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tobi-momo · 3 years

Text

You Belong With Me

“What was she so mad about?” Your voice bleeds through his phone as he scribbles on his homework with his number two pencil, sighing at your question. He looks up briefly to his window to see you at your desk across your two properties’ filing the papers for your math class, organizing your work. Your phone is sandwiched between your shoulder and your ear, your eyes narrowed as you focus on what assignments are what.

“Kei?”

He shakes his head as his mind snaps out of the daze, his golden eyes flicking down to his work. “Uh,” he sighs as he re-grips his pencil, “I teased her a little bit and she got mad,” he finished. You chuckled before covering your mouth with your hand, finally looking up at the man through your clear panes.

“You’re kidding,” you giggle, a smile leading onto Kei’s face while he listens to your voice, although refusing to look up at your face, he shakes his head in a joking dismissal.

“No, I’m not. But we are never mentioning it again.”

“Oh, good luck getting me to keep quiet!” You shout as your back straightens against your desk chair, a smug look playing on your face once the blond male looks up at you.

He stands up, a reciprocating smirk laying on his lips before he says, “You will,” before he takes his phone away from his ear, pressing the “hang up” button and raising his arm to close the drapes. You laugh with satisfaction while you exit his contact, turning on some music and tossing your phone on your bed before cleaning up your area and strumming your fingers like an imaginary guitar.

He opened his curtains expecting to see you sulking while doing your work, only to see you dance like an idiot while you blast your music, your pencils acting as a microphone as you perform your concert in front of your stuffed animals. He could hear the music from across the yard, him identifying it as your shared playlist that you two made a couple years back, the duration over fifteen hours as about three-hundred songs reside. An accidental chuckle escaped him as his eyes rested on your jumping figure for just a couple seconds. It was for entertainment. Yeah. That’s it.

~.~.~.~

Sticking your fabric marker on the construction paper, you write out your message to Kei.

“I love you”. It was a message that would tell him that he deserves the best and nothing less. It was something that you treasured and wanted to share that value with him. Something that told him that he belonged with you.

You hoped that one day you’d be able to give it to him, to tell him how you really feel, to show that you can do a better job than her, but you never got the chance. Carrying the folded slip in your pocket, ready to pull out, his phone rings. As you sit on the bench on the side of the road, you wonder how long it had been since you had seen him really smile. You had made him smile a lot before, even if he doesn’t smile a lot genuinely, there are some times where real happiness seeps through his facade. You like it when that happens, always have. You noticed how much his happiness had reduced over the course of these last few months, though.

He answers the phone very monotone, very uninterested. He sounded obligated while he spoke to his girlfriend, sighing sharply once he hung up.

“What was that about?”

“Just drama. Kind of sick of it at this point.” He sticks his phone in his pocket, looking over to your concerned expression. “It’s nothing to worry about,” he says while rolling his eyes, placing a soft hand on your head and letting it rest. His hand retracted quickly when the sound of his name rings through his ears, his head whipping towards his girlfriend's figure. He readjusts his glasses, sitting straight up and swinging the strap of his school bag over his shoulder before he gets up and sluggishly walks across the street, meeting up with the one he was set to have a date with later. He subtly waved to you prior to turning his head away and continuing his stroll with his date hanging on his arm. You ignore the glare served your way when you wave back to him, forgetting the multiple reasons of why you wanted him away from her so he can enjoy his date. Hopefully.

~.~.~.~

As you stand on the bleachers of Kei’s game, you watch him stride over the court and jump to block the ball, a playful smirk residing on his lips as he sends the ball to the other side. You clap for him, shouting praises his way in hopes he might hear you over everyone else. Especially her. The screaming and unnecessary noise making your ears bleed a bit. You didn’t mean to be irritated by it, but the pulse on your forehead and the grit of your teeth made it painfully obvious you didn’t really like her.

When the end of the game hit, you were overloaded with joy at Kei’s victory. You hurriedly make your way over to him before gripping him tightly in a hug, not caring about the sweat that drips off his body. You could feel his arms flex as he raised his arms to hesitantly reciprocate your actions until his arms completely dropped, his body stiff.

“What the hell?” He muttered under his breath as he firmly moved you aside to walk away. Following after him, you let your head peek out from the side of his back, watching it all occur in front of you. “What’s this?”

“What? Nothing, Kei,” she mewls, setting her hands on her boyfriend’s shirt as if she thought he was silly.

“Yeah, we were just, uh, talkin’.” The man before her fibs.

“Not according to what I just saw,” Kei accuses the two with a furrowed brow, fed up. You come out from behind him, glaring at his girlfriend in hate. This was it.

“Don’t worry about it, man,” the man dismisses, turning to keep the conversation with her going.

Stepping forward, you place an arm in front of Kei, stopping his movements as you eye his girlfriend. “Tell me you were not just flirting with this man and we’ll leave.”

“I wasn-”

“Don't,” you pause, taking a deep breath as you watch her take a step back, “don’t lie to me, or you will regret it,” you threaten, a sharp glint in your eye telling her that you are oh so serious about this. Behind you, Kei watches as you make his girlfriend stammer on her words, a subconscious smile leaking on his face.

She stomps away with anger, the man beside her moving away as well, scoffing.

~.~.~.~

He didn’t say much on the way home; you trailed behind him as he walked away in part anger and denial. You didn’t really know what to say. Should you go back and find the girl and beat some sense into her? Should you give some words of the wise to Kei? Would he even take it?

As you watch him slow down to match your pace, you grow confused. You were headed to your place, so why was he suddenly following? “Kei?” He hums in response, his head hanging low. “Would you like to stay at my place? I can make coffee and we can stay up shit-talking our least favorite people,” you giggle and softly bump into his side, a stifled chuckle escaping him.

“Whatever,” he mumbles with an obvious smile as he continues to walk with you. When you quietly shut the door and take your shoes off, you softly tread to the kitchen to turn on the coffee machine- the man that you took home followed, his arm planting on the marble counter as his eyes trail over your moving figure.

As you sit on the stool next to him beside your kitchen island, you converse about the drama he’s been scooped in, him rolling his eyes twice a minute and his irritation level going off the charts as he recalls the events. He hated it, you could tell. He made it pretty obvious he wasn’t happy about it, too.

“Are you still going to the dance with her tomorrow then?” You speak curiously, twirling your fingers around each other while staring blankly into the marble as you awkwardly sit there, awaiting an answer.

It takes him a second to respond, a long sigh and a deep thought coming into play in his mind once he looks over to your spaced expression. Does he really want to go? Did he want to go with her, or with someone else- you? “Probably.”

Oh. “Are you sure you wanna do that? After what happened today?”

“Why not. Nothing better to do,” he justifies, shrugging. Yeah, you probably should have seen that coming.

The note that resided in your pocket seemed to crumple a little bit when you came to terms with the fact that he may never notice you the way you wanted him to.

~.~.~.~

“Are you going?” Kei asks over his phone as he takes his suit out of his closet.

“Ah, no,” you breathe out as guilt pools in your stomach, your elbow balancing sitting on your desk while dozing off into something that is not mathematical equations.

“Oh,” is all he says before telling you he needed to get ready, giving his goodbye.

After the call ends, you see the light fading away from his room as he closes the drapes, giving you a sign to start working again. You wondered what would happen if you possibly showed up. You originally were going to go, but the date that canceled soon beforehand gave your mind a gentle squeeze, telling you that the dance wasn’t for you. Still, the tiniest urge told you to make an appearance. You groan in waver, giving in.

~.~.~.~

You felt good. You felt really good. Wearing your planned outfit to this dance, you make your way inside carefully, minding the crowd. You catch the eye of the one girl that you held a grudge against, watching her grope another man on the dance floor. You roll your eyes in disgust as you move your head around to find a tall blond in the crowd. He leaned against the wall across from you his arms crossed while his dilated pupils trace the light that bounces off the floor.

“Hey,” you greet him, his attention whipping to you as he raises his head.

“Hi,” he reluctantly answers you while standing straight up, a relieved smirk leading onto his lips. “I thought you weren’t coming.”

“I didn’t want to put my outfit to waste,” you smile, spreading your arms to show your attire.

“Yeah, well you came at perfect timing,” he points towards his girlfriend which you identified earlier, although he seemed like he didn’t care all that much.

Gripping the folded paper in your pocket, you slip it out with two fingers confidently. “I have something to tell you,” you admit, your eyes staying centered on his black suit.

“Go on,” he eggs, hands staying at the side of his body while he watches you fluster yourself. It takes you less than a second to shove the note in his stomach and turn around, your face turning hotter and hotter every moment. Your hands lay against your cheeks as your nerves rattle beneath your skin, your ears tingling when you hear a sweet chuckle glide against his lips. “You should have told me a long time ago, Y/n. I wouldn’t have to deal with,” his eyebrows turn up as his head tips towards the dancing figure just a couple of feet away from you guys, “...that.”

You turn around slowly, disbelief covering your face when you look at his smug expression. “Are you kidding me? You’re telling me this,” you gesture at the both of you with your pointer finger, “could have been something a long time ago?”

He sucks in through his teeth, taking a grip on your arm and pulling you with him as he walks through the crowd to the middle of the room. “Yep. Guess you missed out.”

“Says you,” you roll your eyes with attitude as you pick up your pace and place your hand in his.

He knew he belonged with you, he was just wondering when you would admit that.

aaa here it is! three days of work! sry i havent been posting lately ive been working <3 (reupload bc tumblrs a little bitch)

REQUESTS: OPEN

reblogs are VERY appreciated!

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peachywrite · 3 years

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Unpleasant Pleasantries

Rohan Kishibe x JosukeSister!Reader

Trigger Warning: inappropriate stand use, mild suggestive themes

Rohan thought this to be the perfect opportunity to get back at that imbecile with the hair of a 60’s delinquent, but instead found something more fulfilling than revenge.

It was your first time meeting the famous mangaka, but Koichi insisted that you introduce yourself to the newly found stand user as a formality.

“It’s better to make friends than enemies, y/n! So please do this for me.” He begged, clasping his hands tightly together as he bowed.

“Koichi-chan, he ripped out pages from your face and tried to do the same to Okuyasu and Josuke. I don’t know if I trust this guy.” You sighed, nervous and even a little scared.

“It’ll be fine, when you tell him you’re related to Josuke, he won’t even think about trying anything!” Koichi’s eyes glistened, still silently begging you to go.

“Fine, but if I don’t show up back home in an hour, call Josuke please.” Koichi nodded enthusiastically, shouting thank yous while he ran off to find your brother.

Thanks to the written address Koichi had given you, it was easy to find the large Victorian mansion that belonged to the isolated artist.

“Come on, y/n. You can do this. Just a quick hello and you’re done.” You tried to psych yourself up, taking one last deep breath before approaching the walkway that led up to the door.

Knock Knock

You waited, your heart rate a bit too quick for your liking.

You could hear the steps on the other side slowly approaching and suddenly stopping, only to find the door creak by.

“Now who would be disrupting the Great Rohan Kishibe?” The man spoke in a sinister tone, swinging the door open.

Rohan Kishibe looked nothing like how you expected him to. He was built slim but still toned, his green hair neatly styled and face slim and sharp with a cute dolphin bandage placed on the bridge of his nose. His green eyes stared at you intently, as if he was trying to analyze your face as well.

“I-I’m really sorry I didn’t mean to cause you any trouble. My friend Koichi wanted me to introduce myself. I’m Y/N Higashikata. I’m a stand user and I go to school with the rest of the boys.” You stammer out, guilt hitting you for interrupting the presumably busy manga artist.

The man eyed you with a devilish smirk, clapping his hands together like he had discovered something amusing.

“You’re Josuke’s little sister! Oh how fun! You know, you’re too cute to be related to that boy. Now please come in, I’ll make you some tea and we can talk.”

“I’m actually the same age as him, and I’d love to join you but I got... study plans with K-Koichi!” You tried to avoid his stare but as he made eye contact, you knew you had lost.

“Nonsense! I’ll give him a call and let him know you’ll be studying with me, now please come in already.” His smile grew while he pulled you into his abode by your wrists.

The house was lightly decorated with manga related memorabilia on the wood carved shelves and many original panels from famous mangas hung framed on the soft toned walls, but the home still held a grand Victorian feeling to it.

Your original unease disappeared as you took in the grandeur of the mansion and the interesting items that adorned it so carefully. Rohan smirked at the curiosity in your eyes and the quick movements they made while you focused on specific areas of his home.

“Would you like a personal tour of the property before we study? I will warn you though, not all the rooms have been styled by yours truly yet. It’s a work in progress at the moment.” The smile he bared had you suspicious again, but you didn’t want to be rude to the owner of such a magnificent estate.

“As much as I would love to, your home is absolutely stunning, I sadly only have an hour to study. My mom would kill me if I got home late again.” A hefty sigh escaped your lips and you gave him your best upset expression you could muster.

You hoped he wouldn’t key in on your lying, remembering the warning Koichi had given you about his ability to discern genuine emotions from fake ones.

The mangaka squinted his eyes for a moment, causing your heartbeat to speed up substantially, but his face returned to its usual smile that you swore held a bit of deviousness underneath.

“Oh! it’s alright, dear. I understand. I’ll save it for your next visit. Let’s get to your work now, follow me to the kitchen. I’ll prepare us something and you can take a seat by the window.” He gently took your hand, guiding you to the kitchen and carefully pulling out a seat for you at his dining room table.

A beautiful bouquet set in a hand sculpted vase caught your interest on the table as Rohan busied himself with brewing a fresh pot of tea. The flowers were bright in color compared to the muted ones of the vase, but the contrast made both appear unique and appealing to the eye.

“I see you even appreciate the smaller details of a home. Though I am a mangaka, I do dabble in other forms of artistic expression. Take pottery for example, I glazed this vase in a muted color pallet so it could stand out on its own when beautifully bright flowers were placed in it. The two compliment each other nicely, don’t they?” He set down two tea cups and began to pour.

“Yes! And I especially love the bright purples in the lillies you picked here.” You gently touched a petal, Rohan now lightly tapping his cheek, pulling out a chair for himself to sit right beside you.

His closeness and unwavering gaze brought a heaviness to your chest, making you stumble over your words.

“Um-m thank you for treating me so well and letting me study in your home, Rohan-sensei.” You began to unpack your notes and textbook, Rohan scooting closer to analyze what you had written.

“No need to thank me, my dear. Now let’s get to your studies. What is it you need to work on today?” The smile he shares with you is comforting, but you can’t help but feel like he was plotting something.

You set your pencil bag down and prepare your notebook, trying to make yourself busy by setting up.

“Biology. I’ve only just recently started going to school in person, but I tested well enough to be placed in the highest class. Today we’re supposed to label all the organs in this frog drawing.” Your tone comes off as annoyed and Rohan picks up on it, tilting his head to the side while he reads your frog diagram.

“You aren’t a fan of biology? I’ve got a few anatomy sketches of animals you could use instead of this photocopied worksheet. Maybe that will help peak your interest?” He stands and saunters out to find his sketches, leaving you alone in the kitchen.

When Rohan returns, the two of you work on your Biology homework for about an hour, finishing the entire pot of tea in the process. You found out that Rohan was quite skilled at anatomy, having an entire sketchbook dedicated to the anatomy of many living things, including the likes of frogs and flowers. He was extremely helpful and fun to talk with.

As you packed up your bag, Rohan remained seated in his chair, playing with one of the lilies from the bouquet. You weren’t sure if you should head towards the door and leave Rohan or wait for him to stand and lead you out. You were about to speak when the mangaka interrupted with a swish of his pen in your direction.

“Heaven’s Door.”

You felt a sharp shove of air to your midsection, sending you onto the floor. Every movement you attempted was futile as the grinning artist looked down at you. A deep chuckle haunted you while he leaned in closer to your face. His hands gently caressed your cheek, opening it up like a book.

“I’m sorry, y/n. You’re interesting and I’d love to learn more about you, but I’m impatient. It’ll be far easier for me to just read you. Don’t fret, my dear. I’ll make sure you don’t remember this.” He flipped through your pages, ignoring the tears that ran down onto the very paper he was trying to read.

“Now let’s just read the juicy bits today. You were hospitalized along with your brother when you were only four, a strange parasite made up of Dio’s cells attacked your immune system at age twelve and had you bedridden until fairly recently.” The curiosity he held for your story excited him, the pen he held in one hand quickly wrote onto the notepad he placed on the floor beside your head.

You felt like sinking into yourself, ignoring his quips and teases as the embarrassment of the mangaka reading your thoughts and feelings enveloped you. It wasn’t fair. Why did he have to be this way? He was so kind before and just like a flick of a switch, he changed.

“Oh, now how did you escape that? Here we are, thanks to Mr.Joestar’s Hamon lessons, you not only came back from your illness, but gained a proper stand and the ability to wield Hamon just like your father and great grandfather! Wait, what’s this new paragraph about?” He squinted closely, reading your page out loud again.

“I have to visit Rohan Kishibe today because Koichi told me to. He practically begged. Even though I’m scared, Koichi gave me his word that nothing bad would happen. Rohan Kishibe looks very different from what I imagined a mangaka to look. Well, what did you expect me to look like?” His smirk grows as he continues on.

“Ah, another new bit is here! Rohan Kishibe is very good at anatomy, he’s been kind and helpful, I’d like to get to know him better. I think Josuke was just overreacting when he called Rohan Kishibe pure evil. I could see us being friends.”

His smile disappears skimming the next sentence, his usual tone of voice changed as he starts to read. He sounded upset, hurt even.

You were the one being wronged here! Why would he get upset? He doesn’t have the right.

“Josuke was right. Rohan Kishibe is not nice, he is terribly mean. He’s using me for his entertainment. He doesn’t care. Rohan Kishibe is not kind, he is not helpful, he is cruel, I don’t want to get to know him. I want to forget him.”

“I hate Rohan Kishibe. I hope to never see him again.”

Rohan paused, looking away from your pages, trying to focus on anything else for the moment.

“W-well, I’ll just fix this last paragraph and erase it from your mind. You’re being dramatic, I’m not as terrible as you describe me.” Chuckling to himself, he tries to laugh off his obvious pain and attempts to regain his composure.

“No! I won’t let you erase my emotions!” You shouted, a wave of Hamon spreading through his arm as his pen touched your page, his attempt to rewrite your memory foiled.

The mangaka was sent flying back, his right arm dropping the pen and your face finally shutting closed, returning your ability to move. Although you were upset at the betrayal of trust you gave the man, you felt a twinge of guilt in your heart when you spotted his still form draped across the wood floor, cradling the arm you had burned with your Hamon.

Running to his side, all thoughts of malice left your body while you attempted to get a better look at his injury. His arm was still intact thankfully, but it was badly burned and needed to be set correctly and quickly if he ever wanted it to heal properly. You took a deep breath and turned Rohan over to see if he was still conscious.

“Oh god, Rohan I’m so sorry. I don’t know what happened.” Your eyes fill with tears again as you see the artist weakly rest himself against the wall, still holding his arm close to his chest.

“No, no it’s alright. I brought this on myself. I accept that.” He grimaced, trying to take a peek at his injuries but too frightened to actually check.

“You read my thoughts and history, it wasn’t right but you didn’t physically hurt me. I don’t know how that happened, but I promise you I’ll fix it.” You swore to the manga writer, now searching through your backpack.

When you found your pair of scissors, you went into full first aid mode, removing the sleeve from his right arm by carefully cutting the loose cloth off. After tossing the short sleeve to the side, you cut the bottom of the skirt you were wearing off into a long bandage-like shape of clothing and ran it under the cold tap water from the kitchen sink, returning to the injured Rohan.

“I’m going to wrap your arm with this, it won’t be painful if you let me use my stand, but I’m going to ask you first before I use her on you.” The man nodded, accepting your offer to erase the pain.

“Under Pressure. She’s a stand that has the ability to manipulate emotions. She can change them within a radius or focus on only one individual. When she focuses on a single person, she is only able to change their emotion to the opposite of what is being felt.” You began to wrap his arm, nervous about what he might feel when you placed the wet fabric loosely around it.

All Rohan could do was bite back his lip to avoid making any embarrassing sounds. Instead of the immeasurable pain he imagined to come with dressing a freshly burned wound, he felt a wave of euphoria. He now understood what you meant by the “opposite” emotion would be felt.

The artist never knew wrapping his burned arm would feel so good, every touch caused his breath to hitch in his throat and his eyes to water. It confused him, even though he understood that the opposite of pain was pleasure, it still startled him every time you did one more pass of the homemade bandage.

He tried his hardest not to be flustered, but when you finished off his arm by tieing the last bit with a knot, he let a small whimper escape his lips. His hand shot up to cover his face, it’s hue now a bright crimson.

Your cheeks turned bright pink as well. You turned away swiftly, to avoid eye contact.

“U-Um just stay put. I’m gonna borrow your phone for a second and let you catch your breath.” Scratching the side of your cheek, you stand up and make a b-line for the phone, dialing your home and hoping that Josuke would pick up. You glanced at the clock set on the wall, it read 8:15.

I’m late.

As soon as the phone line rang once, you spotted the front door to Rohan’s manor fly across the main hall. Peeking your head out from the kitchen, you see a furious Josuke with Koichi in pursuit.

“ROHAN-SENSEI! WHERE IS MY SISTER YOU CREEP?! SHE WAS SUPPOSED TO BE HOME 15 MINUTES AGO!” He yells out, his voice echoing throughout the home.

“Josuke! I’m here! I was just about to call you. Listen, I messed up bad and hurt Rohan. He’s in the kitchen bandaged up but I need you to heal him all the way.” You run to Josuke, giving him a tight hug while trying not to cry from the stress of the situation.

Josuke squeezes you once and let’s you go, looking you over from head to toe so he could make sure you weren’t injured as well. When he spots your torn skirt, his aura radiates a dark malice you’d never seen him show before.

“Wait Josuke! I did this to myself, we didn’t have bandages so I cut some cloth.”

He looks you over again and sighs heavily, the purple hue that was full of rage, leaving him.

“Ok, fine. Where’s that jerk? I’ll fix him up real quick so we can go home.” He grumbled, following you into the kitchen.

Even though Rohan wanted to refuse any treatment from Josuke, he finally accepted the help when you threatened to cry on the spot. His arm had returned to its previous state, unburned and fully functional, thanks to Josuke and Shining Diamond.

Josuke picked up your backpack and held the now fixed front door open for you, while Rohan stood and waved goodbye. You awkwardly returned the wave and made your way back home, your thoughts chaotic and confused.

On the one hand you felt guilty for putting Rohan through such an immense amount of pain, but you were also upset at the humiliation he put you through by reading your life with Heaven’s Door. These thoughts plagued your mind as you laid your head to rest for the night.

It was roughly two in the afternoon when Rohan Kishibe knocked on your front door. A short but older woman answered, complaining about the loudness of the knocks when she looked over the artist.

“Oh, my apologies. You’re that Rohan Kishibe my kids talk about. How may I help you, Mr. Kishibe?” She asked with a warm tone to her voice, leaning against her door frame and smiling up at him.

“Is y/n in? I’d like to deliver this to her personally.” He spoke softly, shaking the box he held in his hands.

Your mother couldn’t help but chuckle to herself. He appeared to be anxious and uncomfortable, most likely it was his first time gifting something like this.

“She’s not home yet, but give her five minutes. Why don’t you come in? You can wait for her up in her room, just don’t go raiding her drawers or anything.” She joked, Rohan’s cheeks turning vivid scarlet.

“I’m only pulling your leg, sweety. I know you’re better than that. Now come on! Have a seat at her desk and I’ll bring you up some lemonade.” Rohan followed her inside.

When they reached your room, Mrs.Higashikata opened the door and waved her hand to your desk seat.

“Pull up that chair there and I’ll be back with some refreshments.” Her smile gleamed at him. She walked off to the kitchen, leaving the artist alone in your room.

Rohan browsed around your room, taking in the personality that was apparent by the many bits of decor that gave your little private space a peculiar style. Your walls held photos printed on Polaroid film, sketches presumably drawn by you, and posters of your favorite video games and shows.

When he glanced around your room, he was immediately caught off guard when he spotted two volumes of his very own manga, propped up and on display in your bookcase. To say he was flattered was an understatement, he was completely floored. You were a fan of his?

His heart was heavy all of a sudden, he felt a dreadful pain in his chest while he held the book in his hands. He turned his head toward the doorway when he heard your voice greet your mother. To regain himself, he quickly skimmed through the pages of the manga he was holding, hearing your distant conversation come to an end.

You entered the room. Dropping your bag at the corner of the closet, your eyes never leaving Rohan while you take a seat on your bed. The mangaka gently placed your copy of Pink Dark Boy back in its original position, turning around now to face you.

“I’d like to humbly apologize for my abhorrent behavior and actions yesterday. I was terrible. I know it might be asking too much of you, but I brought you this as a peace offering. I want us to start over. I’d like to get to know you the right way.” He passes you the box he was carrying with him, nudging you to open it.

Casually unknotting the bow and removing the lid from the bottom, you slowly lift what appears to be a white sundress out of the box. It was beautifully made and looked to be just your size.

“I know it’s not the skirt you tore, but I felt like you deserved something a little more unique.” He averts your gaze quickly when you attempt to gauge his reaction.

The mangaka appears to be flustered, apparently not very used to apologizing. His eyes held a fear of rejection but also a glimmer of hope. A breath you never knew you were holding was released with a quiet hum.

“It’s beautiful, thank you, but do know that buying me things isn’t going to repair my trust in you. We can at the very least start over though.”

Rohan smiled to himself, thankful for your empathetic nature, and nodded a quick yes.

“Now that the pleasantries are out of the way, how about we take that dress and enjoy some tea at the cafe? My treat.”

#rohan kishibe x reader #kishibe rohan x reader #rohan kishibe #kishibe rohan #jjba reader insert #jjba part 4 #jjba x reader #jjba

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shivayabless · 4 years

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1. What is a Rudraksha?

Rudraksha (also called as Rudraksh) are dried seeds of a tree, which grows in select locations of South East Asia, botanically known as Elaeocarpus Ganitrus. It is also called “Tears of Shiva” and there are many legends connected to Lord Shiva that describe its origin. The word Rudraksha comes from "Rudra" (name of Shiva) and "Aksha" meaning tears.

2. Does it bring luck?

Yes, Shiva Purana specially describes that Lakshmi stays where Rudraksha is. The aura of a Rudraksha wearer is large and he attracts good luck and opportunities. The different mukhi Rudraksha specifically bring health, luck, abundance, courage, protection and knowledge.

3. What are the benefits of wearing a Rudraksha?

Rudrakshas (also called as Rudraksh) are very supportive in maintaining physical and mental balance. For spiritual seekers, it supports to enhance one’s spiritual growth. Its curative properties have been utilized worldwide for a number of physical, mental and psychosomatic illnesses. More information provided in the Benefits page.

4. Who can wear Rudraksha?

Anyone, irrespective of gender, cultural, ethnic, geographical or religious background can wear Rudraksha. They are intended for persons at any stage in life irrespective of mental and physical condition. It can be worn by children, students, the elderly and ill for many benefits.

5. What is the life of Rudraksha beads?

Could be any number of years. If well protected, can be passed on from generation to generation.

6. Can we wear in hands?

Rudraksha work powerfully as bracelets and arm bands and are most convenient to wear this way. Ancient texts speak about wearing Rudraksha on different parts of the body.

7. Does it have any medical use?

Yes, Rudraksha is classified as a seed of ELAEOCARPACEAE family and has many medicinal properties. It is widely used in preparation of Ayurvedic medicines. Since it works on empowering Chakras, it protects body from diseases caused due to chakra imbalance.

8. How to choose the bead size of a 5 Face mala?

They are of the same quality; it is just that it's a question of convenience. The smaller ones cost more simply because the rudraksha is not plucked from a tree, they wait for it to fall down, fully ripe and fall down. So, it is much harder to pick up the smaller beads in the mountain so they cost more; otherwise they're about the same.

9. How to condition a new Rudraksha?

To condition new Rudraksha beads, immerse them in ghee (clarified butter) for 24 hours and then soak them in full-fat milk for an additional 24 hours. Wash it with water and wipe the beads with a clean cloth. Do not wash them with soap or any cleaning material. Due to this conditioning, the color of the Rudraksha may be altered and it is perfectly normal as these are natural beads. It is also normal that some color of the thread may also come out during the conditioning. Conditioning should be done every six months. You can also wear without any conditioning.

10. When can I wear Rudraksha Mala?

The mala can be worn all the time. You can even wear it when you sleep or shower. If you take cold water baths and are not using any chemical soap, it is especially good for the water to flow over it and upon your body. But if you are using chemical soaps and warm water, it becomes brittle and will crack after sometime, so it is best to avoid wearing it at such times.

11. Do Rudraksha always have 108 beads?

No. Traditionally, the number of beads is 108 plus one, the guru. It’s recommended that an adult should not wear a mala with less than 84 beads, plus the guru - but any number over that is fine! Depending on the size of the Rudraksha seeds, the mala will have varying number of beads like 36, 54, etc.

12. Are the smallest Rudraksha seeds more spiritual by nature?

All Panchamukhi Rudraksha have the same quality, impact, and benefits regardless of the size. You can choose any of the sizes depending on your preference. The smaller beads are rare to find hence the difference in the price.

13. Can I share my Rudraksha with someone else?

No, you should not share your Rudraksha with anyone else, since the Rudraksha adapts to the wearer.

14. People ask, Can ladies wear?

Yes, of course. According to our authentic scriptures, Rudraksha can be worn at all times by all persons irrespective of gender, caste or creed. Even animals benefit by wearing Rudraksha beads.

15. Is it that only Hindus can wear?

No, all religions can wear. Chakras are there in human body irrespective of caste and creed. Ancient texts have not limited wearing of these beads to any caste, religion or sex.

16. Non - Veg and alcohol have become the part of our food. Are we therefore disqualified to wear Rudraksha?

Ancient texts do not mention Non-veg and alcohol being prohibitive for a Rudraksha wearer. Make Rudraksha a part of your body. Your faith will bring grace in your life. Slowly you will find that you are moving away from non - Veg and alcohol as these tamasic items distract a person from spiritual path.

17. How can we tell if a Rudraksha has lost its vibrancy?

Rudraksha have a certain quality by nature, so it is important to wear them on the body in a way that treats the Rudraksha with respect and care. Rudraksha should not be worn like jewelry and kept aside later. When a person decides to wear a Rudraksha, it should become like a part of them.

If someone decides not to wear their Rudraksha for an extended period of time, it should be kept preferably in a pooja room.

There are certain situations that are not conducive for Rudraksha. If you don’t wan a Rudraksha it should be buried in the soil, if possible, or offered to a body of water, like a river or a well.

18. If a bead of the mala break, do I need to buy a whole new mala?

Cracked beads on a Rudraksha mala should be removed, as their energy will be altered and may not be conducive to the wearer. Individual beads need not be replaced as long as the total bead count on the mala is 84, plus the guur, for people who are age 14 or older. Any number above this is fine to wear for those who are 14 years or older.

19. Should the Rudraksha mala beads always touch each other?

To experience the full benefits of Rudraksha, the beads should always touch each other in a mala. This has to do with the energy movement in the mala. It is important not to thread the mala too tightly or else the beads may become pressed against each other and crack. Gently strung, with all the beads touching, is ideal.

20. Does conditioning Rudraksha “re-energize” them? Or is it only to protect against brittleness/cracking?

Conditioning is meant to help prolong the lifespan of Rudraksha by preventing them from becoming brittle and cracking. Being immersed in ghee and milk every 6 months, and sesame oil every 1 to 2 years, is beneficial for the integrity of the Rudraksha. Conditioning does not “re-energize” Rudraksha. Rudraksha beads are of a certain quality by nature alone.

21. After conditioning, Rudraksha feels oily with a slight smell; can anything be done for this?

After conditioning Rudraksha, it may be slightly slippery and may smell of ghee and milk. Rudraksha can be covered with vibhuti as the final conditioning step to aid in removing any excess oil. To do so, take some vibhuti in your palm and gently roll the Rudraksha in it. Rudraksha should not be washed with water or soap before doing this. Vibhuti should be applied to the Rudraksha directly after removing it from the milk.

22. When conditioning a new Rudraksha, there is sometimes a yellow leakage coming from the beads - is this normal?

The first time a Rudraksha is conditioned after purchasing, there may be some leakage from the beads. The color can vary but is usually yellow or black. This is due to a protective process where mud is used to cover the Rudraksha after receiving it from the growers. When mud is applied to Rudraksha, it ensures the seed is maintained in its original condition, exactly how it was when it came from the tree. The differences in color depend on where the mud originated.

23. Are Rudraksha seeds supposed to get darker in colour the longer I wear them? Why does this happen?

Rudraksha tend to become darker with time because of the substances it absorbs; this will be a combination of the ghee, milk, and sesame oil used for periodic conditioning, as well as your natural body oil and sweat. This is a natural process; it does not have to do with sadhana or yogic practices.

24. How do we choose a good Rudraksha?

Many get confused with the shape and size of Rudraksha. One should not seriously worry about it. Just see that the mukhis are well defined, are end to end, corns and contours are natural and there are no cracks along the mukhis. The bead has to be lustrous and healthy and devoid of insect holes.

25. My Rudraksha has few thorns broken. Will it work?

Ans: Thorns on the Rudraksha bead surface tend to fall off over time as you wear them. But this does not make the bead lose efficacy as the power of the bead is from the seeds within and lose few thorns (like losing few hair from the skin), does not reduce its effectiveness. However if the Rudraksha bead gets infested with worms who eat through the seeds, one needs to discard them.

26. My Rudraksha has developed cracks on the surface. Will it work?

Ans: Many times the crack develop due to expansion or contraction of the exterior wooden surface due to change in weather. Wash the bead in water often and oil it every few days. It is possible that the cracks will fill up and the bead would work as good

27. In what other way can Rudraksha control blood pressure?

Take a glass of water. Dip two pieces of five Mukhi in it, preferably after sun set. Drink it when you get up in the morning, before any other intake. Do not use copper glasses.

28. How to test the genuinely of the beads?

Tests like the one which sinks in water is original and the one that floats is duplicate are not right. Even the ones made of wood with some lead impregnated in it can sink comfortably in water. The best way is to procure from reliable source.

29. How long it takes to feel some effect?

Normally within 45 days of wearing Rudraksha rosary you can start feeling the positive change. In 90 days you can feel much better. Thereafter it will work continuously giving benefits.

30. Can one wear the combination of different mukhi’s?

Yes, one can wear the combination of all the beads .The individual powers of the beads can be felt simultaneously. One can also wear a pendant of any specific facet of beads. Either more number of a particular facet of beads or a mix of different facet of beads can be worn.

31. Are Rudraksha beads used only for meditation? Is it meant only for people of certain background?

By wearing these beads one gets tranquility, peace of mind, focus and concentration. This kind of state of mind is equally ideal for meditation as well as for any other mind related activity by modern day professionals. Concentration and focus are the most important requirement for success in any field. Apart from 5 Faceted Rudraksha Beads there are available from 1 Facet to 38 Facet Beads. From 15 Facet to 21 Facet it is available though not commonly. From 22 to 38 Facets it is rare. Other Beads apart from 5 Facets are more powerful and have certain specific use. These different faceted beads selectively alter personality and mindset in a positive way. Rudraksha is meant for entire humanity. Rudraksha can rejuvenate our Mind, Body and Soul, make us perform to our full potential and enhance our overall quality of life. The anti aging property of Rudraksha is well experienced. Rudraksha, the Electro Magnetic Beads, are the Beads with a utility.

On seeing such powers of Rudraksha beads many considered it to have some supernatural powers, divine and Godsend. There have been countless mentions of these beads and its powers in various ancient Indian and Buddhist scriptures

32. What is special about Rudraksha beads?

Asians have used Rudraksha beads traditionally. Asian Yogis and Monks found that merely wearing the Rudraksha beads gave them astonishingly tremendous amount of tranquility, concentration that helped them meditate for a long period of time with spectacular control over their mind.

33. What is a mukhi?

A mukhi is a face of the bead. So one mukhi would have one face and one seed. Ten mukhi would have ten faces and ten seeds.

34. Is there any difference between the Nepali and Indonesian rudraksha in terms of energy?

No. The size of the Indonesian (Javanese) bead is much smaller than the Nepali version, but they have similar energy levels.

35. How do we recognize or identify head and tail part of a Rudraksha beads?

To do this physically take any Mukhi bead and place the flattest end on a smooth table surface so it stands squarely by itself without any tilting from one side or the other. The end sitting on the table surface will be the tail part of Rudraksha. Normally the mouth part of the Rudraksha can be a bit pointed or elongated so it will not stand squarely on its mouth and it will lean to one side or the other

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soyouareandrewdobson · 4 years

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Digging through the archives 1: The ReBoot drama

Hello and welcome to one of the first “subsections” of posts I am going to make on this tumblr for the sake of an easier overview. This one is titlted “Digging through the archives”, because it will always relate to something I will find by literally looking for some of the oldest “opinion” or personal related stuff about Dobson that there is. So think of this here less as me tackling his comics and more of my own version of what the Hypocrisy of Andrew Dobson does.

With that explanation out of the way, lets just briefly talk about Dobson and his idea of fan entitlement; If you have followed Dobson throughout the last year or so, you know he has a very low opinion on fans of the original She-Ra and He-Man, 80s cartoons in general and Star Wars, to the point he thinks the people behind it are all potential alt righters (link red flag comic) or basically man children.

To anyone who knows Dobson however, it would be no surprise now to learn that he has a tendency to be the same kind of way to other people and creators. Like when he whined to an actual writer on a Frozen related property about the necessity of giving Elsa a girlfriend, which even resulted in Aaron Sparrow being involved at one point, a professional animator and comic writer on the Boom Comics related Darkwing Duck issues. A prime example on how Dobson will literally make himself also unsympathetic to the people he wants to work for/with.

But then there is what I found in relation to a little animated series by the name of ReBoot and that is really where both his entitlement and egotism kinda shine.

For those unaware: ReBoot was a computer animated adventure show produced by Mainframe Entertainment and ran from 1994 to 2001. It is actually listed as the first fully computer animated cartoon out there and is fondly remembered by a lot of people. Unfortunately, I myself have never watched it so I can’t give a “valid” opinion on it. All I have seen so far are clips on youtube but I will admit that what I have seen in them looks fun and intriguing, even if the animation at parts (especially in season 1 related content) has not aged that well. But hey, early computer animation, that is forgivable. And any media that manages to make an episode that is also in a way a huge tribute to Evil Dead of all things in a children cartoon is a big win for me.

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Now, how is ReBoot connected to Dobson? Dobson has been a fan of ReBoot, a fact he made publicly known when in 2007 rumors of a continuation of ReBoot emerged. Something Dobson, again, the man who is pissed about the entitlement of She-Ra fans, has not been very happy about.

But Dobson, what is so wrong about being “different” from the past? After all, let the past die! The original show had terrible artwork! And not everything back in the day was good, right?

Yeah, it is pretty obvious how his complaining and stands against “modern” fans ring pretty hollow when he himself acted as the entitled brat he thinks critics of new She-Ra and Thundercats Roar are, back in 2007 already. Also I honestly feel that at the very least the creators of that idea gave their fans still more “control” than Rian Johnson did. And we all know how much Star Wars suffered in terms of reputation because of it.

BTW, this webcomic continuation mentioned? It is actually not just a rumor that went nowhere, but one of the most fascinating aspects I found when reading up on ReBoot via Wikipedia. The idea was that of the five potential pitches (so again, there was variety given that even could have been expanded on) people could choose one that would be further adapted. Additionally the people behind the idea were looking for more active input by fans, giving people the chance to apply as artists working on it if they decided to submit samples people could vote on. Something Dobson jumped actually on. And tried to manipulate in his own favor

The thing that catches my attention at first is how hyperbole Dobson is. Claiming the fate of the show is in their hands and treating voting on this thing like it’s a live or die situation, with pointlessly writing stuff in caps as if we are reading the headline of some trashy newspaper article. It just comes off less as someone who is a fan and more of a fanatic of the show. Second, I just find it hilarious that of all the plattforms online Dobson decided to post that “VERY IMPORTANT” information people should act immediately on, was deviantart. Did he genuinely expect people would flock to what he wrote in order to immediately do something about the vote? Deviantart even back then was mostly for posting fanart, few people read journals and even less people cared for ReBoot. I don’t know if the /co/ board of 4chan existed back in 2007 already, but he would have had more success posting on there and get the information out, than on dA.

Lastly, the shameless self promotion. Stating he does not care which pitch wins, when only three day prior he whined how they all suck and he wishes the show would be done justice by someone. That someone obviously being him, the person who is so hardcore as a fan, because he already waited 8 years just to watch season 3. Damned be any other artists or pitches that may be better or more popular than him, HE is the true messiah and that is his chance to shine. So don’t be “neutral” and judge fairly based on actual competence, talent and effort, just vote for him blindly or else Trump wins the second term and your beautiful nation turns into the fourth rei- I mean, Dobson will be a very sad guy who has come to terms with the fact he is not talented enough to work on a reboot/continuation of his favorite children show.

Well, it seemed to have had some impact though, as four day later he posted this

And obviously Dobson is pissed his favorite pitch did not win and instead of being grateful for the good ratings some of his artwork got he focuses instead on the fact that his Enzo and Megabyte pic had the lowest rating. Which in my opinion it kinda deserved. I mean, look at those artpieces:

Enzo is okayish looking but the rest? That is not Megabyte and a genuine background, it is a cola light version of the entire Ripley disaster with the Samus Artwork commission. Also, Enzo’s hands just look weird. His fingers more alien than they need to be and the position of his legs not really adjusting to how the hip is supposed to move. The comic sample page that Dobson drew being okay overall, aside of the fact that Enzo in one panel HAS FOUR INSTEAD OF FIVE FINGERS ON ONE HAND DESPITE HAVING FIVE FINGERS IN A PREVIOUS PANEL. I am also not really a fan of how Dobson puts emphasize on the word “FAN” and “PAGES” in the post, indicating he thinks he is a better and bigger fan than any of the people who submitted their entries too, off handedly praising them but also making it obvious he thinks he is the most fit for the job, because he can also “copy any artstyle” and adjust to the needs of his superiors. Yeah, sure. That’s why you are nowadays and with even more time and effort put into your work so “good” at imitating Ladybug, your comics look exactly like in the show…

Now considering that Dobson does not have ReBoot under his resume and likely tried his best to bury any enthusiasm for it, you can imagine how this chance at being an official artist ended up.

Not even much of a follow up or introspective in why he may have not won. His enthusiasm died within two days.

And honestly, I am surprised that as a result he did not fake depression and rage quit doing comics for a month or so as he did here and there.

And that is pretty much the end of the ReBoot drama, at least as far as I know.

If you are interested what happened with the comic project, here is what I managed to gather:

The project did actually not die in development, but “ReBoot: Arrival” would be reimagined under the name “Code of Honour” and be published online in three “issues” over the course of the next few months. The comic’s status as “canon” continuation of the show is however very much in the air, as quite a lot of people think it is something of a fanfiction, others think it is a good enough continuation that unfortunately still does not deliver on an “ultimate” ending of the franchise. That said, with additional plans like a movie trilogy never been realized and the “reboot” known as “ReBoot: The Guardian Code” having been perceived as an insult by fans and a disappointment by most audiences (which Dobson was surprisingly silent about) this comic seems to be the best thing fans can still hope for and read.

youtube

Yeah, I am not even kidding. The comic is still up. Here, have two links to independent pages if you want to either read it for the first time or revisit it for the sake of nostalgia.

As for Dobson, if he reads this, I just have one thing to say to you: Don’t you ever again try to whine about how entitled fanboys are, if you felt entitled enough yourself you tried to manipulate a competition in your own favor in the hope to become a writer and then exploit ReBoot for your own agenda and benefit.

#andrew dobson #syac #tom preston #she-ra #reboot #reboot:the guardian code #western animation #computer animation #bob #megabyte #enzo #hypocrisy

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animebw · 4 years

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Binge-Watching: Re:Creators, Episodes 4-7

In which I get some very familiar vibes, the character clashes are better than the exposition dumps, and I wonder if Sota’s gonna work in the end.

Re/Stay Night

Re:Creators is a show that wears a lot of influences on its sleeve. Considering it’s specifically about the relationship between popular media, its writers and its audience, it’s no surprise it invites comparisons to countless different trends and specific properties. But the anime it reminds me the most of thus far is Fate/Stay Night, and I don’t just say that because of the obvious Saber parallel voiced by Yoko Hisaka. The plot revolves around a cast of widely varied, obscenely superpowered warriors, each with their own gimmicks and special moves, and much of the intrigue comes from watching their competing motives and ideologies clash up against each other. The battles take place in a cluttered city, causing lots of collateral damage and requiring them to stay out of sight as much as possible to hide what’s really going on. There’s even a similarity with the relationship between the Creations and their Creators that could be read as a different take on the Master/Servant dynamic in Fate. Obviously there’s a lot of differences in the particulars, but the general appeal of an urban-fantasy clash of ideals between summoned superhumans is definitely something the two shows share.

It’s a well-worn story structure to be sure, but Re:Creators knows how to make it work. All the characters have such interesting, complex views on their position as fictional creations brought to life, and those beliefs can’t help but come into conflict thanks to how different they are. Meteora’s conflicted on how much she owes this world, especially since her original creator’s now dead, but she can tell from playing her game that her world was designed with genuine love and care, so sh decides that her creator’s world must be worth protecting as well. Alice the knight is understandably furious at her world being such a horror show, and she will stop at nothing to bring justice to her people no matter how many bodies she has to pile up to do it. Rui the mecha pilot is exhausted from having to Get in the Goddamn Robot so many times, like a Shinji with more backbone, but his overall heroic nature means he lets himself get swept in events regardless. Jojo’s boss Yuya and horror villain Magane are wild cards who are just here for a good time, and they’ll latch on to whatever witll excite them the most. Mamika just wants everyone to get along, which means she’s even willing to fight against her own teammates if it gives her a better chance of minimizing the damage. Gunslinger Blitz is still fairly shrouded in mystery, but he seems like he has a strong sense of respect for the mission he’s carrying out. And, of course, Selesia is a hero through and through, determined to stop the potential end of the world no matter how hard the task might be, even if that means giving the benefit of the doubt to Creations who really don’t deserve it because they’re all in this together.

Clusterbomb

And whenever this show lets them come into conflict and bounce ideals and beliefs off each other, it’s pretty damn good. Alice and Mamika differ on whether they value good intentions or shared goals more, as well as how justified they believe violence is, but they both respect each other’s drive to do the right thing. Plus, they’ve got the whole “Badass warrior maiden is soft for the cute ball of sunshine” dynamic going on, and god dammit if that isn’t right up my alley (”As long as you’re here, I have nothing to worry about.”) Mamika’s also unable to work up the courage to fight until Blitz tells her that sometimes there’s no other way to constrain violence, and then he’s the first person she gets in the way of to try and stop him from fighting past the point of reason. Meanwhile, Magane’s nihilism puts her at odds with Alice’s strong sense of justice, and she can’t help but needle the knight about how certain she seems to be that her way of doing things is the only just one. They both leave plenty of bodies in their wake, so who gets to decide that the bodies Alice leaves behind were worthy sacrifices and Magane’s are innocent victims? By contrast, Yuya’s brash enthusiasm and Rui’s fighting spirit compliment each other very well, and they’re already a fun set of bros (”Send it flying! High in the sky!”) I love how it keeps finding new combinations of characters to explore, teasing out how all eight of these very different people would interact with each other. And the riverbank clash bridging episodes 6 and 7 ends up dragging them all in; for a brief moment, all eight of the central Creations are together and ready to throw down. The fighting’s only just starting to pick up, but I’m already excited to see which characters butt heads with who next. Whatever combination Re:Creators decides to explore, there’s potential for a pretty damn exciting clash in it.

Chugging Along

Still, while I’m enjoying this show’s Fate-esque approach to building characters and conflicts, it’s also borrowed something else from Fate it probably should’ve left behind: the exposition. Far too much time is spent with the characters just sitting in a room talking, hashing out all the lore details they need to know in order to advance the plot. I’m okay with an occasional exposition dump, but when half of pretty much every episode is dedicated to a group of characters lounging around a relatively boring room and just talking about what’s going on, it starts to wear pretty thin. At least the direction is pretty decent most of the time, so we don’t stay stuck in a dull shot-reverse shot loop for the whole thing. There are plenty of interesting camera angles and smart editing cuts that keep the pace from dragging too much. I also really like whenever it delivers an exposition dump over a montage of the characters just goofing off and having fun. It’s a great way to kill two birds with one stone, getting all the necessary plot bullshit out of the way while fleshing out the characters’ interior lives through how they interact in low-stress situations. If it pulled that particular trick more often, I’d probably have a lot less to complain about. Also if it actually let Selesia and Meteora kiss when they go in for the pocky game. Yes, I am that shallow, why do you ask? Look, big city-set action shows with self-insert male protagonists almost always default to the most boring het pairings imaginable, so I will be very thankful if Re:Creators avoids that particular trap.

Altair’s Secret

And speaking of Sota, I still find it really amusing how little a presence he has. Like, I’m pretty sure he has a grand total of one line in episode 5. And I’ll admit, I’m a little torn on that. On the one hand, the more time we spend with the actually interesting characters- the Creations themselves- the better. On the other, Sota’s gonna have to become important eventually, and there’s only so long Re:Creators can hide from the problem of him not being interesting until it has to actually try and fix it. After all, Sota’s likely gonna end up a big part of this show’s message on the creator/creation relationship. He’s the otaku self-insert who’s a fan of all these anime, manga, games and whatnot the Creations represent, and his arc is about working up the courage to translate that inspiration onto the page and become a creator himself. That’s a good starting point, and there’s a lot of great commentary on that flow between artists and audience throughout these episodes. The Creations themselves are given meaning not by their writers and artists, but from how their audiences react to them and shape their perception. Sota’s part of that audience at the moment, so he likely represents how fans of fiction can translate that fandom into their own creations, finding the courage to let their work suck and improve it from there (”They’re not ready to show to people.” “So when are you gonna show them?” Damn good advice there). And that message isn’t gonna land nearly as strongly if Sota barely registers as more than a glorified extra.

Thankfully, that does seem to be shifting, as Sota’s just become aware of what part he has to play in this mess. As it turns out, the militaristic princess who’s orchestrating this whole mess is Altair, a character of his own creation. At least, partly; there was someone else involved as well, a female classmate who collaborated with him to bring this story to life. And there’s clearly a lot of shit that went wrong there. What happened to split them apart? Did tragedy strike, as suggested by the girl seemingly throwing herself in front of a train in the first episode? Did disagreements drive them apart? How exactly did Altair come into being, both in the story these two wrote and the flesh-and-blood avatar that now threatens to tear the world apart? Is her mission really to reset everything? If so, why? What resentment does she have about her creation that would lead her to such a drastic outcome? And most importantly, why doesn’t Sota share this information with Selesia? Is it just shame keeping him from talking about ti? Writer’s convenience? Or something darker yet? Whatever the case, I have no doubt that Sota’s right about her: ”She’s someone who really hates this world.” And unless they can figure out where that hatred comes from and why, there’s no telling how much damage she’ll be able to cause. Here’s hoping Sota doesn’t keep this revelation hidden much longer.

Odds and Ends

-”For better or worse, characters are often exaggerations.” sakjdhas I mean you’re not wrong

-”Well, it would be boring if I wrote you normal.” Pictured: Literally Me.

-Okay, the dramatic “cookies spell out Creator” scene was just silly.

-”Ms. Ex Machina...” “Are you doing it on purpose?” pfft

-And of course, the war-torn knight is scrupulous about waste. Nice detail.

-”Sorry, I haven’t had time to watch it.” “That hurts.” Lol, called out.

-You know, you could’ve waited a little longer before the flashbang for the joke to land.

-Oh my god Meteora you can’t just raid a military base for ammunition

-”She’s not an object. Don’t talk about her like that.” Heh, nice.

-Magane’s character animation is really fun and sells her unpredictable nature well. Also, she sicced the Monster Manual on that cashier, which I just appreciate.

-Did the Berserk 2016 sound designer work on this? These weapon sounds are very... frying pan.

And on we go. See you next time, where shit likely starts getting real!

#anime #the anime binge-watcher #tabw #re:creators #re creators

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calford91 · 4 years

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Racism is real.

Excuse me for this, but I need to say something about what’s going on concerning these issues like that Karen and George Lynch. I will be real blunt here. If this offends you, don’t read it. First, Imma say this, there’s no such thing as post-racial America. Racism has always been here, but why? One if you think that racism exists because people talk about, you’re stupid af. Does Firemen talking fires create more fires? No. So stop that.

As said by the quote, racism is about power, not morality. That’s why racism stays afloat in this country because it actually benefits it. Racism is privilege/predujice plus power. You must have power to be racist. Racism is about a system that favors one race over others. Racism is about targeting marginalized races through institutional violence or discrimination. Lynchings, blackface, segregated buildings, gerrymandering, racial violence and killings, gentrification, not serving marginalized races, workplace discrimination, persecution of immigrants, police violence, assimilation, economic/income inequality, mass imprisonment, racial profiling, sacred land being disrespected, poor environmental/economic/working conditions are examples. Our government is responsible for keeping racism alive, from the beginning to right now. They either supported it, let it happened, or did nothing. The 13th Amendment never ended racism nor did integration. I’m all for desegregation, but the push for integration was a waste because it did nothing to protect us (Black people) from racism, it just assimilated us. You can’t integrate without any social or economic justice. MLK warned us about it.

If we’re living in a post racial society, why are there still, KKK, Neo Nazis, and all types of fascists and white supremacists running around? Why are there still places that are segregated? I see this a lot in my home state Mississippi, and other southern states. And it’s not just there, it’s everywhere. There is just as much racism and segregation in other regions like the Midwest and the Pacific States. For example, progressive cities like Portland, Seattle, Austin, San Francisco, NYC, Boston and yes Minneapolis have racism. Why are worshipping racist imagery like the CONfederacy (it’s dead and no more), plantations, famous people that we known racists this includes politicians and presidents? We still have the issues of racism like the aforementioned ways of institutional violence and discrimination still going on and our government (alluvem) did nothing. They’ve let the beast grow stronger and it’s gonna continue until we stop it.

What I need to add about racism being still alive is that its been normalized and/or no one gave a damn about it. Racism is more than just hating on skin color or calling people racist slurs, stop looking at the Webster definition. Racism is also about ways how to support the racist system. Examples: Falsely calling the police, supporting a reason why a Black person or POC should get killed, policing Black people/POC on racism, denying racism, fetishizing us and our culture, complaining about us winning awards and pageants, getting roles that are usually reserved for whites, stereotyping, and moving on up in the workplace, All Lives Matter, what about Black on Black crime despite every race doing some crime, okaying removal of Indigenous land, supporting racist politicians, branding nonChristians as terrorists, supporting that immigrants should be treated terribly because they crossed the border despite the fact that this country is originally Indigenous land, angry about the kneeling protests, putting MLK in yo mouth, wisecracking jokes about us like something about welfare or unemployment, saying words like thugs, animals, ghetto, criminals to describe Black folks, issa lot. Here’s a pyramid too.

But what about racism by Black people? Don’t be silly. We can be douches to y’all, but we (along with Indigenous people) can’t be racist to y’all because we don’t have the power to actively discriminate against y’all. If you want reverse discrimination, then look at Planet of the Apes. The apes are rulers of their planet, while the humans are oppressed. That’s what it looks like.

Now on the Karen (Imma call her on that) and George Lynch. So the Karen had the audacity to call the police on Christian Cooper because she couldn’t control her dog. This is a historical problem. Women like her have accused Black men of harming them, when it was a lie, and it got Black people killed. Emmett Till, Tulsa riots, Rosewood, Scotsboro Case, the Central Park Five are examples. On George Lynch, it was murder by the police. Police violence is institutional because it’s made to target marginalized people especially Black and Brown people, women, poor people, immigrants, LBGT people especially trans people (the ones y’all treat like garbage, despite the fact that all they wanna do is live life), and it’s not a few bad seeds, it’s a majority. There are cops that are good people, but that don’t mean anything. And the riots that happen, it’s not an act of recklessness, it’s a rebellion. Riots been happening since ever. There were riots when MLK was killed, the Vietnam War happening, when Black people were getting killed or brutalized by the police like Rodney King (LA), Mike Brown (Ferguson), Freddie Gray (Baltimore), and now George Lynch (Minneapolis). If you can’t put 1 and 1 together, then you’re the problem. These riots are because they’re angry at the system that keep targeting people like them. Keep in mind that these people are targeting corporations and the state not people. It really shows that you care about property than human lives. BTW, where’s all that energy for Tulsa and Rosewood, the KKK, Rioting over sports, Rioting over that creepy coach from Penn State, and those anti-quarantine protestors with racist imagery who’s armed with guns and been blocking ambulances? I don’t see y’all saying anything bout them. This also ties into other issues. Y’all have a problem with rebellious violence, but not a problem with going to another country and destroying it?

I’m so dang tired, y’all and stuff like this happens not just the people who do it, but the people who refuse to acknowledge it or do nothing about it. Look at the quote above. If y’all ain’t gonna do anything about it, you’ve chosen a side. Lemme tell y’all something, your ignorance, apathy, apologism, colorblindless tone policing, and reactionary behavior contributes to stuff like this. If ain’t gonna be anti-racist, then sit down and shut up. Stop with this crap like I don’t see color or we’re the same. Our race matters. We ain’t the same as you. We’re different from you. We don’t have the same luxuries and lifestyles as you. Stop thinking we can make it far as you. We got blocks in our way. You don’t.

All the things that I’ve mentioned about concerning racism is why we kneel (I see nothing wrong with it). Y’all upset with people kneeling, but y’all think that all types bigots and reactionary trash should have free speech. Rioting happens because of injustice against marginalized people. If you can’t see that, you’re lost. As Malcolm X said, the chickens are coming home to roost. What about all that stuff they’ve taken? Screw dat stuff. These multi-millionaire and billionaire companies got the money to save themselves. Property can be replaced, not human lives. Speaking of that, why ain’t you mad that these corporations have doubled, tripled their wealth during this crisis?

Now to allies because Imma see who y’all riding with. One of the worse things you can do is center yourselves or one of your kinfolk into issues like this. It’s not about you. If y’all are all talk, no action then you fake as hell. If you doing this cuz you saw the video, then it’s not genuine because you had all time to do so. If you see someone being racist or just being a huge reactionary ass, CALL THEM OUT ON IT! It’s time to hold these people accountable or if they can’t comply, cancel them. If you see someone doing something to Black people, stop em. There’s Google, y’all need to look up the history of Black people not only in America, but the world, because anti-Blackness is global. This includes Indigenous people too. Understand how colonialism work because that’s how stuff like this happens. Support Black people financially such as Mutual Aids, helping out when they’re down financially, and sending money to Black owned anything. The founder of Little Ceaser’s helped paid for Rosa Parks’ living. Fight for better working, living conditions for us. If you see something wrong, speak out. Don’t be a white savior. You ain’t doing this for validity. You’re doing this because it’s what you’re supposed to do. Don’t listen to the media, because they’re full of lies (alluvem). I’m finished y’all. Here some more quotes:

#racism #blacklivesmatter #antiblackness #white supremacy #georgelynch #christian cooper #karen

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oscopelabs · 5 years

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Telling Lies In America 1985-1995: The Joe Eszterhas Era by Jessica Kiang

“Written by Joe Eszterhas” is a phrase that has not had much of a workout on US cinema screens in over twenty years—and it’s arguable whether the 1997, 19-screen nationwide release of certifiable shitshow Burn Hollywood Burn: An Alan Smithee Film exactly qualifies as “a workout.” But for those of us who had the parental training wheels come off our theatrical filmgoing in the late ‘80s or early ‘90s, there were few individuals more central to our cinematic coming-of-age. And with perhaps the sole exception of Shane Black, a different animal in any case, none of the others—the Spielbergs, Camerons, Tarantinos—were exclusively screenwriters. For over a decade, the Hungarian-born, Hollywood-minted superstar writer of Basic Instinct bestrode the adult-oriented commercial screenwriting mainstream like a smirking colossus in a tight dress wearing no underwear. And given that Hollywood is primarily how the USA, the most loudly, proudly self-created of nations, expresses itself to itself and to the rest of the world, by the man’s own bombastic standards it’s only a slight exaggeration to suggest that America, between the years of 1985 and 1995, was written by Joe Eszterhas.

But for all the dominance he exerted, the rules he rewrote and the sheer money he made, examining Eszterhas’ heyday today feels like an act of paleontology, even for those of us who lived through it. 1992 is not so very distant; in a variety of ways it is still with us. It was the year Quentin Tarantino, whose latest film is in theaters right now, broke out with his first, Reservoir Dogs. It was the year the current loathsome, racist, tinpot President of the United States made a cameo appearance in Home Alone 2: Lost in New York, back when he was merely a loathsome, racist, tinpot property tycoon. It was the year that the number one box office spot was taken by Disney’s animated Aladdin, which felt close enough in time that the live-action remake which—and I’ve checked my notes on this, apparently was a thing that happened to us in 2019—felt entirely too soon.

But it was also the year of Paul Verhoeven’s Basic Instinct, the sine qua non of Eszterhas-penned films. And if Sharon Stone’s lascivious leg-cross (Verhoeven’s invention, incidentally, not Eszterhas’) provided posterity with the most iconic upskirt of a blonde in a white dress since Marilyn Monroe’s encounter with a subway grate, that is largely all that remains to us of it today. Well, that and the instantly forgotten sequel (sans Eszterhasian involvement) that already seemed wildly anachronistic in 2006. The original film, its writer, the erotic thriller genre it exemplified, the dunderheaded sexual politics it upheld while attempting to subvert, the whole idea of a mainstream screenwriter having a brand at all (even one as loosely defined as “writer of films you don’t tell your parents you snuck into”), all seem like ancient relics. These are the artifacts not only of a bygone age but of an extinct genus, a whole evolutionary branch that was nipped in the bud so comprehensively that even now scientists might argue over how closely the skeletons of certain bird species resemble the bones of Basic Instinct.

This containment, however, is what makes looking back at the Eszterhas era so fascinating. His brief Hollywood hegemony is a microcosmic event in cinematic history, one with a beginning, middle, and an end (barring some late-breaking epilogue, or a post fade-to-black pan down to an ice pick under the bed). And it didn’t start with his first produced screenplay, for the leaden Sylvester Stallone truckers-union drama F.I.S.T. (Norman Jewison, 1978), although the glimmer of future feats of financial alchemy was already present in the reported $400,000 he received for the novelization. Dawn really broke for Eszterhas, as it did for three of the only other people who could legitimately be termed his peers as purveyors of massively popular, high-concept, low-brow ‘80s sensationalism (producers Don Simpson and Jerry Bruckheimer, director Adrian Lyne), with 1983’s Flashdance.

It was an improbable success, less a film than an aerobics video occasionally interrupted by some awkward sassy banter and Jennifer Beals’ popping-flashbulb smile. Its vanishingly thin story, which Eszterhas co-wrote, is of an 18-year-old welder in a steel mill, who moonlights as an exotic dancer while aspiring to become a ballerina—a logline that sounds like a hoot of derision even as an unadorned description—and is full of Eszterhasian hallmarks. There’s the high degree of preposterousness. There’s the gym scene, during which the ladies of the cast grimace and lift weights in full makeup, and while here the frictionless unreality of Lyne’s TV-commerical aesthetic makes the sequence abstract, the peculiar faith in the erotic potential of a workout would recur in the squash sequence in Jagged Edge (Richard Marqund, 1985) and the ludicrous gym date in Sliver (Phillip Noyce, 1993).

And Flashdance also prefigures almost the entire Eszterhas oeuvre in being a story that centers on a woman’s experience and that laudably—if here laughably—positions her career ambitions as at least equal to her romantic aspirations in the mechanism of the plot. But, as elsewhere, it’s a view of women constructed by a proudly unreconstructed man, directed and photographed by men. (Eszterhas’ hard-drinking, womanizing, hellraising, Hunter S. Thompson-of-the-movies persona is enjoyably self-mythologized in his memoir Hollywood Animal.) If anything, what comes across most strongly in Eszterhas’ conception of a “strong woman” is his bafflement when tasked with imagining what such a woman might have going on inside her brain. His filmography may be full of female-fronted titles, and may contain the most famous mons venus in film history, but most of Eszterhas’ work could not be more male gaze-y f it were written from the point of view of an actual phallus, like the closing chapter of his 2000 book American Rhapsody, which is narrated by Bill Clinton's penis, Willard (I am not making this up).

This powerfully eroticized dissociation, this sexualized incomprehension of women as people with interior lives, is the animating idea behind the most Eszterhasian of Eszterhas scripts. But it’s a blank space in which directors, and especially actresses, could sometimes find room to create for themselves. Sharon Stone is genuinely, in-on-the-joke fantastic in Basic Instinct—who else could have delivered “What are you going to do, charge me with smoking?” as if it were an unreturnable Wildean riposte? Costa-Gavras’ Music Box (1989) is by some distance the sturdiest and least dated of Eszterhas movies, a lot due to its comparative sexlessness, but also because of a great, warm, real performance from an Oscar-nominated Jessica Lange. Debra Winger just about wins out in her more thankless role in Costa-Gavras’ first Eszterhas collaboration, Betrayed (1988). And Glenn Close imbues the heroine of the superior thriller Jagged Edge with such shrewdness that it’s almost a liability to the believability of the central deception.

But live by the sword, die by the sword, and when the director/actress combo fails to operate in similar sympathy we get Stone horribly miscast as a… sexy wallflower?… in Sliver, or Linda Fiorentino visibly flailing as a… downtrodden femme fatale?… in Jade, or poor Elizabeth Berkley thrashing wildly about in the neon-lit swimming pool of kitsch that is Showgirls. In these failures, the writer’s almost panicky vision of women as vast, dangerous cognitive black holes is best revealed. But then, mistrust of the opposite sex is only one aspect of the wider mystery that underpins even Eszterhas’ outlier titles: his entire output is preoccupied with how little any of us can ever know anyone.

In Eszterhas’ semi-autobiographical Telling Lies In America (Guy Ferland, 1997), a teenage Hungarian immigrant (Brad Renfro) is dazzled by Kevin Bacon's smooth-talking DJ, but blindly unable to work out if he is friend or fiend. Music Box details a lawyer’s dawning disillusionment over her adored father's murderous past—eerily mirroring Eszterhas’ discovery of his own father’s collaboration with the Hungarian Nazi regime. Betrayed has Winger’s FBI agent falling for Tom Berenger’s farmer only to discover he is, in fact, the neo-Nazi she insisted to her bosses he was not, in similar vein to Jagged Edge, in which Close’s lawyer discovers that the lover she successfully defended actually dunnit after all.

Oftentimes, the credulity-stretching ambivalence of these characters is all that powers the suspense, as in the is-she-gonna-kill-him-or-is-she-just-orgasming moments in Basic Instinct. In the misbegotten Nowhere to Run (Robert Harmon, 1993) Jean-Claude Van Damme plays a ruthless ex-con turned valiant protector, his blockish inertia apparently meant to signal that inner ambiguity. More often, it leads to final-act fake-out twists so unmoored to anything like recognizable motivation that they become weirdly weightless, as in Sliver when Stone’s Carly does not know if she’s killed the right man until the final four seconds of the film, and where, had the coin-flip gone the other way, it would still be equally (un)believable.

If it’s part of the egotistical remit of the writer to believe they have an insight into human psychology, it’s remarkable how much of Eszterhas’ oeuvre pivots around how fundamentally unknowable people are to one another. And while that schtick, by which you can’t tell if someone cares for you or is simply a talented sociopathic mimic, resonated briefly at the exact moment when the grasping, solipsistic ‘80s were segueing into the untrustworthy, PR-managed ‘90s, it proved not to have much long-game sustain. Critics had always been sniffy about Eszterhas, who clearly mopped up his tears with massive wads of 100 dollar bills. But when audiences started staying away, like in the Showgirls and Jade-blighted annus horribilis of 1995, the inflationary bubble that allowed Eszterhas to command millions for two-page outlines scribbled, one suspects, on the back of strip club napkins, abruptly burst. The idea of screenwriter-as-auteur, or rather as reliable bellwether of commercial success, proved a fallacy, an expensive experiment that began and ended with Joe Eszterhas, its earliest progenitor, luckiest beneficiary, and biggest casualty.

Glossy, vacuous, adult-themed thrillers were not the only thing going on in Hollywood, and Eszterhas was not the only big-name screenwriter. Shane Black, writer of Lethal Weapon, also commanded astronomical sums for his early ‘90s scripts, but the key difference is that Black wrote in the register of the franchise-able action-spectacular blockbuster that would eventually trounce all others as the Hollywood model for the future. Black has gone on to become part of the Marvel machine as a writer and director, while aside from one Hungarian-language period film, Children of Glory (Krisztina Goda, 2006), Eszterhas’ contribution to the pop cultural landscape post-2000 has been in the form of self-aggrandizing memoirs, or highly public fallings-out with celebrities, like Mel Gibson, of a similarly corked vintage.

The tastemaker point of view has historically been to consider Eszterhas among the worst things that ever happened to Hollywood—so much so that disdain-dripping sarcasm seems to be the fallback for critics summarizing his impact. But while no one is going to make the case for the man’s filmography as some sort of artistic landmark, the Eszterhas era did represent one of the last gasps of a Hollywood that believed, however misguidedly, in personality over product, when the idiosyncrasies, idiocies and ideologies of a single person—a writer at that—could, with studio backing and a 1,500 theater release strategy, influence the cinematic development of an entire generation. That might not have seemed like a good thing but retrospect, like cocaine, is a helluva drug and in 2019, with blandly anonymous, market-tested content churned out by mega-corporations bi-weekly to siphon your hard-earneds away, the kind of salacious tackiness Eszterhas represented feels oddly adorable, even quaint. Now that singular talents—even the obnoxious and objectionable ones—who could make decent returns on mid-budget, adult-oriented mainstream fare, have been steamrollered by infantilizing, monolithic billion-dollar mega-franchises, it’s hard not to be a little nostalgic for the vanished hiccup of time when Hollywood briefly uncrossed its legs for Joe Eszterhas, and Joe Eszterhas told us all what he saw.

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buzzdixonwriter · 5 years

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Hoo Noo Shmoo?

Never let it be said that this blog is flagging in its enthusiasm for flogging horses so dead they’re found in the glue bin at Office Max.

To whit, the Scorsese vs MCU brouhaha.

Bottom line: Scorsese is right. As well made as MCU movies are, they ain’t cinema, they’re glorified commercials to sell MCU product.

Full disclosure: I should know, since I wrote for G.I. Joe, Transformers, and a host of other toy-based syndicated animation shows. I’m happy with the work I did, I can point proudly to specific episodes I wrote that aspire to be more than mere half-hour commercials…

…but they ain’t art.

They ain’t art, despite our aspirations to do the best job we could, because ultimately we creators were not allowed to create what we felt best for our stories, but what Hasbro deemed vital to their sales.

(The closest we got to art was when Hasbro cancelled The Inhumanoids toy line in mid-production of the TV series, and said we could finish our broadcast commitment however we saw fit so long as it didn’t result in an FCC complaint. As a result, we went nuts.)

My Hasbro / Sunbow experience remains a highpoint of my creative life, so I’m not denigrating the talent, skill, ability, spirit, and enthusiasm of those making MCU movies.

…but they ain’t art.

Now, those who love MCU movies think Scorsese’s comments are a slam against them.

Welllll…no, not directly.

But they do underscore how popularity -- especially of media designed to push product -- is a faulty measuring stick for artistic merit.

Case in point: The Shmoo.

Wuzza shmoo, you ask (and thus proving my point)?

Shmoos were extremely popular in the late 1940s. Part of the wonderfully wacky world cartoonist Al Capp created for his hit Li’l Abner comic strip, shmoos represented a parable on American consumerism, modern day geese laying not mere golden eggs but birthday cakes with candles a’blazin’.

As Capp described them:

They reproduce asexually and are incredibly prolific, multiplying faster than rabbits. They require no sustenance other than air.

Shmoos are delicious to eat, and are eager to be eaten. If a human looks at one hungrily, it will happily immolate itself -- either by jumping into a frying pan, after which they taste like chicken, or into a broiling pan, after which they taste like steak. When roasted they taste like pork, and when baked they taste like catfish. Raw, they taste like oysters on the half-shell.

They also produce eggs (neatly packaged), milk (bottled, grade-A), and butter -- no churning required. Their pelts make perfect boot leather or house timbers, depending on how thick one slices them.

They have no bones, so there's absolutely no waste. Their eyes make the best suspender buttons, and their whiskers make perfect toothpicks. In short, they are simply the perfect ideal of a subsistence agricultural herd animal.

Naturally gentle, they require minimal care and are ideal playmates for young children. The frolicking of shmoos is so entertaining (such as their staged "shmoosical comedies") that people no longer feel the need to watch television or go to the movies.

Some of the more tasty varieties of shmoo are more difficult to catch, however. Usually shmoo hunters, now a sport in some parts of the country, use a paper bag, flashlight, and stick to capture their shmoos. At night the light stuns them, then they may be whacked in the head with the stick and put in the bag for frying up later on.

Of course, in the original strip continuity, the shmoos were quickly eradicated, driven to extinction by food packagers who feared bankruptcy.

It was a sharp, biting message, and one that looked critically at both insatiable consumerism and capitalism’s claims of superiority.

Capp, of course, was too savvy a marketeer himself to eliminate the shmoos entirely, and so he provided for one breeding pair to survive…and for the shmoos to make repeated appearances for the rest of Li’l Abner’s run.

Shmoo mania ran rampant with shmoo dolls, shmoo clocks, shmoo games, shmoo candy, shmoo snacks, and shmoo apparel.

The money truck basically backed up to Capp’s front door and dumped its load on his porch. Shmoos proved insanely popular and it seemed the mania would never end…

…except it did.

To mangle metaphors, you can only take so many trips to the same well before your audience starts asking “What? Beans again?”

And then, in a fickle flash, it’s over.

I’d be hard pressed today to find anyone younger than the boomer cohort who ever heard of Al Capp or Li’l Abner unless their school or community theatre presented the Broadway musical adaptation of the strip (the show remains popular with amateur theatrical troupes such as high schools and colleges because the huge cast of Dogpatch citizens guarantees everybody who tries out for the show will land some part in it).

For all their popularity and merchandise and media impact -- songs on the radio, big spreads in weekly news magazines -- the shmoos left virtually no cultural footprint.

(Full disclosure yet again: I wrote for a Scooby-doo knock-off by Hanna-Barbera called The New Shmoo and it was a piece of crap, abandoning the whole consumerism point of the original shmoos and making them -- or just “it” in our case -- a pseudo-funny dog sidekick for a squad of mystery solving kids. And it wasn’t a piece of crap because we didn’t try our best, it was a piece of crap because the shmoo was treated as ubiquitous “product” under the misconception that of course everybody younger than Joe Barbera would recognize the name and love the character so deeply that they’d simultaneously develop amnesia about what made the original character so appealing.)

Product.

That’s what one of the most brilliant, most poignant, most spot-on commentaries on rampant consumerism and ruthless capitalism ironically reduced down to. Product.

There’s a line in Jurassic Park that resonates here: ”Life will find a way.”

Let’s paraphrase that to “Art will find a way” because like life, art is an expression of the creative urge.

Right now, by and large, it’s trapped in the giant all encompassing condom of corporate consumerism, providing fun and pleasure and excitement, but not really creating anything new, to be wadded up and thrown away when the suits are done screwing us.

But every now and then there’s a tiny pinprick in the sheath, and when that happens there’s the chance of something wonderful, something meaningful, something of lasting value emerging.

It is possible for art to emerge from a corporate context, but only if the corporate intent is to produce a work of art for its own purposes. Michelangelo carved David as a work for hire, the local doge commissioning the sculpture because he wanted to impress peers and peasants by donating the biggest statue ever made by the hottest artist of the era (and even then Michelangelo needed to resort to subterfuge to keep the doge from “improving” on his work with “suggestions” [read “commands”].)

The very first Rocky movie was a work of art because the producers focused on telling a simple, singular story about a loser who could only win by going the distance, not by defeating his opponent but by refusing to be beaten by him.

It’s a great cinematic moment that rings true and it’s going to last forever…unlike sequels Rocky II - V where Rocky fights supervillains like Mr. T and a robot (hey, that was the movie playing in my head when I watched Rocky IV and it was a helluva lot more entertaining than what I actually saw onscreen).

The suits castrated Rocky, reducing him from a unique universal cultural touchstone down to…well…product.

The MCU movies are product; rather, they are two-hour+ commercials to sell product in the form of videogames, action figures, T-shirts, and Underoos.

The real art occurred almost 60 years ago when Jack Kirby and Steve Ditko knocked out page after page as fast as they could, drawing deep from the wellsprings of their own interests, experiences, and passions.

(“What about Stan?” I hear you ask. Look, we all love Stan, but truth be told his great contribution to the MCU came in his service as drum major for the Merry Marvel marching Society. God bless him for firing up the fan base’s enthusiasm for the Marvel bullpen’s work, but compare what his artists did before and after their collaboration with him to what he did before and after his editorial tenure at Marvel and it’s clear upon whose shoulders the muses rested.)

As much fun as MCU movies are (I’ve seen about 1/3 of ‘em and enjoyed most of what I saw), I also recognize in them the harm they do.

They are promoted heavily to sell product to raise the fortunes of one of the biggest corporations on the planet, a corporation that holds control over five of the largest, most popular entertainment brands on the market.

To protect their cash cows, Disney chokes potential rivals in their cribs.

Think there’s going to be another Alien or Predator movie now that Disney owns them and Star Wars? Why create rivals to a mega-successful property you already own? (I will be genuinely surprised if we see another Guardians Of The Galaxy movie in light of the faltering popularity of Star Wars in Disney’s eyes; they’re going to want to shore up their billion dollar investment rather than call it a day and let some upstart -- even an upstart they own 100% -- rob them of revenue.)

Disney’s battle plan to choke out all potential rivals leaves no room in the DEU (Disney Expanded Universe) for independent minded creators.

They want competent hired pens who can churn out the product they desire in order to bolster sales of other products derived from those.

(Even more full disclosure: I wrote for Chip ‘n’ Dale’s Rescue Rangers as well as some Aladdin and Scrooge McDuck comic book stories.)

Disney’s MCU, for all its expertly executed whiz-bang, is a bloated, soulless zombie, a giant gaudy inflated parade balloon blocking the vision of others.

There’s a scene in the movie The Founder -- a genuine cinematic work of art that comments ironically on the selling of a product -- that applies here.

Ray Kroc (Michael Keaton) relentlessly browbeats the McDonald brothers (Nick Offerman and John Carroll Lynch) into letting him replace their real milkshakes with what will come to be known as the McShake, an ersatz product that at best reminds one of what a real milkshake should taste like.

The McDonald Brothers are horrified. Not only does it not taste like a real milkshake, but it goes against the very grain of what they desire as restauranteurs: To provide quality food quickly for their customers, trading value for value.

Kroc will have none of this. To him the customers are simply one more obstacle between him and their money.

He doesn’t see them as the source of his revenue, but as impediments to same.

What benefits them, what nurtures their diets, what gives them pleasure, what trades value for value is completely unimportant to him.

They exist only to make him rich and powerful.

By the end of the film, Kroc has effectively declared war on his own partners, his own employees, his own customers. He recognizes he is not in the business his customers and employees and partners think he’s in (i.e., fast food) but rather in the real estate business, buying land that McDonald’s franchises must lease from him in order to operate.

By the end, he’s not concerned with how well his customers eat, or how well his employees are treated, or how financially secure his franchise managers feel.

By the end, all he wants is the money, and he doesn’t care how his franchises make it so long as they pass it along to him.

As a result, McDonald’s contributes heavily to America’s obesity and diabetes epidemics, advising their employees to take second jobs so they can afford to continue working for them at substandard wages.

Disney’s MCU is a super-sized Happy Meal™ that’s ruining the cultural health of its consumers.

#Marvel #Disn #Jack Kirby #Stan Lee #Steve Ditko #Star Wars #MCU #Rocky #Martin Scorsese #media #movies #superheroes

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theheavymetalmama · 6 years

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And now, some Unpopular Opinions!

Because at this point, why the hell not?

Iron Man was better than The Dark Knight

I am in no way, shape, or form suggesting that The Dark Knight is a bad movie. Far from it, in fact. It’s a damn good movie with some fantastic performances, a gripping story, and some of the best written characters and dialogue in the history of movie making. So is Iron Man the better movie? For one, it’s not so stuck up its’ own ass about its’ message. The Dark Knight is a lot of things and one of them is pretentious as fuck, come off as less of a love letter to Batman and more of a method of the director Chris Nolan showing how much he has nothing but contempt for superheroes and comic books in general. Iron Man, in contrast, embraces it and has fun with the idea of a guy who builds a mech suit and fights bad guys. There’s also the question of influence, and that right there is no contest. The Dark Knight influenced Batman; Iron Man influenced the entire movie industry.

Final Fantasy XV was a massive disappointment

I kind of feel bad for dunking on this game considering they just cancelled the last of the DLC. Then again the last of the DLC was going to expand on Lady “Show Up and Blow Up” Lunafreya and Aranea “I’m here and now I’m not” Highwind’s stories and now we’re not getting them and I’m still bitter as fuck for the director’s pathetic excuse for why a girl couldn’t attend the coming of age road trip, so all bet’s are off! Okay, the ladies getting shafted aside, there is a lot to like about Final Fantasy XV, but was it worth the tedious development time? No way in hell. The game looks good but like many open world games feels mostly lifeless and empty, and of the four main characters only one of them is likable and isn’t even playable in the game’s vanilla form. The story is a broken mess that requires other forms of media to fully grasp (dick fucking move there, Squeenix) and the summons coming at random times serves as more of an annoyance than anything, especially since they always seem to show up except during times when and where they’d be useful. It also doesn’t say good things about a company’s management when a game can sell millions of copies in record time as well as do gangbusters on downloadable content and then still manage to lose over 30 million dollars.

And for the record, let it be known that Noctis is far and away the whiniest and most emo protagonist in Final Fantasy history, which is saying something considering this is a series where one such protagonist’s entire character is being so jaded and world weary to the point that his name is the sound a crying baby makes, and he doesn’t whine and complain as much as Noctis does.

Just because you’re a cop or a soldier, that doesn’t automatically make you a good person

I’m in favor of police and law enforcement and even though I believe our military budget makes Caligula himself look frugal in comparison I do support our troops. Having said that, being a cop or a trooper doesn’t mean jack shit if the person under the uniform is a complete and utter scumbag, which happens more often than many care to admit. In fact some people, many people, become cops and soldiers not to protect and serve or out of a sense of honor and duty, but simply because they like making others miserable and want to do it for a living. There’s a reason songs about fighting the law and unflattering depictions of authority figures date back as far as authority figures have been a thing. Respect is earned, not given.

‘White Nationalist’ and ‘Nazi’ are the same things

Calling a Nazi a white nationalist is like calling somebody who abuses their spouse a rough lover. Stop beating around the bush and tell it like it is. Also, don’t debate Nazis, punch them. Punch them as hard as you fucking can. If they punch you back, punch them again, and again, and again until they either run away (which most of them do) or stop moving. Trust me, nobody is going to miss them. That goes double for the alt right. Oh, and speaking of which...

Far Cry 5 chickened out

As somebody who grew up in a dead gold mining community that was mostly Catholic, when the first trailer for Far Cry 5 came out I was stoked as hell for the chance to gun down religious fanatics and skinheads in a place in rural America that didn’t look all that different. Then the game came out and it was abundantly clear to anybody that something somewhere in the game was changed at the last minute. Some have argued that it was their intention from the get go, others claimed they didn’t want to alienate their core demographic. It doesn’t say nice things about your core demographic if you’re worried about depictions of white supremacist cultists scaring them away, but okay, fine. Then make a game that takes place during the decline of the Ku Klux Klan, or in a post World War II Europe where you hunt Nazi war criminals, or failing that make something akin to Black Dynamite or a wacky 70′s Kung Fu movie where everything is purposefully over the top and exaggerated, I don’t care! All your other games have you gunning down hordes of brown people, let people like me and my husband kill some skinheads god damn it!

If you still support Donald Trump after all the vile and abhorrent things he’s done, you’re a bad person

There’s no beating around the bush on this one. I don’t blame people who were swooned by this conman thinking he’d genuinely make a good president and have since regretted their decision. I have nothing but sympathy for them. No, I’m talking about the people who STILL trip over themselves to defend this vile, homophobic, delusions, misogynist, narcissistic bigot. Like when he called Nazis “very fine people,” or is still pushing for a stupid wall along our border that will be bested by two extension ladders and a pair of tin snips. The travel ban, the rollback on regulations that kept food insecure people fed, kids dying in his fucking concentration camps, yeah, no. He’s a treasonous scumbag who deserves to be locked in an 8x8 cell until he rots, and if you still support him then you can claim the top bunk.

Climate change is real and coal can fuck off

Coal is dead. Let it lay down and rot. What, coal is your only source of income in the area you live in? Then move somewhere else! You think I would have left my hometown if there were any opportunities other than timber, fishing, and tourist traps? Sorry, but the longer we stay in the past with coal the lesser we can look forward to a future where a planet can sustain human life. If we want our planet to live then coal needs to die.

No, the left isn’t “just as bad” as the right

This is a fucking gas lighting farce that immediately falls apart when put under scrutiny. Are there extremists and crazies on the left? Of course there are, but they’re entirely different beasts as those found on the right. The left is more of a “eat enough kale and you can talk to dolphins” or “sleep with crystals under your bed and you can see the future” kinds of crazy, whereas the right is more of the “kill all the queers and let the brown babies starve” kind of crazy. Oh, and to each and every single person who said “Clinton is just as bad as Trump,” y’all can cover your reproductive organs in honey and stick them in a mason jar filled with live bullet ants and tarantula hawks, you ignorant scare mongering shitheels!

“Captain Marvel doesn’t smile!”

So what? She’s a space Navy Seal, not a boy scout like Captain America or Superman; she’s not supposed to smile.

No, the ‘alt left’ doesn’t exist and Antifa aren’t the same as Nazis

Are Antifa breaking the law? Yes. Should they be held accountable for their actions? Yes. Are people who want to kill Nazis exactly the same as people who want to exterminate the Jews and subjugate anybody who isn’t white while wiping other people’s culture off the face of the Earth under an authoritarian rule? Hell to the no and “Antifa is just as bad as the Nazis” is right up there with “Vaccinations cause autism” and “the Earth is flat” on the scale of “If you believe this, you are STUPID.” If Nazis and white supremacists went unopposed they’d go around raping and murdering Jews and non whites until there were absolutely none of them left. You know Antifa would be doing if there weren’t any Nazis around? Sitting in their crappy apartments smoking weed, sipping craft beer, eating pizza, and laughing their asses off at 20 year old Saturday Night Live skits. Ooooooh, scary! Yes, Antifa are assaulting people and destroying public property and yes they should be held accountable for their actions. But I’m not going to pretend, even hypothetically, that Nazi apologist scumbags like Tucker Carlson having his door banged on or actual Nazis like Richard Spencer getting punched in the face is on the same playing field as babies being put in cages, innocent black people being murdered by cops, or Jews being put into ovens, you fucks!

New She Ra is better than Old She Ra and 80′s cartoons in general

If you don’t like the new She Ra and prefer the old one, fine, you do you, but don’t act like the original is “So much better” because it isn’t at all. The villains were jokes, the animation was beyond cheap, the characters all looked the same, there were stupid talking animal sidekicks, and the story went nowhere really fucking fast outside of “Bad guys are doing bad guy stuff, our heroes must stop them” because they were commercials to sell toys. Nothing more, nothing less. If the new She Ra isn’t your bag then that’s all well and good, but don’t be a stupid asshole about it, talking about how it wasn’t featured at PowerCon like it’s a big fucking deal when only sad dorks like us give a shit about conventions, or whine about how you’re being oppressed and censored because a 16 year old isn’t rocking 44DD’s, or talk about “CalArts style” like that’s a real goddamn thing. Oh yeah, and speaking of which...

“CalArts style” is not a thing

Shut the fuck up, no it isn’t. It’s a stupid, meaningless buzzword hurled at people who never fucking went to CalArts in the first place. If you’re perplexed as to why modern cartoons all look like Steven Universe, the simple fact is that cartoons are made predominantly for children and shows are made to be aesthetically pleasing to them. With shows like Adventure Time, Regular Show, Steven Universe, Star vs the Forces of Evil, and Gravity Falls being soaring success stories while shows like Young Justice, new GI Joe, and 2011 Thundercats ambitious failures, it’s obvious that formal abstractionist non angularity is in while aspirational human physical fitness is out, and a big reason the latter was even a thing in the first place is because they were toy commercials first and there were only so many variations on plastic molds to form the fucking action figures and because it was the 80′s and Arnold was the biggest star at the time.

“Star Wars: the Last Jedi” is a good movie and fanboys can eat bantha poodoo

I’ve heard all the reasons for why The Last Jedi is a bad movie and they’re all either stupid nitpicky bullshit or meaningless fanboy gripes. I could write an entire essay debunking those reasons point for point, like how the reason Holdo didn’t tell Poe a damn thing because no admiral would ever a tell a lowly grunt anything about their plan, especially after being demoted for being a hotheaded little fuckup. Or that Rey being related to Obi Wan or any previous Star Wars character didn’t happen because that would have been stupid and the definition of predictable. Or that the reason Akbar didn’t do the suicide run is because he’s a meme that the general audience doesn’t give a shit about and that there’s no way in Hell that the Mouse would allow a character named “Akbar” to do a suicide run. Or that Kylo Ren not being an intimidating villain is the whole point and that you’re supposed to hate him because he’s a petulant Darth Vader wannabe and a snake to boot. Or that the effectiveness of said suicide run, where Snoke came from, or the state of the Resistance by the end of the movie, or that any other so called ‘plot hole’ doesn’t matter because this is a movie about space wizards for children and paying obsessive attention to meaningless and pedantic details is exactly how we end up with stupid subplots in the Beauty and the Beast remake and Metropolis and Gotham City being across the river from each other! But the biggest one is Luke wasn’t portrayed as some Jedi Clint Eastwood (why fanboys want that eludes me; the EU did that a few times and they were all terrible) and that him exiling himself doesn’t make any sense.

Sorry, but no, Luke running off to a far and unreachable island makes perfect sense. For one, it’s kind of a thing that disgraced Jedi do, and for two, Star Wars is a fairy tale in space. All of the characters draw inspiration from characters and archetypes from fairy tales and fables of old, and the one Luke Skywalker resembles most (largely by design) is King Arthur. Think about it. Common boy who doesn’t know who his real parents are, meets an old wizard, gets a legendary sword, discovers he’s of noble lineage, tags along with a few colorful characters, goes on a quest that’s bigger than him and the life he knew, hits a few bumps down the road, and then eventually he saves the kingdom by overthrowing his father who once was a great man and a hero but gave in to power and corruption and became a dark reflection of his former self.

You will never unsee that.

Oh yeah, and remember how things turned out for King Arthur in the end? He started a whole new kingdom, he had a few good years, he grew arrogant, things started to fall apart, and suddenly he and everything he worked to build up were undone overnight by a younger, more vindictive relative. Disgraced, Arthur was whisked away to an unreachable island deep rooted in his own legend and mythology where he remained until Britain had fallen to darkness and needed him again. Now of course Britain as we know it has yet to see such a thing (we’ll see how Brexit turns out) but Luke did exactly that. And no, sorry fanboys, but The Last Jedi wasn’t a failure in any sense of the word. It grossed over a billion dollars, received critical praise, the DVDs and BluRays sold like hotcakes, and was adored by kids, teenagers, and young adults, the primary audience that Star Wars is for in the first place. And I don’t give a shit what the audience score on RT says, because for one aggregate sites are a blight on film criticism and we went from this;

“Batman v Superman and Suicide Squad are AMAZING, Rotten Tomatoes is biased and paid off by Disney!”

To this...

“Star Wars: the Last Jedi is TERRIBLE, Rotten Tomatoes says so!”

In just over a year. To say nothing of the fact that what you’re currently saying about The Last Jedi was also said about The Empire Strikes, and like ‘Empire’ twenty years from now people will look back on the fanboy outrage and say “Wow, what a bunch of babies.” And before the inevitable response...

“But Solo bombed because of The Last Jedi!”

Nooooo, Solo bombed because it came out right between Infinity War and Deadpool 2, was rife with development issues since day one of production, it was aimed overwhelmingly at fanboys obsessed with Star Wars deep lore answering questions that the general audience doesn’t give a shit about, nobody was even interested in the thing until the Lego Movie guys were signed on for a hot second, moviegoers aren’t currently hurting for cocky space cowboys...

...and because of the simple fact that it’s a solo movie about Han Solo...and it’s not 1995 and Harrison Ford isn’t in it. See, fanboys don’t realize that just because nerd and geek bullshit is mainstream now doesn’t mean that everyone is now a fanboy deep rooted in everything from where the characters are from to where they’re going, because when people say “I love Star Wars and Han Solo is my favorite character” what the vast majority of them mean is “Those movies with the space wizards and the laser swords are a lot of fun and Harrison Ford is a great movie star.” That’s it. That’s extent of why people like Han Solo. Sad dorks like us may care about stuff like where and when he got the Falcon, how he met Chewie, where the dice came from and all of that and more, but the general audience just wants to see Harrison Ford do cool shit in space. That’s it. To say nothing of the fact that nobody was even interested in the spinoffs in the first place. When Disney announced that they were making episodes 7,8, and 9 everyone went “Oh Hell yes, sign me up!” Then when they followed up with that they were also making spinoff movies about stuff that happened off screen or between movies the same audience was like “Oh...well that’s neat, I guess.”

And no, that stupid fanboy boycott had nothing to do with. Even the dude who started that petition to strike TLJ from canon admitted that he was in a bad place and that he was being stupid and angry, and I can promise you that all the shrieking dorks on Youtube are the buzzing of flies to Disney. If that crowd had any box office and movie making decision influence whatsoever, the next spinoff we’d see a trailer for would be “My Twi’lek Waifu: a Star Wars Story.”

PewDiePie is the worst thing to happen to video games this side of the gaming crash of 83 and he needs to fuck off

Yes, you read that right, and I don’t say that lightly. All sorts of terrible things have happened in the gaming industry since the gaming crash of 83. The console wars, the Atari Jaguar, the Philips CDi, Jack Thompson, the death of the Dreamcast, WoW, an entire console generation packed to the gills with homogenous gray and brown shooters with protagonists who all looked the fucking same, GamerGate, microtransactions, DLC abuse, the death of Maxis, an increasingly toxic fandom, “women are too hard to animate,” the degradation of E3 from a showcase of the biggest and bestest in gaming to a corporately sponsored circlejerk of self congratulatory backslapping and so much, much more.

I don’t care how much PewDiePie gives to charity, or how many fans he has, or how many people think he’s just the greatest, because he’s not. He’s an embarrassing, stupid asshole who constantly gets busted for making stupid racist jokes and by extension making his fans and everyone who has even the vaguest ties to the word ‘gamer’ look like stupid, racist assholes. He’s a corporate ass sucking apologist who gives exposure to anti Semites and racist wastes of space to his audience of mostly 10 to 15 year old boys, and he’s more terminally obnoxious than an Adderall addicted Pomeranian.

The day he posted his first video of him overreacting to a jump scare while making loud screeching noises on top of edgy rape jokes was the day the progress of “gaming as an art form” was shot between the eyes, placed in a box that was then filled with concrete, and thrown into the ocean. He’s a dumbass man child that’s making all of us look bad and he needs to take his millions worth of corporate sponsorships and fuck off forever into some dark, lonely corner of the Internet where he’ll never be seen or heard from again until an inevitable meltdown that lands him on an episode of Down the Rabbit Hole.

And that concludes this post. I’ll give my final thoughts tomorrow, and on Saturday I’m closing this account forever.

#unpopular opinion

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gregellner · 6 years

Photo

Cover by Jenny Frison.

Today I’ll be reviewing the complete four-issue limited series “Year One” style story for Cassandra “Cassie” Hack, the protagonist of “Hack/Slash,” titled “Hack/Slash: My First Maniac.” It is written by Tim Seeley, with artwork by Daniel Leister, colors by Mark Englert, and letters by Crank!, all published by Image Comics (@imagecomics) as the first of the “Hack/Slash” properties to be published there before they took up the second ongoing series.

As a warning, this review is also an analysis, and so will include spoilers regarding this arc and major developments therein.

Throughout “My First Maniac,” Tim Seeley’s word choice rules the day, showcasing changing scenarios through repetition of common lines that have small, significant variations. Particularly in the first issue, there are intense parallels during the last two days that Cassie spent in her Wisconsin hometown, with her survivor’s guilt and vulnerability contrasting against her utter viciousness on her last day, figuring out how to use her “otherness” to make others afraid of her. On a similar note, the repeated use of certain phrases such as “come home” and similar words helps to add on to how alone Ms. Hack really feels and how she does, deep down, wish she could be at home again, but can’t seem to allow that for herself, a recurring struggle for her throughout her slasher slayer career.

Repetition also continues through events, such as the aforementioned last two days and her feelings about firearms. While Hack was at first upset and in shock over shooting her mother after she had become a slasher, noting that the gun felt heavy in her hands, her almost casual execution of the slasher she set out to hunt in this arc and intentional use of the gun she had actually demanded from someone else gives a look at how far she has delved into her killer lifestyle.

Religion, in particular Christianity, gets some mention, and acts as a contrast to the slashers themselves. Seeing as Cassie doesn’t know much about them (and won’t know much at all beyond the basics for years), she equates their ability to rise from the dead by sheer hatred as a kind of opposite number to Jesus of Nazareth, albeit not an actual antichrist. “The Bible says Jesus Christ died for our sins and returned to show his love. What about those who died for their own sins and returned to show their hate?” While this connection isn’t really all that important, it helps to tie readers in to the story, given a common perspective that many are at least familiar with on a cursory level.

Tim Seeley has long proposed that all of the famous slasher film franchises (and a few horror comic series) take place within the same world and share that world with “Hack/Slash,” with crossovers including “Hack/Slash vs. Chucky” (Child’s Play after Seed of Chucky), “Cassie and Vlad meet the Re-Animator” (Re-Animator), and “Hatchet/Slash” (Hatchet) alongside other more subdued connections or offhand references. In this limited series, Cassie’s original research into slashers includes direct mentions of the actions of Freddy Kreuger of A Nightmare on Elm Street (“a man who kills in dreams in Ohio”), Michael Myers of Halloween (“a masked maniac who terrorizes a small town on Halloween”), and Jason Voorhees of Friday the 13th (“a camp plagued for thirty years by a psycho who won’t die”) who, though already mentioned to exist within the world by Charles Lee “Chucky” Ray in his one-shot story, are still a nice treat for readers.

As a fun little note, Delilah Hack’s year of death is mentioned on her tombstone as 2004, the same year that the original “Hack/Slash” story, “Euthanized,” was published, and therefore probably the same year that this story takes place.

“My First Maniac” is, at its core, a tragedy. Cassie Hack wants a normal life, and by right, probably would have had one, albeit one filled with bullying, in most other circumstances. But with her life’s path and her survivor’s guilt, any hope for a happy life is mercilessly, repeatedly dashed, and she isn’t the only one to whom this genre applies.

First, let’s look to the case of Cassie herself. From the outset, re-killing her undead mother has irrevocably changed her life, leading her down a dark path that results in running away from the loving foster care of Shannon and Karen Moore. As she starts to develop a new, real life for herself in Buffalo Center, Iowa, over the course of her first intentional slasher hunt, she actually seems to be happy, or at least give the idea of possibly becoming happier with time. She develops friends, and seems on the road to becoming better again after her violent turn in Wisconsin. Then, of course, things go horribly wrong, as becomes a pattern for her life from then on.

On the other hand, we have the supporting cast and even the villains. The Moores just wanted to help Cassie, but her self-given mission had consumed her to such a degree that any happiness would be impossible. Sarah Bunn and her boyfriend Kelsey each have a tragic tale, each a victim of the slasher of the story in their own way. Cassie even identifies them as a “free-spirited girl with a dark secret” and a “genuine good guy” respectively, acknowledging that they also were suffering from tragedy much as she was in their own ways. Even the slasher was in his own way a victim, though not as sympathetic. He was murdered in a rage, but his actions in life were not kind either, so there is less sympathy afforded to him.

A major part of “My First Maniac” is not just the case itself, but how Cassie Hack evolves from a relatively innocent girl into… well, kind of a sociopathic girl with intense post-traumatic stress disorder. By the end of the arc, she even claims that “Cassie Hack, teenage girl” is dead.

The majority of the symptoms of her disorder do not come into play during the limited series (having apparently been developed gradually in the months since), but her increased aggression is definitely important. Over the course of a single day, perhaps two, Cassie Hack goes from reluctantly shooting her mother to death in order to save someone’s life, to experiencing such severe survivor’s guilt that she feels she deserves the beating that a trio of bullies led by group alpha Rhianna Stegman are giving her, to beating Stegman to within an inch of her life with her bare hands the next day and threatening to murder her if she ever tried again. Even more, that very night she threatened her foster father’s life with a knife in his bed to keep him from following her as she ran away, further showing that she is seriously unwell. The speed with which she shifts from a shy, bullied girl to making death threats and physical assault demonstrate a thoroughly fractured mind, one that will only get worse as years of hunting take their toll.

On another note, it is important to be aware that while Cassie is a huntress of monsters, she is not a good person on her own. When she witnesses Jay and Ludo beating up a homosexual student outside of Club Fuzz after work, she almost doesn’t help at all on account of them not being her prey and her not being a hero, only actually getting involved when the odds are obviously in her favor once Kelsey and Sarah jumped in. Part of this relates to how she feels she can’t have anyone to care about, seeing any attachments as collateral in her hunt that she cannot afford (something that takes years for her to grasp is not necessarily the case, and never really leaves her mindset altogether), but another is the fact that she is so obsessed with her mission that she has faith in nothing else at all and makes attempts to refuse any other ways to help.

Even with her increasingly hardened exterior, there is still a sheltered, hidden part of Cassie Hack that is still that flustered, shy, teenage girl who ran away from home. Being the center of attention and attracting compliments leaves her very shy, with her new goth wardrobe breaking her out of her intense focus when people bring up how good she looks. Furthermore, when someone actually tells her she is a cool girl, she is overjoyed, actually writing it down in her diary with her feet up and crossed like a guy she likes noticed her.

Daniel Leister’s artwork is amazingly done, and in two different, but similar styles. On the one hand, we have the present day storyline, with realistic, well-detailed faces and scenes, the emotion clear on everyone’s faces (especially important for this particular slasher). Blood and guts are in horrific, terrifying detail through which Leister considers the amount of time that has passed since the blood has spilled, ranging from a general stain to caked on gore or bruises to a smear to a bloody, oozing wound. Water is shown in detail as well, with sweat and splashes helping to showcase effort in a way that many other artists might overlook.

On the other hand, the tellings of the tale of the slasher threat are somewhat more simplistic in nature, with flatter artwork that somehow works very well regardless, playing off in a way that is not unlike the works of Jack Kirby. In fact, the artwork even utilizes his famous “Kirby dot” technique!

On the whole, it is very well put together in some of the best art on “Hack/Slash” in general (not to put down any of the other phenomenal artists either).

The issue would be incomplete without Mark Englert’s coloring. Darkness and light, across different times of day, different ages of bruising, or even different styles of artwork help to make the entire story feel like a classic slasher movie, even as it is clearly something different.

The coloring of blood and gore is particularly well handled, as each of these elements has a weight to them, with light and shadow playing across them to showcase the amount of blood spilled or the fact that a blood stain may just be a single layer, whether a minor smear on clothing or skin. By using that kind of detail, readers are made aware of how fresh, how wet, a wound really is at any particular moment.

Together, this four-issue series is put together wonderfully, with the masterful writing, excellent illustrations, and disturbingly realistic coloring working together to make yet another piece of the amazing “Hack/Slash” epic.

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cristianidit321 · 2 years

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15 Reasons Why You Shouldn't Ignore Pest Control Service in Pearland

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In a benchmarking study of 75 bug industry leaders, Cingo's retention rate was in the best practice range, a five-year average of nearly 90%. Cingo is Quality, Pro certified and has actually kept this designation because 2007, suggesting the business has actually met the greatest requirements of excellence for professional insect management business.

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lociwear · 3 years

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What Is Vegan Leather & Bamboo Lining? Best Choice for Shoes

Veganism is no longer a rare and challenging lifestyle to follow. Thanks to Veganuary, people all over the globe now realize the vast benefits of becoming vegan.

There are endless ways to adopt this lifestyle. You can switch the meat in your burger or the milk in your latte. When it comes to food, we have a plethora of plant-based options available to us.

But what about clothes?

You may have heard of faux fur, but have you heard of faux leather? How about bamboo lining?

Faux leather is what we now call vegan leather. It’s a fake material that looks and feels the same as the real stuff but without harming any animals in the process.

Bamboo lining is an alternative to cotton that feels just as comfortable while also being more sustainable.

Keep reading to learn more about these unique vegan materials.

What Is Vegan Leather?

This is where it gets interesting. Vegan leather is super versatile and made out of some unusual yet innovative sources.

Imagine wearing a jacket made out of pineapple or mushroom. Yes, that's right. There are people out there rocking 'leather' jackets made of fruit and veg.

Cork and recycled plastic are other materials also used to create vegan clothing.

When it comes to shoes, it’s better to have a pair made from a blend of durable recycled plastic and cork, including a natural bamboo lining.

LØCI always takes a sustainable approach. We use recycled plastic that's been floating around the Mediterannean ocean and repurpose it into a distinct and unique material that's both stylish and durable.

What Is Bamboo Lining for Sneakers?

If you haven’t heard of bamboo lining for your shoes, then you’re in for a treat. Not only is bamboo environmentally friendly, but it’s super comfy, too.

We all know cotton is the most common material used for lining shoes, and maybe you assume it's sustainable.

Although cotton fibers are natural, the conventional cotton industry has a ginormous carbon footprint.

This is where bamboo comes in. This carbon-neutral material is harvested in the most environmentally friendly manner. It’s way more sustainable than cotton and could be the future of the fashion industry.

The bamboo plant is abundant, grows super quickly, and doesn't emit greenhouse gases when produced. The harvesting process and fabric manufacturing process can dramatically reduce damage to animals and the environment.

As well as being conscious about animal welfare and the environment, you also want your shoes to look great and feel comfortable. This versatile material is both breathable in summer while keeping your feet warm and insulated during winter.

Benefits of Bamboo Lining in Footwear

There are many benefits to using bamboo fibers in footwear. The most important is bamboo's antibacterial properties, without the use of harmful toxins. You'll keep your feet fresh and odor-free the natural way.

You'll never have to worry about sweaty feet when wearing sneakers lined with bamboo. This natural fabric is significantly absorbent, keeping your feet dry and fresh all day.

Bamboo fabric is softer than regular cotton. When you wear sneakers lined in this lush material, your feet will experience superior comfort like never before.

Never again experience sore skin from wearing shoes made from synthetic materials. Bamboo fibers are gentle, don’t irritate the skin, and are a natural solution for sensitive skin.

LØCI uses only the most premium bamboo in its sneakers. We give you a luxurious yet sustainable experience when it comes to fashion. Vegan, eco-friendly materials and manufacturing are our number one priority.

Cork Insoles for Sneakers

Cork is both solid and light, making it the perfect component for the materials in your sneakers.

For ultra comfort and support, cork is the best material to use for insoles. This natural material provides just as much shock absorption as a synthetic insole, which is excellent for walking and running without pain.

So, what is cork? This 100% natural and organic material is extracted from the cork oak tree. The bark is removed without harming the tree, which simply grows a new layer and restores itself to the original thickness. Cork production is highly eco-friendly!

Why Cork Insoles Are the Best for Shoes

This unique material is popular for its breathable properties. Rigid yet resistant, this natural plant tissue retains pockets of natural gas, giving it that subtle bounce.

This signature bounce is what makes cork an excellent material for shoes. Flexibility is essential when it comes to wearing sneakers for maximum longevity and comfort.

Cork also boasts a natural 'memory foam' that has a fantastic property called elastic return, which means no matter how much it's compressed, it'll always return to its natural shape.

Cork leather has other notable characteristics. Although it comes from a tree, this material isn't wood, which means there aren't any odors or bacterial growth.

In fact, this natural fabric is ultra-hygienic without having to use any nasty chemicals to make it that way. Nature's way is the best way!

Cork is also waterproof and impermeable to any water damage, making it the best alternative to animal leather. This is due to naturally occurring fatty substances in the cork membrane, which gives superb protection and durability.

For all-year-round comfort, choose cork insoles. Natural low thermal conductivity keeps your feet at a comfortable base temperature at all times.

Cork’s Orthopedic Properties

The use of cork in shoes gives them a natural orthopedic quality, which is the perfect eco-friendly solution for people who suffer from foot problems.

With its natural elasticity, cork offers support to your ankles, shins, and knees, promoting overall health and well-being.

There are many advantages to wearing sneakers with a cork footbed, both for fashion and our environment. Thehard-wearing fashion industry is beginning to notice this renewable and incredibly durable material - but there's still a long way to go.

Frequently Asked Questions

Is Vegan Leather Made From Recycled Plastic?

Traditional vegan leather made from plastic is the usual go-to for conscious fashion-goers who are prioritizing animal welfare. This doesn't mean it's eco-friendly.

The plastic from these vegan leather materials is manufactured using harsh chemicals and usually ends up in landfills due to mass production and overflowing inventory.

You're probably wondering how recycled plastic is transformed into lux material. The process begins by clearing up oceans and coastlines saturated with PET plastic bottles. Once the plastic is gathered, it is heated and reduced to small pellets, which can then be spun into long strands of yarn.

Plastic can be recycled to create vegan leather sneakers, but there are a plethora of other sustainably used materials in the production of clothing.

“One man's trash is another man's treasure” rings true when committing to a conscious and non-polluting lifestyle. Reusing and repurposing materials that usually go to waste is both innovative and necessary.

For instance, recycled corn is used as vegan and sustainable suede, and cardboard can be recycled into durable material for many purposes. Rubber is another culprit in polluting our land and oceans and can easily be recycled into footwear.

Is Vegan Leather Durable?

This is usually the first question someone would ask when buying an item made from vegan leather.

Genuine leather is known for its solid and long-lasting properties. That’s why it’s the material we choose for our hard wearing shoes.

But, if you care about the environment, you should prioritize sustainable materials more.

And that’s not to say vegan leather is inferior. Absolutely not!

Not all are created equally. Most fast fashion vegan leather is of poor quality. But premium vegan leather is made of the best natural ingredients and is almost as sturdy as genuine leather.

If you decide to purchase vegan leather shoes, you're making a conscious effort to save our planet.

You prioritize the well-being of innocent animals whose natural habitats are damaged due to toxic materials and fashion waste.

Choose items made from sustainable and durable materials like lightweight cork, soft bamboo, and eco-friendly recycled ocean plastic.

If you want shoes that'll last for years to come, choose a high-quality, environmentally friendly option.

Is Vegan Leather Waterproof?

Just like fake leather, or pleather, vegan leather is also highly water-resistant.

Vegan clothing and shoes made from 100% recycled plastic, in particular, give you maximum protection from the elements.

Does this also apply to natural vegan material? Whether your vegan leather is made from plants or leftover veggies, there are many ways to coat these fibers with safe, organic wax-like substances to keep you protected.

The fashion industry is a massive fan of pleather due to its durable and waterproof factor. This type of faux leather benefits fast-fashion brands who design clothing quickly to adapt to fast fashion trends.

Demands for vegan leather garments are at an all-time high. Who doesn’t want to contribute to the well-being of our planet and look great doing it? Let’s make sure we choose the most sustainable vegan leather material to boost veganism’s mission.

Does Vegan Leather Stretch?

Stretchable leather is essential, especially when it comes to shoes and sneakers.

You might be wondering, can you also stretch vegan leather?

Yes, of course! But only if the product is designed and manufactured well.

Most vegan leather clothes, including shoes, are incredibly comfortable. Especially if they're made from soft, breathable fibers from natural sources.

Vegan leather clothing is fast becoming the number one item to have in your closet. Whether you adore fashion trends or prefer to express your individuality, go vegan for a comfortable style that protects our earth's future.

Is Vegan Leather Toxic?

Genuine leather can be harmful due to the residual chemicals left on the material after the tanning process. Due to industrial textile development and mass production of leather goods, buying leather contributes to water pollution, climate change, and deforestation.

But what about vegan leather? Some faux leather blends are created using plastic that's unsustainable and non-biodegradable. Yet, there are many vegan clothing products, including vegan leather sneakers, that are non-toxic.

Luxurious buttery soft vegan leather is usually manufactured from natural sources like plants. Leather that isn't from animals is the future, and our little planet relies on it.

Here at LØCI, we use a blend of recycled plastic mixed with natural materials from premium bamboo and cork. Our mission is to save our sea life, and we start by removing plastic waste from the ocean to protect vulnerable marine species.

Choose conscious fashion not only to look stylish but also to save our planet from pollution.

Is Vegan Leather Eco-Friendly?

True vegan leather is eco-friendly. But you need to do your homework to ensure what you’re buying is really sustainable.

Just because a brand dubs itself as 'environmentally friendly' doesn't mean it is.

Many fast-fashion companies boast about using vegan leather and think they're automatically sustainable.

Although vegan leather and fashion are merging, some brands continue to use harmful materials in their clothes and shoes.

You may think you’re buying a vegan leather jacket made from PU material, yet find out it's Bicast, which is a blend of genuine animal leather and vegan leather.

Even if it is vegan, PU is terrible for the environment. We have an abundance of natural and sustainable materials at our fingertips. PVC leather and PU leather shouldn't be the only option for vegan materials.

An honest look into polyurethane PU vegan leather shows it hurts the environment. Some people think wearing leather not made from animals is enough.

The industry is embracing cruelty-free fashion but neglecting eco-friendly fashion.

Many eco-friendly vegan fashion brands make high-quality, truly sustainable vegan leather shoes, vegan leather purses, and even vegan leather trousers fit for Vogue.

It's our responsibility to seek out fashion from brands that have a personal mission to clean our planet and protect animal life. These brands should be totally transparent about their mission.

What Are the Effect of Plastic in Our Ocean

Plastic is killing our wildlife. With over 8 million pieces of plastic being dumped into the ocean every day, this is especially true for marine life.

Sea animals are mistaking plastic as food, leading to choking and poisoning. With the opportunity to transform current plastic waste into vegan leather, we can clear up the ocean and prevent further pollution.

LØCI understands that our ocean is the largest ecosystem on earth.

The ocean absorbs 90% of the earth's heat, and sea life keeps our oceans alive. With global temperatures rising due to climate change, this is arguably the most crucial entity in combating the damage a hotter climate can cause.

Not only this, but the ocean provides a substantial amount of protein for our population. It’s essential to make sure this food source is thriving and not infused with toxic materials.

As a sustainably-minded vegan brand, we're taking action to conserve our oceans and marine life.

Our mission is to remove one million plastic bottles from the sea in one year. It’s a huge feat but it’s one we’re excited to pursue.

For one pair of sneakers, we use five plastic bottles that have been removed from the ocean and skillfully crafted into sustainable footwear.

Is Synthetic Vegan Leather 100% Cruelty-Free?

No animals may have been killed and skinned for you to don vegan sneakers, but the plastic and toxic chemicals used in the manufacturing process harm their environment.

It's crucial to choose vegan shoes and clothing made from 100% recycled plastic. Ideally, the plastic that's polluting the ocean and killing marine life.

This affects us, too! The toxins from ocean plastic end up on our plates through the fish we're eating. It makes sense to have vegan leather in our closets made from recycled plastic to look great and stay healthy.

As well as 100% recycled plastic, there's an abundance of natural ways to produce vegan leather.

Mushroom leather. This super versatile fungi vegetable is not only delicious and healthy but also amazingly wearable. This sustainable material has been used by conscious brands, including Stella McCartney and Hermes. It's made by drying out oyster mushrooms and blending the fibers with other natural materials, such as hemp, and is fully compostable. It's a fantastic eco-friendly alternative to PU and PVC leather.

Pineapple leather, AKA Pinatex, was discovered by Dr. Carmen Hijosa, who wanted to create a carbon-neutral leather material. He found the answer in this tropical fruit. Using leaves from the pineapple blended with polylactic acid fibers (PLA) produces a top rival for animal leather without any added cruelty.

Cactus leather. This vegan leather is exceptionally durable. It's generally used as an animal-friendly leather alternative for furniture and car interiors. So just think about what it can do for your shoes.

Corn leather. There's so much waste in the corn industry, so some footwear brands decided to commit to environmental sustainability and fashion shoes out of vegan corn leather. Corn leather is a waxed base canvas coated in resin and can be highly reliable as a leather alternative.

You may be wondering what the best vegan leather is. You can figure this out based on its effect on the environment. The best vegan leather is one that has a blend of natural fibers, together with durable recycled materials.

PU and PVC leather are still in use and will probably blend with natural vegan leather for a while. However, the world is closer to using 100% sustainable, eco-friendly vegan leather than before.

Is Packaging Important for Sustainability

It's also vital to keep packaging in mind when a brand commits to a sustainable philosophy.

LØCI uses smart packaging to protect your sneakers and minimize waste.

You can't ignore the use of non-biodegradable and non-recyclable packaging materials to be a cruelty-free and eco-friendly brand.

Package waste is a massive contribution to our oceans and landfills. Brands need to ensure they're using innovative packaging for future deliveries to limit and reduce pollution.

Why Does LØCI Loves Recycling?

Here at LØCI, recycling is our main focus. Giving plastic a second life allows us to repurpose it into beautiful sneakers to fit every style and make a profound difference to ocean life.

You’d never know our sneakers were made from recycled plastic if we didn’t announce it. Our stylish footwear mimics traditional leather in both look and wearability.

We’re loud and proud when it comes to our recycled plastic vegan leather, and why not? It’s highly fashionable yet climate-friendly.

Can sneakers made from recycled plastic save our planet?

Absolutely! Some big footwear companies like Adidas and Veja are already incorporating recycled plastic into their sneakers. We hope to see more brands and businesses join us in putting purpose over profits to give our planet the best chance of a brighter future.

Vegan Leather and the Fashion Industry

Vegan clothing is gaining momentum in the fashion industry. From the not so eco-friendly fast-fashion to high-end couture, designers worldwide are finally waking up to cruelty-free style.

Back in the '90s, some people would wear 'pleather' shoes as a cheaper alternative to genuine leather. Pleather is made from synthetic materials, mainly plastic, which are bad for the environment.

More people are taking up the vegan lifestyle, yet some only stick to eating a plant-based diet. Others may also continue to use makeup and skincare products that have been tested on animals. However, true veganism is eliminating all products that have exploited animals through their production process. Not just in what you eat, but across your whole lifestyle.

The vegan philosophy also includes clothing. Whether it's jackets, bags, or shoes, there are animal-friendly items available.

Fast-Fashion Sneakers vs. Made-to-Order

Producing just one pair of sneakers generates a large amount of CO2 emissions. From materials used to the manufacturing process, the typical way of making sneakers is no longer sustainable for our planet.

Switching materials to something more sustainable such as recycled plastic, cork, and bamboo, can dramatically shrink your carbon footprint.

Giant sports corporations and fast fashion companies play a considerable role in the destruction of our environment.

Their manufacturing methods and non-stop transportation all contribute to climate change.

LØCI produces high-quality sneakers that are handmade in Portugal. Made-to-order production is the way forward for brands to contribute towards healing and restoring our planet.

Our sneakers will never end up in landfills like most wasteful mass-produced sneakers. We waste virtually nothing. This dedication to both craftsmanship and our environment is what drives our business.

Is Veganism an Industry Trend?

You may think that fashion brands are capitalizing on veganism by offering vegan leather. Some might yell “greenwashing!” when top brands and businesses use the Veganuary challenge as a strategy to boost profits. After all, veganism is considered a trend by their marketing departments.

We need to remember that the fashion industry is a business. If they’re going where the money is, and that’s veganism, then the world is moving in the right direction!

Vegan leather could save the environment. The global fashion industry negatively impacts the environment, so it must be fixed sooner rather than later.

The energy used to make and transport fashion goods generates huge amounts of greenhouse gas.

A whopping 1.5 trillion liters of water is used every year. Approximately 23kg of greenhouse gases are released for each kilo of fabric produced, and 23% of all chemicals produced worldwide are used for the textile industry.

And, there's more! If we're not careful, degraded soil caused by non-biodegradable fashion products will decrease food supply by 30% in the next decade. Massive carbon emissions from this industry alone are helping to accelerate climate change.

So is disaster pending? Not if the fashion industry majorly reduces its carbon footprint and goes vegan!

If we all buy high-quality vegan leather boots this winter, it could be a huge step forward. Let’s make anti-leather the next anti-fur!

In the past few years, luxury fashion brands declared they were going fur-free. Designers like Gucci, Burberry, Victoria Beckham, and the like pledged to turn their backs on the barbaric fur trade.

This anti-fur campaign was a giant step forward for animal welfare, yet there's still more to be done. Leather is next on the list of things to change, and we're not just talking about animal leather.

There are fashion labels that call themselves vegan yet don't use sustainable materials. We can make natural recycled vegan leather our favorite fashion commodity. Then, the fashion industry is sure to follow.

How to Choose Sustainable Vegan Leather

Not all vegan leather is equally sustainable.

Brands are putting a focus on being cruelty-free and ending the exploitation of innocent animals. But are all fashion brands using vegan leather doing enough?

Prioritizing animal welfare is amazing. But, a lot of brands need to level up for sustainability and eco-friendliness, too.

Many pleather garments contain plastic which takes years to biodegrade. Micro-plastic pollution is a massive threat to the health of our planet and sadly destroys the environment of the animals we intend to save.

Synthetic fibers from clothing, including polyurethane vegan leather, are the most significant source of micro-plastic pollution in our ocean. This type of clothing poses a threat before, during, and after its lifespan. It doesn't biodegrade and usually ends up in a landfill.

Traditional PU vegan leather could be heading for the same controversial reputation as genuine leather. With animal welfare and the environment at stake, access to more sustainable vegan leather is now rising.

For vegan leather to be truly sustainable, it must be both animal and environmentally friendly.

As consumers, many of us are taking the responsibility to reduce our carbon footprint. We do this by following a plant-based diet, using animal-friendly skincare products, and purchasing 100% vegan clothing.

The problem is that 100% vegan clothing isn’t easy to find. Most vegan brands are only producing plastic-based materials.

People are unaware of the materials used or the manufacturing process. The main culprits are fast fashion, but even high-end brands sell this kind of vegan leather.

There are some designers out there, though, who choose to use recycled plastic in their garments. This uses up the current overload of plastic instead of adding more pollution to the planet.

By doing a little extra homework and opting for brands like this, you do your bit for the planet and the animals.

Vegan Leather Shoes

Looking for new shoes can be both exciting and confusing. You probably know your style and budget, but do you know what materials are used and where they come from?

This won’t be confusing if you buy from a brand that’s transparent about its resources and manufacturing.

Responsible vegan brands are getting easier to come by. LØCI is committed to making buying sustainable sneakers super easy.

Comfort is usually top of the list when you're on the hunt for the perfect shoes. People are quick to dismiss vegan leather as inflexible and weak, which is simply untrue.

Vegan leather can be one of the most hard-wearing materials on the market. Their versatile blend gives a soft stretch that matches genuine leather.

The result? Comfortable and protected feet without toxic materials.

The Future of Vegan Leather

The vegan leather industry is expected to be worth $90 billion by 2025. According to animal rights organization PETA, many brands are also aiming for zero animal by-products in manufacturing clothing and accessories.

The world is heading in a positive direction. As a civilization, we're more aware than ever of the cruelty and exploitation of innocent animals for the sake of food, beauty, and fashion. Sustainability is on the rise, too. Many consumers are looking out for natural, organic products that produce as little waste as possible.

The ultimate goal is to reuse, recycle, and consciously consume eco-friendly products and items.

To make a change, we must all take individual responsibility and accountability.

Earth is our only home and our actions today impact our future. Let’s make the future generation proud by choosing vegan. Not just for what we eat, but also for what we wear.

Choose vegan leather and bamboo lining for your shoes. Not all vegan materials are created equally. Vegan leather that’s just imitation leather pollutes our planet. Cotton sneaker lining comes with a huge carbon footprint.

Choose vegan leather and bamboo lining for sneakers that are robust, long-lasting, comfortable, and most importantly, good for the planet.

You can help animals exist and assist the planet in its recovery, too. It all starts with your sneakers.

source https://lociwear.com/blogs/news/what-is-vegan-leather-bamboo-lining-best-choice-for-shoes source https://lociwear.blogspot.com/2021/08/what-is-vegan-leather-bamboo-lining.html

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gronjon44 · 3 years

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Welp... here we go...

If you dont want spoilers then I recommend you skip this entire post because I do not respect this film at all to not talk about the shit that happens in this film.

⚠️AFTER THIS LINE ITS ALL SPOILERS⚠️

This films wants to be an emotional gut punch but it is so... I your face about it. Emotional beats are either predictable or just... they don't hit. And the ultimate sacrifice from Bhgs at the end while sad just doesn't hit anything. And the plot of "Oh the main villain manipulates the kid to go against his dad and the villain ultimately joins the rival team" is really predictable. And I know that in the end this is a film targeted to kids and thats fine. But this film felt like it was trying to be too hip and too aware (the entire joke about LeBron acting hip and the 'don't dab' comment is just not funny)

The jokes

The jokes in this film do not land for me, albeit 2 (the joke about Sylvestar grabbing Michael B Jordan instead of the actual Michael Jordan was ok and the fact Wiley Coyote was in Mad Max was really cool) ; most the jokes either fell flat or completely missed the mark (this film tried to be hip and modern with its humor and honestly it was more cringe than anything else.

Also idk if this was intentional or not, but can we stop making jokes about how companies are stealing our info and spying on us? We get it Zuckerberg is trash Facebook and other big companies are taking our personal info but seriously it does get old. Mitchell's vs the Machines was at least clever because it was about a big tech company abusing it's power. Space Jam: A New Legacy is about an A.I trying to make himself feel better cause he doesn't feel appreciated and is projecting his issues on a kid he cyberstalked for a whopping 3 minutes.

The Plot

The films Plot is predictable, short, and a around not engaging. The idea of bringing another pro basketball player to aid the Tunes in another wild game for their survival isn't the problem, it's the rest of the Plot that's the problem.

The first film had a simple enough Plot that worked really well (The Tunes have to win a basketball game against roided up aliens or they'll become Amusement Park attractions, and they need a bow retired player to hp them win) Its short and sweet and it works.

This film felt the need to overcomicate it by forcing a dramatic subplot into the fold which, can work. You can have a dramatic subplot while still being a Zany and fun film. But SJ:NL can't seem to decide which to focus on; it goes from zany and over the top one moment moment then gives you tonal whiplash when it jumps to the dramatic bits in the plot.

I genuinely think that this film would've benefited from focusing on the zaniness over the drama, since frankly that's always been the focus of the Looney Tunes

Loony Tunes: Back in Action and Space Jam 1 are two tonaly similar films but both have better comedy and each have their respective dramatic beats, though their both saved for the climax of the film.

LT:BIA and SJ1 both have they're own dramatic subplots (M.J makes the deal with Smackhammer to raise the stakes of the game and J.D has to save his father from the Chairman and his plans. The difference here is that these films, while adding a level of drama, don't let the drama overshadow what tnis film is actually about (the Looney Tunes)

SJ:NL let's the drama completely overshadow the actual Tunes and isn't really engaging (to me anyway)

Also I'd like to say that, while giving this film a video game feel was an interesting concept it just reminded me more of Pixels or The Emoni Movie (though this wasn't NEARLY as bad as the Emoji movie I'll say that)

That's something else about this film. It feels like one big advertisement for everything WB owns (much like how Emoji Movie was one big Smartphone ad) and while that isn't inherently a bad thing it can be a hinderence to the film as well (I wanted to watch the films that cameod in this film more than the actual film itself)

The Characters

Look this is the Tom and Jerry film again, we don't go to this film for LeBron and his fictional family (if some people do then that's fine) but most of us go to see the film for the Tunes and the cartoon asthetic, and there's plenty of that here. But I'd like to actually care about the human characters in this film frankly.

Let's just get this out of the way, LeBron is not a great actor. He tries his best yes but he is not a great actor in this film; he reminds me more of Vin Deisel when he acts (he has a voice yes but he doesn't act physically. It's like he's trying to have his voice match the film but his body isn't in tune with it.

Now I don't wanna hate on kid actors, they do what they can and they're kids. But listen this kid was not interesting at all, and id have rathered the film not include him (or very least make him more interesting other than the "Gosh Dad stop pushing your ways and beliefs onto me" archetype.

The Tunes are fine I have no beef with how they treated the Tunes (all for ONE detail)

The way thsi film treats the Tunes in this film bothers me on so many levels. "Send him to the Rejects" "Losers" The fact that they treat the Looney Tunes like they're some forgotten property is really unsettling to me. The Tunes have never been forgotten the notion that they ARE forgotten bothers me so much, regardless if it's a plot point for the film. The Looney Tunes are some of the most recognizable faces in ask of media, and I get this is supposed to be a "New School vs Old School" message like with the Father vs Son but my God I do not like how this protrays the Tunes.

Speaking of the rejects, let's talk about AL G Rythm.

My God this is the most uninteresting villain and his whole plan is so easy to spot from the start of the film. "Oh look at me, I have a bruised ego cause I feel unappreciated in my time and im gonna project my issues on this kid I cyberstalked while praying KING JAMES would bless me with his support." Holy shit my guy you have a bigger ego than Tony Stark and its more bruised than Bruce Wayne's back after Bane was finished. He is one of the most bland villains I've seen in awhile, and the Goon Squad is no better. The Goon Squad is nothing but cool designs and a refderence to more popular Basketball players (and yeah they're supposed to be cronies but at least make them cronies with personality; the Nerdlucks were funny, had personality, and were an integral part of the story (also the fact that they ACTUALLY HAD THE NERDLUCKS CAMEO in in film but they were rooting against the Tunes just... Ehhhhhhhhhh) And the Goon Squad was boring and didn't add anything say for AL G. stealing the kids algorithm to make his own team.

Also sidenote, them constantly calling him "King James" got really annoying really fast. Like we get you gave yourself that nickname, you're the current too NBA player rn and all that but you don't have to keep saying it my God.

Now what did I actually like about this film. Well quite a bit actually.

For starters, the animation was top notch and everything looked great. I thought the 2D models were a little odd at first (too shiny compared to the faded sleek of the original) but they grew on me. All the CGI models of the Tunes looked really great, say for Sam who just looked really weird to me (probably cause he loses his hat by the end and a CGI Yosemeti Sam without a hat just looks strange)

The Tunes also felt exactly how they should in a Space Jam film, Bugs especially. Yes Daffy was his usual comedic self and I like how they had him try and be the manager of the team instead of a player, and every other Tune was just as zany as usual; honestly of all the Tunes I'm genuinely impressed with how they treated Bugs (till the end)

Bugs was the most interesting to see in the film, wherein every character left Tune World except Bugs and he kinda became this Castaway parody (with his own makeshift Porky Pig dummy) and he was just really lonely and stayed true to the Looney Way and he just wants his family back. That entire subplot is the most interesting part of this film hands down; the only thing about Bugs's arc I didn't like was the end which was predictable, but i was still more invested in Bugs's arc than anyone else's.

Also when they showed the Tunes on the other WB worlds in the Warnerverse that's not the name ik but it's basically the Warnerverse the only Movie refferences that i thought were clever were Mad Max, Austin Powers, and Themyscira. And as much as it pains me to admit it the Rick and Morty Gag with Taz was probably the funniest of them, and I don't even like Rick and Morty anymore.

The Matrix was just eh, Yosemite Sam just didn't land, Game of Thrones was just not funny and I won't apologize. As far as the cameos/refferences in the end I'll say it again, I wanted to watch the movies and shows that cameod more than the film itself. I'm not gonna try to list them off but some highlights were seeing Gremlins, the Mask, every Tim Burton Batman villain/Adam West Batman, Thundercats, and Scooby Doo. Aside from that this was all just one big add for Warner Bros.

So I'm gonna try end this on a note that I know alot of people are gonna bring up or use to say shouldn't be brought up: Nostalgia.

Listen. This film has the same issue that alot of modern film reboots tend to have, which is the fact that it has to match the same hype as the film that came before it.

Now I'd like to say that this isn't gonna be a Power Point on reboots, God knows this is long enough as is, but the issue with alot of reboots is that they try to remake something that more often than not did the media justice the first time around. Robocop, Nightmare on Elm Street, Ghostbusters 2016, litterally every Disney L.A Remake. This isn't to say these films can't be good, or even surpass their predecessors. But more often than not they tend to miss the mark either just barely or drastically.

And here's the thing, this argument can also apply to sequel films that are following up an iconic film that for fhe most part is still very prominent in modern media.

Space Jam has, for better or for worse, remained one of the most iconic films every made, if not for its premise alone. And when they announced a sequel it was only inevitable that people compare it to the original because, let's face it, we want the new film to live up to the original.

We want this new shiny film to live up to the film we all knew growing up as kids and adults, seeing the Tunes on a basketball court for the first time back in the 90s. And frankly, this film did not do that for me.

This film, to me, wants to be what Space Jam already is. But it felt the need to try and thats the first step it failed; it wanted to be hip and aware and make loads of refferences to the original

This film has a similar issue to Ghostbusters:Answer the Call I think, where in it wants to stand on its own two feet, but jt cant help but constantly remind us of a much superior film. We know they've done this before you don't have to keep saying it "We need help with a basketball game Lola!" Been there! Done that!" "So you want me to help you win a high stakes basketball game? One that could very well decide both our fates? Hmmmmm where have I seen that before?"

This film is like that one kid in class who already proved he was right, and is still trying to prove he was right.

If you think this film is great and you enjoy it just as much as the original that's perfectly fine, I'm not gonna try to overshadow your opinions, I just want to share mine.

In the end, I'm gonna rate this film a solid 4/10 (and most of that 4 is the comedy and the animation and the Tunes themselves.) Can you watch this just for the Tunes? Absolutely. Can you like this film more than me? Also absolutely. Do I think this film would've been worth it if I'd have seen it in theaters? No not at all I'm glad I waited for HBO Max.

#again #this is all my own hot take #you can have your opinions #and ill have my opinions #space jam #space jam 2 #space jam new legacy #space jam 2021 #lebron james #bugs bunny #warner bros #dc comics #the looney tunes show #looney tunes #looney toons #movie review #movie rant

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