#like not only the scenes are amazingly well thought but the illustrations are so good

[arielgobuss]

Hello, we have aready translated and added 5 new chapters of our Snarry ff "Desiderium Intimum" in english. We've also added almost all of 75 illustrations that has been created to our story 🥰 We plan to post 3-4 chapters a week, so the translation should be finished soon.

We wanted to share with you one of over 5000 comments we received to our story over the years, which is one of our favourite comment and amazingly sum up the whole story and the most important characteristic of our fanfic 🥰 Maybe it can let you have a brief idea about what to expect.

Comment by Wilczyca:

"This story is... substantial. I have never read something so well written, with such a narrative that the readers feel like they are standing right next to the characters, and it's all really happening, right in front of our eyes. No, it's not addictive, it sucks you in and makes you feel a need to read, read, read, forget about God's world, about the fact that you had to study, eat something, go to the toilet, and sometimes you even forget about breathing!

All the other Snarry fics are so... girly. What I mean is that Severus and Harry may have a bit of a quarrel there, but it ends very quickly and, true to a girl's sense of romance, they very quickly come to an agreement and head towards eternal happiness. Because it's so... good. Because everyone likes good endings and stories about reciprocated love. Because we were brought up in such a culture that basically everyone dreams about it. However, this romance shouldn't be easy, because there are too many differences between the characters for them to just get together and be happy. The second problem I noticed in other texts is that Snape is completely flat and does not behave at all like a thirty-something man who has had a hard time serving a psychopathic murderer. And this does not surprise me, because it is difficult to realistically portray such a character, it is difficult to empathize with him. Your Snape... is Snape-like. There is no sense of absurdity in your text, it's not read with a pinch of salt, it's not bus-reading and I think it makes an impression on the reader regardless of age, as long as they like such atmosphere. The narrative is absolutely amazing, Harry's stream of thoughts and feelings are described so smoothly and naturally that you feel as if you are thinking all these thought yourself, feeling all these feelings yourself.

Snape is so… frightening! Haha, that's the first thing that comes to my mind! He is also incredibly intelligent, mysterious, and sexy. At the beginning he is so aloof and closed off, but later, thanks to Harry's efforts, he opens up more and more, allows him to do more and more, and I really like how it was presented. Nothing changes too suddenly, it's 'transformation' occurs subtly and logically, the reader does not feel like there is a sudden jump. Snape is a very complex character and it's not easy to portray him, and I think no one has ever managed to do it like you did (not even Rowling xD)

Harry is absolutely delightful and disarming. At first I thought to myself; why is he so blinded, so naive and devoted?! But then I remembered that damn, he's only 17! And Severus is his first love. And basically his behavior reflects the idea of first, crazy, uncompromising love. Every scene of his fighting for Severus and trying to get closer to him is read with such warmth in the heart 😊

I also really like how Ron and Hermione are portrayed, but I like Luna even more. She is an extremely colorful and interesting character whose strangeness adds to her charm. Despite the fact that she seems to be constantly in the clouds, in between these strange behaviors she sometimes makes extremely accurate, hardheaded comments, and that's great!

The story is phenomenal as a romance, comedy, erotic and psychological text. Erotic scenes, even though there are so many of them, are very varied and there is no feeling of monotony. They are described in an extremely graphic way, with an emotional background and interesting poetic metaphors, which makes them very hot. When it comes to comedy scenes - I love your slightly mischievous and playful sense of humor! I'm sitting in the office and reading this, smiling like an idiot at the monitor and I just have to hold back with all my strength from bursting out laughing so as not to attract curious glances from other employees!

Love… well, love is always beautiful. But in your fic it's described in a wonderful, realistic and such sensitive way and blooms slowly like the most beautiful flower. Ultimately it overcomes all obstacles and changes an extremely mocking, mean person into… a slightly less mocking, mean man! But that's good, because if Snape suddenly became a cuddly mascot, the charm of this text would disappear forever xD

You can simply feel this text, I think you have great empathy, sensitivity, sense of humor, emotional maturity, and the ability to express it all with words. Each scene evokes great emotions.

Now that I've gone through the whole thing so pompously, at the end I wish you a long, happy life, lots of inspiration to write a thousand more Snarry pics and I suggest you start writing a novel with a world presented by yourself, because it will definitely win the Nobel Prize! Whatever you write, it will be great and I will definitely read it, even if you decided to read a book about planting beans xD I live in hope that I will soon see some new Snarry on the website or a sequel to Desiderium or a small miniature of your own creation! Good luck, girls! You guys have talent, I'll be damned if you don't!"

We want to thank all readers that's been with us for those 4.5 years of writing and helped us to finish the story and we hope that those, who haven't read it yet will love it too 🥰

Ariel & Gobuss

[lilyginnyblackv2]

Just some more thoughts on Entrapdak, Asexuality, and Fandom Spaces

Entrapta is probably more grey-ace, imo, since she seems to show some sexual attraction to tech, but Hordak I can see as being straight up asexual. I’ve seen some people try to invalidate this interpretation by showing the images of Hordak and Entrapta kissing that was done by the crew of the show. But...I mean, asexual people can kiss every now and again. Some asexuals even engage or enjoy sex...they just don’t feel any sexual attraction. And Hordak and Entrapta never really seem to show sexual attraction to each other. I think a good way to illustrate this is to compare how Entrapta looked at the robot that scanned her in Season 5 vs how she usually looks at Hordak. She will look at him in awe or trust, but I don’t necessarily see sexual attraction there. So, I think it is very easy to see these two as being asexual in some way (grey-ace, demi, etc.).

I feel the same interpretation can be applied to viewing them as aromantic as well. Like with asexuality, I feel there is often a lack of understanding with aromanticism. I’m aroace. People who are aromantic can still love. They can love deeply. It’s just they don’t feel any romantic attraction. But aromantic people can love friends and family to such an amazing level, they can even love a partner to an amazingly deep level too. They just don’t feel any romantic attraction and likely express their love differently and not through some of the more usual romantic ways. Or, if they do express themselves in more commonly romantic ways, the romantic aspect just isn’t there. 

It, honestly, would be so neat if Hordak and Entrapta were aromantic, since they get some of the more iconic type of “romantic” moments - like when Entrapta tells Hordak that his imperfections are beautiful with the sparks flying behind her - literal sparks flying. Usually that gets taken romantically, but why can’t a moment like that also hit just as hard and just as deeply between two individuals who view themselves as partners and friends?

Afterall, the key focus of Entrapta and Hordak’s relationship is that they found a friend. In the Japanese version of She-ra they translate this to 仲間 (nakama), which indicates not only friendship, but individuals who have a relationship that is bound through supporting and working together towards a shared purpose or future. They are partners. It is very easy to interpret Entrapta and Hordak’s relationship as being a queerplatonic one. A quick and general definition of queerplatonic is:

an umbrella expression to indicate that a relationship defies the divide between romantic partnership and "just" friends. Queerplatonic has been used to describe feelings and relationships of either/both a nonromantic or ambiguously-romantic nature, in order to express that they break social norms for platonic relationships. It can be characterized by a strong bond, affect, and emotional commitment not regarded by those involved as something beyond a friendship.

This definition came from the aromantic wikia. To give some more context:

Relationships can be considered queerplatonic when they break norms similar to those. As an example of what those norms forbid, in some situations the people involved in queerplatonic relationships can show physical affection such as cheek kisses, pecks on the lips, holding hands, sitting on each other's lap, seeing each other naked, cuddling and sleeping together (not euphemistically). To QPPs, these activities are not necessarily romantic nor sexual/erotic.

Now, some fans (such as myself) interpret Hordak and Entrapta’s relationship in this way. Some don’t, and that’s fine too. But I’ve seen other Entrapdak shippers try to invalidate this interpretation by showing things like Hordak and Entrapta kissing, but that can be an aspect of a queerplatonic relationship as well. Others more unintentionally, through this like redraws of Hordak’s scene when he proclaims Entrapta as his friend and changing that to proclaiming her as his girlfriend or wife. Images like that once again place romantic love above platonic love. They perpetuate the idea that a deep, platonic love isn’t enough or is lesser someone. And that can be hurtful to individuals like myself who found so much validation through Hordak’s powerful proclamation that Entrapta was his friend.

I do get why there is need to try and show Entrapdak’s relationship as being romantic. Because within fandom, even extremely queer positive fandoms, a ship isn’t seen as canon and official by many unless it is inherently romantic. There isn’t space or room or validity to or for queerplatonic relationships.

True, without a shadow of a doubt, asexual representation in media is still virtually non-existent, with aromantic representation and the depiction of queerplatonic relationships being even worse. Even within LGBTQIA+ or queer friendly shows and series. Are Hordak and Entrapta confirmed to be asexual or aromantic or having a queerplatonic relationship? No. And if others want to view their relationship as being sexual and/romantic in nature, there certainly isn’t anything wrong with that, but please be open and accepting of asexual, aromantic, aroace, queerplatonic and other such interpretations of their relationship as well. Please give these readings and interpretations a place within fandom spaces. 

[traincat]

im pretty new to spider-man comics so i was wondering if their are any comics focused/centered on harry osborn or gwen stacy? or both of them? and if there is what are some of your favorites?

Hi anon! Welcome to Spider-Man comics. I have a Gwen Stacy reading list here. It’s relatively straightforward reading Spider-Man comics for Gwen -- unfortunately she’s alive for such a brief period of the canon that you can cover it fairly easily. I thought I had a reading list for Harry, but I can’t find it, and the one I’ve used before that was made by someone else appears to be gone now. So a quick Harry Osborn reading list! 

Harry, like Gwen, first appears in Amazing Spider-Man #31 -- they knew each other before the start of the series and were friends in high school. While there’s a pretty immediate push and pull between Peter and Gwen, Peter and Harry’s relationship isn’t immediately magnetic. He and Peter first begin to become friends in Amazing Spider-Man #39. In Amazing Spider-Man #40, Norman rants about his relationship with Harry to a captured Peter, with Norman’s words clearly contrasted against flashbacks: Norman claims he was a great father to Harry where the flashbacks show he was, at best, emotionally neglectful. In ASM #46, Harry asks Peter to move in with him while they attend college and Peter accepts. In ASM #74, Harry debuts a horrible mustache. I wouldn’t necessarily count this as important-important, but it’s just something everyone needs to see.

The mustache is very short lived. In ASM #96-98, cracks in Harry and Mary Jane’s relationship begin to show and Harry’s drug use increases, leading Peter to beat up his dealers, while Norman Osborn’s buried memories of the Green Goblin begin to reassert themselves. In ASM #119-122, Harry relapses, unwittingly setting in motion the events that would lead to Gwen’s death at the hands of Norman Osborn. Harry is in the throws of an overdose when Peter confronts him while searching for Norman immediately after Gwen’s death. The stress caused by Norman and Gwen’s deaths is evident in Harry in ASM #125. In ASM #135-137, Harry discovers Peter’s Spider-Man costume and plots his revenge, believing that Spider-Man killed his father. This is the first appearance of Harry’s own Green Goblin persona, and he’s institutionalized following a confrontation with Spider-Man.

Harry next appears in ASM #151, appearing to have lost or repressed all his memories related to Peter being Spider-Man. He first meets Liz Allan, his future wife and Peter’s former classmate, in ASM #156, at Betty Brant and Ned Leeds’ wedding. He and Liz start seeing each other in ASM #157 and announce their engagement in ASM #166. In ASM #172-180, Liz is arrested following the reappearance of her stepbrother, Mark “the Molten Man” Raxton. She subsequently breaks up with Harry and Harry goes a little off the rails before he and Liz reunite. Not too long after this point, Harry and Liz get married off page and move to New Jersey. In Spectacular Spider-Man #63, Mark Raxton returns and threatens the Allan-Osborn home. In Spectacular Spider-Man #85, Harry and Liz announce they’re expecting a child.

In ASM #249-251, while Peter is attending a party at Liz and Harry’s place, Harry receives a disturbing letter attempting to blackmail him for his father’s crimes. This story is a big step towards Harry accepting what his father did as the Green Goblin. In ASM #260-261, Liz and Mary Jane are taken hostage and Harry unsuccessfully attempts to rescue them, leading to one of my favorite Harry moments which I think showcases that, deep down inside, Harry is an extraordinarily gentle person -- and that this tendency towards gentleness hurts him as much as it is an admirable quality. I think it’s an important trait when comparing him to Peter, that Harry is essentially a weak person, and that that weakness isn’t inherently negative -- it might even, in different circumstances, make Harry a more admirable, definitely a more inherently gentle person than Peter, but that it doesn’t serve Harry in their circumstances and leads him to unfairly and unfavorably compare himself to Peter, much to his own detriment.

In ASM #263, Harry and Liz’s son Norman “Normie” Osborn Jr. is born. Things are quiet for Harry for a bit, until Marvel’s Inferno event begins. (It’s a good event, don’t worry. It’s primarily an X-Men event and I recommend the whole thing. Daredevil fights a vacuum cleaner in it.) The relevant Spider-Man issues for the whole event are ASM #311-313, Spectacular Spidey #146-148, and Web of Spider-Man #47-48. If your primary focus is Harry, you can stick to the relevant Spectacular and Web of issues -- this is an important moment in Harry’s history, where Norman’s influence and memories of the Green Goblin begin to reassert themselves on Harry, and at one point an Oscorp building is the scene of the Inferno action. In ASM #321, while helping Liz and Harry move into a new New York home, Harry invites Peter and Mary Jane, currently without a permanent address, to move into the top floor of the building. Liz’s brother the Molten Man makes a reappearance in Web of Spider-Man #62, where Harry offers him a job with Oscorp. In Web of Spider-Man #66-67, Harry dons the Green Goblin costume again, this time to try and be a hero before Spider-Man intervenes. 

Things at this point go downhill for Harry very quickly: he begins, depending on your interpretation, either hallucinating his father or having visions of his ghost in Spectacular Spider-Man #178-183, in a storyline called The Child Within. 

This is in my opinion one of the strongest Spider-Man stories ever written and a very critical storyline for Harry in particular, but as a warning it deals fairly explicitly with childhood sexual abuse of a minor character who is, I would say, deliberately paralleled against Harry and Harry’s experiences in childhood. It’s amazingly done -- J.M. DeMatteis wrote it and he’s one of my favorite Spider-Man writers -- but it is very, very intense. This leads to a confrontation between Peter and Harry, during which the apparition of Norman urges Harry to kill Peter, but Harry cannot. In all honesty, I would recommend reading from The Child Within straight through to Spectacular Spider-Man #200, which is Harry’s death. Harry’s not present in every issue, but he lingers over every page like a threat, and it’s some seriously well done comic book storytelling. But if you just want the issues where Harry is present: Spectacular Spider-Man #184, #188, #189, #190, #199. But whatever you do, don’t miss Spectacular Spider-Man #200. It’s hands down my favorite single issue of Spider-Man.

So at this point Harry’s dead. You’d think there wouldn’t be very much to read between this point and his resurrection in Amazing Spider-Man’s Brand New Day but there’s still a few points to hit: Harry’s video will is read in Spectacular Spider-Man #204, and there’s some elaborate Osborn family flashbacks in Spectacular Spider-Man Annual #14. Harry also arranged, although it was carried out posthumously, for the whole Robot Richard and Mary Parker debacle, which you can read using this guide from the Complete Marvel Chronology Order + Amazing Spider-Man #390. 

Harry returns to the pages of Spider-Man in Amazing Spider-Man #545, following the erasure of Peter and Mary Jane’s marriage that came with Peter’s deal with Mephisto in the wake of Civil War. Recently returned from Europe, Peter and Harry spend a lot of time together as Harry does his socialite thing and engages in a relationship with Lily Hollister, the daughter of a New York mayoral candidate. Relevant issues are ASM #546-549, #552, #554, #557-561, #565, #567-569, #571-573, #581-588. Amazing Spider-Man #595-599 is one of my favorite Harry Osborn stories, American Son. A rare can’t miss where Brand New Day is concerned. With Dark Reign in full swing, Norman Osborn is on top of the world and in charge of a new Avengers team -- and he wants Harry to come work for him. (Not to be confused with the three issue limited series called Amazing Spider-Man Presents: American Son, which Harry is in, but which I don’t necessarily recommend.)

Amazing Spider-Man Extra! #3′s “Nice Things” focuses on Harry’s childhood and on Harry in the wake of American Son. Harry also appears in ASM #602-605 (enjoy the plotline where he dates Peter’s hot cousin), #609-610, #621-622, #630, #642-647 -- which details the birth of Harry’s second child, Stanley Osborn. Harry disappears from the pages of Spider-Man for a bit at this point as everything goes completely to hell with the Superior Spider-Man plot, where Doc Ock steals Peter’s body. Harry makes a reappearance when Peter, who has taken back his body, is left to deal with the aftermath of Doc Ock’s actions, finding himself the CEO of a huge tech company. Harry goes to work for him. I don’t think any of this is particularly worth reading for Harry, certainly not in comparison to any of the previous comics mentioned, but Harry is present for Amazing Spider-Man (2015) #3, #7, #10-15, #25-28, ASM #789-791, and #797-800. Some of this is event territory, and a lot of it is just not very good. The one part of it I would recommend is ASM #789′s Harry scenes, which are about him and Liz getting back together. And that’s where we stand currently for Harry! Thanks a lot to Spencer’s run for neglecting him for like fifty whole issues now.

My other Harry and Gwen rec would be for the current Gwen Stacy series, written by Christos Gage and illustrated by Todd Nauck. This is my current favorite Spider-Man book on the shelves, even though we’ve only gotten two issues of it so far. It’s set during Gwen and Harry’s high school days, before they meet Peter, and fits perfectly into the Spider-Man canon of the time. The two issues released have had a big focus on Gwen and Harry’s relationship, with Gwen running for class president and Harry as her campaign manager/hype man. 

Please return to the shelves, Gwen Stacy solo.

[honmakurara]

What Kyuso is, and what it isn’t

A few thoughts about Kyuso wa cheese no yume o miru upcoming movie release

Warning 1: spoilers ahead!

Warning 2: I wrote this post quite long ago but the movie was delayed due to the spread of the pandemic, and so I chose to postpone my thoughts as well. So if you find that some thoughts might sound a bit "old", that is the reason why.

**

I can remember there was at first a lot of criticization towards Ohkura's upcoming Otomo role in the Kyuuso wa Cheese no yume o miru movie, which honestly I cannot fully understand.

While I can understand not everyone might be comfortable "enjoying" a story starting out of repeatedly cheats towards women and a blackmail, it sure does not just sit back on this alone (quite the contrary), and I think that both character and story-wise it can be an amazing opportunity for Ohkura's career.

Same for the Boys' Love theme: live action adaptations of BL stories have so far generally lacked too much and definitely failed to adequately portray the BL theme itself, due to poor budget, poor staff, poor attention and poor everything. A brilliant exception is the Double Mints movie: a very dark, violent and angsty story (beware if you're not incline to these themes) and yet a very touching and heart-wrenching movie, where the BL relationship is as much sad as realistic.

Back to the Kyuso movie.

Ohkura's Otomo character in the Kyuso no cheese BL movie isn't just a "bisex" one, and isn't just a "gay" one either. The original manga is actually no real BL because it was not published in a Boys' Love magazine, it had been written in a josei magazine whose target is the adult female audience. That is to say the story does not aim to be a queer manifesto, even though I think it deals amazingly great with such themes. What's (I reckon) great about Mizushiro sensei's story isn't the yaoi theme itself (alone), but rather the excellent way she portrays the human weaknesses and dark sides of her characters (male and female ones), which is not to say I "cheer" for the characters, because I don't, but introspection-development-wise, the story is gorgeous.

Even after the re-prints of the volumes, which have partially edited illustration (not a big thing, only the genital depiction has been censored), the illustrations, dialogues and themes keep being the original ones.

As I said above, the several twists this story carries are also why I reckon this role might be a huge and challenging opportunity for Ohkura's career as an actor, together with his "controversial" Kumon Onna and recent Montecristo ones, and why I won't go easy with 'judging' the movie as proper adaptation of the manga, should it turn out to be disappointing on screen.   - Spoilers ahead, you're warned -

While living is life as a "regular het" guy, Otomo is married and repeatedly cheats on his wife. Should he be praised for leading this life? I guess no, definitely not. So, we start out from a mean man doing despicable actions who suddenly gets "blackmailed" for his bad behaviour by a homosexual kohai of his.

Is Imagase the only bad guy here, for daring such blackmail? I guess not.

And yet, despite (or thanks to) these premises, the story evolves into something very, very different.

It takes a gay kohai of his to make Otomo realize that his marriage is just an empty shell, that he basically married out of any deep feelings for his wife and was 'happy' with just 'life going on'. It's the meeting with Imagase that forces him to think deeply about his life, to realize he's never cared for other people's feelings to start with. In short, Otomo is a womanizer, a selfish and rather empty guy. The sexual relationship with Imagase reveals him also as being jealous and passive, masochistic and dominant at the same time, very much incline to temptation, whatever its shape or time. He's not to be praised, not a little bit. He's not to be looked down at, at the same time. Because he's human, because that is how life takes his toll on everyone of us (nothing is black or white, rather being endless shades of gray), and because it's only when Otomo realizes who he is and what he wants -thanks to Imagase- that he finally manages to be more "himself". "I'll turn 30 soon. I might still have to know what true love is." -Kyoichi Otomo-

These 'simple' words are one of the keys of the whole story to me: I was aghast when I read it in the manga, I still remember them 10 years later, and I was so relieved to  notice it was kept in the trailer, at least. Which is to say I'm not the only one thinking they're valuable.

 Otomo has met and has been with a lot of women, but none of them is able to rip a hole inside his soul. And then, yes, it's Imagase who "makes the miracle", he's the only one who intercepts the black hole and bluntly tells him so. Because sometimes this can happen through the most unexpected of encounters. It's Imagase who makes Otomo finally realize how important it is to pursue a relationship where both parts openly discuss, argue and talk constantly about each other... in bed or not. It's Imagase, a cheeky, blunt, capricious, selfish, impetuous, fickle and mean guy. It's not a woman, nor a good boy. But it's him who is there for Otomo when the latter needs it (and even when he does not). This is what makes this story not just good but special, to me: a cynical analysis about love relationships and human growth/twists, but at the same time a very humble and realistic one.

 Personally speaking, I don't "like" Otomo nor Imagase nor their petty behaviours, and yet I cannot wait to see how Ohkura and Narita will portray them in every little bit of these flawed characters, because I have been hooked to the story as a whole since the very beginning (ten years ago) and I still am this bewitched, and probably forever will be (yes I know, Ohkura: there is no thing like forever anymore. But bear with my feels, please). I would lie if I were to say I don't care about the sex scenes because, hey, it's a very sexy story after all, but that is not where the real point is, to me. The point is that thanks to this movie adaptation, Ohkura has been given a great (maybe not the greatest itself, but greatest so far) opportunity and I'm cheering on him eternally for this.

I had honestly never thought that one day this story could actually become a movie, and even if I did, last thing I would imagine would be that Ohkura could be starring in it.

But it happened. Not to mention Ohkura himself seems to have become fairly fond of this story... thinking deeply about his character, the staff involved, the story and its themes, just like he did during Dr. DMAT, Hanachan no Mizoshiru and Montecristo filming time. Should the movie even fail to hit my (absurdly high) expectations, I won't love the manga less. So far, the theatrical trailer looks a bit different from the sophisticated 'air' I thought it would have, but still quite nice: way more tender and cute than I thought, but with a palpable longing atmosphere which I find very much on point. We'll see. Cannot wait. In the meantime, ganbatte Ohkura, I'm proud <3  

** Post Scriptum: Besides, I find it very nice that Kyuso movie will be distributed by Phantom Films, which so far handled a lot of quite interesting movies. Among these I definitely recommend: - Call Boy (with Tori Matsuzaka), story of a host/gigolò in Tokyo. Photography is amazing in this movie and so are all the actors. - Hoshigaoka Wonderland (Suda Masaki has a very small part in it, but he's amazing);

- HIS: latest release, story of a gay couple that split up during University and meets again several years later... when one of the guys has become father of a young girl. The movie is a sequel of a coming of age drama aired in 2019 in Japan. 

- (not by Phantom Films but anyway) Double Mints: the BEST "yaoi" movie I have ever seen, so fa. A dark story filled with angst, violence, abuse and still, the touching story of a bond&love that cannot be torn off. Definitely not an easy movie, but definitely recommended if you're interested watching how a movie should be done and how "gay feels" are definitely not in the way nor "like a shojo manga".

[classicrosie]

My Top 10 Posts Ever

I’m @gemshine​​ and I’ve been posting art on Tumblr for five years. Over those five years, I’ve had ten posts gain over 100 notes. Here I will talk about each one of them, their story, and how I think they got popular. If you like any of them you can click the link to take you to the original post, I really appreciate likes and reblogs. If you want to see more of my art please follow @gemshine​​.

1). How to Make a Comic Infographic - 237 notes - Mar 27 2020

This is my most popular post. It is a how-to infographic I did for class and I am really proud of it. Comics are really hard to complete, there are so many steps that without organization it is easy to get lost and give up. So, I thought letting others into my thought process would help. 

I haven't made that many comics, but I do love making them. I love storytelling and character development so much, so as a visual artist comics are an amazingly creative medium for me to play around with and tell my story. Here is my short story about an elf lawyer named Cherry Elliott I made in 2018 for another class, that made me fall in love with comic making. I dream of writing and illustrating a graphic novel one day.

This was my first time doing the equivalent of a colour palette challenge, I think it turned out pretty well, I love the colour combo of pink, purple, and yellow/orange. The comic I used as the example was a comic made specifically for this infographic, featuring my original character, Mystic. I’m the person in the bottom right, illustrating a comic about “Some Elf Thing”, aka my original story passion project @mysticsrealm​​​. My Mystic’s Realm stuff has not gained much traction yet, so it’s pretty wild that a post with an illustration of myself and my oc has gotten 237 notes and been reblogged 68 times.

Most people finding this post are going through some sort of “comic reference” related tag and I’m glad my experience is actually helping people start making comics. The majority of people tag it with “comic tutorial” or “reference”.

TLDR; this post is helpful for people looking to start making comics and it’s very aesthetic

2). Dad Hank Comic From Detroit Become Human - 205 notes - Aug 21 2018

At the time this post felt like it was blowing up by my standards. It is still my number two post. It gained traction because I posted it in a big fandom at the right time (#connorarmy). If I posted it now it would have maybe 20 notes. A lot of getting notes is posting at the right time of a fandom, but I don’t really know the science.

This post is nice and simple, I like the purple wash. I like Hank’s expression. These two and their dog are a really sweet little family and I cashed in on that angst, like I am one to do. At least it was kinda wholesome angst, I guess. We love found family. 

3). Ladynoir!Opal Comic From Miraculous Ladybug and Steven Universe - 188 notes - Feb 26 2019

I was and still am really proud of this one. I was inspired to try lineless by @sneakysscribs​​‘ lineless art. Lineless art is a pain, but so pretty. This piece was made by having lines, but then colouring them in. I love how I was pushing the comic format, making the two gems flying in the beginning and Ladynoir!opal really pop out of the page. I also love that I actually made backgrounds for once in my life, they’re SU inspired and very aesthetic.

I call this AU Miraculous Universe, and it has been in my head a long time, starring Ladybug!Pearl and Chat Noir!Amethyst. It is not very fleshed out, but it is very fun. It also makes no sense. This concept is so oddly specific it’s hilarious. But I’m also rewarded in my uniqueness in that there’s nothing else like it and I got to work both the SU and ML tags. 

4). Adrinino Dancing Comic From Miraculous Ladybug - 177 notes - Aug 15 2019

I just noticed my top 4 all had to do with comics. Hopefully, that’s a good omen for my future in graphic novel. 

This piece was for the first and only (so far) zine I’ve been in, @theninozine​​. That is where the majority of people found this post. It was nice to create something knowing that people were going to see it. It was also nice to have my work displayed among so many talented and passionate artists. Drawing ships for ml is funny because to have to tag the same exact ship four times to account for their love square. Anyways this piece is very sweet and gay. 

5). Viperinoire From Miraculous Ladybug - 166 notes - May 7 2020

This is my most recent post above 100 notes. And it was posted during the ML offseason. I’m not that big of a fan of the show, but I love the fan content a lot. We lot just kinda take elements from canon and do whatever we want with them. This Viperinoire post is a great example steering far from canon.

This post succeeded despite the last episode of Miraculous aired having been in Dec 2019 because of the active Lukanette fanbase. I have a theory that the reason ML is still so popular on the internet, despite a large crowd being disappointed with the show, is because the fan content gets a ton of interaction, encouraging creators to keep making more, keeping the fandom alive.

6). Christine Canigula From Be More Chill - 141 notes - Feb 4 2018

This was my second post to gain over 100 notes. I posted when the Be More Chill fandom was very popular. People were really nice in the notes, they really love ChristiiIIIIIIiine. In this post I was practicing posing and using a glowy tutorial I found for the stage lights. This is the scene during More Than Survive where she is lifted up and signs the sign-up sheet for the after school play. When I look at this piece I can see the progress I made to get that point, and how I’ve grown since. 

7). Heather Chandler From Heathers The Musical - 120 notes - Feb 19 2017

This was my first post ever to get over 100 notes. I still think it’s pretty good actually, I really like the hair. This post was copied directly from a photo, which I think is pretty good practice for shading. During this time, I didn’t have a drawing tablet so I was posting traditional drawings. This post blew up over all the ones before it because it was at a good time in the Heather fandom and it looks pretty great tbh.

8). Green Diamond From Steven Universe - 108 notes - Aug 15 2018

Someone asked me to imagine two diamonds fused so I did. I think I did a pretty good job combining the aesthetics of Blue and Yellow to create a new gem with their own identity. This post got popular because of Bellow shippers. One thing I would change is that underneath her left arm you can see a little looseness of her top, I would have changed that to be form fitting to match with the SU style of drawing gems. 

9). The Zen Garden From Detroit Become Human - 103 notes - Aug 27 2018

This is one of the only times I’ve ever practiced drawing a background. Came out pretty picturesque if I do say so myself. The Zen Garden from DBH has always been very pretty. This was really just an exercise for me to come out of my comfort zone and draw a place instead of a person. Actually, at first, it started as a background for [this post], but the background came out nicer than the subject, so I posted it on its own too.

10). Pearls From Steven Universe - 100 notes - Aug 14 2019

This post just got 100 notes, which lead me to making this post. I think I captured the SU art style for Pearl quite well. When I was younger I found a tutorial for how to draw Pearl and she became my go-to doodle. This post was made years later, but I definitely used the muscle memory I had for drawing Pearl. Though the Pearl I drew was in her bow outfit, this was my first time drawing Pearl in either of these outfits. This post was made before the SU movie a pretty good prediction might I say. I love Pearl a lot.

Thank you, everyone, so much for supporting my work, and may there be lots more in the future.

[mrjamesie]

Persona 5 Royal Thoughts

I just finished the game a few hours ago and just in that state where I’m feeling empty and not sure what to do with myself. So I’m just gonna jot down some random thoughts, specifically on the characters and events involved in the 3rd semester.

Overall, I just really love this game, the character’s and it’s story and I’m gonna miss it very much and I don’t know if Persona 5 Scramble is gonna help much with this feeling. Really thankful that Atlus decided to come out with Royal and I basically got to capture that feeling of playing this wonderful game again for the first time.

Sumire Yoshizawa

- Sumire’s confidant and story overall was really amazing. I was honestly spoiled a bit early on that there was a character named Sumire, but I never expected “Kasumi” was really Sumire early on. Just all the little hints scattered throughout the story that you only see in hindsight, or how seeing her ID changed your cognition to only see her as Kasumi was executed really well.

- Her gradual progression from thinking so down on herself, to having faith in herself and her abilities is relatable but also something I wish I could do. It really is much easier to run away and forget or break down and want to be someone else. But it’s impossible to do that forever, so like Sumire, sooner or later we all need to face our demons and they illustrated that wonderfully with Sumire’s confidant

- Her character as a whole also pulled on my heart so much that I decided that she’d be the one I ended up dating. I don’t know if it’s because of the game sorta actively shipping her and Joker together or what, but I just really like their chemistry. It also helps that she is the only female confidant that actively confessed her feelings, not to mention Joker’s reaction to it right after with leaning in so close to her.

- I’m kinda upset but I managed my time improperly and somehow didn’t get my showtime with her. I’m trying to not be too upset with it but it’s a bit hard to say the least.

- I also wish she got a proper goodbye on the final day, but oh well I still overall enjoyed her a confidant so much and her overall role in the story.

- It really was amazing that if not for her cognition being changed, she really wouldn’t have met Joker, and events definitely would’ve been different.

Goro Akechi

- I honestly did not like Goro in my first playthrough of vanilla P5. I refused to use him in my party and sold all his gear, because I was highly suspecting he’d betray and I was right

- However, after seeing,liking, reblogging month’s worth of content and fanart surrounding him I was slowly coming around to him prior to the release of P5R. 

- Once I started going through his confidant I started to appreciate him a bit more, but I still didn’t use him in Sae’s palace. When I fully maxed out his confidant and had that 1v1 I thought his confidant was amazingly reworked, and that damn he was actually being treated a lot better by Atlus. By the time Shido’s palace came around I just felt bad for the poor guy.

- By the time he came back for Maruki’s palace I kept him in my part and then I really started to like him. He was just so bloodthirsty and reckless and he never held back. I guess that’s maybe why I didn’t like him prior? cause he’d always have that smug facade. Also his showtime with Joker is so cool, like his and Sumire’s showtimes take the prize. Still wish I got to see her’s though in my playthrough :(

- Everytime he opened his mouth against Maruki it was clear that he wouldn’t hold back anymore even if it was at the cost of his life and I just really respect that. And I love that he’s always pushing Joker to do the same in a way.

- Overall I’m sad that he faded away, unless the final scene means otherwise. I may not like the things he did, but overall I respect him and I wish things were worked out different for him

Takuto Maruki

- You can’t help but feel bad for Maruki as the story progresses. Just all the unfortunate things that happened to his loved ones and his powerlessness. You really feel for and empathise with him. And it makes it almost easy to understand where he’s coming from. All he wants is no-one to go through what Rumi or her family went through ever again, through any means possible and that in itself is an admirable goal.

- By the end of the game, when he’s trying to use his powers on the world you can honestly say it wouldn’t be that bad. Everyone happy? Noone gets hurt sounds pretty good. But as pointed out in the game, it’s akin to running away. And yes it is an option when faced with tragedy and it’s easy. But you can’t do it forever and though it may be hard it is not impossible to face the past and move on, especially with enough support. They just really honed in on that point.

- As the boss fight proceeds through it’s face you just feel worse and worse for trying to defeat Maruki especially with THAT song playing. You legitimately feel bad for facing off against him, but it had to be done and like Goro I wish maybe things could’ve turned out differently. I’m just glad in the end Maruki stopped running and decided to keep pressing onwards wholeheartedly as a taxi driver. I imagine he’d be doing his best talking to his passengers helping them from their day to day. At least I hope so.

Plot

- Really did not expect that Maruki was the one that brought back Goro, and didn’t think that the choices I made during the game were that ones that made Maruki do it. That plot twist came out of nowhere and I’m happy with how it played out. Now that’s how you do a plot twist.

- Kinda sad the ending was just them seeing him off at the station, and not the whole gang going back to Joker’s hometown with him, but I assume it was to set up for Persona 5 Scramble, maybe?

- As I mentioned before, still sad that Sumire didn’t get a good bye scene or an item or anything, but oh well what can you do

- I was surprised that they’re all giving the whole gang new goals to strive for and basically having everyone go their own paths. But it makes sense and it was needed. They couldn’t have the group just be defined for their Phantom Thieves actions and I like that change. I especially loved that during the credits, they displayed each character doing their own thing. Was really touching.

- Speaking of the ending, I was just so sad as the credits rolled by, and another tearjerker by Lyn started playing. I’m not gonna play it again anytime soon but I won’t get to see them again in a new light until Scramble, and even then there’s no Sumire, or Akechi supposedly so sigh.

[justfinishedreading]

After having read In the Miso Soup by Ryu Murakami and hearing about the critically acclaimed film adaptation of another of his novels, Audition, I was excited to read it. At first glance it seems a perfect story for the Me Too era: a film producer hosts a fake film audition with the secret aim of finding himself a wife. But the beauty he selects gradually starts displaying warning signs that others around him, and us the audience, can see, but he cannot.

The novel presents the story solely from the producer’s experience of events, his name is Aoyama, he is 42, a widower and has a teenage son. He is a good creation of a character, what I mean is it would be too easy for a writer to portray him as total lying villain, a man deserving of all the horrors coming to him. But what author Ryu Murakami does brilliantly is make him human, presenting his misogyny and arrogance alongside his vulnerability and hope for a warmer home life. His misogyny is presented in subtly ways, it is important to understand that sexism isn’t always extreme and obvious, often sexism is most damaging when it occurs unnoticed in uneventful daily life.

An example of the duality of his character: in the very first pages he tells us a little bit about his late wife, Ryoko: how she was an amazing woman, he “had nothing but love, respect and gratitude for this remarkable wife of his” and yet in the very next sentence we’re told he frequently cheated on her, and spent large amounts of money on hostesses. He praises Ryoko for maintaining her “cool and quiet dignity” in light of his wrongdoings. Since losing Ryoko, Aoyama also lost the desire to fool around with other women, in the way that an adulterer feels less able to gamble with love and rejection if they’ve lost their guaranteed partner at home.

Aoyama’s biggest positive, some would say his only positive, is his love for his son, Shige. He is frequently thinking about his son and his well-being. And yet in parts of the book when Shige comments that strange things have been happening in the neighbourhood and hints that he’s worried to be left alone, Aoyama leaves him nevertheless for large periods of time without a second thought. Shige isn’t a child, he’s 15, but this love merged with lack of responsibility and lack of thought is typical of Aoyama’s character.

In their first scene together father and son watch a women’s marathon. To watch women as Aoyama puts it. Both father and son lament the lack of beauty on display and in the world in general. Here we have a case of female athletes being judged by two men on their appearance. Aoyama comments that he thinks women will outrun men in marathons due to physiology, praise that women can excel men at something, but still within the physical realm. Physiology is a huge part of sports of course, but so is psychological strength and determination, which is something neither of them think about.

Shige suggests that his father should find a new wife, and Aoyama agrees. He wants a wife. Not a girlfriend, not dating, but a wife and step-mother to Shige. He doesn’t want to go on dates, doesn’t have the time for it, or for match-making interviews. He talks to his buddy Yoshikawa, who’s also in the filmmaking business, and Yoshikawa has the idea of holding auditions for a fake film, but with the sole intention of finding a wife for Aoyama.

The idea of a man wanting the luxury of picking a woman from a swarm of applicants, is very real. As I was reading Audition I heard about real-life Japanese billionaire, Yusaku Maezawa, who was looking for a female "life partner" to accompany him on a tourist voyage to the Moon planned for 2023. The 44-year-old had at the time recently split from his 27-year-old actor girlfriend. He was now asking women to apply for a "planned match-making event" on his website. How balanced would this relationship ever be if one of the partners had literally been in competition with hundreds of other women for the “prize” of being a billionaire’s “special someone”?

So, what kind of woman does Aoyama want? “I’m not that particular about age, but nobody too young” Says Aoyama. On the next page he settles on mid-twenties to early thirties (the woman he eventually picks is 24, Aoyama is 42). He wants a woman who has trained as a classical musician or ballerina, but she doesn’t necessarily have to be successful at it. And she shouldn’t be “contaminated” by the entertainment industry. Basically, someone he can show off but who doesn’t surpass him. “Office girls?” Says Yoshikawa “Forget about it, it’s not that there aren’t beautiful office girls, but get a well-adjusted woman with a regular job and it’s just not that easy to pull the wool over her eyes.”

Aoyama does wonder whether they should go ahead, it seems immoral and fraudulent. Yoshikawa is excited at the prospect of having fun organizing a fake audition solely for their amusement and eggs Aoyama on. A radio announcement for wannabe actresses with no previous acting experience is put out and applications for the film start pouring in. “Having them include a brief essay along with the résumé and photo was a brilliant idea. The essay, amazingly enough, gives you a clearer image of the person than even a photo does” remarks Yoshikawa. Duh Yoshikawa.

Amongst hundreds of applicants Aoyama is taken in by the profile of Asami, a beautiful, young and modest woman who trained as a ballerina but was forced to stop because of an injury. That evening, without even having met her, he daydreams of her washing the dishes at his home after a meal, they discuss how Shige has accepted her. Aoyama imagines her asking him how best to drink an alcoholic spirit “is it all right to have it in ice?” she asks, and they relax together on the sofa.

Although they have selected thirty candidates for face-to-face interviews, Aoyama can only think of Asami. He anxiously awaits her interview time, barely listening to the other candidates before her. So what can I say about Asami? For the majority of the story she keeps us guessing, Aoyama can only see his own created perfect image of her, combined with the manufactured image she presents. She appears humble, beautiful but insecure, fragile and needing guardianship and so appreciative of Aoyama’s attentions. The other characters around Aoyama feel uneasy but the author never explanation why exactly. Anyone who reads this book already knows something is wrong with Asami, we’re constantly wondering how much does she know? Or does she have motives outside this story? How much is an act or a plan? What is she thinking?

The more we want to know Asami’s inner thoughts, the less Aoyama seems to care to. And that really is the most fighting of all. As an audience we know something bad is coming to someone falling deeper into his own illusion. Even Aoyama’s 15-year-old son seems to be more mature and clued-in than his father. And yet they both share a difficulty understanding woman, Shige comments that he doesn’t understand the girls in his school and maybe he’ll end up with a beautiful foreigner from Kazakhstan, “Language might be a problem, but­­-“. We never get to hear Shige’s solution to the language problem but it illustrates the absurdity of thinking that you as a man would get on better with a woman you can’t actually communicate with, and from a completely different culture, than trying to talk and understand the women around you.

Something that works to Aoyama’s, and the story’s, favour is that Aoyama was never a sleazy film producer looking for easy sex, he is looking for a bride. The first couple of meeting are completely innocent. In this way we feel some sympathy for him, stupid as he may be, he is not an evil man, and yet we also want to see what Asami is going to do to him. Or at least I did.

If I were writing an essay (which perhaps this does feel like) there’s all sorts of other moments and even linguistic choices which I’d mention and analyse, but for this review I’m going to wrap it up. I was enjoying this book until close to the last chapters. For me the story goes downhill the moment Asami’s reasoning is revealed, her whole persona is explained in a few paragraphs and the mystery of Asami is resolved whilst the story is still happening. She goes from potentially being intelligent and conniving to being a woman of impulses she cannot control. And the book loses something in the process. I had read In the Miso Soup before Audition and I loved the psychopath Frank, a character we never get to fully understand, complex and full of lies. To have Asami explained away so simply robs her of interest and urgency.

The brilliance of the book is really in the lead up to the final grand event. Not so much the ending itself. In fact regardless of whether things turned out badly or well (I won’t spoil it for you), it still ends on a bitter note, a final comment that the men of Audition, after these life lessons, after feeling the consequences of their actions, still don’t understand where they went wrong.

Review by Book Hamster

[secret-diary-of-an-fa]

Hidden Gems of the Silver Screen (And, to a Lesser Extent, the Telly)

It can’t have escaped your notice that the majority of my more recent posts (and fuck knows I’m not posting regularly at the moment) are about movies and TV. The reason for that is pretty simple: 2019 has, surprisingly, yielded some great movies and TV... and also some really torrid shite. On the one hand, films like Ma, Brightburn and The Perfection continue to breathe new life into the horror genre. On the other hand, sci-fi as a cinematic and televised thing continues to ignore its actual audience in favour of sniffing its own farts in a sound-proof chamber designed specifically for next-level virtue-signalling. One thing I will say about the dreck of 2019 is that it’s interesting dreck, at least so far. Another Life, for example, isn’t just bad: it’s mind-bogglingly, fascinatingly bad, as though someone set out to make the worst TV series imaginable and accidentally created a portal to another dimension made entirely of crap.

With all the amazingly wonderful and transifxingly terrible visual media on offer lately, it’s easy to forget that there’s a rich repository of films and TV series from just a few years ago that you’ve probably never watched. You see if you, like me, are a snooty, card-carrying member of the elitist intelligentsia, you probably missed films and TV series that looked dumb as soup on the surface on the grounds that they weren’t worth your time. Luckily for you, I’ve dived nose-first into the detritus of our dying culture, so you don’t have to, and I’ve ferreted out the diamonds from the pig-swill. Without further ado, I’d therefore like to present my list Easily Overlooked Gems.

1. Mandy The phrase “Nicholas Cage stars in a sword-and-sorcery rape/revenge thriller” does not inspire confidence. It’s therefore easy to ignore Mandy and the promptly forget it ever existed. Which is a shame, because it’s kind of a work of genius. The plot is exactly what you’d expect: a cult kidnaps, rapes and kills Cage’s girlfriend, Mandy, and Cage sets out on a mission of revenge culminating in a blood-bath. The nature of the revenge quest is what puts a sting in the film’s tail- or tale, if you’re feeling puntastic. You see, a lot of the bad guys exist in a constant hallucinatory haze after taking a drug that sent them mad after one dose. In order to fight on their level, Cage has to take a dose too. As a result, the world around him slowly but surely transforms into a nightmare landscape that looks like a cross between a D&D illustration and the cover of a heavy metal album and his grubby, personal mission of fury takes on the unmistakable resonance of a Conan-esque hero’s quest. By the end of the film, you have to wonder if Cage has actually slipped into some sort of alternate dimension or if he’s just lost his game-pieces completely. In places, it’s nearly as painful to watch as Landmine Goes Click (crikey, there’s one for the history buffs) but it looks and feels like Beyond the Black Rainbow. Worth your attention just because of how weird it is. I give it a solid four-out-five decapitated rapists.

2. Baby Driver Nothing about Baby Driver suggested it would be a good film: the way it was advertised as a car-chase movie trying to be cute; the stupid title; the fact that it came and went through cinemas like a fart in the night. Which is a shame, because it’s secretly brilliant. It’s a highly stylised crime film populated with the archest archetypes money can buy (to the point where some of the dialogue has a weirdly beat-poetic feel to it). It’s saturated colour palette and off-beat affect actually have something of a full-colour Jim Jarmusch flick about them. The hook, of course, is that the lead character (only ever referred to as Baby, because he’s got a punchably youthful face) has tinnitus and therefore has to listen to music constantly to drown at the buzzing in his head. The practical upshot of this is that a) every single scene is overlayed with surprisingly great and situationally appropriate music and b) he goes through life like he’s always dancing, so his way of moving lends to the film’s easy-going sense of flow. It also explains where his preternatural driving skills come from (I mean, not really, but within the context of the plot): he’s used to sliding effortlessly into patterns and rhythms because of the music thing. All of this could make a terrible film, of course, but execution is everything and, to everyone’s surprise, especially mine, this flick was executed with an astonishing level of panache. I rate it ten out of ten grizzly motor way pile ups.

3. Nightflyers It’s not just films that get overlooked as the tide of culture washes back and forth, like a great big sea of effluent. TV series also vanish unduly into the dustbin of history. Case in point, the criminally underappreciated Nighrflyers: Netflix pre-Another Life sci-fi offering that was actually good. It’s a pretty classic set-up: a group of mismatched wing-nuts on a spaceship, all of whom have secrets that that will threaten to tear them apart while they try to make contact with an alien life-form. What elevates Nightflyers is just how fuck-uped the cast are. There’s an angry British psychic whose spent his whole life in captivity in case he goes full Scanners on somebody’s head, a guy who only ever appears as a hologram for reasons too twisted to explain here, his evil mother whose uploaded her mind to the ship’s computer and gone batshit crazy, a genetic superbeing and a hacker who can send her mind into computers via a dodgy implant and who may or may not be drifting out of touch with the human condition. It’s great. 6 and half billion out of 7 billion monkeys, boiling in the void.

4. Hardcore Henry No, I don’t know who thought that title was a good idea either, but the point is that Hardcore Henry has no motherfucking right to kick as much arse as it does. It was clearly made on a budget that would embarrass a Youtube shampoo commercial, but it just flat-out rocks. Shot entirely in first-person, it follows the adventures of a mute cyborg as he seeks revenge against the bastard psychic entrepreneur who first built him then tried to kill him. Along the way, his main ally is a dude who keeps dying and coming back to life in a series of identical bodies but with radically different personalities and haircuts (this is eventually explained, but I’m not going to spoil it for you). It’s premise is demented, it’s surprisingly well-choreographed and its soundtrack is an aphrodisiac for your ears. Also, Tim Roth is in it, so that’s just yer seal of quality right there. It came out to a lot of fanfare and many, many cinema trailers back in the day and was then promptly forgotten about as soon as it launched. So I’m dragging it kicking and screaming back into the limelight. It’s on Netflix right now, so go watch it. I rate it a solid 11 out of 15 creepy duplicates of Tim Roth.

5. Upgrade Another lesser-known film about a cyborg. Unlike Henry, however, this cyborg’s life doesn’t so much ‘rock’ as ‘suck balls’. He gets crippled and then ends up with a sentient computer chip in his head that allows him to remote-control his own body despite not having a working spine anymore. Naturally, his experimental tech attracts the attention of some unsavoury characters and he and his brain-chip have to work together to figure out what’s going on, often through a series of ultra-violent, gory fight-scenes that horrify the protagonist himself. Of course, all might be well, except that the head-chip is a homicidal little shit that clearly has its own agenda. I give it at least 0000 0111 out of 0000 1001 painstakingly restored vintage kill-bots.

6. The Tick The Tick isn’t as overlooked as everything else on this list, especially since there have been a couple of previous televised incarnations of the franchise to lay the groundwork. However, I still feel like the modern iteration doesn’t quite get the love it deserves, so I’m throwing it out here. Following the adventures a mad, amnesiac and possibly stupid superhero and his neurotic sidekick, The Tick explores a world where superheroes aren’t the paragons of good from classic comics, the corrupt psychotics of The Boys or Watchmen, or the eternally struggling, walking moral life-lessons of modern cinema. Instead, they’re just ordinary people operating at various levels of competence/incompetence and mental illness and working within a bureaucratic, wildly inefficient framework. That might not sound like a recipe for a successful TV series, but it really is. Drawing out the mundane, human side of heroes and villains against the backdrop of cataclysmic, civilisation-threatening events makes for infinitely compelling and very, very funny viewing. It’s kind of doing for the superhero genre what Futurama did for sci-fi a few years back. It’s also where the phrase and/or popular song ‘seven billion monkeys boiling in the void’ comes from. My rating is four out of five sapient, homosexual boats (which will make sense when you watch it).

7. The Void Amid the high-budget horror extravaganzas of recent years, it’s easy to forget about the void, which feels like the best story H.P. Lovecraft never wrote and looks like David Chronenberg tried to adapt a Heironimous Bosch painting... in the ‘80s. The actual plot concerns a group of people getting trapped in a hospital by murderous cultists and discovering dark secrets and, arguably, a whole other dimension in its basement. You’re not exactly there for the plot though: The Void is a mood-piece and an exercise in visual FX craftsmanship. You’re there to drink in the atmosphere and see what each new cosmic horror looks like. I am delighted to award it ten out of ten unspeakable whisperers in the darkness. That’s enough for two barbershop quartets, an emcee and a supporting act.

8. Happy Death Day It’s Groundhog Day but as a horror film starring a really annoying lass in her late teens has to keep dying horribly until she learns to stop being such a terrible person... and also kill her murderer with a little help from her newly-minted, non-cunty friend. There’s a sequel that I haven’t seen yet, but the original is a low-key, oft-overlooked delight. I give it 9 out of 11 suspiciously similar corpses.

[venus-says]

Symphogear XV Episode 02

I swear here that I will never break. 

Symphogear is back and BOI. This episode was heavy, this episode was very heavy. I had to take a 2 hours break after I watched the episode of how heavy it ended. This just proves that XV isn’t here to play and this season will probably be the best season ever (I hope I’m not wrong on this).

So starting off, OPENING AND ENDING!

I thought symphogear would never be able to top Synchrogazer, and until AXZ I was right. But then XV came and BOOM! This opening is so good, not just the song but the actual opening animation was amazing as well. They’ve done such a good job with it, I’m legitimately impressed. And Metanoia, oof what a great song. The first time I heard the song, when they released the short PV on Nana’s channel, I was scared, though I had loved the song, I had no idea of how they would make a good OP with the song, and I was even more concerned with how they would use it as the final attack in the season finale, but now after seeing the actual OP I’ve thrown all my fears away because now I’m sure they can deliver it.

The ED, on the other hand, wasn’t as successful with me. The visuals are awesome, I dare to say it's the best ending visually, but the song... The song is so meh, I was really disappointed by it. But we got this beautiful shot at the end so I’m not as mad as I would normally be.

Now to the episode itself. They used the same formula from next week with having the episode set on the present but with a flashback section in the middle. I like this format, but this one is very dangerous because it can get boring very fast, I hope they use it well from here on now.

I was a little throw off when they showed that adorable moment focused on Chirs and her normal daily life. Don’t get me wrong, I did like everything that was shown there, especially the picture Chirs keeps from her birthday party with the girls (I hope we get to see it sometime in a flashback), and as weird as gloves are as a present I do like that interaction between her, Hibiki and Miku on their way to school.

The thing that gets me off is that watching this first part I felt like we were going heads in into a Chirs episode, but then a few minutes later we see that no, the focus on this episode is Tsubasa, which on itself is not a problem, but the show had set up something with Chris coming up and I was very interested in seeing that since AXZ left me with a little bit of a bitter aftertaste when regarding to Chirs.

Even though that was a little problem I had I still enjoyed Tsubasa’s story from this episode, but before going there let’s focus on the flashback fight for a moment.

Kirka and Shirabe‘s fight was pretty awesome. I know working together as one is their thing and it has been their thing since the first time they appeared in G, but in this season they’re doing it to perfection. From the ice skating moment from the last episode to their dance move as a couple on this one everything has been done amazingly and the final result is great, and I hope they keep doing this and making it better and better as the season goes on.

But sadly things can’t be always perfect and this flashback gave me two problems.

Now, I admit, complaining about this is symphogear is kinda useless at this point but... the sexualization they’re doing to young girls here’s is just way too awkward to me. Not to say that sexualization in general is fine, but still, it really bothered me.

Like, if this whole pole dance transformation was with any of the older girls, it wouldn’t make it fine per se, but it would at least be less uncomfortable to watch. Like, Kirika’s what? 15? 16? This is so wrong.

Then there’s the Alchemist, I believe her name is Elisa or something, I like her concept and using different tails as weapons is quite interesting, but I know that every time we see her power in action we gonna see her butt and even if she’s not a teenager she still looks like a kid and is quite disturbing to look at.

And again, I know that bringing this up doesn’t have a lot of purpose, and this is stuff Symphogear has been doing for 7 years, and maybe they’ve done worse in the past and I’m just not remembering it (I do have a terrible memory, everyone knows this), but it really bothered me as I was watching, especially Kirika’s transformation.

Thankfully that was the only low point from the episode and everything else was top tier.

SO, first few questions, is Maria now Tsubasa’s bodyguard? Or is she another manager like Ogawa? Or is she there just because she wants to see her girlfriend? Regardless, she looks amazing in that suit and I hope we see her more in that outfit.

With that out of the way, do yall allow me to scream? BECAUSE THAT’S WHAT I’M GONNA DO SINCE THE BIG DUO LIVE PERFORMANCE TRADITION IS BACK!!!!!!!!!!

I had lost my hopes for symphogear ever doing this again seeing that AXZ lacked a performance and episode 1 of XV was just battle, BUT THEY GAVE US ANOTHER PERFORMANCE AND I JUST WANNA SCREAM!!!!!!!!!!!

Now, Angelic Remnant isn’t my favorite song from these lives, this spot is still owned by Seiten Galaxy Cross, but this sure is the best live scene the show has ever put out for us in its entire run. The camera work makes it hard to take a good screenshot from Maria and Tsubasa together to illustrate this post? Yes, but still, that was amazing, a true work of art.

Cooling off from the excitement a little bit I wanna put a light on something Maria thought right after the performance ended that got me very curious.

She says that the performance they just did was “like the miracle the song of my homeland caused that day“. Now correct me if I’m wrong but I’m pretty sure all we know from Maria’s past is just from the point in which she and Serena got to the orphanage. We know they’re Ukrainians but that’s just because one of the writers revealed that on a tweet in Serena’s birthday, right? This has never been mentioned on the show.

So are we gonna get more background information on Maria and maybe Shirabe and Kirika as well?? We already got some hints on AXZ about Shirabe origins so... is this what we’re gonna get to build more development for the ex-FIS girls this season? Uhhhhh I’m excited!

Now it has come the time to talk about what made this episode SO HEAVY.

The alchemists' attack to Tsubasa’s concert was a low move, and I don’t say this as a bad thing, I say this because it was really low to make her revive the same terror she lived when Kanade died. THIS IS CRUEL, IT HURTS MY HEART, and I love that they’re doing this because I’m assuming they’ll make great things from opening this wound again.

And thank God for the production this season being so damn good and for Nana being amazing at her job because we can feel Tsubasa getting more lost in despair each time the camera focus on her and is so heartbreaking but the animation is so fluid and make things so beautiful, THERE’S SO MANY EMOTIONS GOING ON.

Now to the other alchemist that was shown in this episode. When I first saw the concept images I had in mind that the pink furry girl would be my favorite alongside the cutie honey looking girl, but after seeing her in action I absolutely love to despise her.

She was a pretty good villain in this episode, and she has done a thing that I think we’ve never seen in this show so far. If I remember things correctly, all human deaths so far (not including villains) were caused solely either by noise or magic and even if people were controlling those things we’ve never seen another human directly killing anyone using their own hands before. I think Maria attacked some US officers in G but she didn’t kill them, right?

And as much as I’m pretty used to seeing horrible deaths happening in fiction and most of them don’t phase me anymore, this one got me to flinch. I’m used to people turning into dust and disappearing in this series, not to have an innocent body being pierced right in the chest. That was fucking heavy, especially with everything else that was going on in this fight.

Now murders aside, I’m quite interested in what this new alchemic power is that apparently is invading a “seal”. This is probably what gonna force a gear update in the middle of the season, which if you checked my other symphogear reviews you know, that I don’t like, but this one piqued my interest and I think for the first time I’m excited about a new power-up that isn’t the X-Dive.

We had the post-credits scene with that relic recovered from the coffin again, and I’m even more thirsty for information on this thing. I don’t need an info dump, but they could keep releasing bits of information of what the relic is in scenes like this throughout the season till we reach the point in which it will become more relevant and I’d definitely love to see it being done.

And this was episode 2 of XV. This one was a huge step up if compared with last week’s episode. I’m just as broken as Tsubasa is right now, this is how good this episode was. Now I’m gonna go to bed because I need another break after revisiting all of this. See you guys tomorrow~

[gh0st-patr0l]

Selfishness v. Selflessness: An Analysis of Deceit

So.

Since the latest episode came out, I’ve been thinking about a LOT, but especially about Deceit. He’s an amazingly complex character, and it’s a lot to wrap your head around. However, I felt that the thing I wanted to talk about most was his overall intention with this whole scenario- note, when I say that, I’m not talking about the call-back v. wedding debacle. Because, when you really look at it, Deceit’s true intent had little to do with those events themselves. It was just a convenient scenario that could be used to illustrate a point. And I’ve already gone on a rant about that part- how in the end it wasn’t even an issue of right or wrong, but staying true to your moral compass- so I won’t get into it here. What I really want to do is take a closer look at Deceit’s closing arguments, in context of the rest of the episode and his previous statements. 

I’ll be honest, the first time I watched the episode I was so invested in the drama that I actually didn’t even PROCESS what he meant with this scene, but now that I’m looking back it’s absolutely critical to understanding Deceit’s true intentions. Written out, it’s actually a pretty short exchange, but there’s a lot to pick apart here. Let’s start from where the actual argument begins.

Thomas: I don’t understand... you got what you wanted. You proved that I’m not as honest as I’d like to believe. Deceit: But you’re still missing the point! Didn’t it seem kind of ridiculous to take this matter SO seriously, to the point of settling it in a legal setting?! Everyone else: [mumbled disagreements] Roman: We do that kind of stuff all the time...

Alright, so this is where Deceit has obviously become frustrated that the others haven’t picked up on his intentions with this whole scheme. (Tbf Thomas’s Single braincell had been omitted from most of the situation so it’s really not totally their fault,) 

Here, we see a BLATANT distinction between him and the rest of the sides. The sides all consider these elaborate scenes and lengthy discussions and journeys over their dilemmas to be a completely sensible way of dealing with their problems. It’s just how they do things, it’s how they work best.

But Deceit, despite being a part of Thomas, doesn’t get it.

Unlike the other sides, he doesn’t give equal weight to all issues Thomas has. He sees the choice between a social obligation and a career opportunity as obvious and pointless to agonize over. 

It’s important to think about this in combination with what he says in the courtroom- his ultimate goal is to fulfill Thomas’s wants and look out for him. At first, that simply sounds like the same benevolent thought process that all the other sides have, and to a point it is. But when you think about that along with the fact that he considers his friends and family as inconsequential- not just a little lower on his list of priorities, but not even worth considering- it becomes clear that Deceit’s protection and concern of Thomas takes on a whole nother form in light of his outlook and actions. But we’ll come back to that in a bit, let’s get back to the argument.

Deceit: WHOO, okay, let me put it this way- life... is like a pinata.  Patton: Colorful, and full of stuff that makes you happy??? Deceit: ...SURE. And you WANT that stuff that makes you happy, right?! Patton: Do I?! Roman: Do I... Deceit: Then in order to get that stuff, you must ATTACK the pinata!

THIS is where Deceit’s language comes into play. Thomas and the rest of the Sanders Sides team are fantastic at writing, especially dialogue, and I think the specificities of the metaphor Deceit’s chosen to use here are critical.

When Deceit describes the human experience and life in society, he describes it as an object that must be looked at through a gauge of offense. He doesn’t use language like take, obtain, earn- he says attack. He views life as a struggle, as something violent that must be beaten and won. And this is reflected in the court scenes. Specifically, when he’s talking about his motivation for wanting Thomas to lie, he uses the word disadvantage. Again, referring to life as a competition, or a game. (This actually made me wonder why Thomas didn’t choose to bring up Conflict Theory at any point, but now that I think about it more I suppose an anarchistic viewpoint would fit Deceit better than one rooted in socialism.)

And Deceit wants the others, and most importantly, Thomas, to look at life that way as well. He sees life as a competition against others, and because of that, sees no value in putting other’s wants and needs above his own. In my mind, this is where his rhetoric crosses the line from sensible into overly cynical. He was right in the point that sometimes selfishness can be good- but that’s not what he’s saying anymore, and I think it may have never even been in the first place, and that he was simply being less radical in the case to appear more favorable. Deceit doesn’t just think that selfishness isn’t inherently evil, he thinks that selflessness is damaging. 

And, from a character standpoint, that makes sense. Because inherently, Deceit is a selfish concept. It’s lying at someone else’s expense to achieve your own goal. And, as Deceit pointed out, that isn’t always bad! Your goal can obviously be benevolent. But as a character, he is quite literally a personification of deceit, with the goal of getting Thomas what he wants and/or needs. In a concept like that, there’s little to no room for morals or empathy.

Which brings us to our last bit of relevant dialogue from that scene;

Deceit: But you’re wearing a blindfold right now. You can keep playing with the blindfold on, if you like the game better that way. But if you take it off, it’s easier to get that stuff that you want!

Admittedly, this bit is a little harder to understand, but I think it’s clear that by blindfold, Deceit is symbolizing what he sees as disadvantage or hindrance; morals and empathy. 

Throughout the entire episode, and his other appearances, Deceit has never responded with concern towards the feelings or circumstances of anyone other than Thomas himself- it may look like that on the surface from his first appearance and his acknowledgment of Thomas wanting to be a good friend, but in reality, he only reacts to those things when they’re directly related to what Thomas wants. In the lying episode, he doesn’t actually want to spare Joan’s feelings; Thomas feels bad, Thomas wants Joan to think he’s a good person, and Deceit sees a way to fulfill Thomas’s want in that scenario. In that sense, he’s actually very similar to Logan- function over feeling. He doesn’t care what he’s doing or why, as long as Thomas gets what he wants.

And this is when Deceit’s argument finally becomes clear and concrete. Deceit wanted this trial to prove that being selfish is better. This is when his intentions are no longer agreeable, at least to me, because what he’s trying to say is his core philosophy is that Thomas should ignore his morals towards the people around him, because it will be easier to then achieve his own goals. The argument goes from what was seemingly encouragement towards self-care, to a complete disregard of others. He sees caring for the people in his life to be an optional difficulty and a burden that only makes it harder for Thomas to get what he wants. He places no value in Thomas’s relationships, and only serves, or attempts to serve, in their benefit when it is Thomas’s immediate goal to do so. 

And that is interesting- Deceit has no control over what Thomas wants, but an obligation to help him achieve them, and apparently, opinions on what his priorities within those wants should be. And this is when we need to remember that the sides are not full personalities, but facets of Thomas himself.

Of course, the main four are such broad concepts that it’s easier to fit more of a “person” into each one. Morality is a vast understanding of right and wrong, but has a lot of room to move around in as far as demeanor and actions, and is combined with an interesting representation. The same with logic, and the same with passion- their representations combined with the flexibility of their definitions and interpretations offer a lot of room for filling out characters. Anxiety is a little different since at its core, anxiety and fear are really only an instinctual reflex. However, by extending that out into vaguer definitions and related traits like insecurity and morbidity, and once again tying it all up with a wonderfully engaging persona, Thomas still makes him feel like a character. 

But the sides are not real people. They are built to represent a certain trait, and because of that, their behavior and motivations are more extreme and less well-rounded than normal people’s would be. They are written to be, for the most part, single-faceted characters. Their personality is only a specific section of someone else’s, and because of that they don’t act or think with the complexity of a real human person. And that is SO important to understanding Deceit.

To a point, Thomas managed to fully characterize Deceit as well- however, he’s a bit different. Because unlike the others, Deceit is a much more limited concept. He is a personification of lying and dishonesty. He doesn’t represent any emotions, any other traits, he’s just Deceit. Because of that, he can only be so emotionally complex (which is why I’m very impressed that Thomas and the team managed to give him so much life and feeling!). And that is partially why... I don’t really see him as sympathetic as many do, personally.

(This is where I’m gonna move away from Just Facts to more opinion based reasoning, so just skip to the end if you’re not interested in that.)

I’m not sure if I’m maybe missing something, but from what I saw, I don’t actually think Deceit was ever sad or hurt in that exchange- only frustrated because he couldn’t understand why the others didn’t see things the way he did. In the end, I don’t feel like him blowing up was from a place of emotional hurt. On the contrary, I think the source of conflict for him was in his reasoning. It was the fact that his logic couldn’t make sense of the choices around him, because he’s physically incapable of understanding the situation from a place of empathy like the others do. What he saw was Thomas making a decision that goes against what he directly wants, and Deceit literally just can’t understand that. He can’t understand the concept of Thomas choosing to uphold his morals over his personal desires, because he just doesn’t have the personal capacity to do so. So he loses his temper, gets bitter, and leaves. 

I hope that this doesn’t give you the impression that I dislike Deceit as a character. I actually LOVE Deceit, from the standpoint of a writer and a fan. He’s a wonderful addition to the cast and adds a lot to the series.

However, I don’t fully sympathize with him, and I don’t feel comfortable idolizing him as he is in the show, because I honestly don’t see him as benevolent. I appreciate his motives, but I disagree too strongly with his outlook and logic to relate to or support him. I think that’s what I was trying to communicate with this analysis- it felt to me like a lot of people completely overlooked the intention of Deceit’s actions in this episode, which in my opinion does a HUGE disservice to the complexity of his character. He’s not a helpless, misunderstood victim. He’s a character who pairs good intentions with manipulation, carelessness, and immoral methods, which is a lovely thing to appreciate as an element of a show. But when you ignore those parts of his character to either idolize OR demonize him, it does a huge disservice to both him and the writers. I think I’d just like to see more people appreciate the intricacies of his character, especially in terms of his moral implications.

But, I think I’ve rambled enough as it is, so Imma end it here. This was a LOT of fun to write, and I might do more if yall like it, cause I have a LOT of thoughts about this series in general. Let me know if you’d want to see that! Bye for now!!!!

[garyfuckingking]

My 10 pages long essay and Powerpoint on The World’s End and Gary King

(aka why The World’s End and Gary King are two of the most precious things that exist, aka why I love The World’s End and Gary King)

(Based on my own original idea and written after I read this post - @ineverhadadoubt thanks again for sending it to me-

Also please check out this amazing post about the pubs in the movie.)

(I thought I’d tag some people that seemed to agree with my original post and might be interested in reading this. It’s fine if you don’t btw: @smashing-anarchist-poet @jessefandomunited @shakespeareanmemes @jesusinanalcove @aknownlegend @snovyda @smuggsy @immortal-gamora @doodlerdoodle @zane-garrett @lady-dragonfruit @nogoatshere  @hum4n3rror @theforceawakcns @duskteeth - wasn’t gonna tag everyone, some I couldn’t even tag so that’ll do-)

Before I begin, I’d like for you to be aware of a few things. 

First off, this is gonna be a very very veeeeeery long post so bare with me if you can. I’m probably gonna keep apologizing for the lenght of it in between two things I’m talking about but I’m passionate, sorry.

It’s also a very big post because there’s pictures and a lot of gifs tbh. 

Like... i think like, don’t even try to read this on your phone? Idk what it will do to it. tumblr mobile ain’t that strong i think

There’s so much to be said about this movie.

TW: There’s going to be mentions of suicide, depression, addiction, ...

Also, I’m probably going to forget a lot of the points I’d like to illustrate and talk about, that’s one of the downsides of running on a three hours of sleep schedule. 

You can check the tags for some trivia on this whole post.

So if anyone wants to add something, feel free. I’d love for people to give me their opinion on the movie, etc. 

I’m also probably not gonna mention the direction of the movie too much. I love Edgar Wright with all my stone-cold heart but if I have to talk about how much of a fucking genius he is when it comes to comedy and his movies, we’re literally gonna be there all week, plus I’m not actually planning on writing a 10 pages long essay -or am I?-.

If you haven’t seen the movie, SPOILER ALERT. Seriously though. There’s some stuff in the movie you probably don’t want to know by reading this if you’re planning on watching it and I’m going to talk about everything so.

Finally, I’m going to talk about why I think the movie is not as popular as Shaun of the Dead and Hot Fuzz, and the rest will mostly be about Gary King and why he’s a great character but also why he’s an important one.

Well. Let’s go. This is gonna be a wild ride.

In this essay, I will...

Ok, in all seriousness.

So I guess there’s supposed to be an introduction here. This is very unprofessionnal, and I’ve learned how to write essays so shame on me. Oh, well. We’re here to talk about Gary Fucking King. It’s ok if it’s a mess, the guy’s a living mess on his own. So, when Simon Pegg comes to mind, the Cornetto Trilogy usually does as well. At least, the first movie that you probably think of is Shaun of the Dead. And often, Hot Fuzz is mentionned as well. But I never ever hear anything about the World’s End. God, even Stephen Colbert got the name wrong while talking to Simon, calling it “The End of the World”. Granted the movie wasn’t the subject, but... Why did it happen? Why is The World’s End seen as “the weakest one”, as “not as good as the first two”, is the one people don’t remember, and is assimilited to other weird claims of the sort? 

I personally feel like it’s because it’s more layered than the other two movies, actually, it’s a bit more complicated. I’m not saying here “if you didn’t get it you’re dumb” or “only smart people will get the message”. Not at all. I had to watch it a couple of times before I started to get a lot of things about Gary and the movie in general, and even today, when I watch it, I notice new things and tiny details that I never realized were there before. That happens with the whole trilogy because the three movies are amazingly well done, but I feel like it’s harder to grasp with The World’s End. But why? 

I think it’s because we directly know what Shaun of the Dead and Hot Fuzz are about. The three movies are about more than an apocalyptic scenario or living surrounded by a cult made of murderers. There’s always a message behind the main themes. 

With Shaun of the Dead, it’s kind of a given, really. The little introduction of the environment shows you that it looks like the town is filled with z****es before they even actually arrive and just with that, the scene is set, we know what -behind the parody and other elements of the film- Simon and Edgar decided to criticize about society (it becomes deeper with Shaun’s character but I’ll get to that later, same with Angel).

In Hot Fuzz, the critic of society is a bit more subtle, but still there for people to see. That’s the point right? Send a message without making you feel like you’re “being thaught a lesson”, or something like that, and these movies do it brilliantly. Because that’s the thing. People watching the Cornetto Trilogy sit down in front of their screen to have a good time, have a laugh and go one with their day. But The World’s End is different. It’s still extremely funny, but it doesn’t give off the same vibe as SotD and HF. You feel like there’s something more, you feel that it’s actually a tragic movie. 

Yes, it still has the same kind of message, here with how much of a fuck up a human being can be, how humans are stubborn even if they make mistakes, but that it’s part of life and a word with “perfect beings” wouldn’t necessarily be better. It’s about growing up and accepting that you have to leave your childhood or teenage years at some point, and all that stuff surrounding these themes. You think it was the better part of your life, but often... it isn’t (again, I’ll come back to this later). It’s just harder to grasp because of the tone and maybe because people don’t like to hear this kind of things.

So the problem is, people often miss (or dismiss) the point. 

I don’t think you know about this but there’s this French website called Betaseries. 

On it, you can have an account and have a list with the tv shows you’re currently watching or the films you’ve watched or want to watch.

You can download subtitles for the new episodes you wanna watch if you need them, you can rate movies, comment to give your opinion, you can tick which episodes you’ve seen so that you can keep track of what you’re watching and not forget where you’re at, etc. Pretty useful website, I’m always on it.

So, I obviously went to see what people thought of The World’s End. It’s got a good enough rating, really, 3.62 out of 5 stars. It’s not a four or a five but only because of two users who didn’t like it all that much. So I read their reviews. One was a 2/5 and one was a 3/5: 

“To summarize the movie: the world is invaded by a pacifist extra-terrestrial entity that kills human to exchange them with clones but that accept to leave the planet if you ask (with insults, please!) ???

To use one of the movie’s favorite expression: WTF?????!!!!!

I liked the story of “Shaun of the Dead” better ^^”

“Having liked "Shaun of the Dead” and “Hot Fuzz”, I was impatient to see Edgar Wright and Simon Pegg’s new movie, unfortunately, it isn’t as “good” as the last two. Technically perfect, the story drags on and the mid-life crisis Simon Pegg’s character goes through becomes tedious after some time… but not everything’s good for the trash! The English humor is really present, the play-on-words, the references… you don’t mind watching it. I feel like you need to watch it a second time to appreciate its real worth.

Naturally, watching it in VO is absolutely necessary.”

The other people that commented had all 4 or 5 stars and were only saying that the movie was very funny, therefore enjoyable and good.

I think that’s the thing. When you think “Cornetto Trilogy”, you think “having a good time”. You watch it, you can see that there’s a message behind it, but you don’t spend your time focusing on it or looking for it, because it’s usually pretty simple to get. You pay more attention to the comedy, the references, etc.  

And that is where The World’s End becomes different. It’s not focused on the comedy or the references (well, yes it is and it’s still incredibly funny, it was meant to be), but you have to focus on what is actually going on with Gary King to get it all. That’s why the big meanie leaves “just because they asked”. Remember what it says before leaving (and destroying the world btw)?

That’s something that’s been said to Gary a few times throughout the movie, but here, it’s clearly aimed at the three of them, hence at the humans, because they’re speaking for their entire race. That’s why it leaves. Because the message is “it’s pointless arguing with humans, they’re going to do whatever they want anyway, you can’t change their mind, etc., they have to learn thanks to their own mistakes so you have to let them make them, not force them to be perfect.” This kind of things. 

But when you read the reviews above... These are the only two reviews where you can see that they really tried to get what was going on, but maybe missed it, and because of that, they didn’t like the movie all that much and rated it badly. Gary King isn’t just going through “a mid-life crisis”. He really isn’t. There is so much more to him that it drives me actually crazy that this movie isn’t as praised as the rest of the trilogy. Literally nuts.

With that being said, I think it’s time to really get into who Gary King is, why he is such an amazing character and why there’s more to him than a “mid-life crisis”. So I’m going to talk about him (obviously), about his effect on others, about his relationship with his friends, his addiction, etc., and why it just makes the plot so much better. I hope you’re still with me. And that it’s been understandable up to this point because I really can’t express my ideas the way I want to easily, sorry about that.

The Cornetto trilogy doesn’t just have these hidden messages, morals, … A common thing between these movies is that the characters played by Simon Pegg are all flawed. They’re just flawed human beings. And these characters have to work on themselves to become better. The plot is usually what makes them realize things and help them grow to become their best self.

In Shaun of the Dead, Shaun is going nowhere with his life, he’s stuck in a routine with a dead-end job and a relationship he’s screwing up because Liz is the only one working on it. It’s not that he hates his life, but he doesn’t do anything to make it better either, he doesn’t really see the point. . He’s just there so he does what he’s got to do, but he doesn’t get out of his way to do more. And like Pete says, Shaun needs to sort his life out and do something. Here, killing z****e is apparently the way to a healthy and more positive life. (and no, I will not say the z-word and you shouldn’t either)

In Hot Fuzz, Nicholas Angel puts his work before anything else. That’s why his very serious relationship ended, it even caused him to be disliked by his colleagues and superiors. Like Janine says, he won’t ever be able to turn off if he doesn’t find someone he cares about more than his job. And throughout the movie, you see how Nicholas becomes, but also how other characters become thanks to him. I could talk about this masterpiece, about the foreshadowing in it and especially about Danny Butterman for hours on end but I’m not here for that today.

Also, Shaun had Pete to tell him what was wrong with him. Nicholas had Janine to tell him what was wrong with him. Who does that for Gary King? Because again, Gary is a very flawed character who needs to change as well. But first, we have to ask ourselves one question:

Who is Gary King?

Let’s get some answers.

Well, I’d give you a lot of answers if I had them but… we don’t really know much about Gary King, do we? Well, what we know about his past is what he told the people in the rehabilitation session. That he was The King. But it’s only later on in the movie that we’re able to get new details about him that help us get a clearer idea of who he is. 

The King, the leader of their little group, the popular kid, is also selfish and self-centered. He’s injured his friends with his reckless behavior, he injured himself, he was already a heavy drinker and was using drugs. We don’t know much about his real past, about his family, or else. We know he hasn’t spoken to his mother in eight months when the movie takes place. He arrived in a psychiatric hospital after a suicide attempt but hasn’t told anyone, clearly. His mother doesn’t even know. He doesn’t like the way the hospital was “helping” him and after a quick decision, he got out of it to regroup his old friends and make an attempt at the Golden Mile again. 

We know he isn’t happy. He’s bitter and sad, clinging onto a past he thinks better than anything else he could ever have. Addicted for most of his life and depressed to the point where he tried to kill himself. In the movie, he clearly just tries to reassure himself about his life, always lying to himself and to others.

Whenever reality catches up to him, he shies away from it, he’s not even able to look at Andy anymore. And the problem is, his friends are the reality and he’s the lie. He’s convinced himself of things so much that he believes in them and he can’t hear another version of the events that have happened, he needs to keep his embellished memories intact because he’d rather believe in a lie than in what he is.

He desperately needs the attention, because he’s so alone. He needs to live in his lie, to relive that great night, that moment when he could seduce Oliver’s sister, when his friends would have followed him to the end of the world, to finally prove himself right. And like Andy says, he’s never wrong, is he? He’d rather lie about his mother dying than face rejection and where he’s at. He’d rather have people stay with him because they pity him than because they want to be with him.

He lies about it as a last attempt to convince Andy to come along to Newton Haven, after also giving him money he had been owning him. (I’ll talk about the rest of this scene later on, it’s a very important thing to mention.)

And then, when reality is thrown at his face by Andy again, he miserably tries to get his sympathy once more, despite Andy not having it:

Just after that scene and right before they find out the truth about his mother, Peter says “I can’t help but feel sorry for him”, what Gary intended to do. He manipulates and is upset that things don’t go his way, no matter for what reason he is actually manipulating them. He wouldn’t admit it’s because he’s lonely and unhappy and that because he needs them to feel better, he’s fine with hurting their feelings again.

When he leaves the table to go to the restroom, he looks at himself and finally lets some real emotion out, only to realize what he’s doing.

He’s not proud of it. His friends have changed, yes, but he hasn’t. He’s still the same impulsive and selfish young man he used to be, but now he realizes that’s not how life works. Life doesn’t just go his way like it used to, or like he thought it used to. Life happens to you, you're not in control, and he probably realized that months ago, as he tried to end it.

Still, when the teenager arrives in the restroom, he puts his walls back up again directly, tries to show off and to befriend the young man by impressing him. He sees himself in him, a young and free man who just enjoys his time with his friends. 

That’s why he was looking at them this way earlier in the pub:

Or when both groups crossed path outside in the afternoon. Yet, when the boy doesn’t respond and ignores him, he gets upset again and is ready to provoke a teenage boy for not paying attention to a drunk guy inviting him to drink with him and his friends. 

Yes, the alcohol and the built-up frustration of the evening made him provoke that boy, but it doesn’t mean he’s not aware of the gravity of his actions every time he does something. He’s clearly aware that he manipulates his friends, that he only thinks about himself. It’s always in very short moments that you see him look away or having a hard time processing everything, because he knows the way he acts and as much as he hates himself for it, he can’t help it. To the point where he uses the terrible situation of Newton Haven, no matter if they might die, to finish the pub crawl. Why? He doesn’t care if he dies. At all. It’d probably be easier for him. 

He can’t stand himself, but he can’t be someone else. He got upset at the boy’s silence, taking it as an insult, a way of being disrespectful towards him and in his head, no one should disrespect Gary King. There was a time when he loved being himself but like Sam rightfully says:

So with that in mind, what is Gary King? 

That, I believe, is one of the most exciting part of the character. He’s as much the villain as he is the hero of the movie. 

He’s a villain in his behavior, always has been. He liked being a “bad boy”, but he really did hurt his own friends and has been selfish for a long time. A lot of things that he did and still does make him a villain in this story. Yet, he doesn’t flinch in front of danger, he throws himself in battles the way he used to when Peter would get bullied. He fights for his life and stands his ground in front of the “big boss”, speaking on behalf of the entire human race so that the enemy would leave them be. He’s obnoxious, but he’s also very lovable. Again, like Sam said:

He wouldn’t be able to make someone else happy, or maybe for a while, but he probably wouldn’t be able to resist getting back to his old antics. He’s not meant to live a quiet life with a family, he needs his freedom, as he calls it, but deep down, he’s never actually been a Bad Person™ . He does care about his friends, in his own fucked up way, but he’s too damaged to do any good around him, it doesn’t matter if he’d like to or not.

That’s why he leaves again in the end. He can’t stay there and face everything that has happened. He saw his chance to start all over again and let his remaining friends be happy together, without getting in the way. He did the right thing by getting sober, but he regained his freedom, is still a rebel by staying with a bunch of blanks and not humans, and he’s with the version of his friends he’s always wanted to be with again. Maybe it’s a bit unhealthy for him to stay with these specific blanks, but it’s a better coping mechanism than alcohol and drugs. He’s his true self, but he’s sober and definitely feels better, like he belongs there.

Now, the time has come. Let’s really introduce his friends, talk about his relationship with them before talking about how he takes responsibility for his actions and how he deals with change. (yes I’m sorry this is endless)

All his friends have little stories to tell about his behavior during the movie. He injured all of them as well as he injured himself, and even if Oliver is the only one who didn’t receive a scar, he got his own birthmark removed because of the nickname they would always use. Gary was the only one using it still during the movie, despite being told off.

I’ll introduce them using Gary’s words in the beginning of the movie. It allows us to see the way he perceives them. Keep in mind that it’s the only way he could ever see them at that point, as he doesn’t know what they became and who they really are at that point in their lives. What we, as viewers, know, is that they seem to have all become pretty successful when it comes to their careers, and they just seem to have a good life in general, compared to Gary who is in that hospital and dealing with his addictions.

So, we’ve got Oliver Chamberlain. Gary introduces him by saying: “Ollie was funny, he fancied himself as a bit of a player, but really, he was all mouth. We called him O-man because he had a birthmark on his forehead that looked like a six. He loved it.”

He certainly did not love it. Like I said, he got the birthmark removed because it annoyed him so much to be called O-man. We don’t know much about Oliver, really. He manages a boutique estate agency in North London, he’s doing good, he’s always working. His sister is Sam Chamberlain, Steve has had a crush on her since high school and Gary had sex with her in the disabled. He’s in a sort of competition with Steve to win her over. We know Oliver was already acting like a business man in school. During their first attempt at the Golden Mile, he was out of commission after the 6th pub.

He’s also often mentioning Gary’s drug abuse throughout the movie. 

He was clearly uninterested in going back to Newton Haven, he was very reluctant at the idea, but Gary succeeded in tricking him to go back. During the movie, Gary says a couple of times that Oliver is doing really good, as he didn’t go that far in the crawl the first time. He obviously doesn’t know he has been replaced by a blank in the middle of the crawl but he does say that he likes the new Oliver, the one that seems to be fine with following him around, who is able to go on with the crawl and encourages the others to join the party.

Now, Peter Page. Gary says: “Pete was the baby of the group. He wasn’t the kind of kid we’d usually hang out with, but he was good for a laugh. And he was absolutely minted.”

The cool guy hanging out with the most bullied kid in school? He indicates there that his wealth was one of the reasons he was friend with Peter, despite saying that “he was good for a laugh.” You can see that they get along pretty well during the movie, once Peter is relaxed with the alcohol. They joke around and laugh together quite easily. During the first attempt at the Golden Mile, after smoking marijuana in The Smokehouse, he was left on a park bench while Gary, Steve and Andy kept on going. He still works with his father and became his business partner. He’s the one who sold The Beast to Gary back in the day.

The scar Gary gave him was when Peter let him drive his 50cc Suzuki. Gary rolled over his leg.

He clearly was looking up to Gary at the time, probably because he was defending him whenever he’d get bullied.

There are a few moments where you can also see how submissive Peter still is, traumatized by the extreme bullying he went through in high school. He hates confrontation. He hides behind his newspaper when his kids are “fighting” at the table. It’s impossible for him to say anything when he meets his bully in one of the pubs and whenever a fight explodes, he’s the first one to try and hide, not fight.

He was killed and replaced after finally standing up against the blank that replaced his bully.

Steven Prince. Gary doesn’t have much to say about him: “Steve was a pretty cool guy. We jammed together, chased the girls. I think he saw us as rivals. Sweet, really.”

Like Oliver, we don’t have many information about his life. He had his own construction company, and he was bought out in ’05. At the beginning of the movie, he’s going out with a 26-year-old fitness instructor but the person he truly loves is Oliver’s sister, Sam. Gary and Steve got along just fine, but with what Gary says, you can see he thought he was better than Steve in different ways (shocking, I know). Gary and he used to play music together but stopped when Gary sold Steve’s bass to buy drugs.

In 1987, so when they were around fourteen, while they were playing cricket, Gary accidentally pushed Steven onto a broken bottle and Steve was left with a scar… well, on his ass. Now, we don’t know the origin of the bottle, but you certainly don’t need it to play cricket, from what I know? We also don’t know what they were drinking, so maybe I’m reaching by saying it could have already been Gary’s if he was already drinking alcohol, but we wouldn’t know so again, I might just be reaching! not confirming anything. Still, Gary injured him as well.

He wasn’t really happy when he saw Gary again for the first time, but still ends up going back. During the first Golden Mile, Steve was still there at the end. Even if they didn’t finish it, he was with Andy and Gary on the hills at sunset. 

Now, Andy is the most important one, obviously. It wasn’t a surprise. Simon and Nick always play the two main characters and they always have a very strong bond. And Gary’s relationship with Andy is quite fascinating to say the least. For someone with as much pride as Gary King, talking about the way he feels is not all that easy. At least not without disguising it a little. Before we get into that part, here’s Andy’s introduction. This time, I’ll just explain who he is, and then show Gary’s words because I’ll talk about them more.  

So, from what we know, Andy used to play rugby when he was younger. When the film takes place, he’s a corporate lawyer, he’s married and has kids. He seems to be doing quite well, even though we learn he and his wife are separated at the moment and that he's trying to get her back.

During the first pub crawl, he made it to the end of the night with Gary and Steve, ending up on the hills at sunset and failing the Golden Mile. Back in ’86, Gary injured him as well when they reenacted the knife game from Alien. Gary accidentally stabbed him in the middle finger.

We know that he remained friends with Gary until December 1997. Gary overdosed and Andy, while being extremely drunk, attempted to drive him to the hospital. He crashed his car and he had to go through a life-saving surgery that lasted for 12 hours before getting arrested. At that point, Gary who had made a “miraculous fucking recovery”, as Andy puts it, had abandoned him on the scene of the crash. After these events, Andy stopped talking to Gary and also stopped drinking.

It seems that “the accident”, as it’s referred as in the movie, drove them amm apart. We at least know they were still talking to each other in ’92, two years after they left school, because that’s when they decided to stop calling him “Fearless Leader”.

So they probably kept hanging out until the accident. Gary was certainly the glue sticking the group together but finally took it too far.

Now, when talking about Andy, Gary says this: 

“And Andy. Andy was my wingman. The one guy I could rely on to back me up. He loved me, and I’m not being funny, but I loved him.”

Why would he be funny by saying that? Because admitting he loves his friend makes him less of a badass? No, he really liked his friends. But he loved Andy so much.

And I’m not talking as a shipper or anything. I’m really not. Actually, I’ve never shipped Gary with anyone if I have to be honest. Like Sam says, he’s not boyfriend material. I’m talking about platonic friendship. A very strong friendship that still existed despite “the accident”. That’s why Andrew keeps following Gary until they arrived at The World’s End, because he still cares, and he can’t watch him destroying himself like that. That’s why they all went back. Because in a way, they cared. They kept complaining but seeing everyone wasn’t that bad. They did laugh together, even with Gary, despite being pissed at him. They also weren’t expecting much of him, they know him:

But Gary’s relationship with Andy is special.

Andy is kind of the one who made everyone come back. They clearly didn’t go back for Gary. They went because of Gary, but each of them has asked if Andy would be there first. Probably because Andy’s presence would mean that if he could get past Gary’s mistakes, then maybe they could and should give it a try. And Andy went back with the hope that maybe Gary has changed, even just a little bit. When they are sitting outside while Gary’s playing Need for Speed (for someone who hasn’t seen it, this might sound like a weird as fuck movie), he says this:

Well, of course, he then learned he got money from the other three and gets mad, but you know. He did hope for a split second that he wasn’t exactly the same and that maybe, it was really because of what he told him in his office that Gary wanted to do that again. That’s also why he cuts him some slack at the beginning)

Speaking of the dialogue in his office! Remember I said I would come back to that scene at some point? Well, here we are. Yes, you might have forgotten because this post is very long and I ramble but if you’re still with me, well… it’s not almost the end but we’re getting there.  Anyway! So, Gary lies about his mom dying and that’s the following conversation:

Again, maybe I’m reaching, but he seems so honest that I wouldn’t be surprised if he was actually using his mom’s death as a metaphor for his own suicide attempt. It got him thinking about the old days. He never really stopped thinking about them. He still has The Beast, he still has the tape Steve made him and that he was still always listening to, but these last months were probably extremely rough for him and got him really thinking about all of this in a more depressing way than he ever did. His life had been going downhill since he got out of school, but he finally hit rock bottom really hard.

He says his mother has always really liked Andy, but he might as well be speaking about his own feelings. He even says that he likes the guys, but that Andy was the best friend he’s ever had (and probably the only one he ever felt this way for.)

He has a weird behavior around Andy. He’s always acting so confident, but throughout the movie, he keeps seeking some kind of reassurance from Andy. Either because he wants his approval but also because he wants to prove himself right, or because he wants to believe everything is fine between them.

He has a really hard time expressing his true feelings, probably because he’s used to hiding them all the time. Every time he does express them, we can see how miserable he is and why Simon calls him “a walking tragedy”.

This leads me to the three most powerful dialogues in this movie, I think. I mean, in my opinion, they are the most telling about Gary’s truth, even though the movie is sprinkled with hints on what’s going on, like with this very obvious line:

We clearly know that it was something that was told directly to him, we know where, despite him acting like it’s just some trivia.

So the first dialogue I have in mind is the one with Sam. Sorry, loads of gifs are coming your way:

I feel like for the first time in the movie, he’s kinf of done with his own behavior and he’s ready to have a serious talk and admit some important things. Like when he says Steve is better than him, because he knows he’s a fuck up but now he’s ready to admit it. And in a few lines, you see something else. No, it’s not all about that night, it never was. Life doesn’t have purpose for only one night in your life. Yes, maybe it was the happiest night that there ever was, if it even was, but it doesn’t mean shit, really. But Gary holds on to it like his life was depending on it. Well, in this scenario, it kind of is. Sam tells him that it doesn’t have to be all about that night, kind of letting him know he has the choice to leave it behind and finally move on. And she can see that he gets it. But then, if Gary can’t hold onto that night, he at least wants to keep some things from it, hence his questions about the disableds. Sam agrees, giving him at least that because either way, he’s losing against his own life. If at least he’s trying, she can let him hold onto that memory.

It makes me think of the moment Gary tells Andy that the Golden Mile is all he’s got. There could be so much more, but Gary feels like he’s got nothing else, unlike his friends who have “everything”, like he says. That’s wy he fights for it, because it’s what’s important to him, like Andy is fighting for his marriage.

The second dialogue would be this one: 

No, it wasn’t his fault that Andy crashed the car. He didn’t overdose on purpose, and Andy chose to drive him to the hospital while drunk and driving four times over the limit. But he did choose to flee the scene and leave Andy to die. And Andy wouldn’t be so angry and resentful if it hadn’t hurt him so much. It hurt him because he loved Gary. 

Remember, when introducing Andy, Gary himself says that Andy was the one guy he could rely on. You’d think it would be the same for Andy, but Gary betrayed him.

Before the third dialogue, I want to elaborate on this, on Gary taking responsibility, kind of? He doesn’t talk about his mistakes.

Every time someone points out one of his past mistake or how his behavior is inappropriate, he changes the subject or tries to get his way.

He doesn’t want to face the things he’s done because he knows he can only blame himself for these situations and he already hates himself enough, he doesn’t need to be reminded of these things again and again.

And it’s also because he wouldn’t like to see his friends discover the way he really feels. Whenever his suicide attempt could get discovered or whenever he thinks about it, he quickly tries to hide the truth.

At first, I’m pretty sure he thought that Andy knew about his attempt, because he’s so surprised when he asks to see his arm. Then, when Andy tells him what injury he wants to see, he’s in full defensive mode and changes the subject again, trying to prove he’s him thanks to his memory, and not a scar.

Andy was ready to bash his head right in if for one second he believed he was a blank, but even then, Gary won’t show his arm, because he can’t let them know he hit rock bottom.

It’s the same with Sam:

The same old gary. Gary doesn’t like change. He hates it. He hates to see that his friends have changed and he knows that in a way, he changed as well, no matter how hard he tries to remain the same old Gary, the one that was happy.

When he learns that there are robots and that it’s not them that have changed but the town, he’s ecstatic.

And finally, the third dialogue I was talking about:

Getting help put Gary in emotional pain, even worse than what he already had before, because of the way he was treated. He hated it, he felt so miserable. Feeling like he’s living a lie, like nothing is what it’s supposed to be, feeling like he has absolutely no control. He doesn’t, not on life, but he could decide to do better. He just doesn’t have the courage.

Andy was already caring, way before that. And he’s always known Gary needed help. At that moment:

Andy wants to finally put the limit. It’s true, it’s the last one. Then, Gary will have completed the Golden Mile. Then, what? That’s not the point but what would Gary have done after that? He would have no purpose and like he says, the Golden Mile is all he’s got. Still, Andy doesn’t let him have one more drink.

Back in the tenth pub, he seemed to happy that Gary was accepting to let it go, to have one last drink and put an end to the crawl. He was still hoping for change.

I feel like this scene just shows how hard it is to overcome addictions just by yourself. He tried, when he got in the hospital, and he ended up leaving. He was really drinking his last beer, at that moment, but he couldn’t resist, once again, and had to have the other two. He really wanted to try, but the temptation was so strong.

Andy follows him because like his marriage, Gary is important, and he fights for what’s important to him.

Maybe Andy was able to make it on his own after the accident, but Gary isn’t Andy. He knows that Gary can’t make it on his own. He was never able to. It doesn’t mean he isn’t strong. Andy knows how strong Gary is, living through his addictions for so long, seeing that he tried to kill himself. He knows he’s strong, but it doesn’t mean he can’t have some help from people who really care about him. Now, he knows that can’t happen unless you force him to. So if he has to actually physically fight Gary to stop him, he will, because he knows his friend wouldn’t be able to stop unless being actually knocked the fuck out. He could let him have the last pint of the Golden Mile, but it would mean he allows him to do what he wants one more time. He puts a stop to it because the Golden Mile doesn’t matter, Gary matters. If he has to shatter his last chance of completing the crawl, even if he’s so close he can almost feel the beer on his tongue, he will if that’s what it takes to make him come to his senses.

Besides, he knows that Gary regrets what he’s done, both in the past and that day. He doesn’t constantly mean to hurt his friends. He does it because he can’t help it, but like Sam says, he’s not a bad person.

By the way, I often wonder what would have happened if they had forced him to show his arm when checking everyone’s scars. If Andy, Peter and Steve had discovered about his suicide attempt at that point.

Would they have understood that Gary was on a suicide mission, at that moment?

And that it was only making it all the more exciting for him?

This is Gary King, everyone. 

Also, funnily and terribly enough, he relieved the night the same way he first lived it back in 1990. Some gifs and images as evidence:

Which begs the question; was the first night even that great to begin with?

I think I covered everything I had in mind (not bloody quite but well). I don’t even know. It wasn’t supposed to turn out like this but I’m glad it did, I got to ramble about my favorite trilogy for hours on end so. And also... I’m pretty sure I was trying to prove something with all this but my point is: I’m in love with Simon Pegg. 

No, ok. Again. Seriously. 

The World’s End is such an underrated movie. And Gary King is such an important character. The movie depicts human nature in the realest way, with all its flaws. And Gary King is depicting mental illness, was written by someone who went through this kind of things. The movie is very personal for both Simon and Edgar, actually. I don’t know much about Edgar, to be perfectly honest. I love his movies, he’s an genius, but I don’t know much about his personal life. I just do know this movie is important for him too. I do know that Simon has dealt with alcoholism, if I’m not mistaken he’s been sober since 2010, he knows what it’s like to battle addiction and depression.

The movie doesn’t romanticize these problems one bit. It shows how bad it can be, and how it can be perceived as by people not knowing much about these things. Remember that comment talking about the fact that the “mid-life crisis” Gary’s going through gets annoying after a while? Welp.

Could you imagine actually living in Gary King’s head for more than an hour. Unbearable. Especially since he’s aware of some of the fucked up things he’s doing and must hate himself for it. 

Yes, there’s the humor and the crazy robot stuff going on on the side, but that was my point at the beginning. That’s why the big weird entity that invaded earth isn’t the big villain of the movie.

I always say the same thing about villains. Take Thanos in the MCU for example. He’s the fucking worst and yet, his actions are justified. Careful. Not excusable, justifiable. You understand that there’s a point for him, that he firmly believes in what he’s doing, that he’s sure his actions are what’s supposed to be done to make Earth a better world, that what he does is right. Yet, because we’re rational and fucking decent, we know that’s not the way you solve problems. Here, the enemy believes it needs to replace humanity with perfect beings, to… make Earth perfect, or something. You know that it’s pointless, because like they show, only three humans in Newton Haven were spared. Earth is filled with flawed humans, you’d have to replace everyone to make it better. And yet, these actions are “justified” by a thought process. Doesn’t mean turning humans into compost is excusable. That creature’s definitely a villain, but not the main one in the movie.

The end of the world ain’t even a bad thing in the movie. On the contrary. A lot of people survived and Andy himself says things are simpler. They’re kind of back to the Dark Age and they realized that all their problems seemed very small in comparison to such events, and they’re happier.

Here, Gary is his friends’ enemy, he’s the blank leader’s enemy, and he is his own worst enemy. He hurts absolutely everyone, himself included. Because of his own addictions and depression. That’s what can really happen in real life and that’s something I really like about the movie.

And he ends up alone. He took the decision to leave but you don’t have a dumb female love interest that falls for the bad boy and make the worst decision she could by getting with him at the end so that we’d have a happy end and so would Gary. Sam’s very honest with him, she tells him how things are until he finally understands and agrees with her. He makes the right choice (“for once,” like he says) and makes her save herself and is fine with her ending up with Steve.

He’s always known the truth, but he had to accept it and he does. It’s difficult, but he does.

I don’t think Gary’s end’s a happy one. I have mixed feelings about Gary’s end because I don’t think he’s going to be satisfied on the long term and he does deserve some happiness at that point in his life. He excluded himself from everyone and is still stuck in that circle of not growing up. He’s definitely happier and he’s sober. But what is going to happen? He’s going to grow old and the blanks won’t change and then what? How is he going to feel about that? 

It’s a real ending, not a cheesy one. But at least he always has that option of coming back at some point. He did once. And he would be more welcomed, and he’d act the right way.

Like he told his teacher back in high school, all he ever wanted was to have a good time. With the four blanks, he’s traveling and having his own fun, he does what he wants, he has the freedom he always wanted to have, he kind of found his path. That’s all he ever wanted, he just found a new way to do so. At least, he’s got that, and he knows his friends have what they want as well. Earth is destroyed but Steven is with the love of his life, and Andy got back together with his wife and lives happily. 

Well. I think that’s about all I wanted to say. I hope. That was long enough. I just hope you guys are still reading, and that you “enjoyed” this thing that took me forever to write. I’d love your opinion. I’d love it if it made other people watch the movie or enjoy it more than they did at first. I just love this movie so much. And I just love Gary King so much. 

I rest my case. Lets’ Boo-Boo.

[recentanimenews]

CR Features Argues About the Best Opening Sequence of 2018

Anime Awards voting starts TONIGHT and WE'RE SUPER EXCITED! However we have gotten so loud with our individual opinions on who we think should win that we’ve been told to duke it out via written words instead of continually disrupting our coworkers (sorry fam).

  We’ll hit each category by the time we hit the evening of Anime Awards! Today’s piece gets down to the nitty gritty of Best Opening Sequence, Best Ending Sequence, Best Animation, and Best Character Design. Let’s down to business!

Best Opening

Pop Team Epic from Pop Team Epic

    The opening so nice you saw it twice every episode, and it was a banger every time. It wasn’t just the song, either--the OP was full of little things to keep looking for, so you never skipped it unless you were a total monster.

-Nate Ming

Black Rover by Vickblanka from Black Clover

  The music for Black Clover OPs and EDs has always been top notch, but Black Rover is on another level. The sequence put together by the animators is also the perfect combination of cool, goof, and heart. It’s probably the opening I’ll associate with the series forever.

-Peter Fobian

  UNION from SSSS.Gridman

    This song, like SSSS.Gridman itself, made me so happy. It was light and deft, but somehow perfect for the opening of a show about kicking the crap out of kaiju. For a genre that can sometimes feel as tired as “robot man saves the world (and his friends),” this OP, along with the rest of the show, proved that SSSS.Gridman was going to pay a lot of tokusatsu homage, while still being a breath of fresh air.

-Daniel Dockery

Rightfully by Mili from Goblin Slayer

    I’ve been following Mili’s works since I played Deemo, and their songs always have a way of worming right in and refusing to leave. So when I heard that they were doing Goblin Slayer’s opening, it was a very welcome surprise! Mili delivers a powerful performance that has a calm, yet a very vicious tone to it. Combined with the opening visuals, it really ties it all neatly together to set the mood for the show.

-Nicole Mejias

Adabana Necromancy from ZOMBIE LAND SAGA

    Dapper dancing zombies. Super sentai action scenes. Idol dancing. ZOMBIE LAND SAGA’s opening sequence somehow manages to straddle several disparate genres without losing its own unified personality. Set to the theatrical “Adabana Necromancy” performed by the main Japanese cast, main character Sakura’s defiant proclamations of chasing her dreams and the truly unprecedented amount of explosions meld into something strange and charming--a perfect fit for this series.

-Cayla Coats

Best Ending Sequence

Hibana from Golden Kamuy

    You always heard this one warming in the background as an episode would come to a close, and the striking imagery of  “Hibana” just made me more excited for what the next episode of Golden Kamuy had in store.

-Nate Ming

  Pulse from Asobi Asobase - workshop of fun -

  Although I’ve still got Hizuru Basho bumping in my head from Fall, no ED in 2018 was as much of a thematic masterstroke as Asobi Asobase. After a misleading opening giving the series the appearance of a serene high school slice of life and a very confusing episode featuring mean-spirited pranks and Hanako shrieking, the ending dumps you straight into hell.

-Peter Fobian

  Book-end, Happy-end from Skull-face Bookseller Honda-san

    I feel ya, nervous skeleton man. You had a hard day, and then you just go sit on the floor and read manga. And then you lay in the bed and read manga. What a beautiful life.

-Daniel Dockery

Hibana from Golden Kamuy

    Banger alert! This song is incredibly GOOD! Not only is this song catchy, but the lyrics are a pretty good representation to what Golden Kamuy is all about, with lines about an “erased destination” and “accepting everything, pain and all.” If you skipped this ending, I don’t even know what to say; it’s too good of a song to skip!

-Nicole Mejias

Pulse from Asobi Asobase - workshop of fun -

  Peter pretty much nailed it. After the fake-out cutesy pop opening, Asobi Asobase presents us with three middle school girls who make heinously ugly expressions and are just really, hilariously terrible people. The death metal anthem “Pulse” is a perfect fit for the horrible little nightmare children that comprise the show’s main cast.

-Cayla Coats

Best Animation

Violet Evergarden

  You don’t really expect TV anime to look this good--and then it does, and you’re treated to gorgeous, theatrical-quality animation every single episode. I wasn’t invested in Violet Evergarden, but just witnessing it made it worth the watch.

-Nate Ming

Violet Evergarden

    This one is really difficult to argue with. It’s Kyoto Animation on their absolute A game. The studio doesn’t often delve into fantasy but their backgrounds and character designs were breathtaking. Kyoto is always top shelf but they maintained damn near movie quality animation for the entire series run. Even their 3D integration was something to behold.

-Peter Fobian

Violet Evergarden

  LOOK AT HOW PRETTY EVERYTHING IS. Look at the backgrounds! And the shadows! And the way that the hair is animated! I know that that seems like a really small thing, but it irks me sometimes when everyone seem to have immovable Super Saiyan hair (though there’s nothing wrong with your hair, my beautiful shonen bro’s). Violet Evergarden was a bounty to look at.

-Daniel Dockery

Violet Evergarden

    I’d be crazy to not pick Violet Evergarden for this category. I mean, just LOOK AT IT! Absolutely GORGEOUS and BEAUTIFUL animation! I initially thought this was a movie, but nope. Kyoto Animation weren’t playing any games when it came to showing off their amazing animation skills, and my goodness, was it ever a sight to behold! Just look at how they animated the characters’ HAIR! Amazing stuff!

-Nicole Mejias

  Pop Team Epic

If you asked me two weeks ago, my answer here would have been Violet Evergarden for sure. But then my mind was changed when I saw our own Noelle Ogawa argue for Pop Team Epic’s stellar animation in this article. Pop Team Epic employs a wide range of animation styles--from 16-bit video game sprites to the horrifying, MS Paint-esque Bob Team Epic sequences to the use of unfinished storyboards seen above. The series is practically a showcase for experimental animation, and that suits the surreal humor quite well.

-Cayla Coats

    Best Character Design

  Devilman Crybaby

  Akira Fudo and Ryo Asuka are some of the most iconic, memorable, and legendary characters in anime and manga, so seeing them (along with Miki, Siren, and the rest of the cast) get clean, modern redesigns for Devilman Crybaby was a real treat.

-Nate Ming

DARLING in the FRANXX

Just based no sheer amount of fan art, it’s hard to argue with this prediction. Masayoshi Tanaka has developed a well-earned reputation for his designs, in fact one of Atsushi Nishigori’s motivations for working with TRIGGER was the opportunity to work specifically with Tanaka. The character designs are great and so much work from accompanying DARLING in the FRANXX designs to multiple uniforms went into it. It’s probably my favorite part of the series.

-Peter Fobian

Hinomaru Sumo

There’s not a lot of amazingly intricate variety among the characters of Hinomaru Sumo. But I appreciate any anime where all the main characters look like they’d be equally at home being lackeys in a separate anime that get the crap kicked out of them in an alley by the Kenshiro-esque main character. Also, I love this show and so should you.

-Daniel Dockery

Cells at Work

Cells at Work is so beloved for the way it illustrates our hard-working cells as they work night and day to protect our bodies. Keep on kicking ass and taking names, cells! But on the other end of the spectrum are the threats and bacteria that invade our bodies, and some of them are depicted in very frightening ways. Remember to take care of yourself to avoid illnesses! Your cells are counting on you!

-Nicole Mejias

Laid-Back Camp

  There wasn’t a show I watched in 2018 that had more effective character designs than Laid-Back Camp. Everything visual choice made about these characters conveys something about their personality. Nadeshiko’s downward-sloping eyelids and messy pink hair are the perfect compliment to Rin’s alert eyes and neatly tied up hair. These choices echo how the characters themselves play off of one another, and gosh, it’s just delightful.

-Cayla Coats

    Anddd that's all folks! Check back in to see us argue about who else we think should win the rest of the Anime Awards categories. Don’t forget to vote for your favorites starting TONIGHT!

  Do you have a super intense devotion to a 2018 show or character or want your opinions shared to the world about Anime Awards? Send us an op-ed in written or video form. The nitty gritty details are in here and you may get published in a future article!

Who do you think should win: Best Opening Sequence, Best Ending Sequence, Best Animation, and Best Character Design? Tell us in the comments below!

Ricky Soberano is a Features Editor, Script Writer, and Editorial Programming Coordinator for Crunchyroll. She’s the former Managing Editor of Brooklyn Magazine. You can follow her on Twitter @ramenslayricky.

Do you love writing? Do you love anime? If you have an idea for a features story, pitch it to Crunchyroll Features!

By: news+feed@crunchyroll.com

[holbyconfessional]

Holby City S20 E23 - None But The Brave

Oh. My. God.  I’m way too old for this, but I have got to come over all fangirly for a minute (and if you think this is bad, wait til next week when ****** is back!!!)

Jac Naylor is a total Goddess!  She just looked so incredible all episode, and she was so perfectly sharp yet vulnerable, and I missed her so much and... I’m a puddle on the floor!  Just too many levels of hot.  But, being serious...

I’m going to start with the culmination of Han’s storyline, because I think it’s actually one of the most important that has been done for a while.  I’ve debated with myself as to whether the ‘whimper, not a shout’ approach to first Han’s intersex diagnosis, and now their identification as non-binary was the right way to go, or whether a bigger deal should be made of it.  But I’ve actually come to the conclusion that it was handled very intelligently.  I think that the very human portrayal of Han through the entire process, making them a sympathetic and totally relatable person, has actually served to illustrate the fact that those who identify differently, whatever form that may take, are no different from anyone else at the core.  They’re just people, as normal and as flawed as everyone else.  I hope that somehow, that message reached just a few viewers who didn’t realise this!

I loved the playoff between Jac and Abigail over Han’s case.  Abigail trying to treat Jac as an underling, and exercise her authority was incredibly amusing.  The look on Abigail’s face when Jac told her the best way to proceed with Han’s surgery, then her automatic refusal just to stay in charge, which we all knew would collapse in theatre.  I also really enjoyed the fact that Jac was straight on board with using gender neutral pronouns for Han, whereas Abigail struggled initially.

Moving briefly away from Jac, I loved Nicky and Sacha’s project breakthrough moment.  Such a short scene in the episode, but it made me so chuffed for them!

Dom’s invitation to Lofty.  Now, I’m sure there are plenty of extroverts who would adore a weekend away like that, especially younger ones.  But Lofty is an old soul in a young body (Did I cut myself shaving?  he asks Dom.  Are you old enough to shave? is the thought that flicks into my head :-D), and I would guess an introvert to boot, so I can quite see it would be his idea of hell.  Mine too, incidentally.  Shudder!

I’ve found myself getting a little fed up with Sheilagh’s storyline.  But I think that is really a disservice, because again, I think it highlights an interesting issue about the challenges facing our aging population.  I watch a lot of documentaries, and I’ve seen it said more than once that once an older person is set up with or in care, even supposedly temporarily, they never regain their independence.  Partly because loss of function and muscle mass occurs so rapidly as we age.  But more importantly, her storyline is about the loss of dignity which comes with the loss of independence.  I’m pretty sure that I am Sheilagh, or a slightly younger incarnation.  So, I feel now that I see the message, perhaps it just wasn’t told in a way that engaged me personally.

I can’t believe Petrenko is disappearing again!  I really hope that she’s telling the truth when she says she’ll be back.  I was so hopeful after she avoided heading off with Roman, but she’s leaving anyway.  Huff.

Aaaand, we’re back to Jac :-)

I really wasn’t happy when I discovered the reason for her return was an attempt to get onto Gaskell’s trial.  I’ve never hidden my concerns about Gaskell, or my dislike of him, and couple that with the interview that Rosie Marcel gave recently about an impending major character demise - and she specifically didn’t rule herself out - I find myself rather perturbed.  If he kills her, I’ll... I’ll... complain for a while!!!   But seriously, I won’t be happy.

I found his reluctance to include her very telling, and his desperate scrabbles to search for reason after valid reason to exclude her to be even more worrying - especially as yet again Roxanna’s alerts are going off.  (I have to wonder, after all the red flags that have been shoved in that woman’s face about the trial, why she hasn’t done a little more digging?!  After all, surely it doesn’t take a rocket scientist?!)  But now, she’s on the trial - and the only good thing I can see is that it means she stays on our screens for the moment.

Finally, I can’t finish without talking about the Jac/Fletch/Abigail love triangle.  Fletch’s face when he saw Jac, then Abigail came and introduced herself!!!  Shifty much?!  I found myself hoping the entire episode that Jac wouldn’t find out about Flabby (if that’s not a thing, it bloody well should be.  Stupid pairing!), so when Abby walked in and Fletch acted so guilty that he gave the game away, I audibly groaned!  Although Jac did amazingly with the vulnerable ‘heartbreak’ after she kicked him out.  I stupidly chose to have a mild celebration that at least it marked the end of Flabby - but more fool me.  Nope, they’re still on.  <shakes head>.  And then Fletch tries to have his cake and eat it at the end, when he asks Jac out for that drink.  Sorry, Fletch, you don’t give a girl the impression that you like her, then start shagging someone else, even if that person is ice-queen Naylor who disappears without a word for weeks on end (but has a good excuse!).

And since tonight I’ve wittered on for ages, I’d best finish.  And what better thing to finish with than a shout out to Jac and Sacha’s friendship.  One of the best on Holby.  Total opposites, but they really damned care about each other, and it’s a pretty honest one too.  Love them.

[fessel-vox]

more word vomit and idea yeeting

A red herring cabbage seller for a mafia.

 Like, there’s a mafia, and there’s this farmer dude posted all the way in another country, and a ton of the mafia’s associations end up on that farmer’s giant plot of land. The cabbage farmer doesn’t mind the company of the FBI and police and usually ends up inviting them into her house, but the FBI and police are so bloody suspicious because like, wh???? There’s so many pecking things all leading to this one cabbage farmer, there MUST be some sort of relation to this terrible and amazingly hidden mafia and this humble cabbage farmer. The cabbage farmer, herself, admits every time that she doesn’t know of having any relations with anyone from any mafia, and she’s telling the truth! Sometimes she’d get customers from the next country, and a couple of her friends come by and visit, but that’s it. And that’s the thing. Every single customer is from the mafia, very much in disguise, because her produce is just so pecking good, and the leader of the mafia loves it so much that they keep telling all of these people to visit this place, specifically. Of course, false hints leading to this area of farm land being the base of the mafia’s operations are dropped, but nobody is able to state with confidence that this farmer woman has any relations with the mafia.

The boss of this mafia absolutely loves their salad, that’s been established, but they also have a love of basically anything to do with plants. That’s right, The Boss of this mafia is vegan and she’s proud of it. Just about all of the red herrings she leaves behind are plant and lettuce related. She has over seventy alternate and business email accounts and all of them are related to lettuce or general produce. She has tons of plants within where ever she works, and none of them are plastic. Actually, she despises plastic plants so much, that anyone that owns them instantly get written onto her list of people on her bad side, if she finds out they’re those types of people. You can’t just purchase beauty. You have to cultivate it, care for it, nurture it as it grows. The Boss very much integrates this mindset into her work. You can’t just purchase a family, nor power. She has accumulated lots and lots of wealth, and distributes it to her workers somewhat generously, but she still tries to make her ‘family’ understand that you can’t just purchase something and you’ll become improved. You need to be able to put your heart into something and care a bit about it. That way, you’ll end up that much richer than you were before you took the risk of caring. Of course, plants may die despite your best efforts, and it’d be so much safer to buy a plastic plant, but where’s the fun in that?

The Boss understands that to have things come easy is to have things be shallow. When she walks into the homes of new clients, she makes sure to assess everything; how they choose to present themselves, the things within their home, the state of their home, etc. I have writer’s block, I have writer’s block, I have writer’s block, I have writer’s block, I have writer’s block

Oh yes, and I presume The Boss would actually very much enjoy dancing. Formally dancing, of course. I wonder if I could use the fact that she’s a cat as a metaphor somehow… Not someone who’s on the bottom for sure, but she understands that there’s bigger things out there, therefore, it’s best to stay low and enjoy what she has while watching her back.

Her ‘family’ mainly comprises of people who were formerly down on their luck, and most of her clients are only temporary, since she understands they may need something yet don’t want to be affiliated with her business or practices. She’s okay with that ant understands, but at times, if she feels like someone might be very fit for working for her, she’d extend an offer to them for a job.

I definitely feel like, yes, she’s had troubles with the law and has done some not-particularly-cash-money stuff, and haha the ‘business’ she runs is called the Meowfia, but she does try to be clean with the people she works with, allowing them the opportunity to not get caught up in the Meowfia. She’s powerful and intimidating, but has gained the trust and respect of many people. I wonder what her past may have been like…

Maybe not that good, poor? Heck, maybe she started out having a dream of being a police officer, but as some stuff happened, she ended up falling into the world of crime, therefore getting a bit deeper down on her luck. Despite the trouble, after many years, maybe over ten, she managed to amass a community of people she could trust. She became a leader to them, and more people who ended up one way or another being at odds with the law turned to her and her family, and she’d help them out. Sometimes she’s been turn on by people, and that has made her a bit more cold and ready to take a step back from the feelings of excitement of having a new client or member of the Meowfia. Her family eventually became an empire, one that she intended to maintain. There were days were it was difficult, where multiple people would slip up and/or break her trust, possibly putting the Meowfia at risk, and there were days where she’d be absolutely, terribly stressed. Maybe she’d have a right-hand-person, and on days where she’d take a break that person would take the wheel.

On some days where she gets terribly stressed, she’d dress up as someone more humble, compared to her usual choice of a suit and other formal attire, and go to another country. She’d take a while to breathe, and catch up with someone who had a much slower lifestyle, enjoying some of the finest vegetables and salad she’d ever taste. It was nice to spend a few days with her farmer friend, and the friend, Peony, felt the same whenever she came to visit. Sometimes Peony would mention having to deal with the police again last month, and The Boss would chuckle a bit and apologize.

“Oh, but it’s really no big deal, Beda! I invited them in for some tea, and they were really impressed with it. -Speaking of which, want me to give you some more?”

“Sure… and thanks,” Peony went to get the tea kettle and came back.

“Oh, it’s really no trouble,” “No, it’s not that-- but, thankyou for the tea, as well-”

Beda watched as she refilled the tea cup and smiled a bit.

“It’s…”

For helping keep my business hidden and not asking me about it at all, understanding that it’s for the best you don’t know? Allowing me to stay here even though I have a terrible track record? Treating me so kindly and /genuinely/, something that has been getting harder and harder to come by?

“It’s.. for everything, thankyou,”

“Oh, no problem!”

Peony put the tea kettle back and returned to the lounge chair next to the one Beda was sitting in on the front porch.

The Boss wasn’t entirely sure why she does all this for her, though. Sure, The Boss does work very diligently behind the scenes, too, to make sure that her.. Her business partner, this farmer, was safe, but Peony-- she didn’t /have/ to smile so sweetly almost every time they were together, or accept the Boss’ gifts with so much appreciation, or even just allow The Boss to stay more than a few hours.

Heck, she didn’t even know why she trusted this farmer so much… Putting so much trust in people was risky, lately.

But anyways, they were both sitting on the porch, and it felt just so relaxing. It was truly what both of them needed. Of course, neither of them were entirely aware that what they both needed was to be with each other, but either way, The Boss finally felt at peace, and Peony was reminded that the world has so, so many mysteries and excitement, and that it wasn’t all simply this plot of land.

Of course, she /did/ love her job of farming and tending for crops, and looking after her chickens, goats, and other animals, but sometimes it’d feel like.. She wasn’t doing enough. She’d spend an entire day working and yet somehow still feel like she wasn’t doing enough with her life. She didn’t /want/ to feel this way, that was for sure, and yet, some days, this feeling of no accomplishment clung to her horribly… There were days where the loneliness, instead of being comforting, wasn’t exactly so, and it felt like the whole world was this farm.

Don’t get her wrong though, there were days where she felt at peace with what she was doing, and enjoyed it very much! Caring for her animals and tending to crops was meditative, and she enjoys all the time to think quite a bit. She’s really thought about a lot, too.. Maybe she took a class or two in philosophy, but one thing for sure was that she had a lot of books in her house, many of which have been read multiple times over, with an uncountable amount of annotations, notes, and little illustrations within that she drew, and sometimes painted, herself.

Sometimes she’d give a painting or drawing to The Boss as a gift, and The Boss would be a bit confused. Was she-- was she selling this to her? Of course, she didn’t have a single problem with buying anything from Peony. Heck, she even paid almost double for anything she bought from her in a silent way of saying thanks.

“No, silly, I’m giving it to you!” Peony giggled in that lovely, appreciative, light-hearted way, and continued on, “I thought you might like it, since I noticed you were taking a shine to Oreo.”

“Really-?” The Boss asked. 

She couldn’t believe it, and couldn’t help but smile as she admired the warm painting of a black and white chicken. She was going to hang it in her home, no doubt.

“Wow, I,” She chuckled a bit, giving the painting another look and smoothing out her whiskers before admitting, “I didn’t know it was that obvious..”

“Of course it was! You think I wouldn’t know by the look on your face when that little rascal jumped onto your lap?” 

“Okay, you got a point there. Still, I can’t just take this for /free/-”

“Of course you can! Go on, it’s about time you get something without anybody expecting anything in return.”

[oosteven-universe]

Descendent #2

Descendent #2 Aftershock Comics 2019 Created & Written by Stephanie Phillips Illustrated by Evgeniy Bornyakov Coloured by Lauren Affe Lettered by A Larger World’s Troy Peteri     Missing kids, a mysterious cult, and one very angry ex-wife—seems like a typical Tuesday for conspiracy theorist David Corey. While David appears crazy to most, he might just be the only chance the FBI have of finding the missing kids and solving a centuries old mystery. Will FBI agent Joanna Hernandez learn to trust David before it’s too late?     You aren’t paranoid if they are out to get you. That is the thought that immediately crossed my mind after I finished this issue, and yes it is in regard to David. I like the way that this is being told as Stephanie seems to be taking her time and not rushing the story. The pacing is excellent and how the characters we met last issue are starting to come together is extremely well done. Of course things could have gone differently but then again it wouldn’t have been as much fun if done differently. So yeah I am extremely impressed with the way that this book is being done.     This issue starts off very uniquely and while that took me by surprise and I loved it! An opening within an opening isn’t something you see everyday and I have to admit that I wish we’d see it more but then again no (or a man who sells potions in the travelling show) this way it’s not overdone and it kind makes it a signature aspect to Stephanie’s writing. Also I like this made me go off script as well. I kept thinking about the lunatics on Youtube who make videos and it doesn’t matter if they are those hate or conspiracy theorist stuff but the impact it makes on the readers’ mind is undeniable. We all know that going off script is one way I gauge the writer and their talent. So it’s great to see that more and more I am going off script.     The characterisation here is so amazingly good. I mean Stephanie nails the paranoia that David carries and the drive and determination of agent Hernandez as well as Michael who I feels as a larger role than we know, and then there’s David’s ex-wife and lawyer who is hard as a diamond and tough as nails. These four people are going to have an amazing connection one way or another and it’s being set-up beautifully.     Evgeniy is really showing us this great look at how he’s able to control the varying weights of the linework and create some very, very good attention to detail. Whether it is in the hair, and there’s a lot of different hair types here, or the way we see these more delicate lines in the faces that bring these people to life it just leaves an impact on the reader whether they realise it or not. I am fan of how we see the composition in the panels being done. Backgrounds are utilised more often than not and that helps to expand the scenes and give us larger feel for the size and scope of the story. The utilisation of the page layouts and how we see the angles and perspective in the panels show a very strong eye for storytelling. I am totally digging the colour work here as well. The way we see light sources create shading and shadows. There is also some interesting colour gradation or bleeds happening in places that go along with where the light source is. There’s a great creativity and imagination going on here and it’s nice to see how it works with the story. ​     So we are seeing things already that make us question what we initially thought. First impressions are a dangerous thing in stories as people can always find a way to surprise you. Also jumping to conclusions could be as dangerous but that we have this going on already in our minds again shows the skill of these storytellers. Strong writing and interiors make this one mystery you’ll want to follow along with.

[twopointthreeninetoone]

The Dark Knight (2008)

Batman Begins caught my heart as soon as I saw it, and so I followed news of its sequel pretty religiously when they announced plans to make a second film. I paid attention when they decided to title it The Dark Knight, I threw in my two cents when all the casting was announced (I was all for Aaron Eckhart when he was chosen to play Harvey Dent, believed that the casting of Heath Ledger as the Joker had possibilities, and although I can’t say that I’m a huge fan of Maggie Gyllenhaal, I at least preferred her over Katie Holmes to play Rachel Dawes). I went over the moon with the viral ad campaign, although I didn’t partake in it.  I checked Batman on Film (the website for Dark Knight updates) incessantly.  And I was worried about the impact Heath Ledger’s death would have on the response to the film, and on the film itself (all while being genuinely saddened by the death of a very, very talented and charismatic actor). I didn’t, however, read the reviews when they came out—I didn’t want to be in the slightest bit spoiled, although I got enough out of them to know that The Dark Knight wasn’t so much a film as it was an experience. People were saying that it was even better than Batman Begins. I would have seen it if the reviews had been god-awful, heaven knows. But by the time the premiere date rolled around, I was holding my breath in anticipation.  And, luckily enough, my cousin was equally excited about seeing it, and so we saw it together, discussing the first film and what we anticipated for the sequel hours before actually entering the theater.

And, really, it was an experience before the film even started.  We were gunning for tickets to a 5:45 showing on Friday, opening night.  At about five my cousin called to say that he was sure that we wouldn’t make it in time, and so we decided to try for 6:30.  At 5:45 my cousin called again to say that he’d just seen a news report about how much business the film was doing, and judging by the video of people standing in line and the mention of shows selling out (hell, some theaters were selling out two or three weeks before opening night), he doubted we’d get into a 6:30 showing.  So at 7 o’clock we went to the theater and got tickets for the 9:00 showing and hung out until 8 o’clock.  We stood in a line that grew and grew until 8:30, when we were all allowed into the theater.  There was a semi-desperate shuffling for good seats, and at 9:15 the film started.

That is, it should have started. In what well could be every theater manager’s worst nightmare, the packed theater sat in anticipation as the previews began and…there was no sound. That is, the sound was lousy, fading in and out and wobbling about when you could actually hear it. The fear really began to kick in when the film actually started and all we could hear was a very low-pitched drumming. We couldn’t hear the dialogue. I could make out that there were guys in clown masks, and they were preparing to rob a bank, apparently, but by the time they had assembled to rob said bank, people were already yelling “Fix the sound!” and “I hate this theater!” and “This sucks!” and standing up and glaring their meanest glares at the projection room. The film was turned off, and for the next thirty minutes people shouted random comments (all along the same line—The theater sucks. We want our money back. This sucks.) Some went home. My cousin and I decided that they would have to come out and tell us that the thing would never be fixed before we left. We’d waited years to see this. I think I was relatively calm throughout the entire thing. I simply didn’t want to believe that I wouldn’t see it that night. Not when I’d told myself that I would see it, and not after I’d gone to the theater to see it, and not when I’d seen the first three minutes of it. I wasn’t going to leave with only the first three minutes of it. No bloody way. I refused to consider the possibility.

At 9:30 they finally got the film running.  They skipped the previews and headed straight into the film. And then…I don’t think I blinked for the next 150 minutes. There have been extraordinary cinematic moments in my life, and I’ve had the good fortune of experiencing a few of them in actual movie theaters, but I can’t recall the last time I was this riveted by a film. Honestly. I can’t even properly explain what made this movie so amazing, but I suppose I can try. 

Obviously Heath Ledger had something to do with it. I remember Michael Caine gushing over Ledger’s performance before Ledger had even died—but I knew that Michael Caine often heaps praise upon his costar’s performances, so I only gave it so much thought. When critics began circulating Oscar buzz for his performance—well, my ears perked up, but I thought that they just might be in love with the idea of a second posthumous Oscar in the history of the Academy Awards. After all, an Oscar for playing the Joker? Really? I didn’t doubt that Ledger was going to put in an amazing performance (I’d liked him even before he’d been considered a “serious” actor), but…an Oscar? But then you see it and, yeah, the dude definitely deserved an Oscar for this. I didn’t once think, “Wow, that’s Heath Ledger in Joker makeup,” in the same way that you think, “Wow, that’s Jack Nicholson…playing a psychotic Jack Nicholson…but in Joker makeup.” This was an amazingly orchestrated performance—although “orchestrated” might not be the greatest word, because it could suggest some sort of superficiality to it. There’s nothing superficial about Ledger’s Joker. There’s a darkness to his performance that is rooted way down, past the funny makeup and stringy green hair, and even past the creepy mannerisms—the licking of the lips and the high-pitched voice. Ledger’s Joker is more than a bad-ass—he’s a startling psycho. He’s horrific, but you can’t turn away from him, and you hang onto his every word. If there’s a downside to Ledger’s performance, it’s the sad knowledge that he won’t be able to reprise the role.

Really, the Joker is the culmination of every reason why Batman Begins and The Dark Knight are so great in the first place (and why they’re shoulders above any of the previous Batman films, and why, in my opinion, Batman is the greatest superhero of all time). There’s nothing bright and cartoonish about Gotham City. Gotham City is a scary place, an anarchic place; as exciting as it and the Joker and Batman are, there’s a sorrow and genuine menace about them. Batman Begins recognized the utter strangeness of a guy who dresses up as a bat to fight crime, and The Dark Knight illustrated the level of depravity that a villain—and the limit of desperation that a city—would have to reach for a persona like Batman to be required. There’s a great line spoken by Gary Oldman’s Commissioner Gordon at the end of the film, about how Batman has to become hated by Gotham because that’s the type of hero the city needs. It’s reached the point where not even the whitest knight could save it. An idolized hero can’t make it there, because there are hundreds of villains ready to either pull him down to their level, or to kill him because they’re prepared to break the rules he feels obligated to uphold. These are the sort of ideas that the earlier Batman movies never could have conceived—or at least didn’t have the guts to convey—because the psychology behind Batman (his dead parents, his fear of bats, his obsession with justice) were merely plot points to explain the action sequences, the cars and weaponry, and the bizarre costumes.

The “white knight”, in this case, is Harvey Dent, an idealistic but strong-willed district attorney who ultimately becomes the scarred villain Two-Face. That he spends most of the movie as Harvey Dent instead of Two-Face is an example, I think, of the trust that Chris and Jonathan Nolan had in the central theme of the film, and the mature stance they take on the character. While Joel Schumacher’s Two-Face (played in Batman Forever by Tommy Lee Jones) bounded about with costumes and accessories expressing the contradictions of his physical appearance, Nolan’s Harvey Dent is one of the few leaders of Gotham City with real principles that he can readily uphold—until the Joker takes everything away from him, and he simply can’t hold up under the pressure. What makes the character of Harvey Dent work is that he’s so well-written and likable, as well as the fact that Aaron Eckhart does such a good job in what can easily be considered a thankless role. To be honest, Two-Face is overshadowed by the gleeful anarchy that is Ledger’s Joker; we’ve had about two hours of the Joker, with his array of knives and bombs and countless insane henchmen, and only thirty minutes of Two-Face with…a gun…and a scarred coin. But to focus completely on Two-Face as a villain would be to ignore the tragedy of Harvey Dent as a hero. Two-Face isn’t so much a central villain as he is the horrific product of the Joker and the corruption that eats away at Gotham City. This is what happens to white knights in Gotham. It’s easy to watch Heath Ledger’s performance and say it’s brilliant because—well, firstly, because it is, but also because he didn’t need to reign himself in as a performer. The opposite has to be said of Eckhart’s Harvey Dent. A lesser actor could have easily played Dent as being insufferably milquetoast. But Eckhart tones it down—you genuinely like Harvey Dent and you believe that he wants to save Gotham, even though you know what’s to become of him.

It’s easier for me to count the number of times I wasn’t surprised by scenes in this movie than the number of times things absolutely shocked and/or floored me. I wasn’t surprised when the Judge’s car blew up—I knew she was going to catch her lunch at some point, and when she got into her car…well, I’ve seen enough movies about organized crime to know that’s a bad sign. I wasn’t surprised when the Joker and his henchmen stole the police officers’ uniforms and hid among the genuine cops to (seemingly) try to assassinate the mayor. That being said, I shouldn’t have been surprised when it was revealed that Gordon hadn’t been killed earlier in the film—I spent a good deal of time after the scene where he’s apparently gunned down while trying to save the mayor’s life thinking, “How could they kill Commissioner Gordon? They can’t kill Commissioner Gordon!” But I never thought, “Nah, they couldn’t have killed Commissioner Gordon.” Because I knew that this film hadn’t been following every aspect of the Batman canon. And I simply assumed the masked driver of the armed car holding Harvey Dent was one of the Joker’s men, who would ultimately reveal himself and…do whatever with Dent. So when the driver revealed himself to be Gordon—well, I and a lot of other people audibly gasped, and many applauded. That reveal capped off an utterly amazing chase sequence. I was surprised, however, when Dent died, because I thought he would play a big part of the next film. Although the scene where Dent and Rachel are strapped to bombs and dozens of barrels of gasoline did initially invite flashbacks to the Saw movies, it was really just par for the course for the Joker, and was actually a really effective scene dramatically. I wasn’t surprised that Batman would decide to save Dent rather than Rachel, but I was surprised when Rachel was killed, because I’m used to the movie formula where the hero is faced with a choice that should inevitably lead to the death of a character, but is able to save everyone just in the nick of time. But this isn’t the sort of movie that gives us that comfort; anything goes. I should have realized that. And while I never really liked the character of Rachel, I thought that Maggie Gyllenhaal was a step up from Katie Holmes, and was starting to accept the fact that she would be Batman’s love interest. I even liked the fact that she chose Harvey Dent over Bruce Wayne because I probably would have chosen him over Bruce Wayne in the long run too. And then she died. Ultimately, it played as a good reason for Batman to briefly reconsider his “no killing” policy, while sending Dent over the deep end (and to the dark side). Two-Face’s speech while holding Gordon’s son hostage (“Lie to him—tell him that he’s going to be okay.”) was unnerving and heartbreaking because it was believable.

Also, Rachel’s death set the stage for the inclusion of Catwoman in The Dark Knight Rises.  Of course.

As for Batman? What’s interesting about Batman is the (repeated) declaration that he isn’t a hero. While superheroes like Spider Man and Super Man are celebrations of the fight against evil, Batman exposes the dangers and the anguish that are presented in that struggle. Batman is physically and mentally punished for being a hero. He’s beaten up, has scars all over his body to show for it, and he loses people he cares about, like Rachel and Dent. Batman Begins chronicled the partial loss of Bruce Wayne as a person (facilitated by the death of his parents and the ruination of Gotham) and the creation of Batman as a weapon against evil. It was thrilling to see Bruce Wayne become Batman, but you also realized the sense of darkness that accompanied it. Bruce Wayne hated having to tarnish his own character (and, in effect, the whole Wayne legacy) in order to prolong his obsession with revenge and his compulsion to fight crime, but in the end, inner demons won out and Batman carried on. In The Dark Knight, Batman continues to struggle with the darker aspects of his character—how far he would allow himself to go and how much would he have to sacrifice to keep the public safe, to stop the bad guys, to restore faith and humanity to Gotham City, and to avenge his friends and family. He not only continues to ruin Bruce Wayne’s character (he’s still a spoiled brat) but also ultimately sacrifices Batman’s heroic persona as well, for the sake of Harvey Dent’s (and, by proxy, for the sake of Gotham City). It’s not readily apparent whether things are going to end well for Batman. The very act of being a superhero is a sacrifice for him, and the story that has been constructed doesn’t necessarily allow a happy ending. That’s what gives Batman an edge that other superheroes lack. 

In addition to all the psychological stuff, there’s also a heap of great action sequences and fight scenes. It’s just a great movie. Nearly perfect.