#or otherwise not double check before posting on social media if that is a spoiler

[catharusustulatus]

Ross Duffer posted some shotlisting for Season 5 using Funko Pops on Instagram Stories, and Steve is off in the corner and all these people are saying he’s dead, he’s bones, or whatever.

But!!! While I wouldn’t put it past the duffies to mess up and accidentally spoil that Steve is dead, it would be an absolutely huge ass spoiler if he was. So I am thinking he’s not dead but maybe injured or something? Idk I just think if he was dead or dying here you’d think the duffers wouldn’t want to spoil that. But what do I know?

[gb-patch]

Ask Answers: January 28th, 2021 (Part 1)

And we’re back with many more ask answers! Thank you for waiting.

Is lizzie/the main character tripping over a rock a random event in barbecue? or does it require certain choices? i picked the same choices in multiple different playthroughs but ended up with three different outcomes (1. nothing happens 2. liz trips 3. i trip)

Yep! It’s completely random. Just a little moment of life you don’t have control over, haha.

wait just double checking you stated that derek would be another romantic interest you can pursue in step 4 right??? im just asking cuz hes my fav character 

oh wait and btw i was the one that asked the question about derek being in the step 4 just now, and will you have to pay extra for like a dlc or something bc i play the free version rn and i just wanted to check!! 

Yeah, you will eventually be able to romance him, but unfortunately it is a paid DLC. Cove is the only love interest who’s entirely free-to-play. You can  follow our social media for when we giveaways for a chance to win a key for it, though.

i know that y’all said the step 3 dlc and step 4 will be released early 2021, is there any update to that? for example, a rough amount of days/weeks until release? no pressure at all, i’m super excited!! <3 

The Step 3 DLC will be about in maybe two-two and half months or so. Step 4, we’re not entirely sure. Maybe a few months after the Step 3. We don’t want to give set dates until we’re really close to the release since otherwise we wouldn’t be able to 100% guarantee them.

First off love the game. Second I'm a little confused on how the nsfw dlc is gonna work. Because based on some stuff you've said it sounds like a patreon only thing and others make me think it could be an itch/steam thing after the fact? Would you mind clarifying for me 😅. Also if it's a patreon only thing do you need to become one before it's released? 

It’s not going to be on Steam/Itch. The actual game of Our Life is safe for teens with no adult content. Any 18+ stuff we’re releasing is separate bonus content. Right now the only for sure plan is having it available through Patreon. If there’s another hosting site that’s not Steam or Itch that’d be easier for people than Patreon we might consider uploading it there too, but nothing else is set.

If you want the bonus Moment you’d have to join once it’s already out or sometime after the release. Joining now would get you our current rewards, but wouldn’t get you future content that’s coming later.

this is probably an awkward question and i apologize, feel free not to answer, but i just wanted to address the elephant in the room....will step 4 acknowledge covid/2020 world events?? i kind of hope not bc i'd like to just exist in a fictional version of the world where things are happy in this quaint seaside town and the world isn't falling apart, but i'd understand if there are some references to it. just thought i'd ask so i can Prepare if that makes sense

Step 4 isn’t going to include Covid or even reference it. When we set Step 4 in that year we definitely didn’t know there’d be a global pandemic during it. It’s too late to move the timeframe earlier or later, but we’re not going to make Step 4 stressful for anyone because the real world became so much more stressful. The universe of Our Life will just be an even more idealized place than it was before.

hiiiii! i'm really sorry if this is a bother. i was just curious if cove has a canon setting for each step, like is it canon that he stays candid the whole game and is super sporty for instance and the rest are variations? thank you for your time!

None of those settings are canon. They’re all equally valid.

I love the game and Cove so much that I ended up spending most of the holidays playing it. Definitely worth it! Idk if you're taking suggestions/criticisms, but I chose the peach skin tone and seeing it written as "my peach skin" in the game broke immersion for me because I kept thinking it was referring to the fruit instead of my skin color. I think that skin color is most commonly referred to as "fair" but "peachy" or "rosy" would work too if you're looking for a different word 

Thank you for sharing your experience. We’ll change it to “peachy” in the next update!

So I accidentally overwrote a save file with a different one, is there any way I can recover that save? 

Sadly, there isn’t. Not unless you had a backup of the actual save file files in a separate location you can get. I’m really sorry. You can try using the skip feature to quickly speed through the game and get back to where you were though.

Do you try to maintain the color scheme for the clothing throughout the years in Our Life? 

Yes, though in hindsight not as much as I wished I did, haha. It could’ve been a little more cohesive. It was a bit too broad in my opinion.

I noticed that Cliff mentions he wasn’t much older than Cove before finding out he was going to be a father when he finds MC in bed with Cove during Part 3 so doesn’t that Cliff and Kyra were teenage/young parents? 

Yeah, Cliff was nineteen and Kyra was eighteen when Cove was born. They were just a couple of kids.

Does Cove have a favourite holiday? 

It changes depending on the year. Around Step 1 he’s not a huge fan of a lot of holidays because he’s not together with his whole family for them. But once he’s older and Kyra comes around more, he starts appreciating major family holidays like Thanksgiving and Christmas more than other holidays because he knows how it feels not to have that. Though summer vacation is of course his most favorite all the time, if that counts as a “holiday”.

I tried to join your patreon but I can’t seem to? The website keeps saying something went wrong and to try again. 

I’m sorry you’re having trouble! I think contacting Patreon support would probably be the best option if the joining process itself is having issues.

How much is it to become a part of your Patreon? I don’t have a lot of money currently but would love to help you out more than just buying the games and dlcs. 

Aw, I appreciate you wanting to support but the Patreon is really optional. You don’t need to push yourself to join if you don’t have extra funds for it. To still answer the question, the tiers are $1, $5, $10, $15, and $20 in USD. Each come with different perks.

I had this idea for a future daughter for the MC and Cove being named "Poppy", after the flowers on their hill~

That’s a really sweet idea! I’m sure Cove would be a fan.

So if you don't mind me asking, how do you get Cove to propose to you in Step 4 and not the other way around? 

I’m afraid that’d be too big of a spoiler to give away before the epilogue’s release, at least in terms of specifics. Generally you’ll just have to be patient and try not to propose first, haha.

will we get to move in with cove in step 4 😮?? or is that a secret 

You can be living together with Cove in Step 4! Though you wouldn’t get to see the place itself. That’s up to your imagination.

Is it bad that I'm completely in love with Cove's dad... What I gotta pay to romance Cliff 😭 (I don't mean as Jamie because that would be wack) 

That’ll cost one million 20 twenty dollar bills, haha. I’m really glad you like him, though sadly we aren’t able to make a separate game where you can romance Cliff. I wish we had enough time to make tons of new scenes/extra stories in the Our Life world, but it just takes too long. Maybe people will make fanworks about it.

—–

We released a new FAQ! It answers common questions and we’ll keep adding more to it. Please check there before sending an ask. FAQ   Also, if you prefer to just see the main posts without all the asks/reblogs, feel free to follow our side account instead: GB Patch Updates Blog  

[star-spangled-bingo]

Star Spangled Flash Bingo

Wohoo this is our first flash bingo and it will run from January 18th to April 18th - we might do another after that depending on the success of this one and how our schedules look by then. Consider this a trial for both you guys and us. 

Let’s get some questions out of the way first: 

Can I sign up for the flash bingo if I haven’t signed up for a full card?

Yes you absolutely can. Just like you can sign up for this one as well as the other. 

Can fill a square from my regular card and one with this one with the same fic?

Yes if you double the acquired wordcount. The same goes for every other media. Just double the minimum and you’re good.  

Will we receive a badge for blacking out a flash card?

You betcha

Can I sign up for more than one flash bingo card?

Afraid not. Not this first time around at least. You have to pick one and commit to it. HOWEVER if you finish long before the flash is over and contact us via ask we might be able to let you sign up for a second flash card ;)

Important Dates for Flash Bingo

Sign Ups: Starts Jan 18th and closes March 18th 2021

Last chance to post a flash fic: April 10th 2021

Last chance to post masterlist and request a badge: April 18th

All blackouts receive a badge and will join our hall of fame under flash bingo participants 2021

General rules for the Bingo is the same as for the main bingo but let’s repeat them shall we:

Purpose of the Bingo

The focus is still the three caps but each card comes with a few challenges on its own. Scroll down to find a link to the cards and the rules for each. 

All Bingo cards are SFW as a rule but that doesn’t mean you aren’t allowed to write smut if you are over the age of 18. We just want to give every writer a chance to participate no matter if they write smut or not (hey that rhymed). 

Restrictions

- No abusive ships are allowed. Some ships like Winteriron can be abusive if you focus on the negative but can also be based on healing, therefore they are a grey zone and fall under think about what you write, if you chose a pairing such as that one. Shipping Bucky with Rumlow will always be abusive and as a rule no villains shipped with heroes allowed. (Loki might be an exception cause he is a grey character, just think before you write with him too).

-No pairing an adult with an underage character. No aging up or down. This goes for side pairings as well so no Starker!

- No incest - that goes for Thorki as a sidepairing as well. Adopted or not they grew up as brothers.

- No non/dub con are allowed either. 

- You can’t write smut if you are under the age of 18. If we catch you doing so you will be blocked from the bingo page and banned for participating.

- You can’t write smut if you are under 18. Everyone can write fluff, angst, crack, etc.

Formats and requirements

- Fics must state what square you fill, warnings, word count and pairing - if no pairing just write general (check the format page for ideas on how to format your post)

- Social Media AUs, Aesthetics, Edits, Fanart, Fanvids, podfics must have square filled, pairing and if needed warnings. 

- Everything you post as a fill must be original and new content - or if you read someone’s fic as a podfic explicit consent from the author must have been given and they have to be credited on your post. 

- Fics must have a minimum of 250 words - fics over 500 must have a keep reading to be reblogged. 

- Use common sense for when posting artworks into long posts. They might need a cut too.

- Aesthetics have a 4 picture minimum and preferably accompanied by a 100-word description or drabble - words are not a must

- Gifsets has a 6 picture minimum.

- One piece of fanart in form of a drawing by hand or a computer program is considered a fill. 

- Social media Aus must be a min of 6 pictures. 

- Podfics must be a min of 3 min.

- Fanvids must be a min of 30 sec. 

- All content can be added via link not to an original Tumblr post if you so choose as long as there is a Tumblr post with the format requirements we can reblog and the Tumblr post must be linked too on the masterlist you create when your card is filled. 

- IF WE FORGOT YOUR TYPE OF ARTWORK SEND US AN ASK AND WE MIGHT BE ABLE TO WORK SOMETHING OUT - we are pretty open to all types of creative outlets but it’s hard to put restrictions of stuff we don’t know or know very little about.

- One square per fic/artwork. If you write a series each chapter can be considered a fill or the entire series can be a fill if you so choose. No combining squares within the bingo.

- You are free to combine our bingo with another bingo with no additional requirements added from our end. Just make sure you follow the other bingos rules too. 

- If you combine with our main bingo though we ask you double the minimum requirement of your chosen media for it to count as a fill for both. Otherwise we will ask you to choose. 

- Warn accordingly. If warnings are spoilers put them in the tags and tell people to check your tags for additional warnings on the post.

- You don’t have to use the same media for the entire card. You can have 3 fics and 1 vid and the rest fics fx.

- Tag us @star-spangled-bingo and make clear the fic is for SSB SPRING FLASH 2021 and use the #SSB Spring Flash2021 on each square you fill.

Sanctions for breaking the rules

- If your post lacks a keep reading we won’t reblog it but it will still count as a fill.

- If you don’t tag us we can’t reblog you and if you don’t say it’s for SSB2020 in your header we won’t count it as a fill until you edited it into the post. This seems strict but we got 2019 floating and it is impossible to know which card what is for if you don’t mark it down for us. 

- If your fill fail to meet the minimum requirements your fill will be reblogged but won’t count as a fill unless you add to it to meet the minimum. 

- If your post doesn’t clearly show square filled, we won’t reblog it and it won’t count as a fill until you edited it in. 

- If we discover you write smut and are under 18 - you will be blocked from the bingo blog and banned from participating in the bingo in the future even when you reach the age of 18. 

- If you break this rule: No abusive ships are allowed. No pairing an adult with an underage character. No aging up or down. No incest and no glorification of non/dub con are allowed either. All of these go for side pairing also so no Thorki and Starker. Your post won’t count as a fill, nor will it be reblogged. You’ll get a reminder of our rules the first time you break it and the second you will be banned from the bingo.

Find the Flash Cards and the rules that are specific to them here!

Find the format requirements here!

Sign Up for a Flash Card Here!

Best of luck and have fun!

Kari, Erin, Jules and Becki

[barbecuedphoenix]

200 Followers: 11 Things About Me

So I was re-tagged a week ago by @eldarya-scenarios. (I had no idea I tagged you twice, dear. ^_^ Having two aliases is awfully sneaky.) 

If you’re a little curious on who your friendly fan blogger is behind the Leiftan icon and the barrage of text-winks, feel free to read on. Watch out though: it’s a long post like everything else I write... 

And if not, please continue to enjoy this blog’s smart-assery and the text-winks. ;)

1) Why did you name your blog the way you did? ...Because that’s the screen-name I use for my main Eldarya account. I’m not very creative with names. :( Not to mention that it’s probably very politically-incorrect to say ‘Barbecued Phoenix’ in the faery realm. Huang Hua would not be amused. And my blog is guaranteed to be politically-incorrect as far as folklore and faeries are concerned. ;) My screen-name is actually homage to a Neil Gaiman short-story called ‘Sunbird’, which is still one of my favorites from its double serving of dark humor and culinary catastrophes. And it sounds really funny when you say it out-loud (at least that’s my opinion).

2) What was your last meal? *checks bowl next to laptop* Eh… a fruit salad I scraped together from some Rainier cherries and leftover cantaloupe slices. It’s summer here, and I enjoy my fruits. :)

3) Jeans or skirts? …I must have at least nine different pairs of jeans in my closet, half of which I don’t even wear most days. And just one pencil skirt. Because at least once in my life, I’ll need to go to a court room. So there’s your answer. :)  

4) What’s your favourite letter of the alphabet? In the English alphabet, ‘L’ is my favorite. It just rollllls off the tongue so nicely. :) 

5) Favourite fandom/shipping? I’m a mercenary crack-ship writer. Anything goes so long as characters are in-character. ;) *cough* Truthfully, I haven’t shipped anything in a fandom since I was eleven or twelve, and that was waaaay back when the cartoon series Avatar the Last Airbender premiered. I think that experience has inoculated me to serious shipping. So now, while I enjoy seeing a well-developed, well-paced canon romance (because it means the creators have really thought the story through), it’s never a huge concern for me who’s paired up with whom. Romance isn’t actually the selling point for me for a lot of stories; it’s individual character development and plot direction that counts.   And anyway… fan shipping is really a fabrication. With a bit of imagination, effort, and tactical writing, functional relationships can be spun between anything and anyone, and unraveled in the same way. Even when keeping all parties in character. So why blow a gasket over shipping? To each their own dirty little fancies. ;)

As for my fandoms… they’re a patchwork quilt of games, books, movies, TV shows, anime from a lot of different sources, and it changes every year. For the sake of time, I’ll give a rundown of just the fantasy/supernatural genres I’ve been following for a while (translating some of the titles to English when possible):  

Games: the Dragon Age series, Folklore (also called FolksSoul), Uncharted, the Persona series 

Books: Discworld, His Dark Materials, the Dr. Siri Paiboun series, the Temeraire series, The Tiger’s Wife, Brisingamen, pretty much anything done by Neil Gaiman… the list goes on. With a few rare exceptions, I’ve shifted from being a high fantasy lover (those tropes get old after a while) to an acolyte of more low-key genres like magical-realism, fantasy-historical-fiction, and satirical-fantasy.  

TV Shows: Supernatural  

Anime & Cartoons: the Fate series (even though my fanfiction ends up making fun of it 95% of the time, it’s still a really intricate universe), the Avatar series  

Movies: Practically anything done by Studio Ghibli and Tomm Moore, ‘Coraline’, ‘Corpse Bride’, ‘Therapy for a Vampire’, ‘Let the Right One In’, ‘Groundhog Day’, the very first installation of ‘The Hobbit’   

6) What’s your favourite sport? (You don’t necessarily have to play it) Favorite sport I can’t do, but love to watch: Surfing. Forget berserk football matches; give me a crazy Australian riding a tunnel wave any day. :D  Favorite sport I can do: Bicycling. I’m no Tour de France candidate, but my bike regularly takes its share of unreasonable hills and descents in the city where I live. Personally, It’s a great way to get around. ^_^

7) What’s your idea of a perfect day? Getting everything on my list done with minimal coffee and hair-pulling.  -_- Sorry… I’m still listening to the robot half of my brain. Switching over.  Start the day by making a difference and sharing a good time with both the students I see where I work, and the odd friends and colleagues I do have. Attend a really good lecture. Then take a quiet bus ride to the beach or an aquarium, where I can watch all the wildlife shenanigans I want. Tourists included. Cook something awesome for lunch or dinner, and eat it to discover that it’s still more awesome. End the day with a good book, an avalanche of blankets, and a conveniently-rainy night. And maybe a quick Skype/phone call with my dad.  ;( Oh there I go, listening to the sappy half of my brain. Switching over.  

8) What animal do you hate with all your soul? The logical part of my brain tells me I have no cause to loathe any animal for existing. But the cave-woman part of my brain still gets creeped out by a few of them…. Geckos especially. Because the house where I grew up was infested with them (like a typical equatorial house, actually). The geckos could be found on absolutely any flat surface, even the underside of the table and on the ceiling, so we always had to check right before sitting down that something cold, bug-eyed, and squirmy wasn’t going to drop on us in the middle of dinner. And they also liked to appear in other surprising places: like in your shoes (as my father found out one day while rushing to work), inside drawers, inside trash cans, crushed between door hinges, trapped in the kitchen sink, and inside the refrigerator a couple of times (worst idea ever, for a lizard).      One of the best things that happened to me on moving to this corner of the United States: no geckos anywhere. I can clean my apartment with an easy heart. \o/    

9) Can you dance? Besides some lingering muscle memory from my early days doing classical ballet... no. :(  I’d really like to take up Spanish Flamenco though. Generally, I do better with choreographed dances rather than impromptu club-dancing. As all my friends have told me. I’ve given them so many priceless memories on the dance-floor… 

10) What’s the name and age of your favourite character? (OC or otherwise) I can’t decide on a ‘favorite’ character in media; there’s too many of them. So how about a favorite OC instead? ^_^   Right now among the Eldarya OC cast, my favorite would have to be Zephania ‘Zee’ Tantiango because she’s a magnet for trouble as a protagonist very dynamic heroine to work with. (She’s 23, in case you’re interested.) Zee is actually the latest incarnation of the ‘funny-but-unlucky action heroine’ archetype I’ve spent years working on, and I’m happy with how she’s turning out so far. On one hand, she’s the typical small-town heroine who’s sharp, plucky, energetic, and more than a little kooky herself; the story never stops moving once she starts improvising in a tight situation. :) But there’s a strong undercurrent of tragedy in the way she continues to isolate herself through her pride and her decisions, especially because she’s allergic to either admitting that she’s in real trouble, or cutting herself some slack for her mistakes. There’s a lot of sadness behind that finger-snap smile. I’m still debating on whether to give her a good ending, or a bitter one. :(  No, that was not a spoiler for the fan-fiction that’ll one day hit this blog.

11) What got you into your favourite activity?(i.e how did you start?) Favorite activity? Like… a hobby?  Well the longest-running hobby I’ve ever had is writing (no guesses there). And it was more-or-less self-taught. As a kid, nobody could take me anywhere without a book in my hand, or some other adventure happening inside my own head (which made it awfully inconvenient to get my attention in a mall… but hey, I never wandered off). And writing short stories was always the most entertaining school assignment for me.  But it wasn’t until I started home-schooling at thirteen that I found the time and need to write something for myself, putting to paper those increasingly-complex sagas and fan-fictions that lived in my head (because my short-term recall just couldn’t keep track of all the dialogue and plot twists anymore; I needed to start recording my stories to make sense of them.)   And I haven’t stopped since. :)

Uh-oh. Here come… my questions. For @mentacomchocolate, @areyntheheartseeker, and @the-irish-hoor​. 

Why did you name your blogs the way you did? ;)

What would your honest personal reaction be if you accidentally stepped into a fairy ring, landed in a strange place, and got threatened by a fox-lady wielding fireballs?  

What’s your dream job in this life?  

Is there anyone you have a crush on that you’re still really embarrassed to admit? Would you like to mention them anyway? ;)  

If there’s only one book genre you could spend the rest of your life reading, what will it be?  

What are the top 5 things you geek out over? (Today, at least. ;) )

If you’ve been given a 24-hour advance warning that the world is definitely going to end (i.e. via Death Star), what will you do?

And if you’ve been given an exclusive two-person escape pod during above scenario, what/who would you bring with you to escape the planet? Would you want to?

If your friends can agree on one thing about you, what would it be? Do you agree with them? 

What’s the most embarrassing thing that happened to you this past week?  

What do you remember as your most incredible feat of endurance to date? Physical, mental, and/or social?

*looks up* ...All right, those are some weird questions. I won’t blame you at all if you ignore them. 

[thegloober]

30 Minutes on: “Searching”

by Matt Zoller Seitz

September 16, 2018   |  

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“Searching” is one of the best films of 2018, and a major leap forward for both the thriller genre and the presence of Asian-Americans in movies. John Cho (“Star Trek,” “Columbus“) stars as David Kim, a father trying to locate his daughter Margot (Michelle La), who disappeared on a Friday night when she was supposed to be at piano practice. You’ve seen this kind of movie before, but it’s the combination of cultural specificity and storytelling skill that sets it apart. (Note: There are going to be spoilers in this piece, so if you haven’t already seen the movie, you should do so and finish this later.)

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The totality of “Searching” is presented as if it were drawn from the contents of desktop computers and iPhones—juxtaposing, for instance, two sides of a FaceTime call with phone logs, satellite maps, open windows playing YouTube videos, etc. Other films have tried to tell a story this way (“Unfriended” is one example, though it’s nowhere near as clever as this movie, or as knowledgable about the tech it shows us). But none have done as fine a job of integrating the emotional and narrative content of a story with all the visual and sonic bells and whistles, so that it all plays as a seamless whole and feels organic and true to how we live now.

Consider the prologue, which takes us through the death of David’s wife and Margot’s mother Pamela (Sara Sohn) from cancer. It’s a little masterpiece of narrative compression that deserves favorable comparison with the opening of Pixar’s “Up,” not just because of its ability to elicit tears, but because it compresses a feature film’s worth of emotional power into a few fleet minutes without making you feel as if the movie had rushed you through anything important. I can’t think of another recent sequence that better shows how our emotions are intertwined with the boringly ordinary digital tasks we perform all day, every day. Notice, for instance, how David moves videos that will have enormous nostalgic value later into specific folders to make them easier to find (which immediately communicate how important they are to him, and how important that will be to the movie). Also impressive is the way the film treats the simple act of scheduling events (like Pamela coming home from the hospital) as indicators of the family’s fears and dreams, and devices for generating empathy as well as suspense (every time David moves the homecoming date, we can feel our stomachs tighten up a bit more, anticipating the worst). 

As directed by Aneesh Chaganty and cowritten by Chaganty and Sev Ohanian, “Searching” makes a statement about how life is lived, and how movies are lagging behind in rarely depicting that life, all without seeming to make a statement. Everything shown in the movie is something we see everyday on a laptop or phone or iPad screen, but seeing it blown up to feature film dimensions (I recommend seeing “Searching” in a theater if possible) puts the data in a new context, makes us appreciate textures we’d otherwise take for granted, and finds poetry and mystery in what we’d ordinarily think of as a technical limitations (when Chaganty zooms or crops into a wide shot of people who are pictured from head to toe, and the fuzzy borders of their heads and bodies becomes painterly). It’s analogous to the way David pores through all the available information he has in order to find clues and answers, only to keep running up against the limitations of what facts alone can tell him. This happens whenever you’re trying to solve a mystery involving someone you know. Sometimes you get a piece of data that feels relevant and useful, but there are still limits to what it can tell you.

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I love the way the movie alternates guiding the eye and letting you look where you want. A lot of the time when David is anxiously talking to the detective on the case, Rosemary Vick (Debra Messing), to his brother Peter (Joseph Lee), or to the various teenaged classmates and acquaintances who knew his daughter far less well than he thought, we have to decide where onscreen to look. The movie always takes care to guide you when it’s crucial to see a particular thing at a particular moment; but a lot of the time you find yourself looking somewhere other than wherever David is looking; when he’s having a video chat with Rosemary, you might be looking at a window full of folders, and wondering if the answers that would crack the the case are contained in one that the hero hasn’t dug through yet. There’s also a subtle undercurrent of social satire in the images that minor characters post of themselves (like the shot of the bad boy Derek exhaling clouds of pot smoke) as well as the late sequence where characters who barely knew Margot and couldn’t be bothered to get to know her during the darkest period of her life suddenly pretend that they were all her best friend and are devastated by her disappearance. (The bleakly comedic TBS series “Search Party” is also very good about satirizing the performative grief of social media users.)

Equally notable is the way “Searching” lets its main family be culturally specific without the movie becoming a meditation on what it means to be Korean-American, to the exclusion of all else. This is not to dismiss films that are specifically about that (there should be many more of them than there currently are), but to point out one of the unfortunate pitfalls of casting genre films with predominantly nonwhite casts: even if the movie isn’t meant as a referendum on the state of a particular culture, ethnicity or race, it gets read that way by a predominately white American audiences and critics, often inappropriately. “Searching” hits a sweet spot between being a film with Korean-Americans in lead roles and caring very deeply about them as Korean-Americans rather that presenting them as “raceless,” while functioning as very effective thriller from start to finish.

Many plot elements, from the way that Margot and her mother bonded over piano to the way Peter calls up David for help with a “kimchi gumbo” recipe, will strike specific emotional notes for Korean and Korean-American viewers. But these are always adjacent to the main function of a scene, which is to flesh out the characters and drive the plot forward. Notice, for instance, how the piano stuff pays off at the end, with a revelation of why Margot stopped going to the lessons after her mother’s death, and how the discussion of the kimchi recipe pays off what had originally seemed like a purely comedic beat: David disapprovingly noticing Peter’s marijuana buds in a jar sitting in plain view on the counter. 

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“Searching” is a formally playful film that’s constantly thinking about how to make all the media it shows us feel organic and not too fussed over, while also constantly trying to come up with ways to arrange the material that will make it more traditionally “cinematic.” One of my favorite examples is the scene where David goes over to Peter’s apartment to confront him, surreptitiously planting tiny cameras in three locations to record incriminating information. One of the angles lets us see David through the open front door of Peter’s apartment, checking the feed of all three hidden cameras on a laptop in his car—a deep focus composition worthy of Orson Welles or John Frankenheimer. As the brothers move through various rooms, the director slides from one window to the next, tracking their motions in a way that’s elegant and exciting, and that feels as he’s “panning” through a single set with a film camera on a tripod, even though he’s moving across boxes on a flat computer screen. When the brothers struggle, one of the cameras falls from its original position and lands on the floor pointing up. When David sits on a chair in that shot, the low, ominous angle is as close to a classic film noir image as “Searching” has given us. It’s wonderfully correct for that moment in the story, and delightful for how it manages to be extremely showy while acting as if that’s just where the camera happened to fall. 

There are even moments where the movie captures the intellectual and emotional sensation of being online when you’re stressed out. The movie watches the cursor move across the screen, pause over two option buttons, and then wait before deciding whether to stay online or log off, open this folder as opposed to that one, or zoom in on an image that we thought David had already studied and absorbed. The many scenes that follow along as David tries to gain access to important information by fishing through his late wife’s accounts do double duty as plot exposition and character development, filling in pieces of the mystery of Margot’s private life while showing us how disconnected David was from all of that. (His wife obviously ran the domestic sphere.) 

It’s rare to see a commercial film that’s this suspenseful and emotionally involving but that also feels electrifyingly new. This one pulled me in from frame one and never let go, and delivered all the satisfactions I wanted from a mystery-suspense film while also giving me lots to think about, purely through its decision of how to tell the story. I have no idea how well “Searching” is going to hold up in twenty or even five years; given the rapid pace of technological change, it seems possible that at lot of the software and devices presented here will seem quaint. But it’s still fun to see moviemakers treating everyday rituals that so many films ignore as being integral to its story, and thinking about how the most intimate aspects of life have become digitized and made virtual, and what that means for the species.

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