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fiendishpal · 3 years

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hii fiend!!! i literally adore your art its so pretty and it- it just- *inhales* *exha-*💞💖✨💞💖✨💞🙏🛐🙇‍♂️🙇‍♂️anyways so- bcz u guided me to the osaaka ship and now im in love w it couldya please offer me some fic recommendations? ok, i just love ur art ur one of ny faves lov u have an amazingly sweet and beautiful day!!! :D

sure thing!!

i’ll put them by category here (i also have some art for some of them, i’ll post them when i’ve got the time)

i’ve put a star ★ beside fics that i’ve read a bunch of times hahaha!

canon-compliant

(fics that i think you should read first. mostly canon-compliant. so these are post-timeskip. after their meeting at the black jackals vs adlers game. these really won’t make any sense if you’re anime-only, sorry.)

stay with me go places by sparksandsalt ★

this fic. THIS FIC!!!!! this started everything for me!!! this is the reason why i started shipping osaaka!!!! the way they handled the characters is sooooo!!! *chef’s kiss* they really stick true to the characters' voices and the care they put into characterizations is impeccable. i also love bokuto and akaashi’s relationship here!! they’re so in each other’s lives that bokuto ends up exposing akaashi’s feelings indirectly and accidentally lmao and also atsumu and osamu’s relationship is so funny and hilarious. they are like how brothers are, atsumu showing his support but also clowning osamu in the process

this fic single-handedly fueled me to create so much osaaka content.

i dont know how many times i’ve read this tbh

wait by sanguinedawns

i love the yearning in this fic. the longing and the waiting and the expectation there. they’re trying to be subtle about their feelings for each other but they’re seen at the end but at 4k it’s narrated so smoothly. i love mutually pining idiots.

in the afternoon by yamaboto

this is so!!! i love this so much!! at 1k we see osamu yearning for akaashi once again. i love how they write this short scene. i could really picture the afternoon light coming in through the traditional panel doors and how the light must feel on your skin.

take what we love inside by yamaboto

this is an established relationship osaaka and how they got together. in the afternoon (the fic above) is a snippet of how warm the writer could put words together. and it really is so sweet there’s a scene where they slow dance and it’s the best. i also love the simple fact that they put in how osamu cannot let anybody go hungry hhaha

shout softly by lostsunsets

YOU HAVE NO IDEA HOW THIS MADE MY HEART FEEL SO LIGHT AND SOFT AND TENDER. THIS FIC IS SO PRECIOUS OH MY GOSH

i love love loooooooove how the author put osamu's love and passion for food and filling in the pieces on what osamu does to fuel this passion --while in the back burner-- while he was still playing volleyball in high school

AND HOW HE LONGS FOR AKAASHI. THIS IS MAKING ME AAAAAAAAAAA!!!!!

GO READ IT PLEASE

we’re in au territory

(the setting is not canon-compliant)

sleeping with the enemy by billionairevolleyboysclub ★

the setting is in 2013 haikyu volleyball circuit. meaning they’re still in highschool and are still playing volleyball and they just happen to chance upon each other at interhigh.

i love how sweet osamu is and how he got his crush on akaashi. and it’s lovely how they wrote the budding of a highschool relationship!! and their take on how osamu and akaashi handle ldr??? it’s delicious. dont let the fake/pretend relationship tag fool you this is very cute i love them so much!! i guess the ‘no drama’ aspect is what i like about this a lot bc osamu’s a pretty straightforward guy esp i guess back in highschool. also the second-hand embarrassment is real lmao

welcome in by risquetendencies ★

in this setting osamu’s still the owner of onigiri miya but the au aspect of this is that they haven’t met before. so basically a meet-cute.

and man oh mannnnn the tension written here is good food. osamu is written so obviously into akaashi (i mean who wouldn’t) and akaashi is affected by this greatly and it is!!! wow!! i just love how smooth osamu is here and how flustered akaashi gets bc “omg a hot guy likes me????” (yes akaashi, this hot guys thinks you’re a sexy piece of ass please believe it)

akaashi in a gay panic is literally the best thing.

blood brothers by billionairevolleyboysclub (18+)

miya twins are vampires and akaashi has a thing for fangs. that in and of itself is enough reason for you to read this. i also love how the writer puts a distinction between atsumu and osamu on how they interact with/ feed on akaashi.

like the dawn by eggsan

this fic is actually inspired by my royalty au but im not putting this here bc of that. i really like how the writer introduced their story. i remember telling someone that the atmosphere of how they write is like the voice of a soft-spoken maiden hahaha it's lovely!! think light academia aesthetic. i also love how i get the doki-dokis when osamu, who is essentially a stranger, gets close to akaashi. i can feel akaashi's excitement and trepidation.

forgive the sea, follow the tide by KyryeDuBarie (18+)★

PIRATE AU!!!!!!

i love the fresh twist that they did here on the classic mermaid/pirate au. the twist being akaashi is actually a pearl diver and at the same time being vaguely hinted as a mermaid hhahaha. osamu's a pirate that got shipwrecked and got washed up on akaashi's shores that akaashi, of course, saved.

there's a bunch of cool things that happened too that i cannot disclose bc that'll ruin the thrill of reading this. the plot is solid and the romance between osamu and akaashi is gradual but so so sweeeeet!! i highly recommend this!! but better clear up your schedule bc this hefty boy comes in at a whopping 40k!!!!

keep time on me by yamabato

this fic is based from my zombie apocalypse au!! and even though it’s set in the end of the world, they were still able to write it so sweet and comforting????? i only wish osamu and keiji the happiness they deserve :’)

i also like the whole theme of time in the story and how the story revolves around it. it’s very good!!!

the contest between by batman (18+)

akaashi is a documentary director and osamu is his subject. i love love looooove how the author wrote how stubborn both of them are and how they could clash sometimes but not in the explosive type of way. it’s actually cute and sweet, you’ll see what i mean when you read this hhehehe

AND AKAASHI IS SO LOVELY HERE!!! so lovely!!! and he laughs and smiles a ton and those moments were written in a way that just said ‘look at this angel!’ LMAO idk maybe that’s just me. i love akaashi so much

AND THIS BABY COMES IN AT A WHOLE 75K!!!!!!!!! AMAZING!!!!

#chocomilked #fiend talks #fiendish recs #GIVE THESE AUTHORS SOME LOVE #love love looooove these fics i swear by them!!!!#if i find more i''l update these!!#happy reading tumblr used chocomilked!! hahaha #osaaka #EDIT: added two new fics!!!#let me go around the fics i've read again hhaha

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xoruffitup · 3 years

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Annette: The AD Devotee Review

So I saw Annette on its premiere night in Cannes and I’m still trying to process and make sense of those 2.5 hours of utter insanity. I have no idea where to begin and this is likely going to become an unholy length by the time I’m finished, so I apologize in advance. But BOY I’ve got a lot to parse through!!

Let’s start here: Adam’s made plenty of weird movies. The Dead Don’t Die? The Man Who Killed Don Quixote? There are definitely Terry Gilliam-esque elements of the unapologetically absurd and fantastical in Annette, but NOTHING comes close to this film. To put it bluntly, nothing I write in this post can prepare you for the eccentric phantasmagoria you’re about to sit through.

While the melodies conveying the story – at times lovely and haunting, at times whimsical, occasionally blunt and simple – add a unique sense of the surreal, the fact that it’s all presented in song somehow supplies the medium for this bizarre concoction of disparate elements and outlandish storytelling to all coalesce into a single genre-defying, disbelief-suspending whole. That’s certainly not to say there weren’t a few times when I quietly chortled to myself and mouthed “what the fuck” from behind my mask when things took an exceeding turn to the outrageous. This movie needs to be permitted a bit of leeway in terms of quality judgments, and traditional indicators certainly won’t apply. I would say part of its appeal (and ultimately its success) stems from its lack of interest in appealing to traditional arbiters of film structure and viewing experience. The movie lingers in studies of discomfiture (I’ll return to this theme); it presents all its absurdities with brazen pride rather than temperance; and its end is abrupt and utterly jarring. Yet somehow, at the end of it, I realized I’d been white-knuckling that rollercoaster ride the whole way through and loved every last twist and turn.

A note on the structure of this post before I dive in: I’ve written out a synopsis of the whole film (for those spoiler-hungry people) and stashed it down at the bottom of this post, so no one trying to avoid spoilers has to scroll through. If you want to read, go ahead and skip down to that before reading the discussion/analysis. If I have to reference a specific plot point, I’ll label it “Spoiler #___” and those who don’t mind being spoiled can check the correlating numbers in my synopsis to see which part I’m referencing. Otherwise, my discussion will be spoiler-free! I do detail certain individual scenes, but hid anything that would give away key developments and/or the ending.

To start, I’ll cut to what I’m sure many of you are here for: THE MUSICAL SEX SCENES. You want detailed descriptions? Well let’s fucking go because these scenes have been living in my head rent-free!!

The first (yes, there are two. Idk whether to thank Mr. Carax or suggest he get his sanity checked??) happens towards the end of “We Love Each Other So Much.” Henry carries Ann to the bed with her feet dangling several inches off the floor while she has her arms wrapped around his shoulders. (I maybe whimpered a tiny bit.) As they continue to sing, you first see Ann spread on her back on the bed, panting a little BUT STILL SINGING while Henry’s head is down between her thighs. The camera angle is from above Ann’s head, so you can clearly see down her body and exactly what’s going on. He lifts his head to croon a line, then puts his mouth right back to work.

And THEN they fuck – still fucking singing! They’re on their sides with Henry behind her, and yes there is visible thrusting. Yes, the thrusting definitely picks up speed and force as the song reaches its crescendo. Yes, it was indeed EXTREMELY sensual once you got over the initial shock of what you’re watching. Ann kept her breasts covered with her own hands while Henry went down on her, but now his hands are covering them and kneading while they’re fucking and just….. It’s a hard, blazing hot R rating. I also remember his giant hand coming up to turn her head so he can kiss her and ladkjfaskfjlskfj. Bring your smelling salts. I don’t recommend sitting between two older ladies while you’re watching – KINDA RUINED THE BLATANT, SMOKING HOT ADAM PORN FOR ME. Good god, choose your viewing buddy wisely!

The second scene comes sort of out of nowhere – I can’t actually recall which song it was during, but it pops up while Ann is pregnant. Henry is again eating her out and there’s not as much overt singing this time, but he has his giant hands splayed over her pregnant belly while he’s going to town and whew, WHEW TURN ON THE AIR CONDITIONING PLEASE. DID THE THEATER INCREASE IN TEMPERATURE BY 10 DEGREES, YOU’RE DAMN RIGHT IT DID.

Whew. I think you’ll be better primed to ~enjoy~ those scenes when you know they’re coming, otherwise it’s just so shocking that by the time you’ve processed “Look at Adam eating pussy with reckless abandon” it’s halfway over already. God speed, my fellow rats, it’s truly something to witness!!

Okay. Right. Ahem. Moving right on along….

I’ll kick off this discussion with the formal structure of the film. It’s honestly impossible to classify. I have the questionable fortune of having been taken to many a strange avant-garde operas and art exhibitions by my parents when I was younger, and the strongest parallel I found to this movie was melodramatic opera stagings full of flamboyant flourishes, austere set pieces, and prolonged numbers where the characters wallow at length in their respective miseries. This movie has all the elevated drama, spectacle, and self-aggrandizement belonging to any self-professed rock opera. Think psychedelic rock opera films a la The Who’s Tommy, Hair, Phantom of the Paradise, and hell, even Rocky Horror. Yes, this film really is THAT weird.

But Annette is also in large part a vibrant, absurdist performance piece. The film is intriguingly book-ended by two scenes where the lines blur between actor and character; and your own role blurs between passive viewer and interactive audience. The first scene has the cast walking through the streets of LA (I think?), singing “So May We Start?” directly to the camera in a self-aware prologue, smashing the fourth wall from the beginning and setting up the audience to play a direct role in the viewing experience. Though the cast then disburse and take up their respective roles, the sense of being directly performed to is reinforced throughout the film. This continues most concretely through Henry’s multiple stand-up comedy performances.

Though he performs to an audience in the film rather than directly to live viewers, these scenes are so lengthy, vulgar, and excessive that his solo performance act becomes an integral part of defining his character and conveying his arc as the film progresses. These scenes start to make the film itself feel like a one-man show. The whole shtick of Henry McHenry’s “Ape of God” show is its perverse irreverence and swaggering machismo. Over the span of what must be a five minute plus scene, Henry hacks up phlegm, pretends to choke himself with his microphone cord, prances across the stage with his bathrobe flapping about, simulates being shot, sprinkles many a misanthropic, charmless monologues in between, and ends by throwing off his robe and mooning the audience before he leaves the stage. (Yes, you see Adam’s ass within the film’s first twenty minutes, and we’re just warming up from there.) His one-man performances demonstrate his egocentrism, penchant for lowbrow and often offensive humor, and the fact that this character has thus far profited from indulging in and acting out his base vulgarities.

While never demonstrating any abundance of good taste, his shows teeter firmly towards the grotesque and unsanctionable as his marriage and mental health deteriorate. This is what I’m referring to when I described the film as a study in discomfiture. As he deteriorates, the later iterations of his stand-up show become utterly unsettling and at times revolting. The film could show mercy and stop at one to two minutes of his more deranged antics, but instead subjects you to a protracted display of just how insane this man might possibly be. In Adam’s hands, these excessive, indulgent performance scenes take on disturbing but intriguing ambiguity, as you again wonder where the performance ends and the real man begins. When Henry confesses to a crime during his show and launces into an elaborate, passionate reenactment on stage, you shift uncomfortably in your seat wondering how much of it might just be true. Wondering just how much of an animal this man truly is.

Watching this film as an Adam fan, these scenes are unparalleled displays of his range and prowess. He’s in turns amusing and revolting; intolerable and pathetic; but always, always riveting. I couldn’t help thinking to myself that for the casual, non Adam-obsessed viewer, the effect of these scenes might stop at crass and unappealing. But in terms of the sheer range and power of acting on display? These scenes are a damn marvel. Through these scenes alone, his performance largely imbues the film with its wild, primal, and vaguely menacing atmosphere.

His stand-up scenes were, to me, some of the most intense of the film – sometimes downright difficult to endure. But they’re only a microcosm of the R A N G E he exhibits throughout the film’s entirety. Let’s talk about how he’s animalistic, menacing, and genuinely unsettling to watch (Leos Carax described him as “feline” at some point, and I 100% see it); and then with a mere subtle twitch of his expression, sheen of his eyes, or slump of his shoulders, he’s suddenly a lost, broken thing.

Henry McHenry is truly to be reviled. Twitter might as well spare their breath and announce he’s already cancelled. He towers above the rest of the cast with intimidating, predatory physicality; he is prone to indulgence in his vices; and he constantly seems at risk of releasing some wild, uncontrollable madness lingering just beneath his surface. But as we all well know, Adam has an unerring talent for lending pathos to even the most objectively condemnable characters.

In a repeated refrain during his first comedy show, the audience keeps asking him, “Why did you become a comedian?” He dodges the question or gives sarcastic answers, until finally circling back to the true answer later in the film. It was something to the effect of: “To disarm people. It’s the only way I can tell the truth without it killing me.” Even for all their sick spectacle, there are also moments in his stand-up shows of disarming vulnerability and (seeming) honesty. In a similar moment of personal exposition, he confesses his temptation and “sympathy for the abyss.” (This phrase is hands down my favorite of the film.) He repeatedly refers to his struggle against “the abyss” and, at the same time, his perceived helplessness against it. “There’s so little I can do, there’s so little I can do,” he sings repeatedly throughout the film - usually just after doing something horrific.

Had he been played by anyone else, the first full look of him warming up before his show - hopping in place and punching the air like some wannabe boxer, interspersing puffs of his cigarette with chowing down on a banana – would have been enough for me to swear him off. His archetype is something of a cliché at this point – a brusque, boorish man who can’t stomach or preserve the love of others due to his own self-loathing. There were multiple points when it was only Adam’s face beneath the character that kept my heart cracked open to him. But sure enough, he wedged his fingers into that tiny crack and pried it wide open. The film’s final few scenes show him at his chin-wobbling best as he crumbles apart in small, mournful subtleties.

(General, semi-spoiler ahead as to the tone of the film’s ending – skip this paragraph if you’d rather avoid.) For a film that professes not to take itself very seriously (how else am I supposed to interpret the freaky puppet baby?), it delivers a harsh, unforgiving ending to its main character. And sure enough, despite how much I might have wanted to distance myself and believe it was only what he deserved, I found myself right there with him, sharing his pain. It is solely testament to Adam’s tireless dedication to breathing both gritty realism and stubborn beauty into his characters that Henry sank a hook into some piece of my sympathy.

Not only does Adam have to be the only actor capable of imbuing Henry with humanity despite his manifold wrongs, he also has to be the only actor capable of the wide-ranging transformations demanded of the role. He starts the movie with long hair and his full refrigerator brick house physique. His physicality and size are actively leveraged to engender a sense of disquiet and unpredictability through his presence. He appears in turns tormented and tormentor. There were moments when I found myself thinking of Conan the Barbarian, simply because his physical presence radiates such wild, primal energy (especially next to tiny, dainty Marion and especially with that long hair). Cannot emphasize enough: The raw sex appeal is off the goddamn charts and had me – a veteran fangirl of 3+ years - shook to my damn core.

The film’s progression then ages him – his hair cut shorter and his face and physique gradually becoming more gaunt. By the film’s end, he has facial prosthetics to make him seem even more stark and borderline sickly – a mirror of his growing internal torment. From a muscular, swaggering powerhouse, he pales and shrinks to a shell of a man, unraveling as his face becomes nearly deformed by time and guilt. He is in turns beautiful and grotesque; sensual and repulsive. I know of no other actor whose face (and its accompanying capacity for expressiveness) could lend itself to such stunning versatility.

Quick note here that he was given a reddish-brown birthmark on the right side of his face for this film?? It becomes more prominent once his hair is shorter in the film’s second half. I’m guessing it was Leos’ idea to make his face even more distinctive and riveting? If so, joke’s on you, Mr. Carax, because we’re always riveted. ☺

I mentioned way up at the beginning that the film is bookended by two scenes where the lines blur between actor and character, and between reality and performance. This comes full circle at the film’s end, with Henry’s final spoken words (this doesn’t give any plot away but skip to the next paragraph if you would rather avoid!) being “Stop watching me.” That’s it. The show is over. He has told his last joke, played out his final act, and now he’s done living his life as a source of cheap, unprincipled laughs and thrills for spectators. The curtain closes with a resounding silence.

Now, I definitely won’t have a section where I talk (of course) about the Ben Solo parallels. He’s haunted by an “abyss” aka darkness inside of him? Bad things happened when he finally gave in and stared into that darkness he knew lived within him? As a result of those tragedies, (SPOILER – Skip to next paragraph to avoid) he then finds himself alone and with no one to love or be loved by? NO I’M DEFINITELY NOT GOING TO TALK ABOUT IT AT ALL, I’M JUST FINE HERE UNDER MY MOUNTAINS OF TISSUES.

Let’s talk about the music! The film definitely clocks in closer to a rock opera than musical, because almost the entire thing is conveyed through ongoing song, rather than self-contained musical numbers appearing here and there. This actually helps the film’s continuity and pacing, by keeping the characters perpetually in this suspended state of absurdity, always propelled along by some beat or melody. Whenever the film seems on the precipice of tipping all the way into the bleak and dark, the next whimsical tune kicks in to reel us all blessedly back. For example, after (SPOILER #1) happens, there’s a hard cut to the bright police station where several officers gather around Henry, bopping about and chattering on the beat “Questions! We have a few questions!”

Adam integrates his singing into his performance in such a way that it seems organic. I realized after the film that I never consciously considered the quality of his singing along the way. For all that I talked about the film maintaining the atmosphere of a fourth wall-defying performance piece, Adam’s singing is so fully immersed in the embodiment of his character that you almost forget he’s singing. Rather, this is simply how Henry McHenry exists. His stand-up scenes are the only ones in the film that do frequently transition back and forth between speaking and singing, but it’s seamlessly par for the course in Henry’s bizarre, dour show. He breaks into his standard “Now laugh!” number with uninterrupted sarcasm and contempt. There were certainly a few soft, poignant moments when his voice warbled in a tender vibrato you couldn’t help noticing – but otherwise, the singing was simply an extension of that full-body persona he manages to convey with such apparent ease and naturalism.

On the music itself: I’ll admit that the brief clip of “We Love Each Other So Much” we got a few weeks ago made me a tad nervous. It seemed so cheesy and ridiculous? But okay, you really can’t take anything from this movie out of context. Otherwise it is, indeed, utterly ridiculous. Not that none of it is ever ridiculous in context either, but I’m giving you assurances right now that it WORKS. Once you’re in the flow of constant singing and weirdness abound, the songs sweep you right along. Some of the songs lack a distinctive hook or melody and are moreso rhythmic vehicles for storytelling, but it’s now a day later and I still have three of the songs circulating pleasantly in my head. “We Love Each Other So Much” was actually the stand out for me and is now my favorite of the soundtrack. It’s reprised a few times later in the film, growing increasingly melancholy each time it is echoed, and it hits your heart a bit harder each time. The final song sung during (SPOILER #2), though without a distinctive melody to lodge in my head, undoubtedly left me far more moved than a spoken version of this scene would have. Adam’s singing is so painfully desperate and earnest here, and he takes the medium fully under his command.

Finally, it does have to be said that parts of this film veer fully towards the ridiculous and laughable. The initial baby version of the Annette puppet-doll was nothing short of horrifying to me. Annette gets more center-stage screen time in the film’s second half, which gives itself over to a few special effects sequences which look to be flying out at you straight from 2000 Windows Movie Maker. The scariest part is that it all seems intentional. The quality special effects appear when necessary (along with some unusual and captivating time lapse shots), which means the film’s most outrageous moments are fully in line with its guiding spirit. Its extravagant self-indulgence nearly borders on camp.

...And with that, I’ve covered the majority of the frantic notes I took for further reflection immediately after viewing. It’s now been a few days, and I’m looking forward to rewatching this movie when I can hopefully take it in a bit more fully. This time, I won’t just be struggling to keep up with the madness on screen. My concluding thoughts at this point: Is it my favorite Adam movie? Certainly not. Is it the most unforgettable? Aside from my holy text, The Last Jedi, likely yes. It really is the sort of thing you have to see twice to even believe it. And all in all, I say again that Adam truly carried this movie, and he fully inhabits even its highest, most ludicrous aspirations. He’s downright abhorrent in this film, and that’s exactly what makes him such a fucking legend.

I plan to make a separate post in the coming days about my experience at Cannes and the Annette red carpet, since a few people have asked! I can’t even express how damn good it feels to be globetrotting for Adam-related experiences again. <3

Thanks so much for reading! Feel free to ask me any further questions at all here or on Twitter! :)

*SYNOPSIS INCLUDED BELOW. DO NOT READ FURTHER IF AVOIDING SPOILERS!*

Synopsis: Comedian Henry McHenry and opera singer Ann Defrasnoux are both at the pinnacle of their respective success when they fall in love and marry. The marriage is happy and passionate for a time, leading to the birth of their (puppet) daughter, Annette. But tabloids and much of the world believe the crude, brutish Henry is a poor match for refined, idolized Ann. Ann and Henry themselves both begin to feel that something is amiss – Henry gradually losing his touch for his comedy craft, claiming that being in love is making him ill. He repeatedly and sardonically references how Ann’s opera career involves her “singing and dying” every night, to the point that he sees visions of her “dead” body on the stage. Meanwhile, Ann has a nightmare of multiple women accusing Henry of abusive and violent behavior towards them, and she begins growing wary in his presence. (He never acts abusively towards her, unless you count that scene when he tickles her feet and licks her toes while she’s telling him to stop??? Yeah I know, WILD.)

The growing sense of unease, that they’re both teetering on the brink of disaster, culminates in the most deranged of Henry’s stand-up comedy performances, when he gives a vivid reenactment of killing his wife by “tickling her to death.” The performance is so maudlin and unsettling that you wonder whether he’s not making it up at all, and the audience strongly rebukes him. (This is the “What is your problem?!” scene with tiddies out. The full version includes Adam storming across the stage, furiously singing/yelling, “What the FUCK is your problem?!”) But when Henry arrives home that night, drunk and raucous, Ann and Annette are both unharmed.

The couple take a trip on their boat, bringing Annette with them. The boat gets caught in a storm, and Henry drunkenly insists that he and Ann waltz in the storm. She protests that it’s too dangerous and begs him to see sense. (SPOILER #1) The boat lurches when Henry spins her, and Ann falls overboard to her death. Henry rescues Annette from the sinking boat and rows them both to shore. He promptly falls unconscious, and a ghost of Ann appears, proclaiming her intention to haunt Henry through Annette. Annette (still a toddler at this point and yes, still a wooden puppet) then develops a miraculous gift for singing, and Henry decides to take her on tour with performances around the world. He enlists the help of his “conductor friend,” who had been Ann’s accompanist and secretly had an affair with her before she met Henry.

Henry slides further into drunken debauchery as the tour progresses, while the Conductor looks after Annette and the two grow close. Once the tour concludes, the Conductor suggests to Henry that Annette might be his own daughter – revealing his prior affair with Ann. Terrified by the idea of anyone finding out and the possibility of losing his daughter, Henry drowns the Conductor in the pool behind his and Ann’s house. Annette sees the whole thing happen from her bedroom window.

Henry plans one last show for Annette, to be held in a massive stadium at the equivalent of the Super Bowl. But when Annette takes the stage, she refuses to sing. Instead, she speaks and accuses Henry of murder. (“Daddy kills people,” are the actual words – not that that was creepy to hear as this puppet’s first spoken words or anything.)

Henry stands trial, during which he sees an apparition of Ann from when they first met. They sing their regret that they can’t return to the happiness they once shared, until the apparition is replaced by Ann’s vengeful spirit, who promises to haunt Henry in prison. After his sentencing (it’s not clear what the sentence was, but Henry definitely isn’t going free), Annette is brought to see him once in prison. Speaking fully for the first time, she declares she can’t forgive her parents for using her: Henry for exploiting her voice for profit and Ann for presumably using her to take vengeance on Henry. (Yes, this is why she was an inanimate doll moving on strings up to this point – there was some meaning in that strange, strange artistic choice. She was the puppet of her parents’ respective egotisms.) The puppet of Annette is abruptly replaced by a real girl in this scene, finally enabling two-sided interaction and a long-missed genuine connection between her and Henry, which made this quite the emotional catharsis. (SPOILER #2) It concludes with Annette still unwilling to forgive or forget what her parents have done, and swearing never to sing again. She says Henry now has “no one to love.” He appeals, “Can’t I love you, Annette?” She replies, “No, not really.” Henry embraces her one last time before a guard takes her away and Henry is left alone.

…..Yes, that is the end. It left me with major emotional whiplash, after the whole film up to this point kept pulling itself back from the total bleak and dark by starting up a new toe-tapping, mildly silly tune every few minutes. But this last scene instead ends on a brutal note of harsh, unforgiving silence.

BUT! Make sure you stick around through the credits, when you see the cast walking through a forest together. (This is counterpart to the film’s opening, when you see the cast walking through LA singing “So May We Start?” directly to the audience) Definitely pay attention to catch Adam chasing/playing with the little girl actress who plays Annette! That imparts a much nicer feeling to leave the theater with. :’)

#Adam Driver #Annette #Cannes 2021 #driverdaily #Annette spoilers

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polandspringz · 3 years

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I made the decision to watch all of the Case Files of Jeweler Richard in a day and I am ABSOLUTELY LOSING MY FUCKING MIND

(Technically I’ve watched up to episode 11 so I have 1 more episode left but am leaving it until tomorrow because it’s 1 AM right now- but I digress)

Spoilers for up to episode 10 of the anime, and apologies because I don’t know how to do read more on mobile so LONG POST:

Okay so FIRST OFF- On the cover this show isn’t explicit in that it has LGBTQ themes- it’s not labeled as such or with BL or Shounen Ai, the usual genre titles we see in anime. However, when I first tried to watch it a few months ago, within the opening minute I just knew (I just forgot to continue after that first minute until today). A lot of times with anime you can just tell things based on the art style or the dialogue, and if it doesn’t end up having those themes, then you get a situation like Balance: Unlimited where all of Twitter was tweeting “wait, it isn’t a BL???”

That being said, this series DOES have LGBTQ themes, one of the early side characters talks about how she doesn’t want to go through with her marriage because she realized she’s a lesbian or bisexual and is still in love with her old roommate. Another character expresses thoughts about romance and marriage in ways that I’m sure people who are asexual or a romantic can identify with. And this isn’t just with the side characters, oh no. The entire show is centered around the relationship of Richard and Seigi, and oh my god is it wild in how it is presented.

If you go on the wiki for this show, as my sister and I did, you’ll see a sentence along the lines of “Richard and Seigi frequently compliment each other’s beauty and say how much they like one another, to the point that everyone around them believes them to be in a relationship. However it’s unclear if their words are romantic or not.” And then if you go to their relationship page on the wiki, it just says Seigi is Richard’s boyfriend. So what’s the truth? (TLDR: the wiki is right. They’re definitely in love.)

Well the thing that had me rolling is that Seigi says he likes rich. A lot. Specifically throws around the “daisuki” line almost every episode. He says Richard is like a jewel, calls him beautiful and pretty. Richard picks him up in the rain after being dumped. They go alone to fancy restaurants for dinner almost every night. They flirt. It feels almost undeniable that what they’re saying is romantic, and that any kiss confirmation is unnecessary. There is a major plot line during all this though of Seigi trying to ask out his female college classmate however, and the result makes it sort of feel like Richard and Seigi are together but they’re in this open relationship with no labels so Richard just wants Seigi to have no regrets. The plot with the classmate really doesn’t do anything to their relationship. Richard and Seigi still are being as wild as ever.

And the reason I refer to this as being “wild” is partially because while watching my sister and I were riffing on the dialogue a little. For an anime, the show is very progressive in it’s ideas, Richard in episode 1 or 2 straight up calling Seigi out for something he said about a foreign customer and making him promise to not discriminate or judge anyone for their race, religion, sexual orientation, appearance, etc. (My sister literally joked “DONT BE RACIST” and then her jaw dropped when Richard said just that). There’s a multitude of moments in the first half of the show where Richard basically is just glaring at Seigi or telling him off later with a deadpanned expression for being xenophobic or just blunt about things that end up being rude to customers, and it’s because of how surprising it is that the show NEVER misses a moment to be like “YEAH ACTUALLY DON’T BE RUDE” that makes it hilarious. It feels almost unreal when everything you make a joke about happens two seconds afterwards.

Circling back to Richard and Seigi relationship though, early on I called on the idea that the show was going to have the trope of “he’s rich and from Europe so he’s illegitimate or something and he’s going to have to go back and Seigi will run after him in this big airport scene” and I basically got all that. Except that Richard and Seigi don’t meet up again until they’ve both been in England for a while and then we learn that Richard’s family are terrible people because a clause in their dead great grandfather’s inheritance made it so only Richard can inherit this 300 million pound Diamond but ONLY if he married a traditional English housewife. This clause is said to be VERY VERY strict in that it HAS to be an English housewife to the LETTER. And she must be TRADITIONAL. Of course, Richard is refusing to do this. So you’re watching them mess around in England for a bit, I got another cliche/trope I wanted when Seigi fell sick and Richard had to care for him in the hotel room, before the characters suddenly get a phone call and Richard’s cousin goes:

“Hey Seigi! Guess what? Turns out you qualify for the marriage clause! Despite being Asian, the will and the law consider a homosexual civil partnership equivalent to a heterosexual marriage, so you can be with Richard and then he get’s the Diamond! So I’ll see you at the safe where the Diamond will be at!”

(I’m paraphrasing the words obviously but the part about civil partnership was what I specifically remember being said, but forgive me for any errors, as my jaw was on the floor when the show threw that curveball at me).

In case you’re confused, I’m not saying this is bad at all. I’m just saying when watching this show, it feels UNBELIEVABLY HILARIOUS the way these things literally get thrown at the audience. Stuff you would never expect in an anime just punch you in the face repeatedly and I was so shocked from this “viable marriage candidate” twist that I did SENSE was coming (but thought of it more of as a joke, BECAUSE HOW THE HECK DID HE FIT THE CLAUSE OF A TRADITIONAL ENGLISH HOUSEWIFE) I had to pause the episode and rush to spit out the water I just drank before I choked. And if this wasn’t enough to kill me, we learn later on, that the reason this whole crazy clause happened in this dead man’s will was because he wanted to get back at the rest of Richard’s family because the man’s son was marrying a woman from Sri Lanka and LITERALLY SAID “THE WHITE SUPERMACISTS” WOULD HARASS HER so all of this chaos was to give the fortune to their side of the family and piss off the racists. I just cannot believe I’m hearing and seeing all this in a Japanese anime. There was even discussion of how Japan’s traditional gender roles restrict women, and it’s just like HOW IS THIS SHOW SO PROGRESSIVE??? It literally feels like I’m watching a paradox and it’s sad because it shouldn’t but it’s hilarious and enjoyable all the same.

Once again, and sort of a TLDR, The Case Files of Jeweler Richard is an incredible show. It’s an unintentionally hilarious ride that isn’t baiting because it feels like it’s definitely presenting Richard and Seigi’s relationship as romantic coded without needing a kiss or anything. It’s strangely progressive and open minded for Japanese media, seems meta at times, and has left me stunned in ten out of twelves episodes thus far that I’m so sad I didn’t watch it week to week to see the reactions of the fans live. I highly recommend this series if you’re looking for something to just get you to laugh or just a fun story involving two male leads with great chemistry.

Now, here’s a representation of me watching this show:

#the case files of jeweler richard #Poland’s thoughts

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thatsthat24 · 5 years

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New Inktober for 2019!

Once again, I was asked to create a new list of art prompts for October this year! These creations from you guys are ALWAYS so amazing, so I’m excited to bring you a new list! I got so many suggestions from my friends! You can use #TSinktober if you’d like to share your creations!

Remember: Even if we’re on Day 31, and you wanna post art based off the Day 1 prompt, you DEFINITELY can! There is no lateness for posting art, because it’s all entirely for fun! Hope you enjoy!!

Day 1: In a twist from the past years’ Day 1 prompts, I want to see you take a traditional Halloween monster or character, and draw what they look like Sep. 30th, and then their traditional look when it’s October 1st! Maybe they don’t get spoopy until October 1st haha.

Day 2: Turn fall weather into a character! Could be the human embodiment of Fall, or the spirit responsible for Fall occurring, or something else!

Day 3: Turn a famous painting into a spoopy Halloween version!

Day 4: Draw a classic still life of items belonging to your favorite character. Let us guess who the items belong to!

Day 5: Draw your best friend or yourself (or both) GOIN GHOST. Ya know, that good ole Danny Phantom transformation!

Day 6: A Pokémon hanging out with (or running from) the zombified version of itself

Day 7: Choose two months, personify them, then draw what their first date would look like

Day 8: Sanders Sides characters on their dream vacations!

Day 9: A business that a Halloween monster or character would thrive on if they ran it!

Day 10: Take any popular author, imagine if they were a superhero, and draw what their comic book cover would look like!

Day 11: Portray any Disney princess as the “monster/scary thing” from a horror movie such as The Conjuring, The Nun, etc., either depicting them in a scene from the movie or the poster for the movie!

Day 12: Take any two coffee flavors, like Pumpkin Spice and Peppermint, and draw a battle between them, Mortal Kombat style (brew-tality lol)

Day 13: Take any Avenger from the MCU, and reimagine them as a Pokemon Gym Master! What would their Pokemon team look like?

Day 14: Reimagine a Sanders Sides, Cartoon Therapy, or other original character from our content as a kind of humanoid piece of candy or sweet treat!

Day 15: I really enjoyed this prompt from last year, so this year, take any Disney Villain, and use them as the inspiration for a Met Gala outfit! NO DALMATIAN PUPPY FUR ALLOWED, ALL OF YOU CRUELLA FANS.

Day 16: Take any traditional Halloween monster/character or any horror movie villain and make… them… CUTE. Now whether that’s adorably cuddly cute or va-va-voom cute is completely up to you! - Erin

Day 17: Take your fave character or OC and reimagine Steampunk versions of them!

Day 18: Take your fave food and create a cartoon character based off of it! It can have its own style, be stylized after an existing cartoon, whatever you wish!

Day 19: Take a quote from a book, song, or movie that particularly inspired you, and make it the main centerpiece of this day’s piece of art! Wherever you’d want to take the art from there is up to you!

Day 20: Here’s a cool challenge for ya! You can draw any Halloween-themed picture you want, BUT It’s all in ONE pen stroke. You can’t take your drawing utensil off the paper!

Day 21: What if anyone else from Halloweentown, other than Jack Skellington, had discovered and fell in love with Christmastown? Would anyone else have tried to dress up as Santa? Would they hatch another plan entirely??

Day 22: Back due to demand, take your fave character(s) from two different animated tv shows/anime/movie and depict them in each other’s animation style! An animation swap, if you will!

Day 23: Ever watch a movie or show and wish it had ended a different way? This is your chance to correct the plots to conclude the way YOU wanted it concluded! Oh boy, this may end up getting controversial lol

Day 24: We all know traditional Halloween monsters... but create what you think the Halloween monsters of today or the FUTURE would be!!

Day 25: This one is purely selfish because I’m still so in love with the past creations. Take ANY character of your choice from ANY piece of media and draw them in the style of a Tim Burton illustration!

Day 26: Speaking of classics, gotta include this one cause it’s tradition! Draw your OTP in Halloween costumes that are designed to go together!!

Day 27: Take any dramatic scene from any scary or Halloween-y movie... and meme it.

Day 28: How to Train Your [Insert Monster/Demon/Halloween-y creature here]

Day 29: This one is SUPER open-ended, but I’m into that. Take any book, turn to the 13th page (so the book has to be at least 13 pages lol) and go to the 13th word on that page (if it’s an article like “a” or “the”, just go to the next adjacent noun/verb/adjective/adverb) and use it as the inspiration for a one-worded scary movie/book. Draw that poster or book cover!

Day 30: Slightly inspired by the eerie vibe one can sometimes get from Spinel (SU), Betty Boop cartoons, etc. take any character, Halloween-y creature or otherwise from any of your fave piece of media, and depict them in the classic rubberhose/ Max Fleischer-inspired art style!!

Day 31: HAPPY HALLOWEEN! Do you remember a specific Halloween that was especially memorable for you?? It might have been because of the friends you spent it with, or a memorable moment that happened, or because of a costume you were particularly fond of. Or maybe there were a series of Halloweens that were dear to you because of a tradition you did with your family (and maybe still do!). Depict that moment along with an explanation! If you just wanna write about it, that’s fine too!

As always, you guys have been absolutely blowing me away with your incredible creations!! I love this time of year and seeing what your talents produce!! Thank you for all the amazing works and have a WONDERFUL October!!!

Thank you to all my friends whose suggestions helped to make this list!

Dahlia, AJ, Tammy, Ellen, Adri, Fariha, Brei, Rafaela, Jack, Esteban

#TSinktober #Inktober #TSinktoberPromptList

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nautilusopus · 3 years

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as someone who's only played FFXIV and looking into getting into the rest of the series, is VII a good game to start with? If not, do you have a recommendation of one that might be? I'm not sure what would be the best jumping in point to the more traditional games, though I am no stranger to RPGs.

That's actually a good question. Obviously I'm biased here but yeah, VII is definitely a solid place to start, in terms of difficulty level, tone. I would also recommend V or IX, since I'm of the opinion that V has the best gameplay in the Final Fantasy series hands down and also is a good introduction to gameplay elements that hold constant more or less across every game, and IX has a lot more "classic FF" flavour of the earlier games but updated with better game mechanics (my first FF was IV and as much as everyone likes to rag on VI and VII, if any game has aged badly it's that one).

So, brief rundown:

VII: Best writing hands down, and it should come as a surprise to no one but I'll die on that hill. Like... fuck dude. Some of the most nuanced character writing I've seen in maybe anything, so much thought put into the world and the themes and how the characters interact with them, genuinely clever plot twist with extremely subtle implementation that only gets better on a second playthrough (if you somehow haven't had it spoiled for you after following my blog for this long lol). The materia system also allows for a lot of player freedom and cool combinations enabling all sorts of different abilities, and it encourages you to get creative with what you can do by linking different kinds. Biggest downsides include the fact that it has some really unintuitive and frankly not fun minigames you briefly encounter, and that it's not especially difficult, which can be a little disappointing at times About the only boss I ever had real trouble with was the Missing Number (which will beat your ass if you don't know what you're doing), so while you CAN come up with cool materia combinations, overlevelling and mashing "attack" is also a viable strategy.

V: Best gameplay across the board. Fun battles, good pacing, doesn't make me do any goddamn motherfucking snowboarding. The job system also allows for a lot of player freedom and strategy, and was eventually lifted more or less wholesale for X-2 (only now it's SEXY~). The story isn't particularly deep, but it's not really trying to be, and what is there is genuinely heartfelt. It's definitely got a stronger emphasis on comedy and is one of the more lighthearted entries in the series. If you're looking to get seriously fucked up on some primo storytelling you'll probably be disappointed, but V isn't trying to be that, and if you just want a fun romp you'll probably really love this one.

IX: Despite the chibi art style this one also has a heavier focus on serious character moments the way VII does, and has almost this weird melancholy vibe to it sometimes that I really enjoy. Also visibly a lot of sincerity put into the plot and characters, and a lot of strong theming as well. Biggest downside of this one is that writing-wise it kinda peters out towards the end. The gameplay on this one is very solid and understandable and fun, but it's a bit more limited in what you can do due to everyone's "jobs" being fixed, and coupled with the lack of the weird Rashomon-esque thing VII had going on it doesn't have the same kind of replay value as VII or V. Still, just a really fucking excellent entry. People compare it to Wind Waker a lot and I think that's fairly apt, both because tonally and art-wise it's pretty similar, and because due to said art style people shat on it so hard when it came out, and it wasn't until much later that it was vindicated by history on account of it being good.

If you're coming in from XIV, I'd say IX is your best starting point, since it shares a lot of the same bones.

Also VI fans are gonna kill me if I don't mention VI so VI is also good and sort of a midway point tone-wise between V and VII, look I'm sorry guys I haven't played VI in years I don't remember anything aside from the fact that I vaguely remember enjoying it please don't yell at me

#asks #saxton-hale-anagram #forfdorfs

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kationella · 4 years

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Can you do Persona Q3 plot with P1 and P2 characters what Labyrinth theme is to be Art museum or a Library? what you favorite conversation for your idea, What your story plot for PQ3 and Can you make New Character(s) in this story? NOTE: Can you Fanfic PQ

Oh, wow! I'm not sure I have the focus to write a PQ3 fanfic. The Batman one I'm writing is updated every two months 😅

I don't mind sharing my ideas, though.

First, it would be necessary to find a point in the story where every cast is taken from.

The P1 gang would be taken after they realize they had been with the Ideal Maki all this time but before they save the real one.

The Tatsuya Squad (Tatsuya, Michel, Lisa and Jun) would be taken after they recover the crystal skulls but before they confront Nyarly.

The Maya Squad (Maya, Katsuya, Baofu and Ulala) is taken before the Other Tatsuya joins them.

SEES would be taken after Ikutsuki's betrayal (I also want Minako and Shinjiro to make an aapearance, so those two will be from the FeMC timeline).

The Scooby Gang would be from before Nanako is kidnapped.

The PTs (including Sumire and Akechi) would appear before the final fight with Maruki.

Everyone finds themselves in a deserted theme park Disneyland Destinyland style. This place will serve as the labyrinth and provider of games/shenanigans for the social interactions.

Suddenly, shadows/demons start to appear in waves, but a cute girl called Erity takes them to safety in a funhouse. She says she doesn't remember who she is or where she came from (in true Persona Q tradition). Minor conflict and confusion over the whole situation arises but is quickly cleared up. Introductions take place.

The smart ones quickly figure out that talking about the events that take place in the future would wreak havoc in the time-space continuum, so talking about their games becomes a no-no.

Erity shows them that the gates of the theme park are closed and they can't get out.

Erity says that she remembers that in each ride (there are five of them) there is hidden a key. If they find the five keys they will be able to unlock the park's gates and leave back to where they came from.

The only problem is that each ride is infested by shadows/demons with a mini boss guarding each key, so the heroes split up into teams from mixed games to cover more ground quicker (and for interaction purposes).

With a new journey started, the Velvet siblings (sent by Phil) appear to aid our heroes, accompained by the Demon Painter (for game mechanics), Belladonna and Nameless (for social interaction). The Velvet gang takes residence in the funhouse, where the party can rest after a fight.

As they clear the theme park from enemies the heroes will constantly encounter an underwhelming guy in weirdly colored clothing who calls himself their "Ultimate Foe". He has a funny mustache. He doesn't do much apart from minor inconveniences and trash talking each party member he encounters (he calls it constructive criticism) before disappearing via colorful smoke.

The Ultimate Foe turns out to be the god Momus, who claims to have created the theme park for his own amusement and gathered the strongest warriors for a "fun adventure for the whole family". This angers some people in the party. They fight Momus for the final key.

In a predictable twist, Erity turns out to be the true mastermind. Her real identity is Achlys, goddess of the death-mist, misery and sadness. She convinced Momus to create the theme park and let shadows/demons roam free in it. Why? Due to the heroes fighting the evil in the world, she has grown weak. This is bad news for her. To prevent this, Achlys chose to kidnap everyone where they would either die by shadows/demons or remain trapped forever.

Obviously the heroes defeat her (with some help from an offended Momus) and retrieve the final key. Final goodbyes take place and everyone goes back to their timelines with no memores of the events.

This whole thing needs polishing but that's the basic plot. Now, for some of the interactions I would show in the game:

The obligatory talk between the protagonists. Naoya, Tatsuya, Minato, Minako, Yu and Akira talk in a way that makes no sense for everyone else. Maya acts as their translator.

Yuka, Ulala and Yu share cooking tips.

Everyone pets Koromaru.

Some people pet Morgana (aka Katsuya).

Kei, Tatsuya, Mitsuru and Makoto talk about motorcycles (Makoto also shows off Johanna). Yosuke stares from a distance.

Revenge and its merits is discussed by Reiji, Jun, Ken and Akechi. Eveyone agrees that its better things ended the way they did.

Jun and Akira bond over the single fact that they're both Jokers. Clown to clown conversation takes place.

Katsuya, Naoto and Makoto talk about the law system. Dabbles on philosophical grounds.

Gardening time with Jun and Haru.

The Lovers girls (+Eriko) have a talk about the entertainment industry.

Eikichi convinces Rise to join his band (or at least perform together at least once). Naoya offers to sing but he is dismissed.

Kei, Mitsuru and Haru talk business.

Hidehiko, Junpei, Yosuke and Ryuji get into a mess.

Teddie tries to "score" what else is new. He freaks some people when he comes out of the suit.

Maki, Masao and Yusuke have an artistic conversation.

Baofu and Futaba realize they have the same Persona. They become besties from then on and talk hacker nonsense. Everyone fears this duo.

Lisa and Chie bond over kung fu.

The P2 cast freak out after meeting the younger versions of their P1 friends.

Tatsuya and Makoto talk about siblings. Yu gives a speech about family somewhere in there.

Maya freaks out when Tatsuya, Lisa, Eikichi and Jun talk to her like they know her. Remember this is her EP version.

Likewise, Tatsuya gets weirded out when Ulala and Baofu (people he barely knows) approach him in a similar fashion.

Katsuya almost arrests someone.

Fuuka, Rise and Futaba talk about the importance of the navigator in a fight.

I also have other interactions in mind but this post is getting too long.

#persona 1 #persona 2 #persona 3 #persona 4 #persona 5 #not tagging everyone #thoughts

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pentanguine · 3 years

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Favorite books of 2020

So....about five months ago now, I drafted a list of my favorite books of 2020, and then I, uh, didn’t finish it. It languished in a draft gathering dust and I forgot that it existed.

But now it’s done! It’s hideously late and also out of date, because I’d change many of the rankings now (see below), but I decided to keep them in the original order to reflect how I felt when I actually meant to post this.

Gideon the Ninth- What can I say about this book that hasn’t already been said? It’s like nothing else I’ve read before, in the most unabashed, off-the-walls, grandiose way possible. It’s incredibly complex, well-written, goth, and full of memes. There are, indeed, lesbian necromancers in space.

Harrow the Ninth- I read this 500+ page book in one day and didn’t notice an earthquake while doing so, if you consider that an endorsement. There’s so much going on here it almost feels like it shouldn’t work, and yet it does, brilliantly—it’s so intricately plotted you’ll want to reread it immediately because there’s no way to pick up on everything your first time through.

The Starless Sea- This is just a magical delight of a story, with prose that flows like honey: slow, sweet, and delicious. The story unfolds like a series of wonders nested one inside the other, with each section adding another layer of whimsy and metafiction. It’s half a dream, and half a maze.

Young Miles (The Warrior’s Apprentice/The Vor Game)- The Miles books (the early ones, especially) are wild and unrepentant romps through outer space, and reading them was one of the highlights of 2020 for me. When I finished the Young Miles omnibus, I couldn’t remember the last time I’d taken such pure delight in a book. Even the heavier, more thoughtful moments were part of a well-told, enjoyable story.

The Stone Sky- Speaking of heavy and thoughtful books…The Broken Earth Trilogy is definitely not a light undertaking, but it’s just a masterpiece of world- and character-building. The Stone Sky is the final installment, and it does not pull a single punch in delivering what the previous books have been building towards.

This Is How You Lose the Time War- I keep instinctively wanting to call this a novel in verse, although I think it’s technically an epistolary novel with prose-poem tendencies. In any case, the writing is lovely—lush, vivid, sensual, romantic. I recommend reading this one with your poetry glasses on.

Cordelia’s Honor (Shards of Honor/Barrayar)- I tried to limit myself to one book per author on this list, but I didn’t succeed here. I loved the Vorkosigan saga too much, and I had to include the omnibus about Miles’s mother, Cordelia, whose life and personality could easily be the focus of another half-dozen volumes. (And if you’re looking for a well-developed m/f romance, you’ve found it here)

An Unkindness of Ghosts- I think this is the book that kicked off my sudden interest in sci-fi last year. It’s dark and beautiful, definitely character-driven, and everyone is truly strange in ways that protagonists rarely get to be. It’s also got one of the loveliest, most satisfying endings I can imagine.

Code Name Verity- An incredibly intense YA book that delves deep into one of my favorite fictional themes, Morality. It’s a rollicking spy adventure novel that focuses on a close friendship rather than romance (although you can read it as sapphic if you want), with descriptions of flying over England at sunset that made my heart ache.

The Raven Tower- I enjoyed this story for reasons probably particular to me—I like long digressions into abstract questions like “How do we exert power over the world?” and “Where does the meaning of words exist?”, and entire sections of The Raven Tower are devoted to the inner meditations of a very contemplative rock. It’s also a retelling of Hamlet, if that’s more your speed.

Network Effect (and Murderbot novellas)- I’m going to quote my immediately-after-finishing review: “Murderbot always gives me feels. I would love to give a more literary summary, but I’m still overwhelmed by the tentative vulnerability of two bots being best friends and watching TV together after [redacted].” The first Murderbot novel definitely did not disappoint.

The Monster of Elendhaven- Decadent, blood-soaked, and morally depraved, it’s kind of like The Picture of Dorian Gray by way of Hannibal (NBC), with probable influences from a dozen other macabre works and no restraint whatsoever. Reading it felt very self-indulgently delightful.

Before Mars- A deliciously unsettling sci-fi thriller with a refreshingly blunt, unsentimental female protagonist. Also definitely an …interesting book to read at the end of March 2020, but explaining why would definitely be a spoiler. Suffice it to say that the book goes dark places not advertised on the tin, and it made me cry.

Orange World- Karen Russell is one of those writers who make you wonder “how did they come up with this?” Every one of her stories is a totally original marriage between two wildly different concepts (like a Bog Maiden and high school romance, or new motherhood and the devil), and they’re a nice blend of literary and fantasy that I love.

Something That May Shock and Discredit You- It’s so hard to rank this one, because its two primary concerns are Christianity and transness, one of which means very little to me and one of which is breathtakingly important. I couldn’t justify putting it any lower, because it made me feel an ungodly number of feelings, but I couldn’t really justify putting it higher when a solid third of the book went right over my head.

The Ten Thousand Doors of January- A truly wondrous novel, one that fully immerses you in the delight of storytelling and imagination, and the power of escaping to other worlds. It’s very much in the tradition of “books that pay tribute to the love of books,” and an homage to a hundred portal fantasies before it.

Braiding Sweetgrass- I’ve got such a fondness for nature writing that doesn’t even try to be scientifically detached, and instead leaves you with the feeling that the trees and fields around you are bustling with (nonhuman) people.* Kimmerer’s writing is steeped in indigenous ways of knowing, and emphasizes the respect and reciprocity we can hold for the natural world. It’s lovely writing, and I can’t recommend the book highly enough.

Call Down the Hawk- Full of all the ingredients you expect from a Maggie Stiefvater book: fast cars, ancient magic, questions of art and truth, and borderline overuse of the word “cunning.” Every time I read one of her books I want to start taking notes, because she’s got such a signature style that’s both poetic and readable.

The Unspoken Name- For some reason I wasn’t much into epic fantasy last year, but I’m glad I gave this one a try. I love morally grey characters, of which there are plenty, and the plot took a number of refreshing twists and turns.

A Memory Called Empire- Not a fast-moving read, but perfect if you like your sci-fi novels poetic, complex, and intellectual. The worldbuilding is incredibly immersive, in a way that reminded me a bit of Ursula K. Le Guin, and I remember this stuck with me for weeks after I finished it.

*Let me be a nerdy weirdo for a second: Most of the time Kimmerer is writing about New England, an area I’m not really familiar with, but “The Sound of Silverbells” is set on a mountain somewhere in the South, and I adored it. Suddenly she was writing about dogwoods and redbuds and poplars, and I was sitting there going “!!! Those are my friends! My friends are in a book!”

Changes I’d make now:

Bump The Starless Sea down a couple pegs, maybe to #6

Swap out Cordelia’s Honor and Young Miles

Bump The Raven Tower way down to #16 and bump A Memory Called Empire a few spots higher, maybe to #17

Braiding Sweetgrass can go up where The Raven Tower was

#an inexhaustable source of magic #personal #yes i know none of them have the author's name #sorry about that #it you're reading this it's because i noticed i forgot the authors right after i queued it and then went 'oh well' and cleaned my bathroom #and subsequently did not remember and/or find the time #if you're not reading this then i found the time

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reachexceedinggrasp · 4 years

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So the majority of the shows I’ve seen lately can be charitably described as ‘light entertainment’, including the ones with dark elements or more weighty, ponderous plots. They might be entertaining or interesting, they just... don’t stand up to scrutiny. Turn your brain off because this isn’t that carefully or skilfully made and you’ll only be annoyed if you start thinking about it as a whole. Including the last couple 'tragic’ historical dramas I’ve watched, which were not effective tragedy for that very reason. If you’re going to kill off the main cast, you have to earn it, and overwhelmingly writers don’t. Anyway, I’ve been getting despondent about whether stories which actually hang together and form a coherent narrative unit with consistent themes are the exception rather than the rule.

(And I feel like that should be a pretty low standard to meet, it’s sort of Step 1 of ‘being a story’: be about something! Communicate something, no matter how basic it is. Dead simple stories with rock basic messages can be revelatory! Just do it well!)

I’ve seen very little genuinely focussed or meaningful storytelling in my ventures for what feels like a long time. Basically, I can kind of count on one hand the number of films or dramas or whathaveyou I’ve seen from the last few years where it felt like the filmmakers were in complete control of their story and everything in it was purposeful and intentional. Most things have felt slapdash or shallow or fleeting. Story elements and character choices come out of nowhere just to derail already concluded arcs and fill screen time with empty repetitious drama, not to serve a meaningful narrative purpose. I would be watching with zero confidence anything in particular was going anywhere or that the writers knew where that should be. It’s just throwing shit at the wall, fly-by-the-seat-of-your-pants type writing all the time and it fucking shows.

But then I watched Money Flower.

Money Flower is different. Money Flower is towering head and shoulders above every modern drama I’ve ever seen. Titanically good writing which rises above its genre and makes conventions seem radically new and fresh not by reinventing them or deconstructing them, but by playing them straight, taking them seriously, and committing 1000%. This is all your familiar rich family tropes but with masterpiece execution, infused with consequence and meaning because they’re all driven by the psychology of complex three-dimensional characters. So many moving pieces and none of them are random or unmotivated. Just... GOOD WRITING. And I want to make the point that it is this wherein art lives. The difference between a rank Lifetime movie and Romeo and Juliet is not novelty or tropes or plot twists- it’s execution.

This show is such a perfect example that it is not ‘mere events’ (aka plot) or novelty or shock value or cool ideas which separates something brilliant and timeless from forgettable schlock; it is solely and entirely execution. It’s writing itself, if you know what I mean. You can describe many of Shakespeare’s tragedies and history plays as soap opera plots. What makes Macbeth a deathless masterwork and Death Wish Hollywood wank isn’t a fundamental difference in subject or genre. It’s Shakespeare’s characterisation and purposeful storytelling. It’s the poetry of the dialogue. It’s the craft of writing. Most of Shakespeare’s plots are based on existing stories or on historical events and that has never mattered because novelty is not an inherent good or of any inherent artistic value.

Like, this is the problem with storytelling right now blah blah GOT, shitty endings everywhere etc. because power over the audience (can’t let anyone guess the plot, looking ‘clever’ with meaningless callbacks) and novelty are valued over narrative structure or things making sense or emotional verisimilitude. We have so many writers thinking being ‘shocking’ is all it takes to be a genius. It’s easy to be shocking if your story makes no goddamn sense because things that don’t make sense are literally unpredictable. Not in a good way, though. A great twist or sudden swerve needs to be unexpected but inevitable in hindsight or it does not work. I should be able to rewatch your thing and think ‘oh, of course! you can see it was [x] all along!’

We have so many popular writers now who are so shallow they don’t think anything needs to make sense on a character or emotional level. They don’t think their story has to be about anything. Substance is irrelevant as long as the surface is flashy enough. That has no staying power, you can only watch it once and you will forget about it quickly.

However, if you have ever wanted to experience the constant heightened stakes and High Drama of a soap opera without being annoyed at how ridiculous it all is and while actually giving a shit about the characters because they feel like real human beings, if you’ve wanted to feel repercussions when characters make choices, and get the emotional payoff that is the entire point of drama- now you can. Watch Money Flower. And let me tell you, it is fucking riveting. This show is mostly made up of people sitting in rooms talking and yet it is heart-pounding excitement nearly every episode. It is profoundly traditional and by the book while being totally fresh. It’s the most engrossing and satisfying artistic experience I’ve had in a long time.

Like, THE TENSION, THE DRAMA, THE REVEALS!!! You can, in fact, spend most of 24+ hours on the edge of your seat about family problems and business mergers. It seems unlikely, but that is the power of this series, it creates insanely high stakes and mesmerising suspense out of the most commonplace ingredients. Familiar plot elements become brand new and surprising under the deftness and tightness of this narrative. The plot itself is certainly 100% melodrama but it never feels like a soap opera and is never ever soapy in in a pejorative sense because it handles its classic tropes with such maturity and nuance that it's like you've never seen them before. The writing is incredible.

It is on an entirely different level than the vast majority of dramas, with a total self-assurance that keeps the pacing relentless yet unhurried- taking its time to let the impact of events be felt, the narrative always knowing exactly where it’s going and how to get there. The characters are all multi-faceted and unpredictable without ever being incoherent, their motives and goals always being gradually uncovered in more detail that only makes the storytelling and characterisation even tighter, even richer. The twists and cliffhangers are always mind-blowing but always earned, never cheap or nonsensical, and I can't remember ever thinking that about another show. (There’s literally one exception towards the very end where something a bit random happens for reasons of pure symbolism- it’s a misstep imo but it’s minor in the scheme of things)

Every time I started to doubt the writing, started to think ‘oh no, they’re going off the rails’, they showed me I was wrong and they were in total control. The only 'problem' with the show is that the drama is also profoundly painful to watch unfold, particularly in the beginning, because it's a story where everyone makes terrible life choices and moral corruption is everywhere. It's hypnotic though, like a car crash. If you can handle something dark, insidious, cerebral, and character-driven there is nothing I've seen in the same vein that can approach its brilliance. It’s like The Magnificent Ambersons as a slick modern revenge drama. There is also (PRECIOUSLY!!) a core of stunning romanticism around which all the horrors revolve and that saves it from becoming hideous or cynical. There is a chance for redemption and a new beginning after all, in spite of all appearances.

The ending has apparently been controversial, and it is definitely not quite as climatic as you would have expected given how powerfully climatic almost every regular episode is, but it's a good ending. There isn't full closure, they don't provide final resolution in a bow, but to me it's an ending about hope. It suggests optimism for our characters and I was satisfied with that. It's extremely rare for a 'revenge story’ to allow this kind of room for healing and it can do that because, imo, we discover in the end that it wasn't ultimately vengeance in Pil Joo’s heart. He has not become a tragic hero who will be consumed by the cannibalistic darkness of revenge, his quest was for justice. He teeters on the edge of the abyss but he avoided falling in; he didn't sell his soul, at least not irrevocably.

He is nonetheless a very tragic figure and an anti-hero, but despite having dedicated his life to bringing down the Jang cabal, it’s not that he’ll stop at nothing. He will make any personal sacrifice no matter how desolate, he lives as a mere husk of a man, and he facilitates enormous emotional harm to others in service of his goals, but he has ethical hard lines he never considers crossing. His sense of decency and compassion is never extinguished; he does care about the collateral damage he is causing even when making justifications for it. It’s important to him to give people as much agency as possible in their choices, to mitigate the damage done by his schemes as much as he can. To try to prevent harm coming to undeserving bystanders. Not that this makes it okay that he uses people, which he does, but the point is he never completely surrenders his moral compass to avarice. He’s never okay with burning down the world or ruining innocent lives just to get to his target.

Pil Joo is less a vigilante and more an avenging angel, he wants justice more than retribution. He wants fairness and a better, safer world where what has happened to his family won’t happen again. The reason this story never becomes Sweeney Todd (aka: a full on tragedy where we see the inevitable outcome of lust for revenge) and the reason he can survive twenty years spent pursuing someone’s downfall is exactly that principle. Searching for retribution would have destroyed him, he would have become the very thing he hated, but instead he goes as far as necessary to publicly expose the Jangs for what they are and then willingly submits to penance for his complicity in their crimes and tries to atone with the people he hurt along the way. Purged, he’s symbolically reborn and takes back his real name to maybe finally have a chance at the life he should have had. He moves on, content, a positive force. He’s capable of healing from the ordeal because he realises he doesn’t need retaliation, just seeing them stopped and facing consequences for their actions is enough.

The love story is a superbly poignant part of this. Their love is the ‘victim’ of his revenge and it will forever be impacted by it, but it’s not something that can be killed, so there’s still hope. Mo Hyeon’s bookending rescues of Pil Joo from death mean first that he has a purpose he must fulfil and then the second time that he has freedom to finally live as himself, for himself. There’s a future. And maybe they can be together there. I’m emo about it.

Anyway, if there was the slightest doubt about me becoming a long-term Jang Hyuk fangirl, it’s been put to rest. This performance is easily one of the best I’ve ever seen, period. No contest it’s the best I’ve seen in a tv drama. It’s also the most subtle and masterful turn he's delivered in his whole career. He's so restrained, but he is giving absolutely everything; he has total control over every microexpression, every gesture, every molecule in his body. There is so much simmering under his surface, so much going on in his eyes; the layers and depths are endless. The intensity and sharp intellectual focus he brings to the character is breathtaking. Everyone else is doing amazing work too, but he is almost constantly on screen and has this spectacular command of such a sprawling story, such a complex character, and he makes it look effortless. All artifice has melted away. The fact that being so tightly contained is in stark contrast to the bombastic element in many of his other roles renders its delicate precision even more startlingly impressive. I thought he was a great actor before, but I didn’t fully appreciate what he was capable of until Pil Joo.

#money flower #kdrama #writing #jang hyuk #long post #I've written a bit before about revenge and how it will inevitably lead to tragedy #so I wouldn't without explanation even call MF a 'revenge drama' because it turns out it's a complicated yet beautiful 'hope' drama lmao #it's actually a 'romance' in the Shakespearean sense #like the Winter's Tale #I guess we just call that 'tragicomedy' now but I don't find that word very helpful or descriptive #I don't think anyone actually know what you mean when you say that #anyway the first writing that is every bit as good as the production/acting side I've seen in what feels like forever #I just feel like everything is great characters in a mess of a story or brilliant performances elevating a bad script or good start-bad end #like no one knows what they're doing any more or why #but this show is incredible #it's only not perfect because the last four episodes are not up to what you'd expect for the rest but they are still really good #just not perfect #the last episode has problems but they're not with the concept of the ending at all- the concept IS perfect #and apparently I'm the only one who thinks that lol #apparently a lot of people did not understand what was happening and some misread it as a dream sequence #(this is an insane take to me- it's really not confusing or ambiguous at all)#(bc God forbid the main character not die and have a chance to heal after his absolutely miserable life?)#but yeah it's the only time anything feels rushed or not quite smooth #and one major character's fate isn't as satisfying as it could be #but I felt like I was never going to see something as engrossing as this again for a while there #anyway anyway NEW OTP #I didn't even get into it because no one cares about my giant rant here but it's SO traditional while being VERY different idk #the romanticism was so unexpected in a show that seems like it's going to be intensely cynical- it's handled with such gravitas #romance with gravitas is PRICELESS to me #the best swerve ever is for a show to NOT be cynical when it seemed so dark- that's a plot twist I can get behind

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wonderfulworldofmichaelford · 5 years

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Michael in the Mainstream: Birds of Prey (and the Fantabulous Emancipation of One Harley Quinn)

Remember Charlie’s Angels? Touted as a female empowerment action film, it failed in both departments; it doesn’t really function well as empowerment when all the Angels are functionally identical with little to distinguish them as characters and fighting against one-dimensional sexist male villains, and it doesn’t function as an action film when the stakes are not set up, the action scenes are bland, and the twist villain is pointless since the way the narrative is structured (all male characters with few exceptions are bad, all females are good) gives it away far ahead of time. It’s a real shame, because female-led action movies can be seriously cool and empowering, but every time one does poorly Hollywood seems to blame the gender rather than the fact the movie sucks. There’s really only one thing that can be done to salvage a situation like this:

Send in the clowns.

Birds of Prey (and the Fantabulous Emancipation of One Harley Quinn) is what I think Charlie’s Angels wanted to be. It’s fun, it’s empowering, the characters are distinct, and the action is great. Now there are problems which I’m going to get into, but before all that, let me tell you the secret behind this film’s success: first and foremost, it wants you to have fun.

You see, this film does a lot of stuff Charlie’s Angels does, but since it wants to entertain you first and empower you second, the message goes down a lot easier. For instance, almost all males in this film are villainous (although not all are sexist), but it’s not done in a bland, tasteless way. One element in particular was the workplace sexism Renee Montoya faced; her male coworkers constantly stole her credit, which ends up inspiring her to fight back harder against Roman Sionis, the antagonistic gangster of the film. Not only does it have an empowering undercurrent and is a believable depiction of a woman being undermined in the workplace, it’s a pretty relatable feeling in a broad way; I’m sure a lot of us have felt as though credit was stolen from us by a coworker. This makes this plot element both focused while also being broadly applicable, opening it to a wider demographic that can access the themes.

And then we have the major misogynistic villain, which has been done so poorly in films like Ghostbusters and Charlie’s Angels. Thankfully, in the grand tradition of films like Beauty and the Beast and Megamind, this film’s villain’s misogyny is just a small part of what makes them a horrible person. Roman Sionis (AKA Black Mask), played by Ewan McGregor, is just relentlessly unpleasant. He decides not to spare a torture victim’s life because he’s grossed out by a snot bubble from her sobbing, he’s demeaning to everyone around him, and he wants to slice open a little girl who swallowed his diamond. This guy has issues that go far beyond “hating women.” And in the same vein as Gaston, Roman is just relentlessly entertaining whenever he’s onscreen, cussing up a storm and just being delightfully hateable.

Now that we’ve established this film handles elements like misogyny and sexist villains better than Charlie’s Angels, it’s time to talk about how it better empowers women than that film. And what better way to empower someone than by having them kick major ass? The action in this movie is so fun and energetic, but what else can be expected when John Wick’s Chad Stahelski supervised some of the action scenes? In particular, Harley is just a blast to watch because, being the flamboyant clown that she is, she is incapable of going a single action sequence without going delightfully over the top. Her assault on the police station is a perfect highlight, as she knocks out the entire GCPD with a glitter shotgun. It’s such cool and colorful chaos, it’s sure to put a smile on your face.

And of course, the big thing that helps is all of the leading ladies are distinct. Huntress, Dinah, and Renee all have their own personalities and goals, with each of them getting flashbacks dedicated to fleshing them out. And of course Harley herself is a big, glittering disco ball of uniqueness, which I feel doesn’t even need to be said at this point. But I think now is the time to point out my gripes with the film, and my first one does tie into the characters: despite all of them being distinct, everyone who isn’t Harley is a bit out of focus. Yes, we get a bit of development and a solid base for a sequel or spin-off, but it does suck when a character as cool as Huntress is relegated to a very minor role until the third act.

Speaking of, the first couple of acts are a bit scattershot. This is mostly due to Harley constantly rewinding time to deliver the backstory of one of her costars, which can hurt the pacing a bit. It’s weird too because the plot is pretty straightforward otherwise, but I guess this is what you gotta expect from a screwball like Harley. The humor is in the same boat; the jokes aren’t always funny, but the physical comedy and extravagant situations usually elicit a chuckle. It’s just not a total gut-buster is all, and despite at least somewhat drawing inspiration from fellow R-rated superhero film Deadpool, it just doesn’t do what that did quite as well.

[SPOILER WARNING]

I think my biggest issue with this film is the amount of wasted potential. It doesn’t hamper my enjoyment, but you can’t help but wonder how much more interesting it would have been for Zsasz and Roman to live. Zsasz dies a bit anticlimactically and despite being extremely close to Roman, his death never factors into Roman’s revenge on the girls, which is quite the missed opportunity. Roman himself is wasted to a lesser extent, as while his death is well-deserved and hilarious, with how much fun McGregor is clearly having and what a blast Roman is to watch it would have been cool to see him return at some point. He kind of reminded me of Justin Hammer, but I mean that in a good way; he’s the sort of villain Hammer could have been in a better movie.

The biggest waste of all, though, is Cassandra Cain. Let me preface this by saying I don’t think the character in the film is bad. She’s ok, easily the weakest character and more of a living plot device than anything, but she’s fine. The issue is more that in using the name “Cassandra Cain” they rob the DCEU of having a more true-to-the-text version of Cass, who had a pretty interesting and specific backstory. I’m unsure why they went this route with the character when they could have easily given her a unique name and establish her as an original character instead of tossing away a lot of interesting potential.

The last bit of wasted potential comes from the unfortunate but expected absence of Barbara Gordon, AKA Oracle. As one of the founding members of the Birds of Prey, you’d kind of be forgiven for assuming she’d be in a film called Birds of Prey. But likely because the suits at WB don’t want Batgirl to say the F-word, she’s not in the film. It doesn’t really help that the titular team doesn’t even form until the movie’s epilogue, which leads me to wonder why the movie even bothered to put Birds of Prey in the title. The movie is pretty much Harley’s, with the Birds being interesting side characters; why not just drop the Birds of Prey, go with calling this The Fantabulous Emancipation of One Harley Quinn, establish the Birds here, and then save Birds of Prey for the inevitable sequel? The film’s title is honestly such a weird and baffling decision that likely impacted its box office along with the R rating.

[END SPOILERS]

Despite these gripes, I would not hesitate to call this a good, even a great, movie. What it all boils down to is the fact that this movie is fun. I had a lot of fun watching it, and since I greatly value having fun with movies, I definitely think this movie is worth your time. I recommend this to anyone who loves Harley Quinn, anyone who loves badass female action movies, and anyone who was disappointed by the hamfisted failure that was Charlie’s Angels (which is everyone who watched it).

If I could compare this to anything, I’d probably compare it to the Arnold Schwarzenegger classic Commando. Sure, both of these movies are goofy, campy action movies with straightforward plots, cheesy humor, and simple characters. But sometimes the world needs movies like that, and when you throw in some kickass action and a clear aesthetic that only serves to enhance the experience, it’s hard to really complain. Just because you aren’t high art doesn’t mean you aren’t GREAT art.

And hey, I’m fine living in a world where Margot Robbie is the female Arnold. Who wouldn’t be?

#Michael in the Mainstream #Review #Movie review #Birds of Prey #birds of prey (and the fantabulous emancipation of one harley quinn)#harley quinn #Margot Robbie #Black Mask #Ewan McGregor #DC #DCEU #superhero movie #action #action movie

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darkestwolfx · 4 years

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City Under the Sea - Re-Review #30

Some holiday this is! Here is a happy little family, doing your standard underwater holiday in a rented sub, fighting over ipads and whatnot, and not really knowing what they’re doing because they’re tourists! That’s a bit of an assumption on tourists - sorry, many tourists are quite wise - and not my everyday thought on tourists... this family however, definitely fit that mold.

Can I just ask though, 1. does anyone else find the logo on the rental sub hilarious? And 2. does anyone else get reminded of that fish from ‘Shark Tale’ (2005) that looked a little bit like that I think? Anyone, or is that just me?

Oh look, a big red exclamation mark! Now, I’m not an expert, but when that symbol appears on my car dashboard, the manual says to stop driving immediately. And look, it’s even got a little amber circle! Should so stop driving... piloting... whatever method driving a sub is actually called. I can’t think whist I’m trying to watch comic Gordon moments.

But yeah... point being, they drive on for a while first... foolish. Just saying.

Have they not taught this girl that pointing is rude? Eye spy is such a traditional stuck on the motorway care game as well. Playing it in the Amazon when you are not from there - just to say - definitely leaves an unfair advantage. I think that is the only time I have ever lost so bad at eye spy (and I mean, really, how do you even really lose eye spy?).

Don’t worry! International Rescue are on the way! Because, you have made it onto Thunderbirds are go, so there can’t be fear of you dying. That doesn’t happen here, folks. This is an escape from the real world (much needed right now as I’m sure we all know... which reminds me, I need to finish writing some irrelief2020 prompts... sorry, off track). Let’s move on to talk about Gordon.

You know, I really don’t know what Lady P sees in him... he’s such a... slob? I mean, maybe that is why he and Parker don’t get along so well.

“Aren’t you going to pick this up?”

“Of course I was! You don’t think a responsible member of International Rescue would leave trash lying around do you? Who do you think I am?”

“A slob comes to mind.”

Yeah, thanks for agreeing with me, Kayo. That makes me feel better about (not) insulting Gordon myself.

“Wow.”

“Go ahead. Just say it.”

“Gordon Tracy, you are a secret slob.”

“Oh, the wrappers? What can I say? Scott’s always at me about my room. This is my own personal domain.”

It’s also a rescue sub... but hey, who looks at whether there’s rubbish on the floor of the International Rescue sub when they’re being rescued? Really, what does it matter in the long run when he’s going to save their lives?

This city looks so so freaky. Whenever they were driving through it I was just like... shivers. Bay City must have been a greeeaaat place to live. I bet Lady Penelope has great memories of the Creighton-Ward building.

“Just follow my lead, Parker. I spent many a summer playing hide and seek in these walls.”

“Bit different with ha giant crab ship nipping hat your ‘eels.”

“Don’t worry, Parker. I always won.”

Oh...kay. She actually does!

“But the monster!”

“That’s not a monster. It’s the mechanic.”

You know, I think they’re two very similar things at the moment. Considering at this point we knew very, very little about The Mechanic, i think it was perfectly reasonable to think such. After all, he doesn’t really speak, and he attacks people and he has a bit of a temper, and he’s quite obviously... well, the bad guy.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4-TbQnONe_w

You know, that’s just in case anyone wants to start a post on character theme songs within the 21st century, specifically 2020 - you know, I think that would actually be a great way to take our minds off of everything... please someone do that for me!

This guy really does have some serious tech, and the worst part is probably that he knows so well how to use it. He uses it like an extension to his own body (principles of martial arts here, guys, a skill worth having let me tell you) and acts like he’s completely in sync with it. Really it’s like he lives and breathes with those meccas. And that ship looks unsettlingly like a crab... don’t blame me if I make sure to look at them twice in the future You know. Just to be sure.

“But you don’t even know how to operate Thunderbird Four... Don’t scratch it! And be careful! Ah, Brains is gonna’ kill me. Woah! I didn’t even know it could do that!”

Um... you were saying, Gordon?

And, actually, I think it will be Scott who kills you before Brains when he sees the state of Thunderbird Four’s interior. After all, if he’s that fussy over Gordon’s room, he’s going to be a tyrant over anything IR related.

“Don’t worry, Brains can get mad at you for something else.”

I can imagine there’s quite a list.

“Unbelievable.”

Thunderbird Four is not Thunderbird Shadow... Please remember that for Gordon’s sake, Kayo. Although, maybe in her hands it is a little more like Shadow. Definitely appeared so.

“Don’t ever scare me like that again.”

“FAB. I’ll come up with some other way.”

You can bet she will.

Anyhow, back to the subject, I think Gordon does enough damage to Thunderbird Four without needing anyone to help him, so lets just discount this whole sea chase of Kayo’s.

But let’s so so not because it was awesome! I mean, as much as Gordon would love to claim that no one else can pilot Four, I don’t think Kayo (or Scott for that matter) do a bad job at all. I mean, she managed to give the Mechanic a run for his money and he’s a nasty character, so I think that really does mean something.

“You three get to the crash site.”

“Wait, you three? Underwater rescue is my thing.”

“But sneaking up on bad guys is her thing.”

“You have a point there.”

And that’s Virgil’s point proven I think.

Sherbet looking at the fish! I mean, I suppose that’s to be expected as it’s not natural for a dog to be quite that far underwater.

Hell, Parker really does have good driving skills. If I could drive half as well as he can through an old abandoned building which if half-decaying and underwater then I would be incredibly impressed. My best skill level is being able to park perfectly in one go like once a week every week most. You know what, I think I might just employ Parker for myself. Anyone have his contact number?

That past of Parker’s really does make a difference! The Mechanic’s face was such a sight to see. He got away - of course he did, he’s obviously the new series main villain and connected to some big plot twist with The Hood, so we couldn’t kill him off yet, that would just be a really bad use of an interesting (though slightly chill-provoking) character. Besides, I think he’s pretty hard to kill, but Parker gave it a pretty good go, so he’ll have to have a medal for trying and count that as good enough. Honestly, The Mechanic seems indestructible, much like another family we know... Yeah, that combination is going to go down swimmingly when they meet. It will be like two rhinos butting heads. Although we do have to wait a while for that, so let’s get back on subject.

“This won’t be the last time The Mechanic tries to get The Hood out of prison. The GDF needs to be on their guard.”

“Where The Mechanic and The Hood are concerned, everyone should be on their guard.”

Well said Lady P.

“Have time to make that Dad a hero?”

Oh yeah, and back on the subject, the final note is: what a great holiday that was. Real holiday of a lifetime.... Hooray for the happy family who got to see Thunderbird Four in action to rescue them from the very, very, terrible bad guy. Who are shaken up, but will probably be okay and oh there we go! Magically okay because they get to ride in Thunderbird Two, all the way to Antartica to see the Penguins!

So, I’m not sure it really works like that - ‘curing’ PTSD and shock I mean... but I do agree that Penguins can make everything feel better. They hug, brilliant creatures that they are.

Anyone want to know a fact? I’m sharing it with you because it’s my work-based knowledge - when penguins huddle together, they keep moving (waddling) whilst they huddle so that eventually the penguins on the outside of the group end up on the inside and so on. They’re so smart that they can realise the penguins on the outside of the huddle will get cold unless they rotate and they’re smart enough to realise that if they keep rotating, the penguins from the inside who then go on the outside, will be warm enough by that point (from being on the inside) that they won’t get cold because of how quickly they can keep waddling around each other. It’s absolutely brilliant. If you get the chance, definitely meet penguins.

P.S. You can thank me later for the penguins

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adventure-hearts · 5 years

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youtube

DIGIMON ADVENTURE: LAST EVOLUTION KIZUNA

Trailer Analysis & Thoughts

Because what’s the point of having a new trailer if not to overanalyze it?

First impressions

The comparison between this and the first few trailers and the approach for tri. could not be more stark. Kizuna puts all the cards on the table up front and gives us fans exactly what we want: great visuals, iconic music, and the main gist of story & themes (not an international release date, though).

The comparisons to tri. are inevitable at any point in the lead up and during the new movie. Please don’t take any of this as a “negative criticism” of tri, a show I obviously adored. But I want this to be better than tri.

The feeling I get is that Kizuna is learning the right lessons from tri. — the good parts, of course, but also learn from what it did less well. So I’m really thankful that we have Hiromi Seki and some of the original staff on board and hopefully doing a great job. Tri.’s preference mystery and challenging, hermetic storytelling seems to be squarely thrown out in favor of a more traditional, fan-centered, uncomplicated approach. The fandom reactions to the trailer are overwhelmingly positive, so it was probably a good decision.

Visuals/Music

The PV shows once again that people shouldn’t panic about concept art. The characters look beautiful, age appropriate and even well-dressed!

The animation and look of the movie looks stunning but, again, this doesn’t mean we should raise our expectations too much. tri. too had lovely visuals and battle sequences and then it had parts that were simply not animated at all.

I’m glad they’re using the original version of Butter-Fly rather than another posthumous remix or special edition. Wada should be remembered, yes, but not in an exploitative way.

Characters

The trailer starts by actually setting up the characters and where they are at the start of this story.

Taichi rushing to university

Yamato looking pretty while being angsty over food

Sora determinedly doing Ikebana

Dr Jou at work saving lives

Mimi working hard on her business

Takeru and Hikari hanging out like the carefree students (could it be — gasp! —a date?!)

Daisuke, Miyako, Iori, and Ken alive and well, with actual faces and lines.

“Young Genius Menoa” makes her introduction, and unlike the introductions of Meiko, Maki and Diago (RIP - gone but not forgotten), this time the don’t have to speculate who she could be, since they actually tell us. I appreciate not having to go through another round of “Which previously seen character could she be?”.

Group dynamics seem interesting, by the way...

Half the Adventure team doesn’t seem to be involved in Digimon business and it seems like they never see each other.

The 02 team, by contrast, sticks together (it’s almost like they’re actual best friends!)

Takeru and Hikari have apparently been excluded from the 02 squad, which given what happened in tri. is probably fair

The mysterious antagonist is also introduced... and named!

EOSMON, a Queen Bee digimon who steals the consciousness of adult children.

Why a bee? IDK. But for once the story doesn’t seem to involve the End of the Worlds. Considering the last time the Chosen were fighting on three fronts representing supernatural forces and divine beings, a new, all-powerful Final Boss almost feels refreshing (never dismiss Vamdemon, though!).

Story

The trailer also nicely establishes the main plot of the movie, which has already been descried in detail on the official website:

Eosmon is stealing the consciousness of adult chosen children, including some of our main characters.

The bond between the Chosen and the Digimon is at risk of disappearing as they grow up.

Their new digivice has a countdown, indicating the number of evolutions they have left before the bond disappears.

Taichi and Yamato decide to fight despite of this risk.

Two new mysterious evolutions appear!

At first glance, this seems a genius idea:

It provides an organic reason to remove characters from the chessboard (leaving Taichi and Yamato as protagonists);

It automatically raises the stakes for Taichi and Yamato, since we can bet Eosmon got to their siblings, loved ones, and friends — and the only way of saving them is by making a choice to sacrificing their bond with their partners;

They get to introduce a new kind of special evolution that’s stronger than Omegamon, and makes sure Taichi and Yamato remain the strongest members of the team. (Someone has suggested they will “fuse” with their digimon, like in Tamers, and sounds great).

Note:

The part about the bond between the Digimon being threatened by adulthood could the reason why Kakudou balked out. It looks like the kind of tiny lore-related detail that would contradict nothing concrete in canon, except Kakudou’s own vision of the universe and its rules. As of now, I don’t see any signs for a significant departure from the previous shows, as people speculated at the time.

Themes

Yamato’s lines and other points of the trailer reveal the movie will tackle familiar topics at the start of any Adventure story:

the Chosen Children can’t be at peace for too long

the kids have the habit of growing apart slowly whenever they aren’t engaged in saving the world

how does the role of a Chosen Child evolve when he or she stops being a child?

the need to decide when and why you are fighting

how humans adapt to digimon living among them

Presumably, at this point in time digimon should be public knowledge, the number of chosen should be rising, and digimon are coexisting in the real world at this time. We are in a fast track towards the epilogue world, so the implications this new status quo has, how the Chosen Children around the world live, the politics of a new world with digimon... all would be very intriguing.

For many years, people have wondered if there are any biological/spiritual reasons why digimon are partnered with children, how adult partnerships could work, and whether it’s even possible to be a “Chosen Adult” (this is why keeping the translation DIgiDestined is a bad choice.) tri. already explored the psychological tensions caused by the increasing gap between the maturing chosen and their eternally childlike partners, and how traumatic it can be for an adult who stops being a chosen child and having a digimon partner by their side. It should be interesting to find out if there’s an actual in-universe mechanism or rule that favours pure-hearted children over complicated adults, leading to an inevitable situation of separation and of being an “ex” Chosen.

It should also be interesting if the children themselves have different positions towards their role / the DW — some of them might be very happy to lead normal lives, while others need to keep that connection to the DW and want to keep fighting for it.

Questions Raised:

A possible downside of this trailer is that it doesn’t leave much to the imagination when it comes to what will happen in the movie. Sure, there may be a huge twist. But plot armor and the Epilogue ensure the kids will win at the end and find a way to preserve their partners even as they become adults. Not complaining: after tri., I would welcome a more traditional story.

Still, some things made me curious:

What is the origin of Eosmon?

What are the new evolutions? How will they get them? According to her bio, Menoa “makes references to relationships between humans and Digimon nobody’s heard of” — will she be the one to get them there?

Will the events of tri. play into this movie at all?

What will the shorts add to the movie, especially for characters who don’t get much screen time?

Will a digimon story featuring adults finally dare to touch romantic relationships?

Will we get special cameos?

What will we learn about the characters’ path to their Epilogue endgames?

Will we get any Epilogue hints?

Will this truly be the last Adventure story? Can anyone believe that?

I just hope Western fans can get answers sooner rather than later.

#Digimon Last Evolution #anaysis #digimon

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theaterdisneynerdsunite · 5 years

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A (Controversial) Ranking Of 2010’s 10 Tony Winning Best Musicals

Remember when I thought this blog would be full of original theater content? Oops. Anyways here’s my list. Keep in mind some of these were incredibly close. I kept switching around 7/8, 5/6, and 3/4, but this is what I ultimately settled on. There’s a certain placement that I’m sure a lot of people are going to say is way too low, I’m not saying this is the definitive ranking or “correct”, just my personal opinion based on my individual taste. There are a bunch of musicals from this decade that I love that didn’t win the Tony, but that’s an entirely separate list lol.

10: Memphis

Tbh I know nothing about this show. It could be fantastic, but I’ve never heard the soundtrack, know nothing about it, and am unfortunately unable to listen to the soundtrack until 2020. Nothing against Memphis, I just don’t know anything about it which is why I put it at the bottom

9: Dear Evan Hansen

Put down your pitchforks. This is why I put controversial in the title. I’ve listened to this show multiple times, I’ve read the plot a bunch of times, I’ve had DEH Stan’s try to change my mind, I really, really wanted to like this show. The actors are incredibly talented and have great voices, no complaints there. I have anxiety and other mental health conditions and I was ecstatic at hearing about a show getting popular being about those things. I wanted to like this show. I wanted to connect to Evan, I really did, but the way the story is written makes me deeply uncomfortable with what it says about mental illness, and the music is fine but doesn’t distract from the story for me. It’s sort of generic music wise in my opinion. The way they portray both Connor’s and Evan’s characters makes me actively dislike the show, and it is really, really hard to make me actively dislike a show. I feel ambivalent sometimes, I have mixed feelings sometimes, but I actively dislike this show and that almost never happens. Also NPATGCO1812’s score and staging was phenomenal, Come From Away was sentimental and moving without feeling corny, and Groundhog Day surprised me by being better than I expected. I literally preferred every other show in the category from that year, I know a lot of people love it and that’s great but this is where it falls for me.

8. Once

I love the song Falling Slowly, and I think the actors dancing with instruments on stage was really cool. I think it was one of the first times it was done on Broadway, but I’m not sure. Other than the plot being a bit contrived and flat for me, there’s nothing I really dislike about this show. I just...feel nothing about this show. It’s fine, the music is good background study music, it just didn’t leave much of an impression for me.

7. Book of Mormon

So the songs in this show are absolute bops, and some of the wordplay is fantastic. I can appreciate this show for what it was trying to do. But ultimately, this show comes down to the humor, and you either like this style of humor or you don’t. I never personally found South Park to be my taste in humor. If you like South Park, you’re going to love this show. Even though I don’t find South Park funny, there were parts of this show I laughed at. But there were also parts that I cringed at and the cringe parts increased in hindsight. The songs are my favorite part: Hello, Sal Tlay Ka Siti, Turn it Off, Baptize Me, Mostly Me, I love those songs.

6. Fun Home

This show may have three Alison’s, which are all really good, but it felt like two plots to me. There is the story of Alison and her relationship with her father, and there’s the story of Alison’s self discovery and realizing her identity. These stories intertwine, but I personally find the self discovery and realizing her sexuality story much more interesting and compelling, and I also prefer the songs that are a part of that journey. Ring of Keys and Changing My Major are my favorite songs from the cast album. I read the graphic novel and it seems like it is really true to the spirit of the book. This and Memphis are the only ones I haven’t seen or seen a bootleg of, so I’m not really able to comment on the costumes, acting, choreography, setting etc, but for the most part I like what I’ve heard.

5. Band’s Visit

Another show that really comes down to taste. I liked this show when I saw it, the person who came with me didn’t. Part of the point of the show is rather than go to a big exciting city, they end up in a tiny town in the middle of nowhere in a desert where nothing happens. There are multiple songs dedicated to how nothing happens. And there are a bunch of mini story arcs with varying degrees of focus put on them, the focus shifts to much for anything to really happen. Which is the point, and it’s interesting, you just have to know what you’re in for. It feels like Waiting for Godot set to music, which if you like waiting for Godot like I do is a good thing. The romances are sweet. It feels like it should be in a more intimate off broadway setting, but I like it. The music is hit or miss for me, but the hits nail it out of the park. I like a lot of the songs but I love Omar Sharif, I could listen to it on repeat for hours.

4. Kinky Boots

This show is absolutely fantastic and I love everything about it. The fact that it’s at #4 for me was a shock, because this show is so good. This shows how strong the top of the list is in my opinion, because this show knocks it out of the park. This show has so much heart and sole. The costumes, especially for the drag queens, are stunning, the choreography like the boxing match and the conveyor belt dance are really cool, the acting is phenomenal, and the songs. The songs are so good. If they want to make you laugh they make you laugh, if they want to make you cry they make you cry, if they want to make you dance along belting out at the top of your lungs they are going to make you do that. Seriously, this show is so good.

3. Gentlemen’s Guide to Love and Murder

This just barely edged out Kinky Boots, because I feel like most people like and appreciate Kinky Boots, and I feel like Gentleman’s Guide is severely underrated and ranking it higher is going to let me talk about it even longer. This show isn’t as deep as Kinky Boots but it doesn’t try to be. What this show is, and why I think it’s underrated, is pure comedy. There are a lot of comedic Best Musicals sure, but the comedy is only part of it, but this one is wholeheartedly a comedy, which I feel is kind rare. A lot of things have comedy but it seems like not many are straight up comedy anymore. And the thing is... I’m not usually a fan of straight up comedy, like there are very few straight comedy movies that I enjoy, so the fact that I love this so much when I expected to only like it makes it even better. And as much as I call it a pure comedy, it’s got beautiful love song, great commentary, and a couple of twists that are fun even though you see them coming. The murders are really creative and funny. The characters are great, I love the gag with the Dysquiths where all of the murdered people are played by one actor. The acting, costume quick changes, and everything involved in pulling it off is so cool. I love the songs so much, I don’t think there’s a weak one in the bunch. And one scene may have one of my favorite bits of choreography of all time. It only needs three people, a doorframe and a chair. It’s not flashy or involves a million moving pieces like the costume bit does, but it is ingenious in its simplicity and comedic timing. This show seems largely forgotten by people, maybe because it’s not trying to be deep, but it 100% deserves more love than it gets.

2. Hadestown

If Gentleman’s Guide is one of the funniest shows I’ve ever seen, this is one of my favorite modern cast albums. This also hits a lot of my personal interests, so that definitely helps. I love Greek mythology, I love the anachronistic but also roaring 20’s setting, I love the genres of music they pull from, I love the oral tradition storytelling feel it has, it hits so many of my stylistic favorites that I naturally feel pulled towards it. I love the music, if you asked me to pick my top five, no top ten songs from this show I couldn’t do it. The casting fits the characters perfectly, and the songs match the characters so well. The lyrics are fantastic and the themes are both timeless and incredibly relevant. It feels like it was written in the past year or two, especially the song Why we Build the Wall, but it was written way before ‘Build the wall’ was ever a thing. And the design of the show is so incredibly effective, everything contributes to the feel of the piece and the function of the show. Everything seems so well thought out and crafted, from the costumes to the choreography to the script to the music, there is so much attention to detail and is so intricately tied together even though it feels simple, earnest and straightforward. Which to me is an incredibly difficult needle to thread. Like the famous Dolly Parton quote “it takes a lot of work to look this cheap”, it is such a complex show that looks so simple. And it’s so immersive, you fall into the story. You know how it ends, it tells you from the beginning how it ends, but that doesn’t stop you from feeling exactly what they’re feeling, from believing wholeheartedly that it could end differently despite knowing how it ends, it’s a masterful piece of art.

1. Hamilton

I doubt this comes as a surprise to anyone, even if I did technically make you Wait For It. I feel like calling it a cultural phenomenon is underselling it’s impact. There’s nothing I could possibly say about this show that hasn’t been said hundreds of thousands of times already. This show is a piece of lyrical genius, of musical genius too but a lyrical masterpiece. This show was like Rent was in the 90’s or Wicked in the 00’s, not only an instant classic that permanently affected the modern theater world, but outside of theater as well. I have loved theater long before Hamilton, but this show spoke to so many people outside of theater, made so many people fall in love with theater that wouldn’t have otherwise. It might not be my favorite show by Lin Manuel Miranda, it might not even be my personal favorite one on this list to see live, but nothing else could possibly take the top spot of this list for me. Who would have thought a hip hop inspired rap musical about a relatively ignored founding father would become the juggernaut it is. I don’t know what else to say that other people haven’t said already. It’s Hamilton, what else can I say?

#theater #broadway #top ten list #best musical #memphis #dear evan hansen #deh #once #once musical #book of mormon #fun home #band's visit #kinky boots #gentleman's guide to love and murder #gentleman’s guide #hadestown #hamilton

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historianatlarge · 5 years

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1917 - Film Review

A few days ago, my wife and I went to see ‘1917’. I’m certainly a bit behind the curve in terms of writing my review of it, but the film has stayed with me since we were there, and I feel the need to get my thoughts down. Really, that in a nutshell is the best recommendation I can make to you about this film – well over a week later, I am still turning over what that moment means to me, what the memory it created will mean in the future.

I had been hesitant to go see it in theatres, in part because I had seen so very many films about the First World War. All these films had a sort of rhythm to them, an almost traditional way they played out, dependant on the country that made the film, or whom it was portraying. In short, I had expectations – certain themes, certain notes I expected ‘1917’ to strike. In the end, it was my mother who convinced me I should go see it and she was not only correct but extremely correct in urging me to do so. At every turn, ‘1917’ caught me by surprise – it struck hard and gave me a moment of renewed belief in the power of cinema to reinforce the importance of history to a mass audience.

Before I review it in further detail, I will indulge in an aside; one that represents those little moments of life that we tend to remember for a long time after as odd or strange, perhaps even a little bit humorous. We went to see the movie on the 14th – perhaps not the most obvious choice on Valentine’s Day – the same day that Sonic the Hedgehog premiered. By coincidence, 1917 was showing in the theater next to it, and both movies emptied out within a minute of each other. You can imagine the very, very odd juxtaposition between a roomful of gleeful children, teens and parents compared to the very, very somber and even sorrowful people coming from next door. In short, I now have a superb example of ‘contrast’ to use when teaching an English class.

To return to my main theme, however, all of this – even the aside – speaks to the idea of the unexpected. At its core, I believe that is the key to 1917’s power and very real feeling. It abandons many of the old tropes to focus on the moment, with a galaxy of circumstances the audience, and the movie’s characters, can’t know about all circling around in the distance. This, in a very critical way, was the First World War. To the individual, the war was beyond comprehension – and in many ways it remains difficult to understand today. A war of millions of people in a labyrinthine, mud-soaked hell couldn’t fail to be anything other than that: a grand, confused mess on which a great slaughter was carried out. Throughout the film, every character finds themselves not only part of events they do not have any control over but are surprised by it – something I can assure you happens to the audience as well.

The violence in the film is sudden, and unexpected. Death is never predictable, never something forecast – it is at once a routine part of the larger tapestry but a sudden, awful surprise in moments that arrive either with pure shock or by unusual circumstance. This emphasis on circumstance is a crucially important concept to understanding the life of the individual during the war. By abandoning the look at the big battles, director Sam Mendes has crafted something unique. It gets us past mere statistics, past stereotypes or national myths and to the crucial reminder that these were ordinary, real human beings and not just names on a cenotaph or a granite monument. Years of a family’s love and care, a bundle of hopes and memories and emotions – all of it suddenly ended in sometimes absurd ways in a war that was itself absurd and, in many ways, unreal.

This air of unreality is reflected in the reactions of the film’s characters, and the audience. The movie is all about reactions, of course, since nobody has any mastery of the world they find themselves in – another very real take on the conflict. But as they make their way through the film, practically every character must come to terms with something unreal to them. The larger event that frames the film is the German retreat to the Hindenburg Line, a measure taken in 1917 to shorten the German defensive front by falling back to a heavily prepared defensive line and freeing up resources. This they achieved with near complete surprise, so much so that apparently at least one soldier left up a sign for the advancing Allies saying “don’t be angry, be amazed!”

The very idea that the Germans would retreat without making the enemy wrench territory from them inch by bloody inch is an astonishing surprise to the characters in the film, to the point where some simply don’t believe it, and you simply cannot blame them for their error. Again, these characters – these people - are not masters of their own fate. Advancing into the abandoned German defences brings yet more surprise, at the solid, clean and well-prepared nature of German positions (which often were superior to Allied entrenchments for reasons best gone into elsewhere) – and then further surprise at the nasty surprises left behind.

All of this world of surprise, of sudden and unexpected violence, or strange events that are difficult to accept, is painted onto a background created with great care and even greater skill. Much has been said about the cinematography of the film, and the long shots are certainly unique in that they keep the audience from resting. You keep watching for the sudden changes, the unexpected twist – in short, the audience undergoes a shadow of the experience of the soldiers themselves. Their world did not cut away, it remained a constant threat where the most (seemingly) inconsequential decision could result in death.

This unreal world is depicted with both the grim reality and the strange, horrible beauty that war art often evokes. The ruins of a French town illuminated by starlight shells, for instance, presents a remarkable and grand tapestry while still depicting just one small place and one small moment. It is at once beautiful and terrible, and I am certain that any dedicated student of the First World War will understand this feeling, even if they struggle to put it into words. It certainly isn’t easy. For me, it reminded me of seeing Regeneration Hall at the War Museum in Ottawa. For all the beauty of the space, for all the care in its construction and message, the statuary was disturbing – and the image of their faces has stayed with me ever since. While the Hall is explicitly about hope for a better future, it reminds us about the horrors endured to get there. This is an unspoken and complex discussion, one that the movie carries on with expert skill.

The movie also abandons the stereotype of the officers as being almost evil and unfeeling, a hallmark of many First World War movies. This is replaced instead by an officer class just as overmatched by events as the regular soldiers, just as unable to adapt to the sudden changes on the battlefield. Some of the officers you will see in other First World War movies are almost comically inept and without any human feeling whatsoever – and while these people did exist, it certainly paints a more realistic picture to show the wide range of emotional responses to the war, rather than fall back on a singular image. Once again, this is a complex discussion – and I am glad the movie provokes it.

The film does more to conceptualize the war accurately, but I will avoid discussing that to avoid revealing any major plot revelations for those still planning to see it. To sum up, then, all I can say is that this movie sticks with you. You turn it over in your mind time and time again, and that is some of the highest praise I can think of for any motion picture. It brings a vanished world back to us, one that is at once very far away and just over the horizon if we fail to learn from the past.

The score, the cinematography and the acting are all superb – and by and large beside the point. It is the frank and new way that it deals with its subject matter that makes this stand out, at least from my perspective. I cannot recommend it more highly, for it has been a very long time since I left a movie theater with the words of Siegfried Sassoon so clear in my mind:

“Sneak home and pray you'll never know

The hell where youth and laughter go.”

#1917 #movie review #WWI #First World War #review #Siegfried Sassoon #Sam Mendes #history #history writing

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askiisoft · 5 years

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FAN ART FRIDAY: Triple Dragons

Imagine dragons. It can be the European winged lizards or the long, windy Asian ones, it doesn’t matter. Now imagine that, like most lizards, it molted its skin every so often. But afterwards, that shedded skin came to life, put on a suit, and started trying to take over the identity of the original, creeping out its friends and war buddies in the process.

That’s the sordid history of Gamma Fifteen, a.k.a “The Dragon of New Mecca”. I think no one behind Katana ZERO imagined he’d become the game’s breakout character, receiving more fan love than the rest of the cast combined. But we’re not here to talk about him...or at least, not just him. Thanks to the raw talent and wild imaginations of fans, there have become at least three different versions of Fifteen in fanon.

So buckle in, because today we’ll be going on an expedition into the urban jungles of the Third District, to get a look at the three species of The Dragon in the wild.

Thanks to @55_yamisan for drawing all the species illustrations below! You can see the original artwork here.

[WARNING: Contains plot spoilers for ‘Katana ZERO’]

Ssshhh. Stay low, and be careful of snapping twigs underfoot. Just through the brush, we can see a juvenile Dragon in its natural habitat. Here, have a look.

Don’t be fooled by his boyish charm—at the tender age of 15, this NULL specimen is already a proficient killing machine. From this juvenile form, a Dragon can eventually grow into one of three different forms depending on its diet, habitat, and artist.

—

Exhibit A. Here, we have most prolific and successful species of The Dragon. Using his long, spindly legs, he prowls the Earth’s upper atmosphere for small birds, passenger planes, and other prey.

One of the mandates for Katana ZERO’s promotional art was that spoiler characters like Fifteen and Headhunter couldn’t be shown. It was a smart move for hiding the game’s various late-game twists, but as a consequence, fan artists had nothing but his in-game sprites as reference material.

This led to debates about whether he wore sunglasses or had cat ears, until natural selection produced the perfect assassin; a bishonen-yet-deadly apex predator.

by @IERotAK

I love hatched lines. They’re useful for drawing the eye or adding texture, shadows, and folds without the use of color. Unfortunately, a combination of shitty tablet drivers and my own unsteady hand means I can only draw lines a couple dozen pixels long before they start losing their straightness.

That’s clearly no issue for IEROtAK, who manages to convey the distinct textures of glossy leather gloves, a dark suit, and cold steel using nothing but amazingly neat hatched lines and negative space. The thick webs of intricate lines dazzles the eye from afar before it slowly makes out the clean shapes and low perspective of this masterpiece. Real badasses don’t look at explosions.

by @PsykoShipht

One of the best ways to make dynamic action is by accentuating movement; things like Batman’s cape, Strider Hiryu’s crimson scarf, or Rad Spencer’s dreadlocks billow and sway with their every movement, giving a sense of momentum and a clear line of action.

PsykoShipht gives Fifteen’s stylish ponytail a life of its own; I can already picture it straightening with each Chronos Rush attack or forming zig-zags and right angles and he navigates platforms. Even Fifteen’s comparatively lanky proportions and clean silhouette scream ‘agility character’ before he even draws his sword.

—

This species is a rare sight in the wild, and thankfully so. His briefcase is lead-lined, so even X-ray scans have been unable to reveal its contents.

It all began in The Concept Art of Katana ZERO and seemingly normal piece of concept art by Kenju, depicting an alternate version of Fifteen bearing a green sheath, green hair, and what looked like mild burn scars on his face.

by Kenju

Fan artists immediately took the idea and ran with it, inventing a bizarre, disfigured, and delightfully mad doppelgänger—first dubbed “Proto Fifteen″ and later, “The Snake” or “The Serpent”. He carries around that mysterious silver briefcase and a creepy yandere obsession with Fifteen’s old comrade, Zero.

Is he a failed clone? A bizarro-version from another dimension? And what’s inside that briefcase? We may never know. But the idea of having a stalker with Fifteen’s level of speed and swordsmanship is an utter nightmare...

by @55_yamisan

Why drown a drawing in rainbows when just a few spots of color makes all the difference?

Adding red eyes to Yami-san’s black-and-white art style immediately leads one’s gaze in a serpentine spiral, from the snake’s glare and up its graceful coils to The Serpent’s cocked head and seductive smirk that distinguish him as the ‘evil twin’. Even without the green in his hair or his signature briefcase, it’s easy to tell this is a totally distinct character from The Dragon.

Let’s hope Zero can tell the difference, too...

“There’s something important inside.” by @moryu

When Quentin Tarantino’s Pulp Fiction hit in 1994, everyone had their own guesses about what was inside the ‘mysterious briefcase’. Diamonds. Nuclear launch codes. Perhaps even a human soul.

In this case, however, my guesses are a lot more morbid, as anything The Serpent holds dear is likely slick, smelly, and related to Zero in some way. The way fan artists took a discarded detail from concept art and transformed it into The Serpent’s central conceit is beyond impressive.

I shudder to think of the kinds of reference photos @moryu used to achieve such realistic-looking burn scars in this picture. It doesn’t stop there, though; the mottled glow of The Serpent’s suit and hair and dull metallic sheen of his briefcase add an extra dimension of warmth to this otherwise creepy portrait.

—

“The Crocodile” is a relative newcomer to this ecosystem, but has carved out a niche of lifting his prey with a single arm, then drowning them in a toilet or other convenient body of water.

Truth be told, this one’s on me. When drawing some Steam Backgrounds for the game’s PC version, enough time had passed that The Dragon was fair game for publicity material. What I drew ended up like a blood-spattered cross between Clint Eastwood and Owen Wilson.

by @godsavant

This sent shockwaves rippling through the Katana ZERO fan community. Where was the sharply-dressed samurai prince everyone thirsted for? Surely this stomach-kicking, mobster-torturing beefcake couldn’t be him, thus earning him the moniker “The Crocodile” or “The Alligator”: muscular, deadly, and singularly obsessed with revenge.

by @sbserpent

Dragons are a consistent theme in art across many Asian cultures; for example, the Chinese once believed their emperor was descended from dragons, and thus bore their wisdom and benevolence. Here, sbserpent demonstrates just how frightening a human embodiment of a dragon really is.

Where The Dragon carries himself with an air of calculated composure, The Crocodile exudes sheer terror. The thick, angular brush strokes evoke Japanese sumi-e artwork, yet blotchy ink spots and harsh shadows are a far cry from the koi fish and bamboo forests of those traditional paintings.

by @Zebralineku

Chiaroscuro is a technique that uses bold contrast between light and shadow to leave certain parts for the viewer’s mind to fill in.

Here, Zebra gives us an imposing film-noir bust of The Crocodile as glimpsed through narrow blinds or a slat in a dark alley: the foreboding red mixed with heavy shadows evoke a hitman staring out at crimson neon signs, and his dark suit mixes with the black background to make him almost a shadow. Yet we can envision the other half of his face and ponytail in our mind’s eye from the scantest details; truly the touch of a master.

—

Remember, the specimens we’ve observed must be viewed from a safe distance; should you spot any of them in the wild, do not approach!

If you’d like some artwork featured on a future Fan Art Friday, just use the Submit Button on this blog!

by @Kazzang3

#katana zero #fan art friday #askiisoft #devolver digital #fan art

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