming Smith X.

Sheriff X- A twisted version of Power Rider Sheriff. A coyote like bandit armed with twin guns in their fingers. The steam pack is a part of their very body. Transformation- Steam shoots out from the user’s pores turning them into Sheriff X. The generals all have a symbol and the united symbol is a giant X with each of them on the tip of the X with Master X in the middle X-Soldiers All X-Soldiers share the basic body armor (resembles Paradox/Quantum with the watch aspects and words in the visor removed) But each general has unique additions to their own soldiers. The X-Soldiers who accompany the Generals are often used to create the X-Riders though the process often proves lethal when they are defeated in battle. All X-Soldiers have a recall function built into their suits so that when they fall in battle their suits do not fall into enemy hands, this function was installed after the Rebels got their hands onto suits from fallen soldiers. Soldiers who prove themselves in many battles are rewarded with their own personal R.A.V.E suit. Huntress- Her soldiers wear environmental camouflage and are armed with sniper rifles, bows and arrows, and knives. They are trained to fight like beasts. Doctor- His soldiers are equipped with the most advanced technology the Doctor can develop. They are trained to fight in a mechanical manner, many of them having cybernetic enhancements. Gladiator- His soldiers are styled after the ancient Spartans and armed with high tech spears and shields. They are trained to fight like warriors in the Colosseum. Victory or death are the only options for them. Oracle- Her soldiers wear cloaks and know many low level spells to cast. They are trained to fight with magic enhancing their actions. Master X- His soldiers are the very elite of the elite. They are styled after himself and would rather die themselves than cause Master X to even be aware of a threat against him. When Warren is sent to the past he is accompanied by his own personal squad he trained himself. When he defects they remain loyal to Master X and turn on him. During the final battle this squad uses the X-Discs for the Future Riders.

Master X- The man known as Master X was once a man named Max. Max grew frustrated with the state of the world and marveled at the power of the Riders. He realized that a single being with all their power could rule the world like a god and shape the world to their liking. After using his ties with Organization X to create rider technology he lured the Riders of Earth into a deadly ambush. Using organization tech he transferred their powers into himself gaining enough power to cut down all in his path. He used the power of the Riders to take over the Earth and slaughter his foes including all the Rangers and remaining Riders of Earth. After this massacre he cut down the heads of nations virtually abolishing the very concept of nations. The world was united under his flag. However the only thing greater than his power was his paranoia. As time went on he would remain transformed all the time and not even his own family would see his face nor know his true name. He learned the hard way not to truly trust anyone when his own son and his daughter in law planned to overthrow him. Learning of their plan he murdered the two and framed rebels for the act. He would raise his grandchildren alone, treating them with kindness while molding them in his own image. However all his work was undone when they witnessed him slaughtering a group of rebels. His grandchildren would join the rebels and travel back in time to prevent his rule from ever beginning. After sending his Generals to stop him he eventually grew frustrated and traveled back himself, quickly finding his younger self and enlisting him to repeat his conquest. Master X treats his younger self with contempt barely hiding his disgust at what he once was, in fact he even plans to simply transfer his brain into his younger body and extend his lifespan. Despite this he gives his younger self a special Rider Disc allowing him to become Power Rider Zenith. He also brings the machines keeping the time portal open insuring his survival. Master X only truly cares about himself and anything or anyone that threatens his rule is an enemy to be dealt with severely. Any noble goals have long been forgotten as a ruthless tyrant rose from the ashes of heroes. Face Claim: Peter Capaldi

Power Rider Zenith- The man known as Max had grown bored with his life and sickened by the actions of those in power. He believed that he could do a better job. One day a visitor from the future gave him the chance. In this timeline Max never had the chance to begin his plans on his own before Master X arrived and told him of his destiny to rule the world. Seeing his dreams within his reach he agreed to help his future self insure history remains on the proper course. Though he does feel like his future self is not telling him the full story. Face Claim: Alex Heartman Transformation Device: Zenith Belt Transformation Call: Let’s Ride! Transformation: When he spins their belt a giant energy clock appears and as the hands spins the armor forms The time soon comes for the final battle as Master X summons his armies. Due to the time distortion portals begin to open. The Rider Discs call forth the Riders from the past and the future (Hardrock through Xtera) resulting in the Riders joining forces with their own backup in the form of the rest of the (primary) Riders. The battles are set. Paradox vs Master X and Zenith Quantum vs The Huntress Eternity vs The Gladiator Chrono and Epoch vs The Oracle Ancient vs The Doctor Adalve-Hybrid vs the X Riders Hardrock-Xtera vs their X Riders 1-Jiga vs Master X’s soldiers and their R.A.V.E’s

During the battle Master X forces a fusion between him and his younger self turning themselves into an X Rider version of themself. After a hard fought battle the two men defuse and Max reveals that the process let him learn of Master X’s plans. Fed up with his future self and enraged at the betrayal Max laughs as he claims to have found a power greater than any Master X holds. The tyrant laughs and asks what power he could have. Max responds “The power to change the course of history” as he stabs himself with a broken blade. Panicking at the mortal wounding of his younger self Master X retreats to the future with his soldiers following him, the rest of the X Riders fade with their Rider Discs shattered.

Arriving in the future Master X realizes too late he left the machines in the past as Paradox and Quantum destroy the machine closing the time portal. As it closes history changes for Master X. His power fades leaving the tyrant a frail and pale old man screaming as his empire fades and history is rewritten. The past and future Riders return to their origin points despite knowing that for half of them their deaths are already written and for the others their very existence has been erased. Due to being in the present Stephanie, Gerald and the others remain intact.

Without Master X or the hope of returning to their future the guilt of their actions finally hit the Generals. After begging the Paradox Riders to put them out of their misery the Riders refuse and tell them they can use this chance to make amends and make a new beginning. And so the Four Generals leave Earth and scatter to the stars, each attempting to atone for their horrific deeds. The Huntress uses her skills as a bounty hunter tracking down those who escape justice. The Doctor creates a single robot for each of his many victims. After each one is completed he sends it into the universe to do good and help others. The Gladiator seeks out and trains with the greatest warriors across galaxies before accepting students of his own. He instructs his pupils to only use their skills in the defense of others. The Oracle uses her future sight to prevent disasters and tragedies wherever she is able. After the battle the Rider head to a near by mall and buffet to relax and unwind as they discuss the future that nearly was and the future yet to be. The threat of Master X is finally ended. We see four glimpses into the new future * The Tournament Of Shadows is held between the various ninja schools around the world each sending a Rider to represent them. From the School of the Frog comes Power Rider Shadowstrike who quickly becomes the crowds favorite… * A woman solves an unsolvable puzzle and uses the power within to become Power Rider Mystery and fight against a mad scientist trying to force humanity into the next step of evolution… * A man barely survives the first attack of the robot uprising. He is found by a group of scientists who save his life by turning him into a cyborg. Fighting to defend humanity he becomes Power Rider Roborg… * A woman finds a peaceful alien crash landed on Earth. The alien had come to warn of an invading fleet but is too injured to help. The two bond and Power Rider Xtera is formed to fend off the invaders…

(Faces by @dream-chef-flavors Zenith and additional armors by JK5201, Hardrock/X, Coatl/X, Smith/X, Sheriff/X, Xtera X, Four Generals all by Chen Chan , Epoch, Ancient and additional armors by @chuckles-the-jester, Adalve-X, 4Z-X and Phi-X by Larryng1204)

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#kamen rider #power rider #kamen rider zi o #power rider paradox #hopefully this time it will show up in the tags

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pamphletstoinspire · 3 years

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The Hidden Threat to Catholicism

A serious, even existential, threat to Catholicism looms on the horizon, and it’s hidden all around us. It could very well decimate the ranks of the Church, and perhaps is already doing so. It is insidiously dangerous because it upends the very foundations of Catholicism.

I’m not talking about the abuse crisis, or the lack of episcopal courage, or rampant heresy, although all those threats are dire indeed. But the Church has faced those type of challenges in the past and overcome them, albeit at times with significant losses.

I’m talking about a truly new threat: world virtualization.

The world has gone virtual. Though this trend’s been developing for decades, the COVID-19-related shutdowns finalized the process. We communicate easily with each other through texts, social media, and Zoom chats. Almost any product we buy can be delivered to our doorstep. We now even “attend” Mass online! For many (most?) of us, our lives happen more online than offline.

In the eyes of many, world virtualization is considered an unmitigated good. It allows greater connection, greater leisure, and greater access to information than ever before. There’s just one problem: it’s antithetical to living a well-balanced Catholic life. I would even argue that it breaks Catholicism.

If there is one word that sums up Catholicism, it’s “incarnational.” Our faith is founded on the incarnation—God became man. By becoming part of the physical world, God lifted the physical world to Him. Just as importantly, He made the physical world the means by which we reach Him. In other words, Catholicism is a very physical religion. It requires “stuff” in order to work: bread, water, physical contact, etc. Without the Sacraments (and sacramentals), Catholicism is reduced to a completely different—and false—religion.

Now before I continue, let me address the exceptions I can already hear. What about the hermit, or the Catholic prisoner of conscience put in solitary confinement? Am I saying that they are unable to practice Catholicism because they lack the physical “stuff”?

Of course not. But the very extreme nature of their lives points to the fact that they are truly exceptions, not the rule. An underlying truth about humankind is that God created us as physical beings and that “It is not good for the man to be alone” (Gen. 2:18): God made us to be with each other. He also made the physical world to be the ladder by which we ascend to Him.

The digital world we are creating, however, essentially rejects direct human contact and interaction with the physical world. Even pre-COVID we had the phenomenon of smartphone-zombies—countless people staring at their screens and endlessly scrolling through their feeds throughout each day. But the COVID-19 restrictions have accelerated our descent into virtual-land, and many are now so fearful of disease that they don’t even want to be in physical proximity to others. This poses a serious problem for a Church based on physicality. Offering live-streaming Masses and virtual conferences only exacerbates the problem.

How should Catholics respond to this disturbing trend? By promoting incarnational, intentional living.

First, Catholics must be incarnational. We need to rediscover the superiority of the physical over the virtual. Recently I saw an advertisement for a “virtual theology of the body conference.” Talk about irony. If that doesn’t make one pause, I don’t know what will. After all, the theology of the body is supposed to remind us of the importance of our physical bodies and how they aren’t just the soul’s extra appendage, but an essential part of who we are. So let’s discuss this at a disembodied conference!

And of course, that pales next to the live-streamed Mass. I realize that many parishes are doing the best they can to adapt to extreme circumstances. In too many cases, however, many priests—and their parishioners—have taken a bit too much to the live-streamed Mass.

At best, such a Mass is a poor substitute for one in which members of the Body of Christ can actually be present at the re-presentation of the Sacrifice of the Cross (I don’t think the Apostle John would have Zoomed into Calvary even if that were an option in his day, although Judas might have). At worst, it sends a signal that the physical world—including the physical world of the Sacraments—is secondary and “non-essential.”

Man is both like and unlike the angels and the animal kingdom. We are a body-spirit hybrid, and it’s foundational to our being that the two work together. Unlike so many heresies old and new, we do not reject the physical aspect of our nature, but we understand that the physical enhances—or diminishes—our spiritual life. To interact with other Catholics in “real” life, to actually attend Mass and eat the Host, to speak to the priest in person in the Confessional—these are all physical activities that help lead us to God.

Second, as Catholics we must live more intentionally. Whenever a critique of the digital world is brought up, accusations of “going Amish” are thrown out. Rather than fight those accusations, I’m going to lean into them. It’s a common misconception that the Amish reject technology. They don’t reject technology, they make intentional decisions as a community as to whether a new technology is, on the whole, beneficial or not. And while we as Catholics don’t have to agree with their final decisions, we should embrace this intentional attitude.

Now, I’m no luddite (another common epithet casually tossed out). I was deeply involved in the Dot-Com boom of the late 1990’s as the first employee of one of the first web hosting companies and a co-founder of one of the first domain registrars. (My continued technology appreciation can be seen in my embrace of cryptocurrencies.) I’m currently the editor of an internet-only magazine, which the majority of readers access on their smartphones. But my long relationship with technology has led me to see that it’s not an either/or decision: either we reject all modern technology or we uncritically accept each latest technology the moment it rolls out.

Instead, we should take time to reflect on whether a new technology—and how we use that technology—helps lead us closer or further away from intimate union with Christ and a building up of his body here on earth. We should also ask if the new technology leads to a more disembodied, and therefore less incarnational, existence. Yes, modern communication methods have benefited society in many ways. Yet they have come at a cost.

One of the primary prices we’ve paid is the loss of direct connection. Instead of spending time chatting on the porch—or even on the phone—with a friend, we send quick, scattershot updates to dozens of acquaintances. We’ve seen a precipitous drop in religious affiliation in this century, which directly coincides with a tremendous increase in virtual “communities”—and the two trends may be related. Blithely ignoring the costs of modern technologies may spell suicide for Catholicism.

And of course there is the obvious problem of being subject to Big Tech, which is becoming increasingly anti-Catholic.

Practically speaking, I think this should lead us to rethink two primary aspects of modern life: physical gatherings and the use of smartphones/social media. First, we must resist the urge to “go virtual” in our interactions with others. Find ways to physically meet with extended family, friends, and fellow parishioners. I was asked recently what Catholic parents can do to keep their kids Catholic, and my first thought was for them to spend time—real time, not virtual time—with other Catholic families. These relationships build an appreciation for the Real, which leads to a deeper appreciation for the Source of all Reality.

Second, we must seriously and urgently rethink our relationship with social media, particularly how we use it on smartphones, which are perpetually attached to us. How many of us can barely find time for prayer, but spend several hours a day scrolling through social media feeds on our smartphones? Even if Big Tech were supportive of Catholic values, the average time spent on their products far exceeds their value for most of us. Instead of scrolling through Facebook, we need to spend more time seeking the Face of God in His Book, the Sacred Scriptures.

This doesn’t necessarily mean we must dump all social media (although it might mean that for some). Our disordered relationship with social media could be reordered by simply removing it from our smartphones and only using it on our desktop computers. Perhaps we even consider a (gasp!) dumbphone. Steps like these help us control our usage instead of the other way around.

Incarnational, intentional living is not an easy path; in fact, most everything in our society today is set up to oppose embracing it. However, Catholics have always been called to be countercultural, and following this seldom-trodden path could be a means to living an authentically Catholic life in a culture that desperately needs that witness.

BY: ERIC SAMMONS

#hidden threat to Catholicism #virtual reality

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mashounen2003 · 3 years

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Sonic opinions - 4

Initially, the purpose of my fanfics was almost only to think of a possible continuation of the events of Sonic SatAM, adapting things from the Archie-Sonic comics (and taking some licenses in the process), and trying to better write Antoine's transition from his self in the cartoon to his self in the comics, give more importance to Tails and better portray his parents, Amadeus and Rosemary. But then I realized how abysmal the differences between the two versions of Antoine were, while it was also harder for me to think of a way to write Rosemary coherently.

In Antoine's case, lately, I came up with an alternative to make him develop and stop being what he was in the TV series:

Immediately after the original Robotnik has been defeated, Antoine leaves his team behind. He actually doesn't know how to fight, but he still has good marksmanship, so he becomes a hitman. However, he's eventually convinced to leave behind that life without honour, begins to train in real fighting skills and becomes a genuine Freedom Fighter once and for all. In any case, he develops an opinion of "the end justifies the means" and continues thinking it for the rest of the story, being critical of his former team; this, along with his lasting grudge against Sonic and Sally, leads him to fight against the Monarchy in the events of "Civil War".

As for Rosemary... I don't like to say it this way, but she was a total b**** in the comics. I came up with a way to show her in a better light, but in no way could it have worked with the comics' Rosemary as she was. I'll talk about it when I write my list of ideas for future fanfics.

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I also addressed Politics in that fictional universe, trying to avoid the way this was done in the comics: there, Ian Flynn created the Council of Acorn and portrayed it as a bunch of stereotyped useless politicians obsessed with controlling the heroes and barely concerned with their country's security, and I think Flynn didn't do it to actually enrich the comics' universe or to add depth to the story or to communicate certain political ideas, but only to give readers someone to blame.

In the stories I wrote so far, I didn't go deep into what happened with my fictional universe's Council of Acorn after its creation; however, I did address its origin, and in doing so, I didn't make the Bems involved. Look... In the comics, Tails's parents were inspired by the Bems to try to establish a Democracy in Acorn, and this entails some inconvenience:

The Bems are terrible people. They roboticized Sonic and Tails to make them fight Robotnik and Snively, in order to verify the robots were better than flesh-and-blood beings (if things had happened differently, perhaps Mobius's Robians wouldn't have been de-roboticized); their society is entirely made of clones and almost lacks variety, not only in terms of the physical but also in terms of people's ideas; their judicial system is quite f***ed up (at least according to our standards), and... *sigh* they're just the worst. These traits of the Bems had been developed when Karl Bollers wrote the comics, and Flynn should have considered that they’re technically canon before having Tails's parents claim to have been inspired by those aliens.

Even if we cling to Moral Relativism with all our strength, claiming the Bems are just "different" and have different behaviour, mindset, psychology and culture, this keeps making things complicated: applying something in one society, solely because it succeeded in another, ain't exactly something smart to do.

And the craziest of all is that it could have been avoided very easily: Flynn could simply have said there were previous failed attempts to establish a Democracy in other countries of Mobius and Amadeus & Rosemary had always wanted a change in the government system, had learned about those historical events and knew (or believed they knew, at least) how to do it right this time. Moreover, Flynn could have said the decade spent by Tails's parents with the Bems gave them a clue about what they should not do when finally returning to their homeworld.

I tried, in my work, to use this idea of Amadeus & Rosemary wanting to establish a Democracy in an attempt to succeed in what others in other parts of Mobius had failed throughout History. It was based upon what happened in the French Revolution (more precisely, the Jacobin period), the years immediately after the Russian Revolution, and mainly the First English Revolution: in 1648, the Monarchy was overthrown in England; the change was violent and chaotic, the government that took the place of the King ended up being also a despotic tyranny, and the final result was just the return of a King to power in 1660 (although, anyway, the Glorious Revolution established in 1688 the British parliamentary system as we know it); Thomas Hobbes, while watching those events unfold, wrote his book Leviathan, where he justified the need for an Absolute Monarchy by arguing humans were violent, selfish, chaotic and brutal by nature, so they had signed a symbolic pact where they ceded all their rights and their power to a single person in charge of ruling with an iron fist, in order to prevent humanity from destroying itself. In my fanfics' universe, it was mentioned those attempts at democratization in Mobius led to civil wars, ended with those same peoples clinging to ideas similar to those of Hobbes, quickly restoring the Monarchy and promising themselves not to try and establish a Democracy ever again.

I also mentioned the recurring conflicts between the Acorn Kings and the Southern Barons in the comics, as well as the connection between the Kings and the infamous Source of All, among other things. I also had Amadeus do what he should have done in the comics when he explained why he wanted there to be Democracy: to present historical events, such as those conflicts, the Kings' cult of the Source of All and the technological and cultural backwardness to which the people were subjected by them, as concrete examples of how the Monarchy had never worked well.

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There are several Sonic fans, including @toaarcan and @robotnik-mun, who argue Politics shouldn't have been addressed at all in Sonic stories. Also, the vast majority of Sonic fans claim each and every one of the attempts to make this series more serious were some of the worst things that could have happened, even the addition of more characters was nothing but a cancer, and everything should have remained "simple" or the Sonic franchise shouldn't have gone beyond what it was at the time of the classic Genesis games. I praise the stories written by @toaarcan, and I agree with many of the opinions of both him and @robotnik-mun, but with all due respect, I totally disagree on this particular point.

I've always believed that, if it's done right, any topic should be able to be addressed in any kind of fiction, and Politics is no exception; more exactly, I think an author has two options when writing a work aimed at children and young people: to write something super light and soft where no serious topic is addressed, or to "go all-in" and address all serious topics, leaving nothing out; this includes not only Politics, but also tragedies, the complexities of love, toxic interpersonal relationships (whether abusive or otherwise), bullying, mental illness, trauma (for example, that caused by war), societal issues, and so on. That's one of the many whys of my love for RWBY: there's nothing that web-series doesn't talk about. As for the proper and respectful LGBTQ+ representation, rather than a serious topic reserved for serious fictional works, it's a requirement every fictional work should meet, whether serious or not, especially in the middle of the 21st century (this is something I think my work didn't meet satisfactorily).

With Sonic SatAM and the comics, it looked like the second option could have worked in the Sonic franchise too, and the TV series did it right to some extent. Unfortunately, Archie-Sonic's writers almost never did things right in regards to relationships between characters: Ken Penders's work, in particular, is an example of how relationships should never be, and Flynn's attempt to talk about Politics was a complete disaster, not much better than Penders's heinous handling of political stuff, more similar to a very low-quality North-American political satire, even when the conflict portrayed wasn't of the "Right versus Left" kind but of the "Monarchy versus Republic" kind, which should have been much easier to do without ruining everything. The only ones who didn't fall into those same mistakes were Gallagher and Angelo DeCesare, the comics' first writers, but only because they chose the first option: to write stories that weren't serious at all... with the notable exception of "Growing Pains", the B-story of issues #28 and #29, a typical Shakespearean tragedy where they presented us Auto-Fiona, a robot replica of who would later be one of the most controversial characters in the comics.

This, coupled with the resounding failure of Sonic 2006, is the only reason why now almost everyone in the Sonic fandom prefers stories without anything serious and/or a return to the Classic Sonic era, with very underdeveloped characters who are turned into mere plot devices and are only a shadow of their former self or of what they could have been.

#sonic fanfiction by mashounen #sonic opinions by mashounen #sonic #archie sonic #sonic comics #sonic the hedgehog #sonic 2006 #ken penders #ian flynn #penders is an asshole #ian flynn is not much better #antoine d'coolette #rosemary prower #miles tails prower #amadeus prower #rwby #sonic satam

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mortallyclearwonderland · 3 years

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Star Wars Alien Species - Filordus

Filordis, homeworld of the Filordi.

Motivated by their desire to make their world a safer place, the Filordi actively terraformed their homeworld to make it less inhospitable. At some point after its founding in 350 BBY, the Filordi became a member species of the Trade Federation, a powerful trade and shipping concern that operated throughout the galaxy. During the last decades of the Galactic Republic, the Federation fell under the influence of the Sith Lord Darth Sidious and he directed the corporation to initiate plans to invade the planet Naboo. The Filordi and the Caarites, another member species of the Federation, objected to the plans, and, in 33 BBY, after holding secret negotiations on Filordis between representatives of both species, the Caarites persuaded the Filordi to join with them and breakaway from the Trade Federation to found the Metatheran Cartel, a rival shipping concern. The Cartel subsequently entered into direct competition with the Federation and the Caarites and the Filordi attempted to discredit their former partners by exposing some of the Federation's unethical practices.

Around 33 BBY, Cularin crime lord Nirama bought technology from the Filordi to use it against the local asteroid belt pirates.

Although the Cartel based on Cularin, it also opened secondary headquarters in Filordis and in the Caarite homeworld, Caarimon. In day-to-day dealings with the public, the reclusive Filordi let the Caarites be the face of the Cartel, and were rarely seen.

Two Filordi security agents and three Filordi cooks were seen in the Metatheran Cartel jungle base of Cularin in 31 BBY. Another Filordus, Furran, was a permitor affiliated to the House Intari in Depatar around the same time; Furran got little job opportunities because his species was such a rare sight.

The Filordi were a resourceful and intelligent species that were adaptable to whatever circumstances they found themselves in. Filordi were creative and driven by a persistent desire to be successful, which led them to become ruthless and opportunistic. However, they were often short-sighted in their goals and would consume all resources that they obtained with no thought to the longer-term sustainability of their lifestyles. Their resilient nature helped the Filordi to survive on their homeworld Filordis, a rocky wasteland-covered world that was prone to thunderstorms and strong winds, and the two primary aims of most Filordi were to make their homeworld a less hostile environment and to leave Filordis altogether.

Filordi were not gendered and were sometimes referred to with the pronoun "it," as in the case of Yve. At other times, individual Filordi were referred to as male Filordi or using the pronoun "he"; notable examples include Furran, Nui Gneppe, and Verkul Seimbo.

The Filordi were a species of asexual, sentient, six-limbed quadrupeds that stood at a about 1.4 meters or 4.6 feet in height. A Filordus, the singular term by which members of the species were known, had an unusual body shape and possessed two arms that hung from shoulders on their upper body, each with a three-fingered hand, with two long, spindly front legs attached to their abdomen. A set of shorter, stubbier back legs extruded from their hind quarters, and though they normally walked on all four of their legs, Filordi were capable of rising up onto their rear set of legs to walk in a bipedal fashion. However, they found walking in this manner to be tiring and walked less quickly when standing on two legs than they could on all four. At the ends of their legs, they had two large, flat back feet and a pair of smaller, more curved, front feet. Each of their feet culminated in a set of pincer-like toes which could be used for fighting, with the toes on their front set of legs facing rearwards and their back set of toes facing forwards.

Filordi had humanoid-like faces with two eyes, a mouth, a nose and two large ears that could fold down over the rest of their face and be used to shield their eyes during windy and rainy conditions. Due to the large size of their ears, the Filordi possessed good hearing that allowed them to pick out sounds from among the roaring winds of their homeworld Filordis, though their increased sensitivity to sound also made them vulnerable to sonic attacks. Filordi were covered in a coat of short hair and some member of their species were orange in color, while others were covered in blue stripes.

Filordi reproduced asexually while dying, and a week after a Filordus passed away an infant Filordus would emerge and crawl out from the corpse of its predecessor. Filordi had different dietary requirements to the Caarites, a porcine sentient species from the planet Caarimon.

Filordus age at the following stages:

1 - 9 Child

10 - 14 Young Adult

15 - 39 Adult

40 - 55 Middle Age

56 - 69 Old

Examples of Names: Anazzar, Birkalz, Dreevan, Furran, Grizztil, Hizkal, Nirzru, Nui Gneppe, Surlan, Zebbil.

Languages: Filordi speak and read Filordian. They can speak Basic with gravely voices that miss some of the consonant sounds.

#star wars #star wars species #star wars aliens #Filordus #star wars Filordus

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passionate-reply · 4 years

Video

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This week on Great Albums, we talk about something a little more recent, but still old enough to be a classic. Can you believe that John Maus’s We Must Become the Pitiless Censors of Ourselves, is turning ten years old already? Yes, 2011 was that long ago...and so were my high school years. Come check out this lo-fi synthwave masterpiece! Transcript below the break.

Welcome to Passionate Reply, and welcome to Great Albums! So far in this series, we’ve looked at a lot of older albums, and that’s by design. While I listen to, and love, plenty of more recent music and younger artists, I’ve decided to focus Great Albums on works that are at least ten years old. That’s partly because I think that having some distance from when albums were released lets us situate them in fuller context, and take their legacy into consideration. It’s also partly because so much of the music criticism that’s out there is focused, somewhat myopically, on only the newest and hottest releases, when there’s so much amazing music to be discovered outside of that purview.

Now that that’s out of the way, let’s get on to discussing today’s album: John Maus’s We Must Become the Pitiless Censors of Ourselves, which was released in 2011, one decade prior to this video. It’s an album that was very significant to me as a teenager, when it was new, and one that I think will go on to be seen as one of the most important electronic albums of this decade.

Before releasing his arguable magnum opus, John Maus had two LPs under his belt, Songs and Love Is Real. They earned him some cult followers, but also attracted substantial derision and disdain. While many elements of Maus’s signature sound are present, such as lo-fi production, atmospheric washes of synth, and lyrics that straddle the line between pithy and biting, I’d characterize these releases as being very...rough around the edges.

Music: “Too Much Money”

“Too Much Money,” off of Love Is Real, is tantalizingly close to a pop song, but its truly shocking bridge seems almost deliberately crafted to shatter our ability to enjoy it as such. Maus had initially set out to be an experimental, outsider musician, but he soon became more interested in the tradition of pop, particularly after meeting his longtime friend and artistic collaborator, Ariel Pink. It was in that pop spirit that Maus created We Must Become the Pitiless Censors of Ourselves, and the resultant increase in accessibility is what made his third album so different--and so much more successful. There’s a certain charm that only comes from an outsider attempting to do pop, a fusion of intuitive mass appeal, and an intuitive, unschooled process of creation. This album has that in abundance.

Music: “Hey Moon”

While “Hey Moon” is one of Maus’s best-known tracks, it’s actually a cover, and was originally penned by singer-songwriter Molly Nilsson. It’s a very simple, and very pop, composition, and it’s easy to see how it embodies the sort of straightforward songwriting Maus had in the back of his mind while creating the album. But it fundamentally lacks the signature oddness of Maus, and I think that leaves it as the least interesting track here. With everything else going on, “Hey Moon” feels all the more plain and banal in comparison.

Music: “...And the Rain”

Listening to “...And the Rain,” it’s easy to hear how strongly Maus was also influenced by Classical and Medieval composers. Besides those organ-like synth textures, Maus is also inspired by the Medieval modes, and pre-tonal ideas about melody. Whenever contemporary music uses slightly older synthesiser technology, and/or that lo-fi production, many people become preoccupied with using ideas of 80s nostalgia and retro chic to understand it. I think this album has less to do with “old school cool” and more to do with the spectre of the past as something faded and ineffable, accessible only through the dim consolations of memory. Consider “Quantum Leap,” which presents us with a hazy dream of time travel, contrasted with the “dead zone” of the present.

Music: “Quantum Leap”

In “Quantum Leap”’s more strident moments, I like to think that a whiff of the in-your-face abrasiveness of “Too Much Money” remains. But rather than scornful and vitriolic, it comes across as the overwhelming splendour of divine mystery, thanks to its appropriation of Medieval church music. There are many antecedents of what Maus is doing with it, from the tradition of goth to the work of other electronic musicians like John Foxx, but what Maus really excels at is weaving together the sacred and the profane, and getting us to forget which is supposed to be which. For a more splendid example of that, look no further than “Matter of Fact”:

Music: “Matter of Fact”

Yes, you heard that correctly--this song’s only lyrics are, “pussy is not a matter of fact.” I’m tempted to compare this laconic number to some of Maus’s earlier pieces that seem to satirize easily spouted slogans of social change, such as “Rights For Gays.” The core assertion here could be interpreted as a rebuttal of essentialism with regards to gender and sex, or perhaps of toxic masculinity, and the idea of a man feeling entitled to a woman’s body and sexuality. But its ambiguity, and possible meaninglessness, are, I think, part of what makes it so effective. Still, as far as transgressive lyricism goes, the use of the term “pussy” here pales in comparison to the preceding track, “Cop Killer.”

Music: “Cop Killer”

Maus has described himself as extremely left-wing, but he’s also consistently maintained that his music isn’t meant to be interpreted through a strictly political lens. But however much Maus insists that “Cop Killer” is “really” about metaphorical cops, its seemingly blatant call for violence feels obscene. Ten years ago, “Cop Killer” was shock art, and an expression of the unsayable. But in the past year, more and more people have opened up to criticism of police brutality, and police as an institution. “Cop Killer” has been re-evaluated and re-contextualized, and interest in the track has surged. It’s had a degree of vindication that most provocative and challenging art will never see, no matter how powerful.

Given Maus’s frequent emphasis on ideas of criminality, justice, and the punitive arm of the government, I’m tempted to interpret the lighthouse featured on the cover of We Must Become the Pitiless Censors of Ourselves as a reference to the “panopticon” prisons designed by the Enlightenment thinker Jeremy Bentham. Bentham proposed prisons, and other state buildings, in which a single observation tower stood watch over people to be controlled. Prisoners cannot tell when, and if, they are being observed, and thus are forced to live as though they are under constant surveillance, and internalize the structures of social control. The panopticon has often been used as a symbol of how structures of discipline and punishment affect the psyche of those who live within them, most famously by the 20th Century philosopher Michel Foucault.

But this is, of course, me using political theory to try and pin Maus down! We can also set this aside and appreciate the cover design for its aesthetic ambiance. Its fog and tumultuous sea evoke the wild or unrefined qualities of the music, but the bright and piercing light of the lighthouse suggest a firm and directed focus, not unlike Maus’s stated goal of creating bona fide pop.

The album’s ponderous title doesn’t actually appear on the associated artwork. This isn’t so uncommon nowadays, but when physical media was more central to music consumption, it was a self-sabotaging move that few but New Order ever got away with. Maus was one of the first artists I became aware of who chose to omit text from album art, and it struck me as a very bold and forward-thinking adaptation to an increasingly digital world. Maus nicked the title “We Must Become the Pitiless Censors of Ourselves” from the work of the philosopher Alain Badou, under whom he studied at university. Like that piercing ray of light, it seems to suggest a pruning away of impurities, and a recalibration or refocusing of one’s energies. It applies equally well to the idea of becoming sanctified or purified in the presence of the holy, or, more prosaically, to Maus’s newly pop-oriented artistic direction.

After the success of We Must Become the Pitiless Censors of Ourselves, Maus’s follow-up was, essentially, the 2012 compilation, A Collection of Rarities and Previously Unreleased Material, which featured assorted tracks he had written throughout the preceding decade. Over the next few years, Maus chose to isolate himself from the public eye, claiming to not see himself continuing a career in music, and instead pursuing a Ph.D. in political science. He eventually returned, however, and released a fourth LP in 2017, entitled Screen Memories. Screen Memories would continue the focus on hooky and accessible melodies, while also increasing the use of guitar and bass to bring Maus’s sound a bit closer to rock.

Music: “Touchdown”

While Maus hasn’t put down any new material since Screen Memories, he has made himself substantially more notorious quite recently, by having been present at the attempted coup at the United States Capitol Building in January of 2021. Given Maus’s aforementioned radical leftism, and his cryptic, but seemingly anti-fascist oriented tweets afterward, it seems unlikely that Maus actually supported the insurrection, but the incident continues to cast a shadow over his reputation, at least for the time being. Whether Maus is ever truly rehabilitated or not, and wherever his true intentions and sympathies lay, his music has certainly left an indelible mark. We Must Become the Pitiless Censors of Ourselves was a watershed moment for this idea of lo-fi, electronic pop, with a gothic and mysterious aura to it, and I don’t think this sound would be so commonplace in today’s musical landscape without what John Maus had accomplished, ten years ago.

My favourite track on We Must Become the Pitiless Censors of Ourselves is “Head For the Country.” Its stirring and anthemic refrain is one of the most emotionally powerful moments on the album, particularly when juxtaposed with its lyrical themes of feeling confined by society’s rules, and its return to the idea of criminality or deviance. It's probably too intense and overbearing to ever pass for an ordinary pop hit...but who’s keeping score? That’s everything for today--thanks for listening!

Music: “Head For the Country”

#music #great albums #album review #album reviews #synthwave #lo fi #lo-fi #john maus #indie #indie pop #indietronica

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agentnico · 5 years

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Top 20 Best Movies of the Decade (2010′s)

Now that we have entered the 2020s, it’s time to look back on a decade of movie magic. To emphasise the importance of each year, I’ll balance things out by including two films from each year for my Top 20 list. I’ve tried to pick films that both defined this decade as well as appealed to me personally, so my list will of course, as always, be different from yours, but hopefully, I won’t totally irritate you with my humble choice, which I deem worthy to post online for the public eye to witness.

2010:

INCEPTION - “You’re waiting for a train...” Christopher Nolan unarguably is the most exciting and original directors working today. Each time he releases a movie, its an event. A literal must-see at the cinema. Which is why this isn’t the only film of his you will find on this list. With Inception, Nolan gives us a movie that is both enjoyable and imaginative, rewarding the audience for the attention that it demands. Filled with so much detail that if you miss certain shots, you will completely get lost in confusion of the narrative (as confusing as it already is). It’s intense and complex, with great performances from the likes of Leonardo DiCaprio and Tom Hardy, this movie will leave you lingering for more even after that mysterious ending.

SCOTT PILGRIM VS. THE WORLD - “You cocky cock! You'll pay for your crimes against humanity!” Once again, another exciting director on this list (oh there are so so many!). Ever since Edgar Wright emerged from the British isles, he’s given us some of the funniest films of the past decade and onwards. His Cornetto Trilogy is a blast, Baby Driver is a blast, Ant-Man was going to be even more of a blast if Marvel allowed Wright to do his magical shenanigans his way, and the upcoming Last Night in Soho will surely be a blast also. With Scott Pilgrim vs. The World Wright creates a meta-clever universe taking inspiration from comic books and video games and filled to the brink with wink-wink-nudge-nudge humour, this is an exciting and very sarcastic over the top endeavor. Also, Brie Larson in this movie.....phew!! And unsurprisingly, its all a blast!

2011:

DRIVE - “I just wanted you to know, just getting to be around you, that was the best thing that ever happened to me.” Drive is more of an elegant exercise in style, and its emotions may be hidden but they run deep. A shamelessly disreputable, stylish, stoic, ultra-violent thriller with amazing stunt work, one of the best opening sequences of any movie this decade and a neon-pumped soundtrack that’s a must-own for all vinyl users, if you still haven’t seen Drive, there’s only one thing you can do. Clue: it’s to go watch Drive.

MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE - GHOST PROTOCOL - “Your mission, should you choose to accept it...” Tom Cruise’s deal with the devil allows him to do some literally impossible stuff, and though I don’t condone his Scientology ways, the man’s stunt work and efforts in his area of expertise are worth all the praise and respect. To be honest, I’m commemorating all three of the Mission Impossible flicks that graced our screen this year (Ghost Protocol, Rogue Nation and Fallout). This franchise is like a game of dodgeball, except that Tom Cruise is the dodgeBALL, being thrown and thrust left and right like nobody cares. Also, with me being Russian, the fact that a movie manages to destroy the Kremlin and then have me not hate the film in the aftermath shows that this film is way too fun to hate.

2012:

DJANGO UNCHAINED - “Gentlemen, you had my curiosity, but now you have my attention.” Quentin Tarantino is one of my favourite directors working today. And Django Unchained happens to be my favourite film of his. The writing for this film is orgasmic (I went there!). The way the actors deliver the lines and the lines of dialogue themselves sound almost poetic to my ears. I can quote so many lines from this darn thing. The cinematography is immaculate. The soundtrack choice is great. The performances, my goodness, the PERFORMANCES!! Jamie Foxx does arguably his career-best work here, but also we have Christoph Waltz and Leonardo DiCaprio both chewing up the scenery, and I’m sure everyone has heard the story involving DiCaprio and the broken glass. Django Unchained is an easy choice on this list for me, and possibly in my Top 10 of all time.

LES MISERABLES - “Do you hear the people sing?” The film that is based on a musical that is based on a book that is based on certain true events. Tom Hooper did an interesting choice of having actors sing live in front of the camera during filming rather than pre-record their voices, and it works to grand effect, though Russell Crowe should have probably been given more singing lessons. The movie is one hell of a way to adapt such a popular stage musical. With an opening shot that emphasises the scale of this picture with a zoom-in towards this big ship during a storm being pulled by these poor prisoners, we are plunged into the despair and conflicts of various characters with adroit narrative thrust so that not a moment feels wasted or redundant. You’d think that a film with hardly any dialogue and an overall reliance on singing wouldn’t be so emotional. Yet, somehow, it works. Also props to Anne Hathaway for winning an Academy Award for being in a film for only 5 MINUTES!!

2013:

THE WOLF OF WALL STREET - “Sell me this pen.” Martin Scorsese’s mad look into Wall Street life is a bombastic caper and running at nearly 3 hours, Scorsese and his editing team manage to keep an astoundingly intoxicating pace that keeps you enthralled and engaged throughout. This one is definitely not for the families, as this R-rated fest is filled with drugs, money, sex and everything you can possibly imagine and paints quite the picture of the rich folks of Wall Street. And the middle of it all a bravura performance from Leonardo DiCaprio. Someone needs to give DiCaprio’s agent a raise, this is Leo’s third appearance on this list and we’re only in 2013!

THE WAY WAY BACK - “I'm afraid I'm going to have to ask you to leave. You're having way too much fun, it's making everyone uncomfortable.” Sometimes a little indie flick is enough to lift a human spirit. Real, fun, uplifting and innocent, The Way Way Back dedicated to anyone who felt awkward or out of place at some point in their life, which, let’s be honest, counts all of us. I’m not afraid to admit that. So stop being a b*** and reveal your sensitive side too! Yes, you, the person reading this. Who else could I possibly be talking to? Myself? Maybe. The Way Way Back though is one of the best feel-good indie films of this decade, with the loveable Steve Carell acting very unloveable and Sam Rockwell Rockwelling himself to charm city! If you’ve missed this one, treat yo’self and check it out.

2014:

THE GRAND BUDAPEST HOTEL - “And?? Where is it? What's it all about dammit don't keep us in suspense this has been a complete f***ing nightmare! Just tell us what the f*** is going on!!!” Easily Wes Anderson’s best in my opinion (I have a friend who would argue Rushmore and The Royal Tenenbaums has the better hand but I think my opinion is more valid because it's me), this movie is a glossy, colorful, whimsical deadpan affair with an energetic turn from Ralph Fiennes as the hotel concierge M. Gustave H. as he and his lobby boy run into various Wes Anderson regulars and deal with murderers, stolen paintings, love affairs, prison breaks, and all kinds of crazy shindigs, but all shown in such a casual Wes Anderson way. This movie is like a slice of cherry pie - damn fine!

INTERSTELLAR - “Murphy’s Law doesn’t mean that something bad will happen. It means that whatever can happen, will happen.” As promised, Christopher Nolan makes another appearance on this list, now with his space time-traveling epic Interstellar, where he takes inspiration from the likes of Kubrick and Tarkovsky to give us, as always, a tad bit confusing adventure with great visuals and an interesting narrative (though it does sometimes get lost in its own way), however, the key thing holding this piece together is the father-daughter relationship with Matthew McConaughey and Mackenzie Foy (and Jessica Chastain) managing to bring so much raw emotion to their respective roles that you can’t help but want to shed a tear. I mean, I haven’t cried for over 14 years, but I remember when I first watched this film, the audience around me was sobbing quite a few times during the duration of this movie. Give it to Nolan to give us the emotional moments!

2015:

MAD MAX: FURY ROAD - “Oh what a day! What a lovely day!!” Easily the best action movie of this decade. Sorry John Wick, neither you or Tom Cruise could defeat this beast. The sheer, limitless invention behind this movie's exhilarating, preposterous chase scenes highlights action filmmaking at its finest. With big monster trucks and a random guitarist rocking-it in the middle of all the action, it’s like a nihilistic version of a Cirque du Soleil show! And it makes Tom Hardy the calmest person on-screen; no idea how it managed that.

STEVE JOBS - “I sat in a garage and invented the future because artists lead and hacks ask for show of hands.” If there is anyone who can make formulaic, mathematical or technological sound fun and exciting, its Aaron Sorkin. The man has a talent for writing screenplays about difficult and complicated topics yet turning them approachable for the casual moviegoer. Pair him with director Danny Boyle, and the result is Steve Jobs, a look at the man behind the phone. Narratively set during three important product launches of Jobs’, we get to see the behind-the-scenes of his relationships with his colleagues and family members, and this character study is one that could have easily fallen into generic biopic tropes, but it holds it’s own right till the credits roll. Also props for showing that Seth Rogen can actually do a serious role. Who would’ve thought that pot-smoking fella had dramatic chops in him?

2016:

NOCTURNAL ANIMALS - “Susan, enjoy the absurdity of our world. It’s a lot less painful. Believe me, our world is a lot less painful than the real world.” Fashion designer Tom Ford does sew his suits well. Apparently, he can also make great films too, with 2009′s A Single Man and with said Nocturnal Animals. This movie is truly incredible and I remember it taking me and my friend by surprise when we first watched it at the cinema. It’s shocking. Horrifying. Depressing. Upsetting. Altogether exhilarating. Being of a fashion background, Tom Ford directs the hell out of this movie, with gorgeous shots and great use of colour as well as managing to masterfully create tension and suspense when necessary. Honestly, I know Tom Ford is probably busy at a department store somewhere, but the guy needs to make another movie. The man has a talent.

LA LA LAND - “Here’s to the ones who dream, foolish as they may seem. Here’s to the hearts that ache; here’s to the mess we make.” Oh, La La Land. Damien Chazelle’s follow-up to the also excellent Whiplash. People who know me well know how much I love this movie. An old-school tour-de-force musical that’s a love letter to jazz and the golden age of Hollywood. The city of stars never looked so good. Featuring catchy original songs, excellent dance choreography (the sequence to the song “Lovely Night” is especially memorable) and a romance tale ten times better than the forsaken The Notebook, La La Land is one special movie. I know many are put off by the film’s not so happy ending, however for me it was the only way this narrative could have ended.

2017:

BLADE RUNNER 2049 - “We’re all just looking out for something real.” Similarly to Nolan, Denis Villeneuve is proving to be one of the most exciting directors working today. He’s the man behind such films as *deep breath* Prisoners, Enemy, Sicario, Arrival and Blade Runner 2049. And those have all been done within the last decade. The man constantly makes quality movies of various genres, though lately, he has been leaning more towards science fiction, which is a-okay in my books, since as Blade Runner 2049 proves, he can turn science into fiction like butter on bread. A sequel made 30 years after Ridley Scott’s classic, this visually breathtaking piece is arguably even better than its predecessor with many moments giving you the “wow wow wow wow wow WOW!” factor, and when Ryan Gosling and Harrison Ford are both on-screen they are dynamite. Forget the new Star Wars film (that’s right, I'm throwing shade there), Blade Runner is where it’s at!

PHANTOM THREAD - “The tea is going out. The interruption is staying right here with me.” The supposed last Daniel Day-Lewis film, as he has now apparently retired from acting, but let’s be honest, nothing stops him from simply unretiring at any point. Exhibit A - Joe Pesci. However, like Pesci, if he comes back I’ll only be happy. He’s one of acting greats of our time, and his collaborations will director Paul Thomas Anderson bring out some of his best roles. Phantom Thread is a marvel of a movie. No, I don’t mean that’s its part of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, I mean as in it can fill one with wonder and astonishment. Phantom Thread is PTA’s Gothic dark fairy-tale romance film, which expertly planned shots and scenes where every word of the dialogue counts. There is no wasted moment. And as the film transpires to its dark and unsettling climax, one begins to realize that this, THIS, is what filmmaking is about. Telling an engrossing story in an interesting way with crisp-clear shots and off-the-chart acting at play, with great costume design on display, although the latter is unsurprising due to a major aspect of the movie revolving around fashion.

2018:

MANDY - “You ripped ma shirt!! You ripped maaa shiirrt!!” An acquired taste for sure, however, Mandy is indeed something truly special. From first glance, this film might seem like nothing out of the ordinary, especially from the point of view of the plot. Its the usual revenge flick. However director Panos Cosmatos’ vision and how he presents it is so much more unique. And what’s not love in this film? There’s something for everyone! It’s artsy and slow enough for the critics, hip and metal for the nonchalant, gory and violent for the hardcore genre fanatics and of course the Nic-Cage-rage factor is present for the fans of the actor. Alright, it may not be a family film, but this one is worth a watch. The whole thing is bound together by this psychedelic otherworldly environment, with the whole movie conceived in this dark, unsettlingly beautiful yet horror-filled aura that might stray people away, as it might be just too different for them, however, if you are looking for something different to watch, take mandy. I mean, watch Mandy!

A STAR IS BORN - “Music is essentially 12 notes between any octave. Twelve notes and the octave repeats. It’s the same story told over and over. All the artist can offer the world is how they see those 12 notes.” The film that began all the rumours surrounding Bradley Cooper’s and Lady Gaga’s affair. People, heads up, they are actors! They were putting on a performance! Jeez. That being said, I totally ship them. Nuff’ said. The film though? Yes, it’s good. Some country-style music, romance blooming, Gaga can apparently act, people sing about shallows for some reason...all together works for a pretty decent motion picture. Also, the fact that Bradley Cooper wrote, directed, produced and starred in this gives me so much respect for the guy. He poured his heart and soul into this. And Lady Gaga absolutely shines!

2019:

PAIN & GLORY - “Writing is like drawing but with letters.” Director Pedro Almodovar semi-autobiographical film takes a close look at how one deals with acceptance, being forgotten, symptoms of depression and generally all fairly negative attributes, but delivered in such an honest and profound way that there is a strange lightness that emerges from it all. Antonio Banderas is uncannily vulnerable in the lead role, delivering such an earnest performance that shows a man that is filled with melancholic regret who seeks his own form of redemption. This movie is a thing of beauty.

PARASITE - “You know what kind of plan never fails? No plan at all. If you make a plan, life never works out that way.” Parasite is easily the most original and surprising films of 2019, and possibly the decade, managing to subvert expectations and blend together so many different genres so naturally. To spoil any narrative element of this movie would be a sin, like this one in particular works best when not knowing anything about it. This movie comes to us from Bong Joon-Ho, a South Korean director behind such films as The Host, Memories of Murder, Okja, and Snowpiercer. It’s nice to see the awards ceremonies giving him the proper recognition finally. He deserves it.

That sums up my Top 20 Best Movies of the Decade list. Of course, there are so many other great films that came out in these 10 years, such as Whiplash, When Marnie Was There, Paterson, Silence, Kubo and the Two Strings, The Nice Guys...I can go on forever. Cinema is a constant ever-growing medium, and it is fascinating to see how it changes through the years, in some ways improving and in some parts not so much. In any case, I look forward towards a new decade of, hopefully, great movies, however, let’s be honest, for all these great films there’s always a Norm of the North, a Scout’s Guide to the Zombie Apocalypse or frickin’ Cats. But let’s hope those will be kept to a minimum. In any case, bring on the 2020s!

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fanaiceach · 4 years

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@celestieu said: delicate fingers tangle through his hair, such tenderness she offers one many would declare a monster. but many might call her one too, she has lived as one for many decades: monsters deserve their nurturing too. " you have not hunted in some time. you will weaken if you keep it up. let me provide for you, like a good woman who seeks to take care of her man. " a hand to cheek, a caress. " i trust you. trust me. "

Adaptation had always been one of Priwen’s greatest weapons. They could have reveled in their stagnancy, rooted their methods in antiquity and refused to budge in the name of upholding tradition. But their order would have been far shorter lived if that was the case. In his tenure as the leader of the Guard, Geoffrey prided himself on his research, his constant quest for new methods, techniques, and technologies to employ on hunts. Not all of it was a wholesale success, but then, such was the way of progress. What mattered was the overall trajectory of improvement.

That mindset stayed with him throughout his leadership, and he carried it with him even after Priwen was little more than a memory in his mind. He’s learned to modernize. There are still things to be said, of course, for the classic approach. The old staples, tried and true. Nothing will ever feel as right in his hands as the weighted hilt of his sword, but discretion is becoming increasingly important. He hadn’t minded, once, walking around London and having everyone know his profession -- in fact, he’d almost reveled in it. But things are different now. Everyday the world seems to shrink, and notoriety isn’t always something enviable.

As the hunter has evolved, so to has his prey. It’s something of an oxymoron -- because it’s harder for monsters to hide, it’s also harder to find them. Their world has gotten smaller, too. Everything is publicized, now. Slaughter on the streets doesn’t go unnoticed like it might have a century prior. If any sort of creature knows what’s good for them, they’ve either learned how to blend seamlessly with the throng of humanity, or they’ve dug themselves so far into isolation they’re all but impossible to track down. There are still targets to track down, of course, reckless newborns and egotistical elders who have grown tired of their societal confines. Geoffrey still hunts them, doesn’t quite know what or who he’d be without that aspect of his life, even if he’s begun over the years to fill his time with other things. Family, for one.

But even if he wanted to hang up his crossbow and kick back in -- by now well-earned -- retirement, it isn’t as though he has a choice. The hunger is still there, still burning in its all-consuming might. Once upon a time satiating himself had been a routine, back when things were simpler. At first feeding was just a bonus to a successful hunt. His core drive was still to rid the world of a vampiric burden -- the fact that he could make a meal of them for a change was an additional bit of good fortune. Over time, though, the hunger became a reason to hunt. A reason why he couldn’t stop, even when there were times in which he wanted to.

It isn’t a lifestyle meant to last infinitely. Some leave the hunt for other pursuits -- careers, fortune, love. Those in it for life tend to be in it until death. Geoffrey died, in a sense, the moment he woke up as he is now. He’s certainly found other pursuits over the length of his impossible life, too. But the hunger makes no such allowances.

It’s been some time since his last hunt. Since his last meal. Months, he thinks, though he’s trying not to keep track. He has contacts, others in the field who know when to call in a specialist, but there’s been little more than silence. Animal blood doesn’t quite fill the gaping pit he feels clawing at his insides, but it takes the edge off -- even if he still looks paler, a touch more drawn and dull about the eyes. Geoffrey puts up a good front, though. At least until he’s kissing his wife and spends a few moments too many inhaling deeply against the crook of her neck. With all the gentleness and patience -- and perhaps the martyr tendencies -- of a saint, she doesn’t chastise or question him.

Instead, she offers.

He pulls away quickly at that, as though the words are a shock to his system, his fangs pressing incessantly against the inside of his lips. Geoffrey has never fed from a human, let alone a beloved being such as Madeline. There are some, he knows, that make themselves willing victims of a vampire’s bite, whether for their own pleasure or assumption of profit, or out of some twisted sense of obligation to a monster they care for. But Geoffrey can’t say that he understands it. Though he’s come to accept a majority of his condition, there’s nothing inherently desirable about it or the diet it requires. Feeding is a private thing best kept away from anyone whose high regard he wants to be held in.

He won’t subject her to that. He can’t.

It isn’t a lack of trust that causes him to shy away from her hand. It’s shame, directed entirely inward. “Is this what I’ve done? Caused you to think yourself insufficient? You do take care of me, love.” Perhaps more than she knows. “But I cannot expect you to provide for me like this. I’d sooner drive a stake through my own heart than allow it.”

And he means that sincerely.

#celestieu #𝕬𝖘𝖐𝖘 #long post #oop #𝖁; 𝕲𝖔 𝕸𝖞 𝕺𝖜𝖓 𝖂𝖆𝖞

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interestarticles · 3 years

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Best Movies Of The Year 1980 - Top 20 Films Of 1980

What Are The Best Movies Of The Year 1980?

From New York to Los Angeles this is a question that will get a different answer from every person you ask. There were some great films in the 1980s, and 1980 started the decade off with a bang as a year full of innovation in every way throughout all of society, and it was the start of some exciting new techniques, technologies, and ideas in the film industry in particular with many movies from the year 1980 introducing revolutionary and pioneering cinematic visions. Many people think that some of the best 80s movies of the decade came out in 1980. In this article post, we will go through our top picks for the 20 best movies of 1980, you might be surprised to find out which movies made it on the list! 1) Kramer vs. Kramer In 1980, "Kramer vs. Kramer" was released and became a huge success at the box office. The movie starred Meryl Streep as Joanna Kramer, Dustin Hoffman as Ted Kramer, Jane Alexander as Marylin Jaffe-Jenson, and Justin Henry as Billy Kramer. This film won five Academy Awards in 1981 including Best Picture of 1979 or 1980. It also received nominations for best director (Robert Benton), best actor (Dustin Hoffman), and best-adapted screenplay based on another work (Erica Mann). It is now considered one of the most significant Hollywood films ever made about divorce because it provides nuance to both sides of an argument. 2) The Shining This iconic horror classic film directed by Stanley Kubrick and starring Jack Nicholson and Shelley Duvall was released in 1980. It is based on Stephen King's 1977 novel of the same name. The film has been ranked a number of times as one of the best horror movies ever made and is now considered to be one of Kubrick's best films. It was nominated for two Academy Awards (Best Actor in Leading Role--Jack Nicholson) and won none at the time. The Shining also received nominations for Best Director - Stanley Kubrick), Best Adapted Screenplay--Steven Spielberg/Stanley Kubrick). Its reputation grew over time, eventually earning an Oscar nomination for Best Picture. 3) Being There Hal Ashby himself had been nominated for an Academy Award in 1971 with directing The Last Detail. It is a film that could be classified as both comedy and drama, but the emphasis on this 1980 release lies more on its comedic aspects. While it was not one of the most acclaimed films when it came out, many now consider Being There to be a classic film about society's relationship with television at the time. It offers commentary on economic inequality and how people are often reduced to simple archetypes who can easily fit into neat narratives for consumption purposes. 4) Time Bandits Time Bandits, a 1980 British fantasy film about adventure, was co-written by Terry Gilliam. It stars Sean Connery and John Cleese as well as Shelley Duvall and Ralph Richardson. Katherine Helmond, Ian Holm. Peter Vaughan and David Warner are also featured. It is a whimsical kids' movie with the fantasy adventure of time travel that has been ranked as one of the best movies ever made by many critics. Gilliam has referred to time bandits as first in his "Trilogy of Imagination", which includes Brazil (1985), and then The Adventures of Baron Munchausen (88). They all revolve around the "craziness and incoherence of our society, and the desire for escape through every means. These films all focus on the struggles and attempts to escape through imagination. Brazil is seen through the eyes of a young man, Time Bandits through a child's eyes, and Munchausen through an old man's eyes. Time Bandits, in particular, was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Visual Effects. 5) Pennies from Heaven Quite a departure from his previous work, this film is much more lighthearted and comedic than the serious dramas of The Miracle Worker or Bonnie and Clyde. The plot revolves around Arthur Parker (Steve Martin), whose life becomes increasingly chaotic as he tries to juggle two jobs, an impending child custody battle for his daughter, and a demanding girlfriend who wants him to give up one job so that they can have some time together. 6) Airplane! This Leslie Nielsen instant comedy classic was one of the highest-grossing movies of 1980. The movie is about an airplane crew that must find a way to land their plane after food poisoning breaks out on board and the pilots become incapacitated, with only two inexperienced passengers who happen to be a doctor (Robert Hays) and a flight attendant (Julie Hagerty) qualified to land the plane. Airplane! was one of the most successful films at theaters in 1980 It had more than $83 million worth of ticket sales by year's end - it became one of Leslie Nielsen's most popular roles ever The film also helped launch Robert Hays' career as a leading man, though he later found greater success playing comedic supporting characters before retiring from acting. 7) The Empire Strikes Back One of the most famous of the 1980s movies, The Empire Strikes Back is remembered for its numerous plot twists and turns as well as introducing fan-favorite Yoda The film features Mark Hamill reprising his role as Luke Skywalker in this second installment of George Lucas' Star Wars series and it was the first star wars to be released on VHS. Featuring a mixture of live-action footage with high-quality animation from Japanese company Toho, it became one of the best critically acclaimed movies ever. In 1997, it won an American Film Institute award for being among the top 100 films since 1941. 8) Raging Bull 1980 was a strong year for movies, and Martin Scorsese's Raging Bull is one of the most acclaimed action films to be released that year. It stars Robert De Niro in an Academy Award-winning performance as new york boxer Jake La Motta, who has a turbulent affair with Kim Basinger's Vickie. The film depicts how new york boxing served as both his escape from domestic abuse but also led him on a self-destruction path. In addition to being nominated for ten Oscars (including best picture), it won two including best actor for Robert de Niro and best director awards respectively. Released by United Artists, the movie has ranked among the top 100 American Films ever made according to AFI rankings. This release is considered one of the best films of the 80s by many critics. 9) Kagemusha One of the most interesting and well-made movies that 1980 has to offer, Kagemusha tells the story of a warlord who is critically injured and after being buried alive. The movie was directed by Akira Kurosawa and stars Tatsuya Nakadai in one of his best performances ever as both warrior leader Katsuyori Shibata and an imposter named Shingen Yashida. Released in Japan on April 20th, 1980, it became the second-highest-grossing film at the Japanese box office just behind The Return of Godzilla (1984). Kagemusha made its international debut at Cannes Film Festival's Directors Fortnight where it won two major awards: Special Jury Prize for Best Direction and Grand Prix du Festival International du Film - Art. 10) The Gods Must Be Crazy Part comedy, part drama, The Gods Must Be Crazy is a timeless classic. Released in 1980, the film follows Xi (N!xau), an out-of-touch bushman who lives happily with his family until he encounters Coca Cola for the first time and it changes their world forever. The premise of this movie makes us laugh because we can relate to how much more comfortable life was before modern society became so intricate that things like Coke began infiltrating every aspect of our lives. We're drawn into Xi's story as he goes from living peacefully with his tribe to being thrust into a completely different reality when they start hunting down any remaining cases of coca-cola at stores all over town! It also touches on some deeper themes such as the cultural modern world where his customs and rituals mean nothing. Xi's journey is our own as we watch the culture clash of modern society, with all its good intentions and never-ending thirst for new things to consume, come into contact with a simpler time that has long since passed by. The humorous film release was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film but lost out to Italy’s Cinema Paradiso (1988). 11) Caddyshack Released in 1980 this classic comedy film by Harold Ramis is widely considered one of the funniest movies ever made by fans and critics alike. It features an amazing comedic all-star ensemble cast, including Chevy Chase as a rich playboy who turns caddie in order to get girls; Ted Knight as Judge Smails, who wants to keep his country club memberships exclusive and prestigious; Rodney Dangerfield as Ty Webb, a millionaire golfer-cum-caddy who has been banned from all other golf courses for being too good. Also featuring Bill Murray as Carl Spackler, the groundskeeper at Bushwood Country Club whose only goal seems to be killing off gophers with any weapon he can devise (including explosives); Michael O'Keefe as Danny Noonan, a young man hired by Judge Smails's daughter (Castle) to caddy for him; and Brian Doyle-Murray as Lou Loomis, the club's ultra-snobby head professional. 12) The Blues Brothers Another instant classic 1980 movie, The Blues Brothers are best known for its 1980 car chases. Starring John Belushi and Dan Aykroyd as Joliet Jake & Elwood Blues respectively, the two brothers who perform a blues show before being arrested by police. They break out of jail with their friends to save an orphanage from foreclosure through satanic cult leader sheik Abdul Khadaffi's "Elvis-Is-King" rally in Chicago Illinois on Mothers Day 1980 at noon. The film has been praised by audiences and critics alike for its music, screenplay, and performances but criticized for its lack of character development (most likely due to budget constraints). This was even acknowledged during production when director John Landis told cast members not to act too much because "no one is going to see this movie." The 1980 car chases are iconic and highly regarded by film critics. One of the most memorable moments in 1980 was when Elwood Blues while driving his 1980 Chevy Malibu, spots a cat on the front fender as he's being chased by police officers from Illinois State Troopers who try to arrest him for not wearing seat belts (the law at that time). The chase ends with Jake & Elwood crashing into an old man sitting atop a 1980 Chevy Monte Carlo. After striking them, the cops then swerve quickly around their fallen comrade before continuing after our heroes. 13) 9 To 5 9 to 5 (listed in the opening credits as Nine to Five) is a 1980 American comedy film directed by Colin Higgins, who wrote the screenplay with Patricia Resnick. It stars Jane Fonda, Lily Tomlin, and Dolly Parton as three working women who live out their fantasies of getting even with and overthrowing the company's autocratic, "sexist, egotistical, lying, hypocritical bigot" boss, played by Dabney Coleman. The film grossed over $103.9 million and is the 20th-highest-grossing comedy film. As a star vehicle for Parton—already established as a successful singer, musician, and songwriter—it launched her permanently into mainstream popular culture. A television series of the same name based on the film ran for five seasons, and a musical version of the film (also titled 9 to 5), with new songs written by Parton, opened on Broadway on April 30, 2009. 9 to 5 is number 74 on the American Film Institute's "100 Funniest Movies" and has an 83% approval rating on the review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes. 14) Smokey And The Bandit 2 Smokey and the Bandit 2 Is a 1980 American action comedy film directed by Hal Needham, starring Burt Reynolds, Sally Field, Jerry Reed, Jackie Gleason, And Dom DeLuise. This film is a sequel to 1977's film Smokey and the Bandit. The original release of the film was in the United Kingdom, New Zealand, and Australia. Bo "Bandit", Darville (Burt Reynolds), and Cledus "Snowman," Snow (Jerry Reed) transport an elephant to the GOP National Convention. Sheriff Buford T. Justice, Jackie Gleason (Jackie Gleason), is once more in hot pursuit. 15) Superman 2 Superman II, a 1980 superhero movie directed by Richard Lester, is written by Mario Puzo, David, and Leslie Newman and is based on a story by Puzo about the DC Comics character Superman. It features Gene Hackman and Terence Stamp, Terence Stamp, Ned Beatty, and Sarah Douglas. The film was first released in Australia and Europe on December 4, 1980. It was also released in other countries during 1981. Megasound is a high-impact surround sound system that's similar to Sensurround and was used for select premiere Superman II engagements. The Salkinds decided in 1977 that they would simultaneously film Superman and its sequel. Principal photography began in March 1977 and ended in October 1978. There were tensions between Richard Donner, the original director, and the producers. It was decided to stop filming the sequel (of which 75 percent was already completed) and instead finish the first film. After the December 1978 release of Superman, Donner was fired from his post as director and was replaced by Lester. Many cast members and crew members declined to return following Donner's firing. Lester was officially acknowledged as the director. Principal photography resumed in September 1979 and ended in March 1980. Film critics gave the film positive reviews, praising the performances of Reeve, Stamp, and Hackman as well as the visual effects and humor. The film grossed $190million against a $54 million production budget. 16) Friday The 13th Friday the 13th, 1980 American slasher movie, is directed and produced by Sean S. Cunningham. Written by Victor Miller, it stars Betsy Palmer and Adrienne King. The plot centers on a group of teenager camp counselors, who are each murdered by an unknown killer as they attempt to reopen an abandoned summer camp. Cunningham, inspired by John Carpenter's Halloween (1978) success, put out an advertisement in Variety to sell the film. Miller was still writing the screenplay. Filming began in New York City after casting the film. It was shot in New Jersey during summer 1979 on an estimated budget of $550,000. The finished film was the subject of a bidding war. Paramount Pictures won domestic distribution rights while Warner Bros. Pictures took European rights. Friday the 13th, which was released on May 9, 1980, was a huge box office hit, earning $59.8 million globally. The film received mixed reviews, some praised its cinematography, score, and performances while others criticized it for depicting graphic violence. It was the first independent film of its type to be distributed in the U.S. by major studios. The film's box office success led it to many sequels, a crossover film with A Nightmare on Elm Street, and a reboot of the series in 2009. 17) Flash Gordon Flash Gordon is a 1980 space opera film directed and produced by Mike Hodges. It was based on Alex Raymond's King Features comic strip. The film stars Sam J. Jones and Melody Anderson as well as Max von Sydow, Max von Sydow, Max von Sydow, and Topol. Topol is supported by Timothy Dalton and Mariangela Melato. Peter Wyngarde plays the role of Peter Wyngarde. The film features Flash Gordon (Jones), a star quarterback, and his friends Dale Arden and Hans Zarkov (Topol), as they unify the warring factions on the planet Mongo to resist the oppression by Ming the Merciless (von Sydow), a man who wants to destroy Earth. Producer Dino De Laurentiis had been involved in two comic book adaptations: Danger: Diabolik and Barbarella (both 1968). He had also previously worked on Danger. De Laurentiis declined a George Lucas directorial offer, a Star Wars version directed by Federico Fellini was also rejected. De Laurentiis hired Nicolas Roeg as director and Enter the Dragon writer Michael Allin as the lead developer on the film. They were replaced in 1977 by Lorenzo Semple Jr. and Hodges, who had written De Laurentiis’ remake of King Kong, this was due to Roeg's dissatisfaction. Flash Gordon was mostly shot in England, with several soundstages at Elstree Studios and Shepperton Studios. It uses a camp style that is similar to the 1960s TV series Batman, which Semple created. Jones quit the film before principal photography was overdue to a dispute between De Laurentiis and Jones. Much of Jones's dialogue was dubbed by Peter Marinker. The documentary Life After Flash examines the main subjects of Jones' departure and his career after it was released. It is known for its Queen-inspired musical score, which features orchestral sections by Howard Blake. Flash Gordon was a box-office success in Italy and the United Kingdom, but it did poorly in other markets. The film received generally positive reviews upon its initial release and has since developed a large cult following. There have been many attempts at sequels or reboots, but none of them have ever made it to production. 18) Cheech & Chong's Next Movie Cheech and Chong's Next Movie, a 1980 comedy film by Tommy Chong, is the second feature-length Cheech & Chong project, after Up in Smoke. It was released by Universal Pictures. Cheech and Chong go on a mission: siphon gasoline to their neighbor's car. They then continue their day. Cheech works at a movie theater, while Chong looks for something to smoke (a roach). Then Chong revs up his indoor motorcycle and plays loud rock music that disrupts the neighborhood. Cheech is fired and the couple goes to Donna, Cheech's girlfriend, and welfare officer. Cheech seduces Donna over her objections and gets her in trouble with her boss. 19) Coal Miner's Daughter Coal Miner's Daughter, a 1980 American musical biographical film, was directed by Michael Apted and based on a screenplay by Tom Rickman. The film follows Loretta Lynn's rise to stardom as a country singer, starting in her teen years with a poor family. The film is based on Lynn's 1976 biography by George Vecsey. Read the full article

#BestFilmsOf1980 #BestMoviesOfTheYear1980 #BestMoviesOfTheYear1980-Top20FilmsOf1980 #movies1980 #Top20FilmsOf1980

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auradonians · 4 years

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𝐅𝐄𝐋𝐈𝐂𝐈𝐓𝐘

Quick Facts: Location - Olympus Royal Family - King Ramsey Valois, Prince Alexander Valois Population - aprox. 300,000 people

A town that is often overlooked on the grand map of Auradon, Felicity is a quiet city that has, for the most part, kept to itself throughout the decades of its existence. Its people close and its traditions strictly followed, it’s a town that has a cozy and homey feel despite its rapidly growing population. It’s long been hailed as a spot to settle down at and a perfect town to raise a family in due to the relaxed and easygoing nature of its citizens

Overview: Founded by King Gabriel Valois, the city of Felicity has been a source of agricultural prosperity since long before the formation of Auradon and today remains one of the largest suppliers of crops to the rest of the world. What began as a rural farming town has since grown into something much larger, its once small yet stable population transforming into something bigger than most could have ever imagined. With rich soil and successful harvest, much of the prosperity was attributed to the goddess Fortuna, who was worshipped by a pair of farmers within the outskirts of what was then just a village. Gabriel was quick to notice this and declared Fortuna as the patron goddess of Felicity, erecting a statue in her honor in the center of the village. It’s a statue that remains there to this day.

At its formation, there was little more than a cluster of homes and bountiful fields but everything changed with the discovery of the network of crystal caves underneath the town, a discovery that would change Felicity for good. A man by the name of Theodore Butler Carr came to King Gabriel with the request of attempting to mine in the dangerous caves on the edge of town, and with the understanding that all materials discovered would belong to Gabriel, the request was granted. It was a long and arduous process but eventually, he broke through to an entire underground network of caves, the walls lined in crystals that seemed to be almost alive. Theodore brought news back to the King and upon further inspection, it was determined that the crystals were a versatile source of magic that could be harnessed and used. The crystal was dubbed Vanarite and while nearly nonexistent throughout the rest of the world, there was an abundance of it to be found beneath Felicity. Thus, the crystal boom began.

The Crystal Boom: When the discovery of a rare yet adaptable resource hit the world, spreading largely by word of mouth, Felicity went from a small town to a bustling area. People in search of prosperity and opportunity flooded the town in the hopes of starting anew and beginning their lives in a town filled with magic. With Carr at the forefront, he led expedition after expedition into the caves, retrieving the resource and bringing it back to the king, who offered Carr a slice of wealth in return for all he had done. Quickly growing to become one of the richest and most prominent figures in the city, the Carr name holds weight even today and is still closely associated with House Valois. However, it quickly became clear that the caves were seemingly endless and nearly impossible to accurately map, but the deeper one went, the more crystals they would discover. For generations the caves, along with the ample crop production, boosted Felicity into being a prosperous area where all people had food on the table and a bed to sleep in at night.

This only grew as the magic that had been harvested was eventually applied to furthering technology in ways it never had before. Over time, it reached a point where everything in Felicity ran on magic in some form. The lights in all the homes, the machines used for harvesting, the power source behind every little thing could be traced back to Vanarite. Magic was accepted and even encouraged within the walls of Felicity and when King Ramsey married Magdalene, a well-known and powerful sorceress, it was only encouraged further.

A New Age: By the time of King Ramsey’s reign, the caves had still not been fully explored. There had been a few setbacks over the course of centuries and some monarchs had pulled people out of the caves entirely, stopping expeditions due to fears of stripping the caves completely and putting the focus on further agriculture production instead. Ramsey believed in both, putting resources and time into all fields with the belief that for true prosperity, a city must pride itself on a multitude of aspects, not just one. Under his instruction, the crystal caves were mapped with further detail and it was discovered that they led directly into the Forbidden Mountain and to Maleficent’s castle. Due to fears of Maleficent discovering them, Ramsey put a halt to the search, forbidding anyone from stepping foot onto or beneath the mountain range that was occupied by the villain. Shortly after, the United Kingdoms of Auradon was formed.

The way of life in Felicity had to change completely. With the new laws surrounding magic and its use, the focus was pulled away from the caves and instead put towards entering a new age, that relied less on magic and more on science. Many of the inventions and technology that relied on Vanarite has since been retired and it exists as nothing more than relics of a different yet recent time. While it was not always easy to make the change, Ramsey thought the city better because of it. Being part of Auradon meant growing in ways that would have been impossible before and with the Isle of the Lost, they were now safe from any harm that could have come to them as a result of the villain that resided so close by. If agriculture was large before, it was massive now, exporting crops of all kinds to all corners of Auradon.

The Fall of Queen Magdalene: Vanarite was still harvested, but slowly and with less focus on it than there had previously been. Efforts were made to make an appeal and prove that the material could be immensely useful throughout all of Auradon, but with a country that was still in its early years, it was an issue that didn’t take precedence. It was something that didn’t sit well with Queen Magdalene, who had grown up seeing the beauty in magic and all of the wonderful things that could be accomplished with Vanarite. She had seen how people would light up at the amazing things one could do with magic and all of the good that could be achieved with it. She didn’t think it fair to strip it away from everyone, but she and Ramsey failed to see eye to eye. She thought that they should continue to do as they wished, that no one would notice or care enough if there was still a bit of magic everywhere, but Ramsey feared what would happen if they did. He saw opportunity with Auradon and he didn’t wish to destroy that chance.

Magdalene believed that she just had to show her husband what she meant. They had recently had a child, and she didn’t want to raise their son without magic. They had always intended to train him just like she had been and it felt like a betrayal to lose that opportunity. Knowing that there was an abundance of magical artifacts just through the caves, she traversed to the Forbidden Mountain, finding her way to the castle that now sat empty. But she was unprepared for what might be inside and she didn’t take as much care as she should. She found herself pulled in by a dark magic and the power it granted her was overwhelming. When she returned to Ramsey and told him what she had found, he was horrified and believed that any pathway to the mountains should be destroyed so no one from Felicity could access the evil with ease.

Filled with anger at the idea of destroying such knowledge, she retaliated, swearing that she would do anything to make sure that never happened, that she would steal their son away and raise him in an environment where he wouldn’t be stifled or shut down. Fearful of the safety of himself and his child, Ramsey had Magdalene sent to the Isle of the Lost and shut down all operations in the caves, ceasing any efforts to dig into the Forbidden Mountains to retrieve more Vanarite. Mining of crystals was halted and the projects completely abandoned before any entry to both the mountains and the caves became strictly forbidden. Due to the sudden shutdown, most supplies and equipment were just left behind and forgotten about, leaving pieces of history forever buried in the caves to be discovered by any souls brave enough to disregard the law and enter into the caves.

Today: Now Felicity remains mostly adjusted and things have settled down. It’s been around sixteen years since Magdalene was banished to the Isle and both access to the mountains and the caves are still prohibited. The city has grown to have a bustling downtown center and is surrounded by massive fields for farming. Scientists that previously focused on pushing the limits of Vanarite have shifted their focus, and there’s a budding industry in taking the current technology of Auradon and improving it in any and all ways they can. While still having a moderate population, residents of Felicity tend to be quiet folk, remaining extremely close with their neighbors but often finding little reason to interact with those from outside the city.

#descendants #auradon #disney descendants #— ✧ ˚ worldbuilding .#— ✧ ˚ study .#— ✧ ˚ olympus .

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stumpyjoepete · 4 years

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I. Inspiration

It’s difficult to identify a great economic reason to explore space. There are easier ways to extract minerals, doing anything at all is terribly expensive, and Mars is a hard place to make a living. The benefits of space exploration are instead mostly inspirational. Few other human activities are so grand to captivate the imagination, and doing these uneconomic projects have pulled forward technological capabilities that may otherwise have languished.

It’s difficult to identify a great economic reason to practice socialism. Its historical results have ranged from catastrophic misallocation of talent at best to mass deaths at worst. But socialism still retains appeal to broad segments of many populations, which shows that it has considerable inspirational value. For better or for worse, there are still many advocates for the creation of some form of a more equal society.

This year, I read every issue of Qiushi (translation: Seeking Truth), the party’s flagship theory journal, whose core task is to spell out the evolving idea of socialism with Chinese characteristics. For those not familiar, Qiushi reads like a cross between the New Yorker and the Federal Register. Published twice a month, the magazine features lengthy essays, thick pages, and some of the finest writers in the party. Each issue starts in the same way: a reprint of a speech or essay by Xi Jinping—in a font distinct from the rest of the magazine’s—and then commentary and reports from the rest of the party state. Accompanying pictures feature either the country’s leaders making inspections, scenes of the people, or major pieces of infrastructure and heavy industry.

Its audience? People with nothing better to do than read the party center’s commentary (like retired cadres), or those who are keenly interested in Beijing’s priorities, like local officials. Reading party speeches with its various annexes and cross references echoes my main professional activity these days. That is the study of the US sanctions regime—namely Commerce’s Export Administration Regulations and Treasury’s IEEPA-based authorities. Party speeches and US regulations are both made up of arcane, formal language that make references to more obscure texts, which themselves hint at still more distant and terrible truths. US sanctions lawyers, I suspect, can have a splendid time with Qiushi.

Steady engagement with the journal throughout the year has forced me to think more deeply about the Chinese Communist Party. There are many things that Xi wants to do, I believe that his most fundamental goal is to make this Marxist-Leninist party an effective governing force for the present century. His patient work to reshape the bureaucracy are aided by a distinctive feature of the Chinese system: the use of propaganda to create centralized campaigns of inspiration. Some of Xi’s efforts have borne fruit: the country’s governance capabilities have markedly improved, a trend that is observable in daily life. At the same time, the state has grown much more repressive. A focus on repression shouldn’t neglect the improvement in the country’s institutional and commercial strengths; and appreciation of this improvement ought to be tempered by the party center’s growing mania for control.

When foreign commentators discuss the experience of reading state media, they rarely fail to attach a reference to its “turgid prose.” While some partyspeak is indeed unreadable, I’ve always seen that dismissal as a signal of contempt for the party’s pronouncements, thus deterring people from taking it seriously. But there is reason to treat its content with care. Propaganda might not matter to you, but it matters to the party. Anne-Marie Brady has pointed out that the leadership considers propaganda to be the “lifeblood” of the party state. Propaganda work is considered so powerful that the person in charge must be only a functionary. Brady shows that the head of propaganda always has a seat on the Politburo, but shouldn’t usually be allowed to reach the standing committee. He is not to be too imaginative, or he might dominate the entire political system. Propaganda is key to understanding the party, since it governs not in itself, but in symbiosis with state institutions. For the most part, the party’s role can be boiled down to two items: inspiration, by setting the ideological direction, and control, through its power to select personnel.

Qiushi offers an authoritative articulation of the central government’s priorities at any moment. Its job, like the rest of the state media, consists of repetition and explication of a few phrases. It’s easy to roll one’s eyes at crude sloganeering, like the two centenary goals of achieving a “moderately prosperous society in all respects” by 2021 and “a modern socialist country and the great rejuvenation of the Chinese people” by 2049. But the need to fix slogans makes good sense in Chinese governance: the party center has to speak to all local officials as well as the entire population. As Richard Epstein has argued, the greater the complexity in a system, the simpler the rules that govern it must be. One should allow, for example, extensive and nuanced bargaining between buyer and seller at the vegetable stall, but for an online marketplace to manage millions of transactions a day, then its rules must be very simple indeed.

[...]

Centralized campaigns of inspiration, which usually manifests through fixing slogans, is a distinctive feature of the Chinese political system. In the US, political candidates trot out slogans when they run for election; in China, one is never far from the next big named initiative. At its best, defining major goals is the essence of political leadership, and nowhere is this principle better illustrated than Apollo. John F. Kennedy announced the target in 1961: land a man on the moon and return him safely to earth before the decade was out. By fixing this clear goal, as well as committing the necessary spending, he accelerated the creation, development, and deployment of technologies that made the lunar landings possible.

Xi grasps this idea of leadership. In his tenure, he has unleashed a torrent of new initiatives. In my view, he feels that the practice of governing China under socialism cannot be an exercise in sustained mendacity. The political system can no longer continue to be an unstable structure based on ad hoc compromises; instead it must have a clear organizational structure, with the party at the top. And the ruling party needs to have the political consciousness of an effective governing force.

[...]

It’s easy to enumerate the grave problems facing the country, but critics tend to under-appreciate its strengths. Chief among them, in my view, has been the party’s surprising adaptability. At any given point, commentators have said that the problems have become too big for the government to handle. Meanwhile, the country has achieved a good record of pulling itself out of sticky situations: in 1992 when it restarted reform, after the financial crisis of 1997, and again in 2008. That record was validated most spectacularly again this year in the aftermath of the Covid-19 outbreak.

This year made me believe that China is the country with the most can-do spirit in the world. Every segment of society mobilized to contain the pandemic. One manufacturer expressed astonishment to me at how slowly western counterparts moved. US companies had to ask whether making masks aligned with the company’s core competence. Chinese companies simply decided that making money is their core competence, and therefore they should be making masks. The State Council reported that between March and May, China exported 70 billion masks and nearly 100,000 ventilators.

I’d highly recommend reading the rest (at least up until he switches to book reviews and personal reflections).

#chinese #politics

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newstfionline · 3 years

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Saturday, April 10, 2021

Grim view of global future offered in intelligence report (AP) U.S. intelligence officials are painting a dark picture of the world’s future, writing in a report released Thursday that the coronavirus pandemic has deepened economic inequality, strained government resources and fanned nationalist sentiments. Those assessments are included in a Global Trends report by the government’s National Intelligence Council, a document produced every four years. This year’s report is designed to help policymakers and citizens anticipate the economic, environmental, technological and demographic forces likely to shape the world through the next 20 years. The document focuses heavily on the impact of the pandemic, calling it the “most significant, singular global disruption since World War II, with health, economic, political, and security implications that will ripple for years to come.” “COVID-19 has shaken long-held assumptions about resilience and adaptation and created new uncertainties about the economy, governance, geopolitics, and technology,” the report says. The report also warns of eroding trust in government and institutions and of a “trust gap” between the general public and the better informed and educated parts of the population.

Volcano on St. Vincent erupts, spewing column of ash amid evacuations (Washington Post) The 4,049-foot La Soufrière volcano erupted on St. Vincent early Friday, sending a more than two-mile high cloud of ash bellowing above the tropical Caribbean island just hours after surrounding communities were ordered to evacuate. Low visibility caused by volcanic debris was hampering the effort to transport residents to safety, officials said. Satellite images and photos shared on social media images captured a thick column rising from the active volcano that began erupting at 8:41 a.m. Plumes of brown ash and smoke drifted higher as they moved northeast, reaching at least 38,500 feet into the atmosphere, nearing the altitude at which many commercial aircraft fly. No deaths or injuries have yet been reported. On Thursday, authorities announced that La Soufrière was an “imminent” threat to erupt. Residents near La Soufrière began evacuating the island’s “red zone” on Thursday by traveling to nearby islands, boarding cruise ships or moving into emergency shelters on other parts of St. Vincent. About 5,000 to 6,000 people live in the affected areas.

Rioters ignore pleas for calm as violence flares in Belfast (AP) Gangs of youths threw stones and fireworks at police in Belfast who hit back with water cannons as violence flared again on the streets of Northern Ireland. Unrest has erupted over the past week amid tensions over post-Brexit trade rules and worsening relations between the parties in the Protestant-Catholic power-sharing Belfast government. The latest violence Thursday night came despite appeals by U.K. Prime Minister Boris Johnson, Irish Premier Micheal Martin and U.S. President Joe Biden for a calming of tensions. Britain’s split from the EU has highlighted the contested status of Northern Ireland, where some people identify as British and want to stay part of the U.K. while others see themselves as Irish and seek unity with the neighboring Republic of Ireland, an EU member.

Britain’s Prince Philip dies, spent seven decades at Queen Elizabeth’s side (Reuters) Prince Philip, Queen Elizabeth’s husband and a pivotal figure in the British royal family for almost seven decades, has died aged 99, Buckingham Palace said on Friday. The Duke of Edinburgh, as he was officially known, had been by his wife’s side throughout her 69-year reign, the longest in British history. During that time he earned a reputation for a tough, no-nonsense attitude and a propensity for occasional gaffes. A Greek prince, Philip married Elizabeth in 1947. He went on to play a key role in modernising the monarchy in the post-World War Two period, and behind the walls of Buckingham Palace was the one key figure the queen could turn to and trust. Philip spent four weeks in hospital earlier this year for treatment for an infection and to have a heart procedure, but returned to Windsor in early March. He died just two months before he was to celebrate his 100th birthday.

EU-Turkey tensions (Foreign Policy) Italian Prime Minister Mario Draghi labeled Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan a dictator while discussing the Turkish government’s very public snub of EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen during a meeting in Istanbul earlier this week. In a meeting with European Council President Charles Michel and the Turkish President, von der Leyen was relegated to a sofa along with the Turkish foreign minister while Erdogan and Michel sat together in prepared chairs—a break from previous protocol. “With these, let’s call them what they are—dictators—with whom one nonetheless has to coordinate, one has to be frank when expressing different visions and opinions,” Draghi said. Turkey has pushed back against accusations of a sexist snub, saying that the seating was arranged according to the EU’s demands.

Myanmar junta limits internet, seizes satellite TV dishes (AP) An information blackout under Myanmar’s military junta worsened Thursday as fiber broadband service, the last legal way for ordinary people to access the internet, became intermittently inaccessible on several networks. Authorities in some areas have also started confiscating satellite dishes used to access international news broadcasts. Protests against the Feb. 1 coup that ousted the elected government of Aung San Suu Kyi continued Thursday despite the killing of 11 people by security forces a day earlier.

Kim Jong Un warns North Korea of hardship, referencing deadly 1990s famine (NK News) In a rare admission, Kim Jong-un has used a party speech to warn of upcoming hardships caused by the pandemic, U.S. sanctions and natural disasters. The North Korean leader ominously compared the situation to the historic famine that killed at least 225,000 people in the country in the 1990s.

Loud debates, fun banter: Mideast finds outlet in Clubhouse (AP) They are boisterous, argumentative and at times downright hilarious. Hundreds of thousands of people in the Arab world are turning to Clubhouse, the fast-growing audio chat app, to mock and vent against longtime rulers, debate sensitive issues from abortion to sexual harassment, or argue where to find the best and cheapest shawarma sandwich during an economic crisis. More than 970,000 people from the Middle East have downloaded the new platform since it launched outside the U.S. in January. It has offered space for in-person conversations in an age where direct contact is at the mercy of the pandemic and it’s brought together those at home and the many in exile or abroad. But mostly, it has offered a release for bottled-up frustration in a region where violent conflicts and autocrats have taken hold and where few, if any, avenues for change—or even for speaking out—seem tenable. “It is an open coffeehouse that pierces through what is forbidden by the political regimes in the region,” said Diana Moukalled, a Lebanese journalist who closely follows social platforms. “Clubhouse has made people go back to debating one another.”

Where Boars Hog the Streets (NYT) The wild pigs of Haifa might not fly, but they seem to do almost everything else. The boars snooze in people’s paddling pools. They snuffle across the lawns. They kick residents’ soccer balls and play with their dogs. They saunter down the sidewalks and sleep in the streets. Some eat from the hands of humans, and they all eat from the trash. The wild boars of Haifa, in short, are no longer particularly wild. Once largely confined to the many ravines that slice through this hilly port city on the Mediterranean, the boars have become increasingly carefree in recent years and now regularly venture into built-up areas, undeterred by their human neighbors. “It became like an everyday thing,” said Eugene Notkov, 35, a chef who lets his dog play with the boars that putter around the local parks. “They’re a part of our city,” he added. Bumping into one is “like seeing a squirrel.” For some, the boars are a menace, and the Council is to blame for their continued presence. For others, they are a charming addition to an already unusual place.

A 3,000-Year-Old ‘Lost City’ May Be New Boon for Egypt Tourism (Bloomberg) Archaeologists in Egypt have discovered a 3,000-year-old “lost city” buried under the sands in Luxor, home to the Nile Valley’s famed Valley of the Kings, the latest pharaonic-era wonder to be unearthed as the country seeks to revive its tourism industry. The city, known as the “The Rise of Aten,” dates to the reign of Amenhotep III which began around 1,390 BC, and was later used by successors including Tutankhamun, according to a statement on Thursday from the Egyptian mission that made the find. “The discovery of this lost city is the second most important archaeological discovery since the tomb of Tutankhamun,” Betsy Bryan, professor of Egyptian art and archeology at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, said in the statement. It offers “a rare glimpse into the life of the Ancient Egyptians at the time where the empire was at its wealthiest,” she said.

Seed monopolies (Deutsche Welle) For thousands of years of human agriculture, the intrinsic nature of a seed—the capacity to reproduce itself—prevented it from being easily commodified. Grown and resown by farmers, seeds were freely exchanged and shared. All that changed in the 1990s when laws were introduced to protect new bio-engineered crops. Today, four corporations—Bayer, Corteva, ChemChina and Limagrain—control more than 50% of the world’s seeds. These staggering monopolies dominate the global food supply. “Seeds are ultimately what feed us and the animals we eat,” Jack Kloppenburg, a rural sociologist and professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, said. “Control over seeds is, in many ways, control over the food supply. The question of who produces new plant varieties is absolutely critical for the future of all of us.”

The Healing Power of Music (NYT) “Focus on the sound of the instrument,” Andrew Rossetti, a licensed music therapist and researcher said as he strummed hypnotic chords on a Spanish-style classical guitar. “Close your eyes. Think of a place where you feel safe and comfortable.” Music therapy was the last thing that Julia Justo, a graphic artist who immigrated to New York from Argentina, expected when she went to Mount Sinai Beth Israel Union Square Clinic for treatment for cancer in 2016. But it quickly calmed her fears about the radiation therapy she needed to go through, which was causing her severe anxiety. “I felt the difference right away, I was much more relaxed,” she said. The healing power of music—lauded by philosophers from Aristotle and Pythagoras to Pete Seeger—is now being validated by medical research. It is used in targeted treatments for asthma, autism, depression and more, including brain disorders such as Parkinson’s disease, Alzheimer’s disease, epilepsy and stroke. Live music has made its way into some surprising venues, including oncology waiting rooms to calm patients as they wait for radiation and chemotherapy. It also greets newborns in some neonatal intensive care units and comforts the dying in hospice. While musical therapies are rarely stand-alone treatments, they are increasingly used as adjuncts to other forms of medical treatment. They help people cope with their stress and mobilize their body’s own capacity to heal.

Adventures in a crate (Foreign Policy) A British man is searching for two long lost friends who shipped him across the world in a wooden crate in 1965. Then-19-year-old Brian Robson came to Australia on a work program in 1964 before quickly becoming homesick. Unable to afford a flight home, he and the two friends came up with a scheme to ship Robson to London in a crate. He was packed in with nothing more than with a flashlight, a bottle of water, a small suitcase, a pillow, an empty bottle (“for obvious reasons”) and a hammer to break out. The operation quickly went awry (in more ways that can fit in this summary). Robson endured five days being shuttled from airport to airport, eventually ending up thousands of miles from his destination, in Los Angeles. After security personnel decided he was not a threat, he was then flown home first class, for free, by Pan American Airlines. Robson, who has written a book about his adventure, is now seeking to reconnect with the friends that sent him on his way. He can only recall their first names and their Irish nationality; the rest is lost to time. “I’d love to find them again,” he told CBC radio.

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