#she is simultaneously all these roles a woman should be but is also found failing in all of them because she is so much more than just

[timbourinedrake]

Finally posting the Talia focused animatic I have been working on, because I don't know when I'll get time to finish it and I like it too much to let it rot in my folder.

This is based on the events of Batman: Son of the Demon and the song is Wife by Mitski

I have a whole lot of thoughts on how this song reflects Talia's treatment as a character both within comics and outside of them, and how she is always treated as the mother/daughter/love interest rather than an individual in her own right. These roles are important to her but she is also more than them, she is her own person. I think it's super interesting to look at how Talia would wrestle with balancing these roles whilst also not letting them be her own defining trait.

[ireallylikejonouchi]

𝙽𝚞𝚛𝚊𝚛𝚒𝚑𝚢𝚘𝚗 𝚗𝚘 𝙼𝚊𝚐𝚘 𝚁𝚎𝚟𝚒𝚎𝚠

Written and drawn by Shiibashi Hiroshi, Nurarihyon no Mago is a manga series that ran in Weekly Shonen Jump with 210 chapters, 25 volumes. It’s about a Japan that has a massive Yokai underbelly, consisting mostly of yokai yakuza clans that run certain parts of Japan. The protagonist, Rikuo Nura, is the third heir of the Nura clan, kingpin of Kanto. His grandfather is the legendary Lord of Pandemonium, the yokai Nurarihyon, but Rikuo is only a quarter yokai, having a half-human father and a full human mother. As a child, Rikuo thinks yokai are the coolest thing, but his classmates mock him for this, not believing that they exist, and finding it even weirder that someone could admire them. Rikuo is told that it is his destiny to take on this role, and that he cannot live a human life. Hearing stories about evil yokai who enjoy making humans despair, Rikuo decides that yokai are terrible and he wants nothing to do with them. When Rikuo’s classmates are attacked by some rebellious yokai from the Nura clan, who are unhappy about their new leader being a quarter-human child, Rikuo awakens to his yokai blood and transforms in order to defeat them. He decides here that he will become the third heir in order to subdue yokai that would bring terror to humans with his “Fear,” the power system of the series.

With the synopsis out of the way, from this point on there will be spoilers. Be wary. I’ll try my best to spoil only what’s necessary in order to get my point across.

The beginning of this manga takes its time setting up character dynamics with short story arcs, as well as establishing what the yokai of the world are truly like with various examples of opinionated yokai antagonists. Some consider it boring, and I can understand why, but I think it pays off very well. The characters are incredibly likeable and fun. Even the ones that don’t have very much development are still a joy to see on the page when they show up. Rikuo himself is simultaneously a complicated character and a very easy character to follow. The first chapter takes place a couple of years before the second one, and his childish judgement to go from worshiping yokai to hating them is intentionally so. The story is about his growth. Rikuo is told that he must take on this role, he denies, but eventually accepts under his own terms, and for his own reasons. This ultimately sets up what his character arc will end up becoming, as one of his final conflicts at the end of the story sees him battling against another half-yokai, Abe no Yoshihira, who believes it is his duty to follow his evil father’s plan because of his "cursed” mixed blood. Rikuo doesn’t simply reject this title, but he also doesn’t accept out of obligation. He accepts this as an opportunity to bring about change. The change he wants slowly evolves from protecting humans to bridging the social gap between human and yokai so that they may find peace together. Fate shouldn’t be fought against or ignored, but you must make whatever you can out of it. Rikuo feels that connecting human and yokai is something only he can do as a half-yokai, so he feels a responsibility to carry this out, yet it is also what he truly believes in and wants. He is a leader because he was graced with the opportunity to bring about a better world. Your fate is only what you perceive it as. The final villain Abe no Seimei believes that human and yokai are fated to be at odds forever, and that influences his evil plan to purify the world. Both are believers of fate to some extent, the message isn’t something as simple as “defy fate” or “there is no fate,” which I appreciate. This manga is very good about exploring all facets of the themes it presents, which I will give more examples of shortly.

The power system is an interesting one. To quote the wiki, “ Osore (畏, Fear) is the term that denotes the unique skills and traits of each yōkai. It refers to the "fear" of the unknown, an emotional reaction produced when the yōkai represent themselves as "monsters". As yōkai first existed as creatures who induce fear in humankind, the general concept of "fear" revolves around being feared and respected by humans and making them feel small and weak. It involves exerting a wall of pressure to make one's presence feel larger than the actuality. When done correctly, this also creates a change in the mood and surrounding air - as seen whenever a dense fog appears when a Hyakki Yakō gathers in the series. Itaku states that Osore only applies to scaring humans.“ Fear is an inherently negative word, especially when associated with demons. However, Rikuo is proud of his fear, despite scolding yokai who scare humans. Fear in this manga is not quite so black and white. Rikuo’s form of fear is reverence, admiration. He considers this to be a form of fear, and he is indeed proud of the awe he is able to inspire within his followers as well as his enemies. Rikuo is able to use a power that comes only thanks to his human side, letting a yokai haunt his humanity while keeping control with his yokai half, performing Equip and gaining that yokai’s powers, but only if they entrust themselves to him. It is the ultimate representation of the Fear that Rikuo believes in. For the core power system of the series to have such a double meaning about it speaks to the coming complexities, and it is incredibly fitting for this story, as I hope to convey.

Fate, lineage and connection to history are the main themes of this manga. Many of the characters in the story are tied to tradition before it starts, and have to be brought out of that by Rikuo and his progressive mindset. One’s blood is used to portray this theme in an interesting way. Rikuo’s father, Rihan, describes him as a symbol of hope for the future. Rihan longed for a world where human and yokai could get along, yet he came into constant conflict with both evil yokai and evil humans, as his son Rikuo would soon come to do as well. Rikuo loved his father, and carries on his dreams. However, similar to his “fate” of leading the clan, his respect for his ancestors is well-informed by his individual beliefs, and not from any kind of feeling that he MUST do what his ancestors wished. Abe no Yoshihira failed here, becoming a slave to his perceived fate. Hagoromo-gitsune, the main antagonist of the Kyoto arc as well as Abe no Seimei’s mother, was tied to her blood relations as well. She did everything for her son, who was soon to be reborn again into this age. She had her own image of an ideal world, erasing humans and making a world full of yokai, but she didn’t consider her child’s ideals, which she could have presumed from Seimei’s suffering he received when both human and yokai betrayed him. Seimei is born and casts Hagoromo-gitsune into hell, declaring that he will purify all life from the world, as neither human nor yokai can be trusted. Abe no Seimei is the agent of fate, declaring that all living things on Earth have doomed themselves to a fate of death thanks to their own horrible and greedy nature. Abe no Seimei is a half-yokai himself and he has found solace from neither of those sides. Rikuo, however, does not give up. He equips himself with the true fear of this reality that places him in-between two worlds, unable to fully enjoy life as a human or a yokai, refusing to resign himself as Seimei did, and instead fighting against the fate Seimei enforces by bringing together humans and yokai, including Hagoromo-gitsune, in order to seal the final blow against him.

You may be wondering what it means that Rikuo was able to finish off Seimei by fusing with his mother. Well, you see, Hagoromo-gitsune is sort of, in a way, Rikuo’s mother as well. You see, before Rihan had a child with Rikuo’s mother, he was married to another woman, Yamabuki-otome. For context, Abe no Seimei is a man who reincarnates throughout generations, as does his mother, Hagoromo-gitsune. Some time after Yamabuki-otome’s death, Seimei used her to take revenge on Rihan for disrupting his plans, by reviving her as a child and turning her into the host of the yokai Hagoromo-gitsune, sending her with false memories and subliminal orders to kill the man she loved when she was alive. Once she had killed Rihan, her human self hid itself away in despair and Hagoromo-gitsune was able to take control of her body for good. In modern times, after being cast into hell by Abe no Seimei, she is revived by Nurarihyon in anticipation for the final battle. After encountering Rikuo and his burning feelings in Kyoto, she had regained her human memories before being struck down by Seimei. Upon her most recent revival, she found she had feelings for both Rikuo and Seimei, and considers both to be her children. She regrets that her feelings for Seimei had ended up being met with treachery, and she goes to confront him. When she hears his full plan, she decides to do kill him herself, though she fails. She feels it her duty as a mother to make up for not understanding his suffering earlier, as it’s now too late to reason with him. Hagoromo-gitsune’s progression comes from her ability to find love for her yokai followers, considering them to be her children all the same as Rikuo and Seimei, and learns that she should have seen this love all along rather than being blinded by her obsessions with her blood son. Once again, she values her children and the blood she shares with them, but she is only able to find happiness when she realizes that the feelings she has for them don’t have to be restricted to only them simply because they are her kin, and similarly she does not need to follow Seimei’s plan just because she thinks it’s what a mother “should” do. Fusing with Rikuo is the culmination of this. While Rikuo is technically her kin, as Seimei is, we see through her arc that she has matured and learned to spread her love. So even though without context it would seem that she simply went from one child to the other, we can see the complexities of this and see how it relates to Rikuo’s arc, accepting something not out of obligation, but from your own will. 

By coming to a true understanding with the woman that Abe no Seimei had discarded, his mother, and her doing the same, an act that seemingly defies their fates (Rikuo’s fate to be a cold yokai ruler and Hagoromo’s fate to be a slave to her child’s whims), they’re able to defeat him and sever fate itself.

The Hundred Stories Clan Arc is one that I really appreciate for showing me how truly interesting Rikuo was as a character. I hadn’t realized it up to that point, and it’s clear why. His characterization and progression is subtle. The text doesn’t tell you how Rikuo grows, the art and his actions do. When humanity told of Rikuo’s half-yokai status is convinced that he must be killed for the safety of Japan, Rikuo is forced to face the fact that the humans he wants to protect are not perfect, and have as many imperfections as yokai do. Humans can be greedy, they can do horrible things when they’re afraid. In a backstory, the leader of the Hundred Stories Clan is shown to be a despicable human from Japanese history named Sanmoto Gorozaemon, who takes control of yokai to secure his political and social power, and turns himself into a yokai in order to secure that power. When a member of his clan is assaulted by humans who don’t care about the harm they’re causing, some of them even reveling in it, through facial expressions we can see him struggling with the thought of killing these humans to end the conflict, or out of revenge possibly. Shiibashi leaves this to the reader’s interpretation and it works wonders, he has no internal monologue relating to this feeling and nobody points out that he seems crazed or anything. It’s some panels that you could easily miss if you’re reading too fast.

In this panel, we are shown his reaction to a female yokai appearing and tormenting the humans that were tormenting him and his clanmate just moments ago. Even when he showed such rage at the humans, seemingly almost snapping, he decides he needs to stop the yokai from killing them. However, the expression on his face conveys perfectly how complex his emotions are over this. Despite how confidently he’s saying he needs to save them, his face almost looks like he doesn’t want to. Of course, he overcomes this and saves them for the sake of his dream.

It’s clear to see the moral dilemma he’s going through and it’s conveyed entirely through art and subtext. This is confident storytelling, and not to mention incredible artistry. Shiibashi has a certain maturity and respect for the reader that is hard to find in Shonen Jump manga sometimes.

Rikuo’s fight against the yokai artist Kyosai in this arc is notable for being similar to what I just described from the beginning of the arc.

Kyosai has an interest in turning human women into yokai using his painting techniques, including one of Rikuo’s classmates. Enraged, Rikuo engages him in combat with his newly acquired Attack Mode, which switches his Fear from a defensive technique to an offensive one, and changes his hair from white with black underneath it to having half of his hair being black on one side and the other being white. As the fight progresses, Rikuo is continuously injured and decomposed by Kyosai’s abilities, burning his flesh and scarring Rikuo black.

Rikuo’s deteriorating mental state during this arc is conveyed visually through his design, with both the way he is inked as well as his literally evolving design, his new transformation. He’s never had to confront these kinds of humans and yokai before. This leveling of suffering is new to our middle school-aged protagonist. After Kyosai is defeated, his momentary rage subsides but he is still scarred, physically and mentally. Encho, the acting leader of the Hundred Stories Clan, betrays Sanmoto’s reincarnated brain for personal gain, confusing Rikuo who is already in a fragile mental state. He struggles to comprehend the enemy, as he had been forced to face humans that he wanted to protect, yokai that despised those humans, and even his own best friends. Once again, exclusively visually conveyed and up to interpretation.

At the end of this arc, he accepts the help of his friends, his aide Yuki-Onna, and equips with her, washing himself of the stress he’s in and covering him in a beautiful veil of ice. His design goes back to normal in order to show this, and get across just how much his friends mean to him, in a truly impactful way that really strengthens the theme by giving real weight to his connection with both his yokai and human lives.

Every arc is strong in its own way, I simply wanted to discuss the few that best show what I’m trying to say. I hope you now understand why I love this manga so much and why I think you should read it. I promise the things I’ve spoiled here are only a fragment of the whole experience, and your appreciation will only grow as you experience the full context by reading the manga. If I got across what I wanted to, then you understand that this manga cannot be explained as much as it can be experienced. There are probably more things that I never noticed, maybe you’ll discover those before I do.

This manga is an ode to the future, to humanity. We can overcome our differences and coexist. Perhaps all it takes is for one person to take the fear that we as people feel in our daily lives onto themselves. The fear that there can never be change, the fear that our road only ends in sadness. The fear that our history defines us. The fear that we must conform to our duty. The fear that accepting a duty strips us of individuality. The fear that we can never bring these conflicting aspects of our mind together and find inner peace. The fear that we can never bring the conflicting aspects of people together and find true peace amongst ourselves. Not many people can overcome that fear, but he who is truly strong is he who equips that fear. He who takes that uncertainty of the future and uses it to empower himself and push for that change he wishes to see. This review is my ode to the man who was able to understand what makes people who they are and didn’t let that fear consume him. The man who equips true fear. Thank you for reading.

[betweentheracks]

On a scale of 1-5000, how annoyed do you get when people have the gall to tell you, “Wow! You’re so lucky!” when they find out that you work in entertainment and with celebrities?

Also on a scale of 1-5000, how unimpressed are you with the celebrities you end up working with?

Please share some horror stories so we can commiserate over nightmare clients! 😂

Yeef and also yikes, do I actually want to dive into this particular can of worms? Lmao. 

I thoroughly see spots of red in my vision whenever people try to do the whole “Wow, that’s really cool and lucky for you! How many famous people have you met or worked with? Your life must be so glamorous and exciting!!” Like please, spare me. It isn’t glitz and glitter all the time - in fact, the fun parts are in the minority of how working in this industry goes. Beyond that, I’m not ‘lucky,’ I worked my ass off to pull this off and have never slowed my pace (until this COVID-19 chaos) to ensure my post remains relevant. In accordance to your ranking, I guess I would go with 4999 points annoyed.

Frankly, my rating and impressions of my clients are like a river that flows on and on and yet there is no apparent water to be found. I have a good rapport with most of the ones I am contracted with exclusively, but they're prone to make my feelings change from sentence to the next. Celebrities will forever remain exhaustively effervescent. 

If you really want some dish, I can offer up some from a client I once worked with in my apprenticeship and how much I hate the time I had to spend with her while also retaining a sense of gratitude for helping shape me into someone that can withstand some of the prickly goings-on of the industry. She wasn’t even my client, as I was merely apprenticing and therefore was little more than a ghost that shadowed one of the veterans of our company. I’m highlighting this now before diving into the thick of what was the worst week in my career thus far because it is extremely important to keep in mind that I was under no actual obligation to work with this woman. 

Ahem, so, story time! Let me start off with first making it clear that even now I will only work with actresses and actors when I have no viable means of refusal. This is simply a preference of mine and stems mostly from this woman’s behaviors and treatments of me and some of the crew I worked with at the time. I was quite young when I entered my apprenticeship, like barely more than 20, and I was simultaneously accustomed and starstruck by the world I was entering. Before the apprenticeship, I had already been working off and on via temporary contracts and commissions as a MUA at the time, so I knew the ends and outs of the place and the people that worked my end of it. However, I hadn’t worked with many clients one on one as either a MUA or as an aspiring wardrobe stylist. Due to this I was still very green and awkward and hadn’t yet figured out the line between casual and professional (to this day, for me, this line is nearly nonexistent) and I tended to make a mess whenever I opened my mouth so mostly I kept quiet and melded into my role as an observing trainee with occasionally useful ideas but was mostly just an extra pair of hands. The stylist I was shadowing was, in a word, cumbersome. They weren’t a very great teacher and had a tendency to drop projects into my lap without much proper instruction or insight and would leave me to attempt making sense of what was wanted by means of vision boards and client portfolios. In much a similar fashion, when a scheduling conflict came up involving the actress which will star in this tale and another more major artist; naturally, he had to see to the client he had a more tangible contract with and stuck me with wrangling our golden girl. 

Within the first 4 sentences of our first exchange as stylist and client I hated her immensely. She was the type of client I abhor to work with; overbearing and demanding, thankless and impatient. She was in the midst of her career finally catching some interest which is the most pivotal time in any celebrity’s career and I like to think she was so bitchy and just plain mean due to the stress and pressure she was under but it doesn’t make what happened any more justifiable. Her immediate and first words to me were, “You’re young and clueless enough to be my baby sister. Whatever authority you think you can have in dictating what I wear ended with the sound of the door opening when you stepped in, get that straight now.” I remember this extremely clearly because I went from gobsmacked to incensed within the time it takes to pop the top on a can of soda. But! I knew at least enough to know to keep my mouth shut and temper my immediate dislike of this person and tried to push forward and steer the conversation in the direction of what her ideal style and presentation should be. It went well enough for all of an hour tops before she domed me again by calling me “baby sis” in place of my name. As I am, in fact, the baby sis of my family I am well aware of when a power play is being maneuvered in on me and spotted this for what it was: her trying to remind me that I had no right to be speaking to her, let alone designing her. This was a culmination of her being upset and put out that she wasn’t chosen by my mentoring stylist and was stuck with someone that had basically no merits behind her. 

Calling me this wasn’t really an issue for me, but it did chafe against my skin enough to make me feel uncomfortable and anxious. Still, I let it slide and she continued to call me as such for the duration of our time together. The true horror of this story is what comes next and the escalation from minor verbal insults meant to belittle me fanned into blatant sabotage. She and I had come to a sort of estranged agreement when it came to modeling her vision board - she wanted to retain some traces of her perceived sweet and demure self from when she was cast in her first role, but play up the maturity and grace she held now and have it reinvented into timeless class while holding a touch of being chic. It was a headache to make sense of since, from a the perspective of fashion and trends at that time, this wasn’t the ideal and even seemed counterintuitive to someone in her position and of her age. I went along with it and threw myself into the quest to pull from the brands she mentioned liking most and for days I learned firsthand how exhausting and tedious it is to make acquisitions and swear responsibilities/accountabilities one after the other and put my name and my company on the line. I handpicked every item and steadily managed to pull off forming my second ever ensemble of 4 sets of styles each with 2 or 3 substitution items that could alter the look entirely while still remaining within the realm of what the client had asked for. I worked upward of 13 hours for 4 days and when I finally was able to bring the client to her showroom and present my designs, I was only able to feel relieved for mere minutes before she began to yell and make a scene. She demanded my supervisor and the head of the styling department of our company both come to tend to her and see what a mockery I had made of her ideal image. She went on to use her acting quirks to insinuate that I had gone off half-cocked and overruled her every idea and word and then dared to present her with such low quality fashions. She even managed to produce a vision board that was entirely different from the one she and I had planned together! It was obviously done by herself and lacked the detailed attention any of the stylists housed in our company would have added, but it was convincing enough to appear damning. 

At this point my head was in a weird place, trying to make sense of the perilous world I was throwing myself into and the fact that this was actually happening to me at all and wasn’t just me daydreaming while watching daytime dramas. After I worked through that initial shock, I was more than mad but less than enraged. I was confused as to why this client was being so purposefully obstinate and difficult for me, even briefly wondered what sort of grievance I could have possibly cost her when I had only just met her and had done my utmost to seem cool and pro like all the seasoned stylists I had worked with. I thought I was going to lose my job and have to go back to my family with my tail between my legs and tell them they were right and I never should have strayed from my original course and career path. I only became aware that I was crying, like big fat tears that made a mess of my face and were embarrassing to the point that I wanted to flee, because my supervisor had given me his handkerchief. It was at this point that I teetered and looked deeply at the person accusing me and wasting my time and efforts and realized that it wasn’t about me and was only ever about her. This moment of clarity, though, was like the opening of a gate I had been clinging to all week in hopes of keeping all my spurned senses quietly simmering beneath my skin rather than wreck my name and finish off my chances before they truly begun. I very rudely told my supervisor and the department head that if they needed proof of my hardwork and dedication to the vision of a thoughtless actress caught in the weeds of her own wilting fame then they were free to examine my copy of the original vision board and compare it with the one she had; that they could check through the 15 or so LORs under my name and in her stead (both names are featured for security means). Anyway, she was attempting to spill a stain across our company and specifically the stylist in charge of me for blowing her off. Her idea was that if I failed in a big way it would make him look like a horrible mentor and cost him some of his reputation. I was merely cannon fodder.

This got insanely long - let’s put it up to me also being a storyteller and writer as well as very passionate about this encounter. It sparked the timid embers of my uncertain pursuit of my career into a fire that has since gotten me through many other rounds of hard hitting clients and their excessive personalities and entitled arrogance. I love my job a lot, but man is this industry full of bullies.  

[fayewonglibrary]

Wong’s Way (2011)

An anomaly in the cookie-cutter world of Cantopop, FAYE WONG has paradoxically found success by playing against the rules. Prestige Hong Kong follows her down the road less travelled

FIVE YEARS MAY not seem like that long, but it can be a lifetime in an entertainment industry that feeds off the right-here and the right-now. So it came as a surprise when, half a decade ago, Faye Wong decided to step back from the limelight and resume as much of a normal life as might ever be possible for a woman whose music has sold in the millions and who has combined that side of her existence with an acclaimed acting career.

From an existence playing before tens of thousands, what the Beijing-born Wong longed for at that point in time was a life tucked away in the peace and tranquillity of home – and after almost 20 years in the spotlight, and with her every move followed by a fan base that can be tallied in the millions, who could really blame her?

But as an artist who in an age of corporate conformity flatly refuses to play to any predetermined stereotype, Wong has always preferred to play by her own rules. It may come as a surprise, then, to find out that Faye Wong was not always “Faye” – diehard fans will remember a period in which the artist was known as Shirley Wong Ching-man, an affectation suggested by her record company early in her career, because of the stigma associated with the hip factor (or lack thereof) of mainland Chinese artists and names.

Even Wong’s early hits weren’t what you would call “original” – her first few albums were filled with formulaic Cantopop: collections of saccharine, predictable tunes that failed to properly utilise her delicate, lilting soprano. When she broke out of that shell in 1992, after a short travel hiatus, she finally found success, initially with a cover of a Japanese chart-topper in Cantonese, “Fragile Woman.”

Despite her disinclination to be impacted by her local contemporaries, Wong was not without her influences. She covered songs by The Cranberries, took quirky style cues from Björk and collaborated with the Cocteau Twins. The further she strayed from Cantopop, the more fame she found, penning her own songs and admittedly self-indulgent lyrics. She rapped on “No Exit,” yodelled through “Di-Dar” and even won the hearts of nerds by wailing the English-language title track to the hit video-game Final Fantasy VIII, “Eyes On Me.”

Even when her albums weren’t critical or commercial successes, her fame continued to grow, exponentially and uncontrollably. Her handful of acting roles, including in Chungking Express and 2046, showcased a curious, simultaneous aloofness and magnetism, an infectious, ravishing oddness.

In 2005, two months before she married actor Li Yapeng, she announced that she would take a break from show business. And so for five years there have been sightings, the occasional public appearance and the work for her own charity, but otherwise it’s pretty much been silence from Wong, as her fans – and the world at large – waited.

With that in mind, we should not have been surprised at the reaction to the news that Wong would finally be reemerging, to stage comeback concerts that started in Beijing last October, then took in Shanghai and Taipei before coming to Hong Kong, the place where Wong’s career was launched, for a series of shows in March. Tickets – for all nights, at all venues – sold out in a matter of days and the critical response has been overwhelming.

The headlines said it all: “The Diva is Back.”

What the Wong faithful have found is that their idol has lost none of the passion for the music that forms, as she puts it herself, part of her fate. They’ve been treated to nights filled with the songs that have formed the soundtrack for the lives of a generation here in Hong Kong – and beyond.

When Prestige Hong Kong found the interview-shy 40-year-old, she was in between shows and letting that fate take its course. What Wong wants the world to know is that throughout her storied career there has, she says, never been any real plan. She’s simply a woman who lets the cards fall as they may.

Can you talk a little about your return to the stage and playing live? What brought about the decision to play your recent concerts? I consider this a natural move for me. I’ve been doing several commercials as well as releasing some new singles over the past few years. So this was a natural progression back to live performances. It’s all part of my career.

How did you go about deciding what form the concerts would take and the songs you played? There’s no special form or arrangement that’s deliberately conceived for my concert. I believe my singing is the main source of interaction between the audience and me. Every show is unique and my mood is different, depending on the atmosphere. It’s not my practice to talk much with people or have any planned speech in my concert, because I don’t want the conversation to ruin the whole integrity and mood of the arrangement of the concert. I hope my audiences can indulge themselves with my music, while also digesting the message my show is delivering.

After the recent concerts in Shanghai and Beijing, what’s your feeling about coming back on stage? It feels so good to see all my fans again.

Do you have any plans to work on a new album? If so, will you be writing songs yourself? There’s no plan to work on a whole new album. But there is a possibility to release singles, and maybe I’ll write some songs myself.

How different to you is the experience of playing live now as compared to when your career began? What have you learned and how much has the experience for you changed over the years? I’ve been working with different sets of crews, composers, producers etc since the beginning of my career. Each of these collaborations has opened up a whole new experience and been an amazing inspiration for me. Call it a fireworks feeling.

What was it that initially drew you to the music business? What was it that you found most exciting? I believe singing is my destiny, and it’s fate that this became my career. I find it gratifying that I’m able to touch people’s lives with my songs. It’s a form of good karma.

Have your musical tastes changed or evolved as you matured as a person and as an actress? I admire different types of music and things depending on the different stages of my life.

Did becoming a mother change how you approached both your singing and your career? There was no change. I still sing with the same commitment and feeling, and it’s the same with my career.

And how much, do you think, did this change you as a person? The process of raising a child is part of my evolution as a human being. If you’re not a parent or don’t fully involve yourself as a parent, you’ll never realise this traditional, fulfilling role of parenthood. As a parent, it’s natural to want to show your best side and provide the best example to your child. However, sometimes it’s hard to break habits that may surface from time to time. It’s a painful cycle, because even though you realise your own faults, to change yourself completely requires a lot of courage and determination.

We’re curious about a typical day for Faye Wong. What’s your routine when you’re not performing? What time do you go to bed, what’s your favourite meal and what activities do you share with your kids? Basically, I go to bed and wake up the same time as my kids do. I got used to enjoying the regular pattern of a healthy lifestyle, but that won’t happen coming back to work.

Frankly, there’s so much to do when you take charge of a whole household. My life in the past few years was completely occupied by family and there was no time for me ever to feel bored. Sometimes I feel that I was even busier than when I was working as a singer.

Do you think your children share the same character as you? When I look at my kids, it’s like looking into a mirror and seeing the deepest side of myself.

What are the things that make you most happy now, compared with when you were younger? What do you now cherish most? I cherish everyone and everything. I’m fortunate to appreciate what I have and the people I know.

How do you see your image now? Are you an artist who is careful to control her image, or is it more a case of come what may? The most effortless style suits me best. I aim to be the most natural, honest in my approach. I want it to be pure, not something that seems too contrived or created just to fit the latest trend.

What are you most passionate about? To find the real meaning of life, and share it with lots of people.

What about acting? Is this something you’re keen to pick up again as well? If so, what kinds of films and roles might interest you? Right now, I have no plans on filming.

What are the challenges you see ahead in the next few years? What can your audience expect? My life has no planning, and I’m not a person who conceives everything in advance. It always depends on what’s being offered and what I feel like doing at that moment. There’s no pressure on myself – I leave everything to chance and fate.

The Smile Angel Foundation was founded in Beijing in 2006 by you and your husband, Li Yapeng, after your own child was afflicted with a cleft lip. It’s helped a lot of other children suffering from cleft lips and palates. Has the foundation changed your life or your character in any way? My contribution to Smile Angel Foundation is not as much as my husband’s involvement. He’s very busy working on plans to support the foundation. For me, basically, I’ll attend annual charity events and activities to lend my support.

On this project, we started everything from scratch and are very gratified to see how much it has accomplished. My husband is definitely the driving force behind the foundation, and I really admire his passion, courage and capability.

At your current stage, do you think you have evolved in your perspective of things compared with when you were younger? Can you share your road of growth a little bit? I was a bit stubborn, objective and capricious when I was younger. I’m now more willing to be open-minded and flexible, and always try to remind myself about this. It’s quite difficult to stop old habits surfacing from time to time. But I’m trying hard to accomplish it.

Do you have any advice on how to maintain a woman’s beauty and charm after the age of 30? First of all, you have to accept your age. I believe everyone has their own unique way to create their own charm and maintain their beauty, which is sometimes a very personal approach. One should find one’s own best way; there really is no standard formula for everyone to maintain their beauty. I believe the most natural side of a person is the most beautiful.

You’re acclaimed as a pioneer of alternative music. Does that mean you won’t compromise with the commercial market? I never define my music as “mainstream” or “edgy” or “alternative.” I just do what I like.

Photography / Shameless Eye Production AG Styling / Titi Kwan Hair / Alain Pichon Make-up / Zing Wardrobe / Céline Spring 2011 collection

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SOURCE:  PRESTIGE HONG KONG

[biglittlesshop]

Great Dane 5 Things You Should Know About This Woman Dog Mom She Loves Dogs More Than Human Tee Shirts

I didn’t know anything about this brand when I first bought it it was a Great Dane 5 Things You Should Know About This Woman Dog Mom She Loves Dogs More Than Human Tee Shirts good price and I needed some things so since I was there I picked a few stuff amazingly I really like the products the eye liner does wonders I love it. In response to last week s tatoosday post we got so many tattoos from last unicorn fans around the world that it will take months to showcase all of them to help make things go slightly faster than that and because it s neat to compare and contrast we re going to make today a two tattoosday post take a look at these very different approaches to showing the human and unicorn versions of peter s classic character in one image ashley knight schroeder s tattoo is beautifully stylized I just got this done on saturday the last unicorn has touched my life and helped me through many a rough patch even my sons will watch with me and sing talk along to the movie rippy s tattoos did the work I have no idea who did the original design I saw it and feel in love would love to find the original artist brittni lynn martin and her artist phil meyers from california opted for classic heartfelt look this movie has been my favorite since I was little and is now my favorite book and I have a 3 year old daughter who also loves it and we watch it together so it’s been a huge part of my life so beautiful both of these. The only way to protect your body from these dangerous toxins and reverse the damage that has been done is to use a natural nutritious cleansing program one that will give you exactly what your body needs to flush out all of the toxins that shouldn t be there and boost your metabolism at the same time an easy 3 day program with a complete shopping list and simple recipes that you can make from home without punishing depriving or starving your body start now 3 day cleanse with danette may detox program detox beauty diet fashion cleanse smoothie

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Great to have time to visit anton’s retrospective at bucerius kunst forum hamburg until january see you tomorrow night larr the Great Dane 5 Things You Should Know About This Woman Dog Mom She Loves Dogs More Than Human Tee Shirts no edge adam u2 u2eitour antoncorbijn. Diane kendal for nars cosmetics thakoon really wanted girls to look healthy and very american this beauty look is inspired by the 80’s super models cindy claudia linda and christie found in peter lindbergh’s photography skin is gorgeous makeup is fresh and beautifully groomed face concealer sheer glow foundation cheeks deep throat blush eyes last frontier velvet eyeliner smudge across eyes and lower lashline goddess velvet shadow stick audacious mascara brows matte eyeshadow shades blondie bali bengali coconut grove brow gel lips sex machine velvet matte lip pencil. Yesterday was a busy day of meetings and airplane travel for peter and connor but last night peter took some time to share his thoughts on the passing of the great christopher lee christopher lee was the tallest actor I ever knew he was also by far the most literate when we first met in a los angeles studio where he was recording his lines as king haggard in the last unicorn he had just recorded haggard’s speech about his first sight of unicorns and I mentioned that it was probably my favorite speech in the book he immediately wanted to know well did I do it properly we can always redo it right here of course he’d handled the lines perfectly but writers and writers’ opinions about their work mattered intensely to christopher that same afternoon we discovered that between the two of us we we could call to mind just about all the lines of g k chesterton’s poem the rolling english road we also discovered a mutual need to hit the men’s room and my son dan in his mid teens at the time still has a very clear memory of christopher simultaneously peeing while declaiming in that voice which no one could ever keep from imitating after fifteen minutes with him before the roman came to rye or out to severn strode the rolling english drunkard made the rolling english road a reeling road a rolling road that rambled round the shire and after him the parson ran the sexton and the squire I leave it to the reader to imagine that voice in the tiled acoustics of a hollywood bathroom we met a second time in munich where the last unicorn was being dubbed into german most of my memories of that time and of chris lee have to do with books and authors he had known both j r r tolkien and a writer who mattered more to me t h white we had a long ongoing argument in munich about a chapter of the sword in the stone that appears in the english edition of the book but not in the american one he turned out to be right he usually was he never failed to mention the last unicorn as one of his very favorite books and as one of the movies he was most proud of having made indeed he left my whopperjawed as mark twain would have put it when we were being interviewed together on austrian television and he announced oh yes I simply couldn’t resist a chance to play king haggard one more time even in another language after all and he looked straight into the camera it’s the closest they’ll ever let me get to playing king lear the camera swung toward me to catch my stunned reaction and chris looked across the studio at me and winked but my most vivid memory chilling as it remains to this day has to do with the day that I and michael chase walker associate producer of the last unicorn and the one who really got the film made in the first place somehow found our way out to dachau I can’t now recall how we managed it considering that neither one of us spoke german and that you had to take both a subway and a bus to get there from the hotel where the crew were staying but we got there somehow and spent a good half of the day roaming with other tourists around a legendary concentration camp peering blindly into the huge crematoriums but staring with equal horror and fascination at the endless rows of filing cabinets containing every record of every human being who was ever imprisoned starved gassed or simply worked to death in this place michael and I grew quieter and quieter that afternoon until by the time we started back to munich we weren’t speaking at all I think we both felt that we might say anything in words again the first person we met in the hotel lobby was christopher he took one look at us and announced you’ve been to dachau we nodded without answering chris strode toward us looked all the way down from his six foot five inch altitude lowered his voice and inquired still smells doesn’t it with the end of world war ii christopher as a member of the special forces and whose five or six languages included fluent german had been assigned to hunt down and interrogate nazi war crminals and had been present at the liberation of dachau and yes the smell of death had undoubtedly faded somewhat since 1945 but it was still as real as michael and me wandering dazedly between the ovens and the filing system we just didn’t know what it was but christopher did and i’d know it again I never saw him again after munich though we spoke on the telephone a few times on the last occasion when I had called to wish him a happy 90th birthday I remember him assuring me that if by the time you come to make your live action version of your movie I have passed on do not let it concern you I have risen from the dead several times I know how it’s done he worked almost to the last as the real artists of every kind do they work to be working because that’s what they do and they die when they stop I always regarded him as the last of the great 19th century actors that bravura larger than life style went with him no modern rada trained performer would ever attempt it today nor should they it would inevitably come out parody however earnestly meant yet there was always more to christopher lee as an actor than dracula or the mummy or saruman or sherlock holmes for that matter though he was very proud of having played not only both holmes and watson but sherlock’s brother mycroft as well lord summerisle of the original the wicker man probably his favorite of his own movies is most likely closer to chris’s dark benignity than any other role he ever inhabited I believe this because lord summerisle sings a surprising amount in that movie and chris passionately loved singing if there is any such thing as an afterlife or reincarnation I truly hope no believe that christopher lee will return as a wagnerian opera singer if he hadn’t been considered too old in his 30s to be accepted for formal vocal training he might have been in his own eyes at least a happier more fulfilled man but we would have been deeply poorer for it and never have known See Other related 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[ilikelookingatthings]

Barbie’s Duality and Untapped Role Model Potential

this particular essay by Clarisa Calderon-Figueroa

When I say Barbie, what pops into your head? A plastic doll with blond locks? The color Pink? Princesses? Glitter? Gender segregated toy sections at Target? Ripped off limbs? Maybe personal memories of playing with Barbie yourself scroll across the back of your eyelids. Or a sense of shallow distaste as you think of plastic surgery, removed ribs, and righteous complaints about body image. Barbie is a household name that has been steadily embedding itself in the world's collective consciousness since “1959,  with her vast array of careers that stem from CEO to astronaut, but who simultaneously is more associated with the lyrics "I'm a blond bimbo girl" by the band "Aqua" ( Dockterman "A Barbie for Every Body") than the female empowerment message she goes out of her way to promote. The collective consciousness pulls "that age-old move" of "'demeaning' a powerful woman" and undercutting Barbie’s influence and the values she actually promotes by "'reducing' her to her appearance." ( Dockterman "Wonder Woman Breaks Through"). She is unfairly accused of selling a sexist, objectifying message under the veneer of empowering girls, stifling the untapped potential this icon has to teach children and adults the value of feminine traits.

 Barbie has been accused of being inappropriate because of her body shape; on the surface these concerns are valid. According to a journal Barbie's design had been closely based on the "Lilli dolls, designed by O & M Hausser created in 1955…" which were "... racy..." dolls meant to be "… suggestive…" "… gag gifts..." that "… were not intended for children"(Hunter et al 138). She supposedly had the male gaze built into her and was repackaged for young girls. A 2006 study found that"girls exposed to Barbie at a young age were more likely to worry about their weight" (Dockterman "A Barbie for Every Body"). However, the study fails to consider that Barbie is not the only doll children would be playing with in real life. Some of those dolls have even more severe proportions than Barbie with a less wholesome image. Match up a Veterinarian Barbie with her "5-inch waist", "11.5-inches of height" and a "bust of 5-inches" against a Bratz doll with their "pouty lips", "bare midriff-baring tops", and half the waist with 7/10th the bust size(Hess). The disproportionate proportions winner is the Bratz doll. The study also proclaims that Barbie wouldn't be realistic if she was scaled up to actual human size, but Barbie is not meant to be scaled up and has never claimed to be realistic.

Barbie has tried to address the criticisms about her proportions by creating the "petite, tall" and "curvy"( Dockterman "A Barbie for Every Body") barbie body molds and with her worldwide reach, she can soon normalize the doll shapes from a young age since as of yet little girls still "snicker" at curvy barbie" which was noted by Tania Missad who had watched the test marketing of these new body types. If Barbie was the source of these body image issues kids would not snicker at different barbies but while she is not responsible she does have the ability to influence kids, especially with live examples of powerful female role models "Beyonce, Christina Hendricks" and "feminist leaders like Lena Dunham" with their "un-Barbie-like figures onscreen, fueling a movement that promotes body acceptance"(Dockterman 46). Barbie has the unique enduring appeal that has been picked up by generations of children; soon her different body types will recalibrate at the new normal.

 Instead of blaming the society and the media that girls are exposed to daily, the blame is thrust on to Barbie even though "she's just a body" that "society can project on"(Dockterman "A Barbie for Every Body") and no one tries to blame boy toys like G.I. Joe of being a bad influence on young lads despite being the hyper-masculine ideal. Barbie is not even the only female icon that has her appearance dragged out to ridicule and used to distract from their actual accomplishments. The superhero Wonder Woman was sculpted from the mind of a "feminist, psychologist and… inventor of the lie-detector test..." "William Moulton Marston" in "1941" as "icon for little girls". Wonder woman's message of empowerment became so iconic the "U.N." dubbed her the "Honorary Ambassador for the Empowerment of Women and Girls..". Unfortunately, her position was rescinded due to a "petition objecting to "a large-breasted white woman of impossible proportions..."; dismissing her as a "... epitome of a 'pinup'" (Dockterman "wonder woman breaks through"). Wonder Woman has been around since Batman and Superman and yet she has had only "one" film compared to the "'Batman's' nine" and "'Superman's seven". People even criticized Gal Gadot as Wonder Woman, not for her acting talent but for the size of her breasts, according to an interview mentioned in the Wonder Woman Breaks Through article. Evidence that the phenomenon of society judging the looks of females and using them as excuses to undercut the messages those ladies represent live people and imaginary characters.

 Another complaint lobbied about the Barbie brand’s narrow view of positive, cheerful girl power. It's true, Mattel could be promoting one type of image of what being a girl is like, but the fact that Barbie from her inception has "inspired resistance" to even her own "script" (Weida el al [103]17-31) and has inspired conversations about what it means to be a lady. Even when Barbie seems one note she can be used to articulate a change. Barbie, as mentioned before with the body molds, has adapted to these arguments; just as feminism has grown and changed over time. Barbie has even purposefully used start a ripple of change for young girls to become interested “in the field of computers and information technology” by filling the gap caused by the “lack of well-known female role models” with the Barbie computer science "coding program"(Martincic et al 7).

 The classic Barbie doll is often accused of promoting a shallow, stereotypical view of the female gender. Its true Barbie is blonde, pretty, fashion-obsessed, loves glitter, and associated with the term princess, however, seeing these as a negative from the get go is sexist in and of itself. If someone is blonde they shouldn’t be taken less seriously than a brunette. If their preferred color is pink it doesn't mean they should be judged more than if their favorite is blue. Enjoying clothes isn’t inherent shallow as it is a method expressing yourself; and glitter is gender-neutral. By associating these feminine aspects with negative light it can lead to dismissing other traits deemed as feminine, such as kindness or compassion, as weak. If girls don't respect those aspects how will they get boys to respect those aspects? Barbie takes those stereotypical girly aspects people have been conditioned over time to avoid and proclaims there is nothing to be ashamed of.

 Even the idea of princesses has become synonymous with being a damsel in distress; a passive prize to be won. In reality, princesses are leaders and have " 'spanned' nearly all cultures and time periods…" and have a "myriad representations"(Weida el al 17-31) of what princesses can be like. The damsel image can immediately be changed when you change the princess to an active main character who drives the story. Barbie has a large association with princesses due to her movie franchise that almost slaps the term princess or mention of a royal in a majority of her films that I am a big fan of because Barbie is always the main character and the goals of the movies don't revolve around romance. Barbie's overly pink girly image is associated with the damsel stereotype which also means when Barbie breaks that stereotype over and over again it will stick. Barbie draws in little girls with her pretty dresses and sparkly animation and can inspire and teach little girls' leadership by normalizing the idea that guys can "… play subordinate roles in comparison with the female characters" (Änggård) since Barbie is the active problem solver.

 Barbie as a female-focused brand explores scenarios where girls are the central focus without the expectations that they'll be brushed aside in favor of boy characters which can happen in more neutral, family-oriented. Slipping in an accidentally positive preference bias toward guys. Eva Änggård had noted that while the girls had included boys in their stories, none of the boys included girls in their own stories. The boys seemed to associate "The presence of female figures…to romance" which caused "teasing" from other boys. It had gotten to the point at least "two girls" had become "angry because they were not allowed to play in the boys' stories" so they "wrote their own stories" (Änggård) that used the themes the boys had favored. Kids reflect the society around them so the fact that the boys dismissed the girls entirely from the story is a micro-example of what happens on a large scale around the world. Barbie can fight those expectations due to her wide media presence. If the media would stop focusing on the flaws Barbie is ironing out and talk about how entertaining her shows or toys are, or the lessons she actually endorses, Barbie might teach the guys who aren't just forced to watch with their sisters the leadership qualities and friendship lessons.

 Barbie has a wide reach not just as a toy, but through her "39" ("List of All Barbie Movies Online") movies and TV shows including Barbie Life in the Dreamhouse. Barbie has computer games and clothing lines. Barbie appeals to nostalgic adults with their collector Barbies; using that connection to prompts those adults to introduce Barbie to their kids. Barbie has an online presence that includes a motion capture Barbie YouTube channel, the Facebook page, or her twitter account ("Barbie YouTube"). Her worldwide appeal is already strong so if the instinct to brush aside girl-oriented media and jump on every minor flaw Barbie has was curbed, she could influence young children when they are the most impressionable to accept many wonderful traits.

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 Cite

Änggård, Eva. "Barbie Princesses and Dinosaur Dragons: Narration as a Way of Doing Gender." Gender & Education, vol. 17, no. 5, Dec. 2005, pp. 539–553. EBSCOhost, doi: 10.1080/09540250500192777.

"Barbie." YouTube, YouTube, www.youtube.com/c/barbie/videos.

Dockterman, Eliana. "A Barbie for Every Body. (Cover Story)." TIME Magazine, vol. 187, no. 4, Feb. 2016, pp. 44–51. EBSCOhost, search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=a9h&AN=112553378&scope=site.

Dockterman, Eliana. "Wonder Woman Breaks Through." TIME Magazine, vol. 188, no. 27–28, Dec. 2016, pp. 98–105. EBSCOhost, search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=a9h&AN=120303854&scope=site.

Hess, Amanda. "Leave Barbie Alone! She's Not the Skinniest Doll on the Block." Slate Magazine, Slate, 5 Feb. 2014, slate.com/human-interest/2014/02/barbies-not-the-skinniest-doll-on-the-block-measuring-barbie-bratz-monster-high-and-american-girl-dolls.html. WEB

Hunter, Dan, and F. Gregory Lastowka. "BarbieTM." Tulane Journal of Technology & Intellectual Property, Vol. 18. Fall 2015, pp. 133-160. EBSCOhost, search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct-true&db=a9h&AN=111415505&scope=site.

"List of All Barbie Movies (Online)." Princess Movies Online, Princess Movies Online Copyright © 2020. Disney Movies Online Kids Movies, 11 Aug. 2020, www.princessmovies.org/barbie-movies/list-all-barbie-movies-online/.

Martincic, Cynthia J., and Neelima Bhatnagar. "Will Computer Engineer Barbie Impact Young Woman's Career Choices?" Information Systems Education Journal, vol. 10, no. 6, Dec. 2012, pp. 4-14. EBSCOhost, search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=eric&AN=EJ1136648&site=eds-live&scope=site.

Weida, Courtney Lee, et al. "Poetics of the Fairy Tale Princess: Products, Problems, & Possibilities." Canadian Review of Art Education: Research & Issues, vol. 46, no. 2, July 2019, pp. 17–32. EBSCOhost, search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=a9h&AN=138903133&scope=site.

[thewellzine]

High Fidelity, Racial Ambiguity, and the Myth of Universality in Film and Television

By Amber Delgado 

I rarely binge watch television shows, I try my hardest to avoid it. I go to the movie theater pretty regularly—the ease of entering a specific viewing space to consume a story where I know I’ll receive a beginning, middle, and end typically within a two- and half-hour time span (to include trailers) is efficient for my busy millennial lifestyle. With the advancement of streaming services within the past decade, television series are getting better, more “diverse,” more abundant, and simultaneously longer in episode length and shorter in number of episodes within a series. I avoid binge watching for two reasons, the first being due to the capitalist society I’ve been brought up in; it makes me feel like a lazy, worthless blob of a human being to have sat or laid still for hours on end looking at a screen. How dare I spend that much time being unproductive? The second is that these shows, the good ones at least, are so damn tempting to binge they practically require it. The next episode button counting down in the right-hand corner basically taunting you as the music of the quick credits plays in the background. A black screen with white text pops up and you’re stuck with that immediacy to decide: should I continue being a worthless blob or finally go to the gym? Because I can at times have an addictive personality, I always go in for the kill when I occasionally find a show that I enjoy.

I hadn’t heard much about the new Hulu adaptation of High Fidelity starring Zoe Kravitz until about a week ago, through Instagram. I believe someone I follow shared in their Instagram story a promotional photo that Zoe Kravitz took for the show. Due to my years long crush on Zoe, I looked further into what exactly this show was about. I had never heard or seen the original film High Fidelity, adapted from the novel by Nick Hornby. So I was interested to check it out, and on Saturday night after returning from the gym and starting some laundry, I decided to attempt to watch only a couple of episodes.

In the opening scene of the first episode Zoe Kravit’s’ character Rob, is breaking the fourth wall in tears about the breakup with her boyfriend Mac. It really draws you in. (I personally haven’t seen much Zoe Kravitz has acted in. I’m aware of her most recent role in Big Little Lies, but was never too interested in giving that a watch; take that with a grain of salt because again, I’m not watching much television generally compared to the average person). The acting in this scene, and also how stunning Kravitz is, instantly pulls you into the series. Rob replaces the main character played by John Cusack in the original film adaptation. While I was watching the show, I found myself Googling more about both the novel and the film, and scanning reviews for more context regarding the show.

Little to no surprise, I read multiple headlines claiming how groundbreaking it is to have Zoe Kravitz replacing a white male lead. What was surprising for me however, is how in the ten episodes, the character Rob—played by Kravitz, a Black woman—rarely acknowledges her identity and rarely has dialogue with other characters in the show. I enjoyed High Fidelity for its incredible costume design; lighthearted moments; the comedic champion who carries the show, breakthrough actress Da’Vine Joy Randolph (who has one of my favorite character introductions in television history);and its nostalgic and fun soundtrack. Where the series falls flat for me is unfortunately through the writing of the main character, Rob. I want so badly to like her and root for her; I see a lot myself in how she shows up (or doesn’t) in relationships. I enjoy newer series giving complexity to female leads in terms of romantic relationships. Being shown the representation that women don’t always have their shit together, we can be confused, we can seek multiple partners, we can hurt people and don’t always conform to the predetermined, hetero-patriarchal assignment of care-giving nurturers, we can crave sexual relationships and pleasure without seeking long term commitments.

This review is me wading through something I’ve constantly been thinking about. A couple of months ago, while having a conversation with a friend of mine who is a cis-het white filmmaker, we discussed him writing in characters that are people of color within his scripts. And got into disagreement about representational writing and universality. He was arguing that there are certain stories and emotions that transcend race and identity. And also, that not all television and film consisting of Black and Brown characters have to directly be attached to their identity, they can just be “everyday people with everyday stories doing ordinary things.” This is what the writing of High Fidelity feels like to me. I suspect a predominately white writers’ room casting a Black woman lead character in replace of this story about a white man who owns a used record store.

My discomfort around Rob’s character are in the writing; I’m not arguing for a monolithic representation of Blackness and Black womanhood or a script that consistently states that Kravitz is a Black woman. I don’t think that Rob isn’t written “Black” enough for me to enjoy. Moreover, I feel when Black characters in television and film are written through the lens of universality, so much context of living life as a Black person is lost. That type of representation is one we cannot afford to lay to rest when Black people can never “put down” their Blackness and while white supremacy remains entrenched within the foundation this country was built upon. White people need to understand that Blackness can never be detached from our everyday lives, both white people who are consuming media and culture and those creating it who want to have a fun diversity party.

The myth of universality serves white supremacy, white people having the historical advantage of defining rules and building institutions. I can’t help but associate a yearning for universality with objectivity. The argument of make this “neutral enough so everyone can enjoy it” undeniably has historically served and prioritized whiteness. This always brings me back to the amazing Toni Morrison quote which I feel directly addresses the myth of universality:

“I never asked Tolstoy to write for me, a little colored girl in Lorain, Ohio. I never asked [James] Joyce not to mention Catholicism or the world of Dublin. Never. And I don't know why I should be asked to explain your life to you. We have splendid writers to do that, but I am not one of them. It is that business of being universal, a word hopelessly stripped of meaning for me. Faulkner wrote what I suppose could be called regional literature and had it published all over the world. That's what I wish to do. If I tried to write a universal novel, it would be water. Behind this question is the suggestion that to write for black people is somehow to diminish the writing. From my perspective there are only black people. When I say 'people,' that's what I mean.”

Rob lives in Crown Heights in Brooklyn, and a majority of people she dates and hangs out with are white people, with the exception of her brother and her co-worker and friend, Cherise, who she seems to have a complicated relationship with. I think this show is able to literally write off Rob’s Blackness, due to Zoe Kravitz being a lighter skinned, almost racially ambiguous Black person…which has long been in discussion within how Black people are represented in media. Major production houses and casting companies are most comfortable seeking Black actors who confirm the loose curl pattern, light skin preference. Even Zendaya has acknowledged her awareness of her career being due to how she looks, and how she looks being preferred by the industry. What does it say that in the year 2020 we have the nerve to celebrate representation when so many of the Black actors getting work have all these same physical attributes? Where is the diversity, really?

Lastly, like in the film and the book, Rob goes through her top five worst breakups of all time, and seeks to contact them as a means for understanding why her relationships are failing. As she goes through this list, four out of five partners are white people. I myself, being biracial and growing up middle class, understand firsthand how their specific experiences can lead to a Black person ending up in predominately white spaces. However, these contexts are never presented for Rob in the story of her character; the series treats, as natural, that a Black woman just happens to have always had a bunch of white people in her life…and that needs no explanation as to how? This is particularly hard to take in throughout the series as she consistently disrespects, undermines, and ignores her only Black woman friend and employee, Cherise. At times, outside of her Black most recent ex-boyfriend, Mac, I questioned if Rob really cared to have any Black people in her life, which wouldn’t be difficult to do living in New York City. Why were the writers content with making those decisions? It was enough to have a Black woman lead and one Black supporting character—the diversity box is checked and then the rest of this cast can be mostly white.

Rob feels so flat to me; there was potential in this remake but it feels the writers were striving for the clout of having a Black female lead without actually writing a Black female lead. I’ve also had a similar feeling about the 2019 film Waves, starring Kelvin Harrison Jr. and directed and written by a white man. When watching the trailer for Waves, I felt like I had no idea what it was about, and after a Google search and seeing that the film was written and directed by a white man with a predominately Black cast, I instantly lost interest. I did follow through on seeing it out of curiosity, and for me it was my least favorite film of 2019.

At this point, I’m sure you’re asking yourself, especially if you’re a white person, “So what, white people can’t write in characters they don’t have a lived experience of? Isn’t that art? Can’t I be free to make whatever I want?” White people don’t need my approval to create, or much less do anything. White people have been doing whatever they want to since the beginning of this land mass (see colonialism). What I am saying through this review, is that if you expect a hoorah for your forced universalism via pre-approved Black and Brown bodies that you call diversity, we’re gonna continue to see right through that. So hire some Black and Brown writers, there’s plenty out there.

[sonicfanj]

One of the things that endears Tails and Amy to me is the strength of self contrast the two of them used to have that sold a positive message of freedom to be yourself. 

In Tails’ case it was the fact that he was both athletic and highly nerdy in a time era when you were either one or the other (jocks vs. nerds anyone?) and promptly insulted for either. Jocks were frequently called dumb behind their backs for fear of physical retaliation while nerds were insulted for liking anything that wasn’t scholastically approved in addition to enjoying science and were frequently physically abused because of their physical frailty. Yet, along comes Tails who is both a nerd and has the physical ability to put most jocks to shame. He married these two opposing extremes/contrasting archetypes in a character who strangely lacked any self confidence yet was always encouraged to do his best and embrace being him. He embodied the good of both athletic and intellectual ability while sympathizing with how no matter how good you are there is always insecurity. He’s such a superb character in that regard to me.

Then you have Amy, who still faces the same stigmas over and over again that have been persistently present since she was introduced. If a girl is girly she must be frail and simultaneously is demeaning to women because she paints a stereotype that prevents woman from being equal with men. If a girl is a tomboy she is throwing away her femininity and trying to be a man to earn “false respect” without recognizing her place. I’m sorry, what? This type of rhetoric has always found its way to Amy conversations and as a result people ignore her spectacular contrast of being a girly-tomboy. She enjoys traditionally girly things like fashion, frilly things, thinking about the boy she likes, and simultaneously loves doing the things that the boys do such as going on adventures, taking part of the action regardless of the form, and so on. Like Tails, Amy takes two supposedly opposing extremes/contrasting archetypes and marries them into a character that has both harmoniously. And then on top of that she is absolutely over the moon happy when she is doing either traditionally girly or boyish activities and strongly emphasizes that these activities are enjoyable and can exist together harmoniously. The emphasis she brings to just doing what she likes and enjoying that has always been so inspirational in my opinion.

Unfortunately I have seen too many people demand for both of them that they pursue a unique identity by shaving off large chunks of who they are. I constantly see people wanting Tails to be the gadget guy because it matches his smarts and makes him distinct from his hero that he wants to be like, or bashing Amy for either being too girly or too boyish as it makes her a bad role model for girls by not being some elusive idea strong female character. Somehow these individuals fail to realize that Tails is awesome because he has brains and athletic ability, pretty much able to be the Spider-Man of the Sonic universe if just given the chance, and fail to understand that Amy is a great role model and powerful female character because she embraces who she is, what she wants to do, and lets absolutely no one tell her she can’t be her even though they don’t like it. It just eats me up when I see Tails not using his physical abilities or Amy stripped of her everything to be some model female clone who supports indescribable agenda’s that she better supports by just being her.

Tails and Amy are built from contrasting archetypes and are so much stronger for it with so much potential that is freely brought out just by traveling with Sonic. Tails can demonstrate his athletic ability just by keeping up, but interacting with Eggman’s creations also brings out his nerdy side as he marvels at the doc’s work. Amy has her girly side brought out as she tries to win over the boy of her dreams but also has her love of traditionally boyish things come out by her love of the adventures and excitement that she experiences by chasing after Sonic and partaking in his adventures.

Their is also the potential for a great relationship that exists between Tails and Amy as Sonic’s two biggest fans. Amy’s optimism and belief in the ability of others serves as a counter and foil to Tails’ self-doubt while Tails’ more reserved nature and abilities supports and foils Amy’s more reckless and spontaneous tendencies without necessarily the ability to keep herself out of trouble. The two support each other so well and are so heavily invested in Sonic and what he brings to their lives, as well as him as just a person and the most important person in the world to them. It’s part of the reason I believe in a trio of Sonic, Tails, and Amy instead of Knuckles* as the relationship between the three and ability to partake in a never ending road trip is so harmonious and multi-directional. Sonic encourages Tails to be his best at everything he does and constantly provides encouragement by being a great big brother figure, while with Amy he may tease her, but with her personality his teasing encourages her to keep going and strive to get better and better creating a cycle of constant self improvement. Tails meanwhile supports Sonic both with his physical and intellectual abilities while Amy’s overflowing emotions, teasing, and persistence in chasing Sonic gives him reason to keep doing what he loves (running) and also face those emotions of his that traditional masculinity and boyhood naivete frowns upon. And as stated above there is the relationship of support that can exist between Tails and Amy that is also two way.

So to me at least, Tails and Amy are such great characters conceptually who are more often than not squandered due to any number of reasons. It’s a shame to since I feel the Shōnen Jump tenants of friendship, effort, victory easily work with them and the franchise and target demographic. Then of course just their shared desire to follow Sonic on his adventures, not just with each other but with the audience, combined with the caring nature they draw out of Sonic on a much more personally level than his strong sense of justice ever demonstrates. I think SEGA/Sonic Team isn’t necessarily wrong that a trio setup best benefits the franchise, but where SEGA/Sonic Team looks at the profit margin imagery I look at the character narrative ability and think they focus on the wrong trio. Sure that trio brings instant familiarity which guarantees a quick sale, but I think that a solid narrative that fully embraces the relationships that can happen naturally and takes full advantage of that would bring the business so much more money just becasue something well crafted and believable that reaches well beyond just the gameplay/classic imagery crowd could bring back so much more. Sonic games have narrative after all, and when people come for a narrative good and natural character dynamics can it make memorable even if the narrative isn’t so much. I feel personally that Tails and Amy add that to the Sonic/Eggman dynamic and find it a shame that who should have been a one off character prevents that from being because it seems to me at least that the short term dollar signs orbiting him blind SEGA/Sonic Team/everyone else from seeing how teh franchise can grow beyond its currently shriveled state.

*[I don’t have anything against Knuckles but prefer him as the Guardian of the Master Emerald whose excursions away from Angel Island are duty related (like in the Japanese Chaotix manual) making his every appearance a question of whether or not he is an ally this time.]

[johnnymundano]

Phantom of Death (1988) (AKA Off Balance)

Directed by Ruggero Deodato

Screenplay by Gianfranco Clerici, Vincenzo Mannino and Gigliola Battaglini

Story by Gianfranco Clerici and Vincenzo Mannino

Music by Pino Donnagio

Country: Italy

Running Time: 90 minutes

CAST

Michael York as Robert Dominici

Donald Pleasence as Inspector Datti

Edwige Fenech as Helene Martell

Mapi Galan as Susanna

Fabio Sortar as Davide

Renato Cortesi as Agent Marchi

Antonella Ponziani as Gloria Datti

Carola Stagnaro as Dr. Carla Pesenti

Daniele Brado as Dr. Vanni

Caterina Boratto as Robert's mother

Ruggero Deodato as man at train station who lights cigarette and then gets on the back of his girlfriend’s scooter

Phantom of Death is a giddily entertaining Italian horror muddle with far more serious themes than one might reasonably expect from director Ruggero Deodato, the man known as “The Cannibal King”. My legal advisers have urged me to specify that this isn’t because Ruggero Deodato is actually the ruler of a bunch of people eaters, but because he directed Last Cannibal World (1977) and Cannibal Holocaust (1980), both of which were hugely successful and are still cited today as significant influences on horror. (This doesn’t mean they are any good, mind.)  Phantom of Death takes on a far more universal horror than going into a jungle and being turned into pulled long pork by cannibals; the fear of ageing and also the horror of realising you’ve run out of time to stop being a dick and actually do something worthwhile with your life.

When the movie opens fantastic pianist Robert Dominici (Michael York) is definitely a dick. Robert revels in the adoration which comes with looking like Michael York and playing the piano by moving your shoulders and making intense faces while keeping your hands hidden. Unfortunately he revels in it to the detriment of his personal interactions. He’s a bit of a dick with the chicks, basically. Time is of the essence both in life and in Phantom of Death, so it doesn’t hang about; opening with Robert’s public tinkling of the ivories intercut with the stalking and slashing of a young woman. Yes, because this is a 1980’s Italian horror movie and so some maniac is going around slashing young women to death. Quicker than you can say “Liberace” the roster of victims expands to include Robert’s girlfriend. Unfortunately for Robert not only do the police led by Inspector Datti (Donald Pleasence) find him stood over her gory corpse, but earlier the pair had had a tiff. It seems pretty clear then that Phantom of Death will be a giallo, and Robert is odds on to be our typically ill-equipped sleuth. Yes, given the way Phantom of Death has gone thus far viewers could very well be forgiven for expecting a choppily edited, intrusively scored, minor giallo, notable mostly for the amount of blood it thinks a human neck can spurt and the presence of Michael York, Donald Pleasence and Edwige Fenech. Which would be fine by me, but Phantom of Death has other, higher ideas. If you’d rather be surprised by them then stop reading NOW.

It should be borne in mind at all times that any praise from hereonin is directed at a movie directed by someone called The Cannibal King; a movie that most normal people would dismiss as “godawful bloody nonsense” (as my Life Partner has opined of my viewing choices on numerous occasions). But if you are okay with the peculiar charms of the Italian horror movies of the 1970s and 1980s (or Christ-like in your tolerance for their failings) then Phantom of Death may be right up your (dimly lit) alley. Particularly impressive is the conviction with which it sets up the viewer to expect a giallo. The opening itself is a suave misdirection in the true giallo style; the two events, piano playing and lady slaying, are not occurring simultaneously, but you naturally assume they are. Then, and it’s quite ballsy this, Robert is given a personal reason to pursue the killer when he is found by the police at the scene of his girlfriend’s murder. He can’t possibly be the murder because it would be to obvious, you think. You think wrong. Admittedly Phantom of Death doesn’t let you think wrong for long, it soon makes it clear what’s going on, because it needs to start the real business of the movie; positioning Robert as a tragic killer, himself the victim of a killer, the disease progeria (AKA Hutchinson-Gilford progeria syndrome).

Now, I’m not a medical professional but I’m going to assume that Phantom of Death takes a little (cough!) artist licence and that progeria itself doesn’t usually cause irresistible homicidal impulses. It’s probably hard to tell since in the real world it manifests in children, who, sadly, usually fail to reach the age of 13. As well as the symptoms required by a 1980s Italian horror movie, Robert also experiences the more usual symptoms of progeria which resemble rapid aging, with death resulting from heart ailments or strokes. Robert’s basically got the real world equivalent of Methuselah Syndrome from Blade Runner (1982) but on fast forward. No wonder he goes a bit loopy. When he isn’t killing women and playing cat and mouse with an increasingly distraught Inspector Datti, Robert indulges in the maudlin activities familiar from many serious Oscar® winning Sad Disease movies. He visits his first love for a bittersweet reminiscence, mournfully watches from afar a child afflicted with the selfsame disease, adopts a stray dog and talks to it soulfully about how tragic is his fate to be trapped in this afflicted cage of flesh. Amusingly though, this isn’t a serious Oscar® winning Sad Disease movie, no, it’s a 1980s Italian horror movie and so his first love is a hooker who he visits while dressed as The Phantom of The Opera, and the reunion is ruined by her violent death at his hands; the stricken child is obviously a fully grown dwarf in shorts playing with a ball. The fact that any soulfulness at all is evident under all this silliness is entirely thanks to Michael York.

The (doubtful) success of Phantom of Death is aided no end by Deodata’s cast being  topped by two Legends; the insanely watchable Donald Pleasence and plummy voiced ‘70/’80s heart throb Michael York. York, normally cast as a bland lump,  is pretty great here; obviously relishing the chance to do some acting for once. He evidently recognises it’s a gift of a role; even if it is wrapped in the ostentatiously crazed genre trappings and poor editing of a 1980s Italian horror movie. As the young, handsome Robert, York is in his element wallowing in the feminine attention but surprisingly, as Robert gets older, more scared and ever madder York’s performance keeps pace. It’s possible he might be overdoing it, but since he’s acting from inside steadily accumulating layers of 1980s prosthetic face make-up and a pair of fake brown teeth any hamminess is muted, leaving only a bizarrely touching performance.

Donald Pleasence, as Inspector Datti, gets less to do but manfully struggles to forge a character from some pretty dull dialogue. He is a charmingly concerned father to his daughter and a determined hunter of the mystery killer. When Robert’s increasingly deranged telephonic harassment of the cop expands to include his beloved daughter, Datti’s compartmentalised roles collide and Pleasence revels in the slow burn to full blown mania. One of the finest cinematic sights of my life has been seeing Donald Pleasence spinning round a shopping plaza yelling “I kill you! I kill you! Bastard! Kill you! Fucking Bastard! Bastard!” Thank you, Phantom of Death. No thanks though for under-using Edwige Fenech. Yes, gialllo regular Edwige Fenech is also here, speaking English in her own voice for once; but she is more of a niche attraction as she doesn’t have much to do. Obviously, what she does do she does with the usual effortless Fenech panache. Regally sporting terrible, shoulder padded ‘80s styles is the bulk of her role, but she’s mostly there to get pregnant with Robert’s child and so give the climax some emotional resonance among all the screaming and stumbling about. Not many movies end with a savage fight between an arthritic old man and a heavily pregnant woman, but Phantom of Death dares to go there.

Despite initially looking like a run of the mill giallo, Phantom of Death opts instead to try an allegorical rumination on the inescapable nightmare of senescence that awaits those of us who don’t die young. Fret not though, all this high mindedness is done in a relentlessly tasteless fashion. And no serious fan of 1980s Italian horror movies would want it otherwise.

[hobdya]

The Erasure of Women’s Presence and Autonomy of Choice in Fetal Photography

The visual images presented to the mass culture when it comes to the process surrounding conceiving and carrying children have a longs history of excluding the experiences of pregnant women and their very bodies. This erasure continues to heavily contribute to the idea that (1) when a woman of any age gets pregnant, her body is not her own and (2) her body now serves as a conduit through which human life is born, regardless of the costs to even her own personal safety and life.

As Carol Stabile writes in her article “Shooting the Mother: Fetal Photography and the Politics of Disappearance,” when it comes to showing the stages of a pregnancy through photography and visual imagery, the mother is not shown as a human being whose internal organs are going through countless changes in order to adjust and go against nature by allowing a parasitic organism to live and survive in its body with no symbiotic balance (1992). Instead, women are removed from being thought of as human beings and are relegated down to being just a womb, or a safe space, for an embryo or a fetus to remain in until birth. 

Also, in order to continue to control the narrative of separating the individual woman from her reproductive organs while simultaneously giving her a motherly role without taking in consideration the lack of maternal instincts in such short time, the media helps perpetuate the idea that life begins as soon as a child is conceived as the female is “initially referred to as ‘the woman’ in the text, [yet] after eight days “she” is transformed into the “mother””(Stabile, 1992). The idea that a woman should be labeled as a ‘mother’ before she even becomes aware that she is pregnant and be forced to sacrifice her safety and wellbeing for that of a parasitic organism that isn’t a baby until much later on in the pregnancy cycle basically helps push the narrative that women’s bodies are not their own. Stabile also talks about the Time Magazine’s publication on conceiving where the photographs of the fetus, amniotic sac and placenta were celebrated as the first look into the beginning of human life itself yet the media failed to also point out that the only reason they were able to get such good photos in the first place was because the fetus was no longer a living organism and that they had manipulated the embryo itself by peeling back the placenta and such (1992).  In these photos celebrating life, the woman is never shown and her state of living as a human person, discomfort and even potential complications are not even mentioned.

In today’s day and age, women’s autonomy over their own bodies and the right to choose whether to keep or abort a pregnancy continues to be on the forefront of political and moral discussion. Photographs almost always depict fetuses as living beings housed inside the woman’s partially erased body except for the placenta as a wonder of life that starts in the first weeks of pregnancy, and these images and videos can be found literary everywhere. Imagery that continues to separate the woman from her reproductive system and puts all the focus on the embryo or fetus as the most important instead of the actual woman (who has been living and building her life as a member of society) helps to strip away the voice of women in this matter, especially when we hear of stories where women have been denied the right to receive treatments because they were with child and have died as a result.

In the article “Fetal Galaxies: Some Questions About What We See,” Meredith Michaels points out that fetal photography not only erases the presence of the woman carrying the child once it becomes an embryo or fetus, but it has also likened the wombs of women carrying the cells and organisms that we as normal people see as clots and fissures to ethereal galaxies and solar systems (1999). Imagery of this sorts puts the early stages of conceiving on a pedestal of wonder and sanctimony  which can directly conflict with the wills of the very women whose bodies are going through this process. Instead of being a natural and very personal decision that should be made by the person who will be forever tethered to the child,  pregnancy has become a socio-political agenda setting occurrence that includes all kinds of rhetoric and opinions of people who were never meant to be involved in the first place. 

Likening the inside of women’s sexual & reproductive organs when carrying a fetus or fission of cells to the wonders of nebulas and gas clouds in outer space only creates pressure and makes it harder for women to exercise their personal right to make decisions regarding abortions or going through with their personal pregnancies, and this helps to further strip women’s “full capacity as social agents” when it comes to their own bodies.

 I had the amazing opportunity to watch my mother give birth three times to my younger siblings and I witnessed every step of her journey of becoming a mother and going through with full term pregnancies. Her struggles and discomforts and bodily changes made it aware to me that even though we prayed for a healthy baby and a successful pregnancy, her wellbeing and health was of utmost importance. I realized that the strength of bearing a child is no easy feat or task and that women of all kinds perform a true miracle when it comes to bringing new people into the world by sacrificing so much of themselves to do so. As such, women and their bodies should be given the respect and acknowledgement that they deserve when it comes to portraying the process of conception and the erasure of the female presence should be discontinued through such visual imagery.

[thisguyatthemovies]

Four for the price of one

“The Last Black Man in San Francisco” (on disc/streaming Aug. 13, 2019; rated R; directed by Joe Talbot; run time 2 hours) is a cinematic love letter to San Francisco, one full of postcard-worthy imagery and tender moments but also one that questions what the City by the Bay has become. The story follows friends Jimmie Fails (as a version of himself) and Jonathan Majors (as Mont). They are adult black males, underemployed but clinging to big dreams. Mont is a sweet, odd man who is an artist and wants to be a playwright. Jimmie is pensive and sensitive. And he is homeless, sleeping on the floor next to Mont’s bed in the home of Mont’s grandfather (Danny Glover). Jimmie and Mont often wheel around town on Jimmie’s skateboard. Jimmie has a fascination for an old Victorian home in the Filmore part of the city, a neighborhood once predominantly black but one now that has been revamped through gentrification. Without the owners’ permission, Jimmie starts fixing up the house. When it becomes vacant, he and Mont move in and plan to get the property through squatting. Their plan is foiled, though, by an aggressive real-estate agent who wants to sell the $4 million home – a price Jimmie can’t possibly afford. While “The Last Black Man in San Francisco” is a story about gentrification (the black population in the city has fallen from about 15 percent in the 1970s to 5 percent today, and a one-bedroom apartment can cost more than $4,000 a month in previously blighted areas of the city), but it makes its social commentary subtly and uniquely (but offers no answers), and through the friendship between Jimmie and Mort. A sort of Greek chorus of young men who hang out on the street ruthlessly insult each other and Jimmie and Mort, and they and others sometimes let the two know they aren’t as “black” or “masculine” as young black men are traditionally expected to be. Fails and Majors are excellent even when they aren’t saying much with words. First-time feature director Joe Talbot (a childhood friend of Fails) fills the movie with warm but decidedly urban imagery. The entire movie seems to have been filmed just before dusk on a warm autumn day. “The Last Man in San Francisco” was released to talk of being a Best Picture contender. And it is worthy of the academy’s consideration. Rating: 95 out of 100.

“Ready or Not” (in theaters Aug. 21, 2019; rated R; directed by Matt Bettinelli-Olpin and Tyler Gillett; run time 1 hour, 35 minutes) is a horror story (and a gruesome one at that) that also is a thinly disguised condemnation of old wealth. It stars Samara Weaving as Grace, a young woman who is about to marry into money. That money belongs to the Le Domas family, who inherited their riches from a relative who made his fortune through board games – and apparently made a deal with the devil in the process. After she marries black sheep Alex Le Domas (Mark O’Brien), the family informs Grace she must participate in a Le Domas wedding night tradition. Grace and her new in-laws will play a game randomly chosen from a stack of cards. When Grace draws a hide-and-seek card, she laughs it off. But soon she realizes the game is deadly. Grace must stay hidden from her armed pursuers in the darkly lit family mansion (candles everywhere despite the film being set in the present day) until dawn the next day. If she survives, terrible things will happen to the Le Domas family. “Ready or Not” is brutal in its violence but also aspires to be a dark comedy, and in the end it does both better than average, but not a lot better than average. It seems to work best as an action/suspense film when the family is chasing Grace. The black comedy has its moments, but the laughs are sporadic and the dialogue annoying (and full of F-bombs). Also grating are some of the characters, particularly Alex’s Aunt Helene (Nicky Guardagni), who glares at Grace throughout and looks ridiculous in swept-back hair and too much eyeliner (there are many smoky eyes throughout). Weaving is the film’s strong suit, but she delivers a ridiculous one-word last line, one that simultaneously goes for a cheap laugh and groans. “Ready or Not” is bloodier and more contemporary but mines much of the same territory as last year’s “The Favourite.” Both want us to know that the wealthy are weird at best and dangerous at worst. Rating: 74 out of 100.

“Overcomer” (in theaters Aug. 23, 2019; rated PG; directed by Alex Kendrick; run time 1 hour, 55 minutes) is a movie with a message, one it doesn’t reveal (though a few hints are apparent) until about a third of the way through. And then it hammers home that message time and time again. “Overcomer” is a faith-based film directed by Alex Kendrick and co-written by him and his brother, Stephen Kendrick, who have made a series of Christian dramas that are produced inexpensively but do moderately well at the box office. Alex Kendrick also stars as John Harrison, a basketball coach at a Christian high school. The city where it is located is experiencing hard times. When the largest employer shuts down, Harrison’s best players start moving away and the school starts cutting jobs. The principal (Priscilla Shirer) assigns Harrison the school’s cross-country team. But just one runner, Hannah Scott (Aryn Wright-Thompson), a sophomore move-in with asthma and a penchant for small-time theft, tries out. Harrison is trying to come to grips with his situation when he, by chance, meets a hospitalized middle-aged man (Cameron Arnett) who just happens to be a former cross-country runner and expert on the sport. When Harrison seeks his help, he gets more than he bargained for. At this point in the story, “Overcomer” shifts from a potential teen sports drama to an all-out story of faith. Much of the dialogue in the second two-thirds is praying or talking about praying (and much crying), and Hannah finds the Lord with the help of her principal. The climactic scene takes place at the state cross-country finals. And since we only get to know one of the many runners, and since she is the only one who we are certain has found Christ, guess who wins the state championship? “Overcomer” is predictable and full of many plot conveniences, and the acting, to put it kindly, is not major motion picture caliber. But it is a nice enough film. And if you are in the choir it preaches to, the message will mean much more than the way it is delivered. Rating: 35 out 100.

“Suspiria” (2018; rated R; directed by Luca Guadagnino; run time 2 hours, 32 minutes) is a film that is not for everyone. And when I say not for everyone, I mean it’s a film not for many people at all. But if you are into artsy, pretentious (to say the least), macabre stories about witchcraft and the ritualistic mutilation of human bodies set against a backdrop of a 1970s German dance troupe, this is the movie you’ve been waiting for. “Suspiria” is a reboot (not really a remake) of director Dario Argento’s 1977 horror classic of the same name. In this version, Susan (Dakota Johnson) is a young American dancer who comes to Berlin in the 1970s to study at a prestigious dance academy, Markos Tanzgruppen. Something is amiss from the get-go, as Susan is replacing a dancer who left the academy under mysterious circumstances. A power struggle is taking place among the academy’s leadership, but for now it is being run by Madame Blanc (Tilda Swinton). She becomes enamored with Susan, whose talent is immediately apparent. But Madame Blanc has more in mind for Susan than her becoming the academy’s star dancer. In the meantime, an elderly, grieving psychotherapist, Dr. Josef Klemperer (played by “Lutz Ebersdorf”), is treating the displaced dancer, Patricia Hingle (Chloe Grace Moretz), who is convinced the academy is being run by a cloven of witches. Soon, other dancers are meeting Patricia’s fate. What lies ahead for Susan? “Suspiria” might be the darkest movie you see, literally. The lighting budget could not have been more than a few dollars; some of the scenes are so dark as to make it difficult or impossible to tell what is going on. The Berlin setting is bleak; apparently it was never not raining in 1970s Berlin. Swinton is fantastic, of course, playing three roles, including a man. But much of “Suspiria” will be lost (or worse) on your average movie-goer. The audio alone is disturbing, with the crystal-clear sounds of breaking bones, much heavy breathing and grunting, and a wonderfully and fittingly strange-but-beautiful score by Radiohead’s Thom Yorke. And there will be blood. And guts. And lots of them. If you can stomach it, and if you don’t mind a film that seems to jump the rails but keep plowing ahead (sometimes into unintentionally funny territory) about the two-hour mark, “Supspiria” can be rewarding and mesmerizing. Everyone else should take a pass, though. Rating: 78 out of 100.

[neuxue]

Wheel of Time liveblogging: The Gathering Storm ch 33

You know that feeling. When you read a particular line and it just. Makes you feel a lot of emotions simultaneously and it’s almost too much and you don’t so much want to say something about it as you want to immerse yourself in it completely and make high-pitched keening noises?

Chapter 33: A Conversation with the Dragon

Well at least this one’s upfront about the fact that it’s probably going to hurt. Because any conversation with Rand is going to hurt, at this point.

Or…Dragon? Could also be referring to Lews Therin, I suppose. Which doesn’t actually lessen the probability that it’s going to hurt, so.

Even Rand’s pyjamas are red and black. Going to start dyeing your hair black again too, Rand? Better hope you and Moridin don’t turn up at the same fireplace anytime soon or it’ll be a major fashion faux-pas. Tabloids all over Tel’aran’rhiod will be sneering at you. You won’t be able to set foot outside for a week.

I’m stalling again, aren’t I?

It was getting harder and harder to see in him the boy Nynaeve had known in the Two Rivers. Had his jaw always been set with those lines of determination? When had his step grown so sure, his posture so demanding? This man almost seemed an…interpretation of the Rand she’d once known. Like a statue, carved from rock to look like him, but exaggerated in heroic lines.

Memory becomes legend…

This is an interesting description from Nynaeve, because it gets to the heart of what so much of his path has been: leaving Rand al’Thor behind to become the Dragon Reborn. Trading humanity for destiny, self for role. We see it early on as a struggle, as he only wanted to sit, and remember a shepherd named Rand al’Thor and then a little later as ‘I don’t know how human the Dragon Reborn can afford to be’ and it just escalates from there. He becomes the role, the Dragon, but the only way he sees to do that is by letting go of pieces of himself until there’s almost nothing left, until what remains what he believes he must be; what he believes prophecy and the world and the Last Battle demand. And strong enough – hard enough – to withstand it. Stone rather than human, statue rather than flesh, figure rather than human. A legend in the shape of the memory of a man.  

But unlike most, Nynaeve still looks for the boy she knew; she sees the changes because she holds on to the memory of what was there. He’s still human to her, and that’s why the changes even register.

“Last I checked, I didn’t need your permission to channel. You’ve grown high and mighty, Rand al’Thor, but don’t forget that I paddled your backside when you were barely as tall as a man’s shins.”

And, being Nynaeve, she shows that recognition of his humanity, and her care for him, in her own…special way. Some things never change.

Rand’s very much not thrilled to be awoken in the middle of the night for a ‘spindly, terrified youth’ but is very slightly less not thrilled when Nynaeve tells him why.

That got Rand’s attention, and Min’s as well. She’d poured herself a cup of tea and was leaning against a wall. Why weren’t they married?

That’s…honestly so far down the list of important questions I don’t think it has a number. But Nynaeve is Nynaeve; this would have been her responsibility, once, back in Emond’s Field. And it’s part and parcel of the fact that she still sees the person he was in him; this wouldn’t even come close to registering in most people’s minds, because he’s the Dragon Reborn and one doesn’t wonder such things about the Dragon Reborn. I mean, not that it’s actually anyone’s business whether two people are married or not, but the fact that Nynaeve immediately thinks about it shows how much she does still see him as that boy she knew. And herself as his Wisdom.

“At the dungeon where you sent Milisair Chadmar,” Nynaeve said, eyeing him. “It is terrible, Rand al’Thor. You have no right to treat a person in such a manner.”

He didn’t rise to that comment either.

This puts me very much in mind of a doctor hitting your knee with one of those little rubber hammers to make sure your reflexes are working. She’s testing his ‘reflexes’ here, tapping at the buttons she knows were once there, scoping out the shape of what’s wrong. I mean, she knows what’s wrong, I think. But she’s trying to understand it, trying to draw more of Rand out if she can, trying to better understand what’s wrong so she can help make it well. But he’s not responding like he used to, and that in itself is an indication.

“I think he killed the messenger.”

Does no one remember you’re not supposed to do that? There’s a saying about it and everything!

Rand glanced at Nynaeve, and she could almost feelhim connecting the comments to figure out what she had been doing. “You Aes Sedai,” he finally said, “share much with rats, I have come to realise. You are always in places where you are not wanted.”

Nynaeve snorted. “If I’d stayed away, then Milisair would be dying and Kerb would be free.”

She’s not rising to his bait, either.

Also, that particular comparison makes me think of Moridin again, I have to say.

Ah, so Nynaeve does recognise that the kid is blocked by Compulsion. I guess we’ll get to find out whether ta’veren can out-do Compulsion after all.

“Stop,” Rand said softly. “Do you believe that I can kill you?”

The boy fell silent and – though Nynaeve wouldn’t have thought it possible – his blue eyes opened wider.

“Do you believe that if I simply said the word,” Rand continued in his eerie, quiet voice, “your heart would stop beating? I am the Dragon Reborn. Do you believe that I can take your life, or your soul itself, if I so much as will it to happen?”

So that’s…um…

A new favourite trick of his, certainly, it would seem. He tried it on Cadsuane, and we’re seeing it again here, and it’s the softness of it that makes it so terrifying.

That, and the fact that – maybe just because his choice of colour scheme and the comparison of Aes Sedai to rats has me thinking of Moridin – he sounds rather like Ishamael/Ba’alzamon here. Your soul is mine, death is mine, I can claim your life and your soul…

It’s very, verydifferent from how Nynaeve intimidated and threatened the prison guards. Soft and gentle and dangerous and utterly without feeling.

Nynaeve saw it again, the patina of darkness around Rand, that aura that she couldn’t quite be certain was there. She raised her tea to her lips – and found that it had suddenly grown bitter and stale

Okay, that’s it. The rest, I could forgive. But this? Making tea go bad? Ruining tea? That is truly irredeemable. You have gone too far.

“You will have to unravel the web of Compulsion, wipe it from his mind, before he can tell us what he knows.”

So it is a conversation with Lews Therin, at least in flashes.

Also, um, what?

No pressure, Nynaeve! Then again, if anyone can figure out how to heal Compulsion, it would be her.

“I have little skill with this kind of weaving,” Rand said with a wave of his hand. “I suspect that you can remove Compulsion, if you try. It is similar to Healing, in a way. Use the same weave that creates Compulsion, but reverse it.”

Does that mean Rand has, or would have, little skill at Compulsion as well? He’s never actually tried to use it, that I know of. Maybe some things are still too far, even for him as he is now. Or maybe he simply isn’t good enough at it to make it an option.

Can any weave be countered this way, or its effects healed? By using the same weave that creates it, but…reversed? Because there’s another forbidden weave, you see, that causes irreparable damage…

“I can’t tell you how it is done specifically, not for a woman, but you are clever. I’m certain you can manage.”

His unintentionally patronising tone sent her back into a rage.

Yeah, I mean, he shouts at her not to patronise him, and then turns around and basically pats her on the head and calls her a clever girl. She’s an Aes Sedai, not a raptor.

But then, she’s always done her best healing when she’s angry.

How had Rand known? She shivered, thinking of what Semirhage had said about him. Memories from another life, memories he had no right to. There was a reason the Creator allowed them to forget their past lives. No man should have to remember the failures of Lews Therin Telamon.

Allowed them to forget. Not made them forget. Others might see madness, but she just sees the pain it causes. Sorrows and his own suicide. Is it any wonder he tried so hard to push those memories away, to distance himself from them, terrified of sharing that fate? Is it any wonder he’s done what he has to try to insulate himself from the pain of not just this life but last? It’s not enough to carry the weight of the world; he has to remember letting it shatter.

And yet, those memories are almost certainly necessary. The knowledge in them, for one, but also…I feel like there’s still something to the fact that he’s fighting against himself, and that he has reached a point where he’s effectively lost all hope of surviving what is to come, and any desire to do so. Where he believes he’s already damned. But I feel like there’s something to be learned there about…the Wheel of Time turns and each victory might only lead to another battle and sometimes there are failures and sometimes they hurt but at least there’s still a chance to keep trying.

And okay, he’s pretty much on the other side of the galaxy from anything even remotely resembling that kind of take on it, but. It feels like the lighter side of the fight Rand’s been fighting against himself – insisting that he will not be Lews Therin, that Lews Therin failed but he won’t, that Lews Therin Kinslayer killed everyone he loved but Rand will not kill where he doesn’t have to…but it’s the wrong fight. It’s the difference between rejecting failure and learning from it. And it’s the difference, I think, between fighting just for an end, and fighting for a reason, fighting to give the world another lease on the future and if not certainty then at least hope.

It’s why I’ve been shouting at him for several books now to stop fighting himself, to accept who he is but also who he was, because then it’s not about fighting against the past but instead moving on from it.

Still, easier said than done when, as Nynaeve acknowledges here, no one should have to remember that. But he does, and if he can accept it, that itself is a victory of sorts.

And just like that, Nynaeve heals Compulsion. Round of applause.

Rand lowered himself to one knee, cradling the youth’s chin in his hand, staring into his eyes. “Where?” he asked softly. “Where is she?”

It’s the gentleness of this that absolutely kills me. There’s something almost…sorrowful to it, or mournful (Morr-nful? I’ll see myself out), except there is no sorrow, no feeling at all. It’s soft and lovely and terrifying.

So it turns out there wasn’t much left to this kid’s mind than the Compulsion, which…might have been a good thing to tell Nynaeve before she removed it?

“Instructions cleverly designed to wipe whatever personality this poor wretch had and replace it with a creature who would act exactly as Graendal wished. I’ve seen it dozens of times.”

Dozens of times? Nynaeve thought with a shiver. You’ve seen it, or Lews Therin saw it? Which memories rule you right now?

There are a few layers to that question. Nynaeve is framing it as a question of  whose memories dominate at the moment, but Rand has been hugely affected by the very existence of those memories as much as he ever is by the memories themselves.

Which…well, see above, I suppose. Trying to deny those memories, trying to deny who he was, doesn’t make them go away. And doesn’t make them any easier to cope with, no matter how many layers of ice and steel he tries to wrap himself in. Because at the end of the day, it’s still denial, and the truth is still there weighing on him. So he fights it, even in moments like these where he acknowledges the memories that are useful to him, lets them come to the forefront and shape his words. He still doesn’t accept their entirety, because he still, I think, believes that would mean condemning himself to that same end, that same failure. He does not surrender to them, so he cannot control them. He doesn’t embrace them, so he cannot move past them.

Rand spoke to Kerb again. “I need a location,” Rand said. “Something. If there is any vestige within you that resisted, any scrap that fought her, I promise you revenge. A location. Where is she?”

It’s almost a kindness, almost a mercy.

I guess he would know all about a vestige within you that resisted, any scrap that fought, even when the rest is gone, replaced, torn away. (He named you friend. Do not abandon him…)

“Natrin’s Barrow.”

Rand exhaled softly, then released Kerb with an almost reverent motion.

This is just so lovely. The way motion and gesture are done in this chapter, these soft, gentle, almost reverent movements against the gravity and pain and horror of it all, lightness against weight frozen in a moment and a gesture. There’s a shift here, in that exhalation – an end to a waiting, or a decision that comes with an answer. It’s the sort of scene where you’d have a single mournful violin and soft lighting and the whole thing is overlaid with an almost desperate sadness but all you see is simplicity.

It’s not a Big Dramatic Moment, but it’s very clearly a moment. Even if it’s not clear precisely how or why. It gives him a focus, a direction, and you can feel that shift.

What right did he have to look as exhausted as she felt? He had done barely anything!

And yet. He cannot let himself care, but somewhere on some level it weighs on him. And I also get the sense that it’s not a presentexhaustion so much as a…future one, if that makes sense. He’s been waiting for this for a long time, for evidence that Graendal is here, for a location. And he means to kill her. And now the waiting is ended, in two words, and so you get a soft exhalation and a look of exhaustion because it never ends; there’s never enough time to rest, and even rest isn’t restful.

“I did nothing, Nynaeve. I suspect that once you removed that Compulsion, the only thing keeping him alive was his anger at Graendal, buried deeply. Whatever bit of himself remained, it knew the only help it could give were those two words. After that, he just let go. There was nothing more we could do for him.”

Nothing left but anger, and a single purpose or intention, and after that he just let go. Sound familiar, Rand? You don’t think there’s anything more that can be done to for you, either.

“I don’t accept that,” Nynaeve said, frustrated.

Yeah, somehow I feel like we’re not just talking about Kerb the chandler’s apprentice here. Just a feeling, you know?

“Don’t you feel any guilt at all?” she demanded.

They locked eyes, Nynaeve frustrated and helpless, Rand…who could guess what Rand felt these days?

Certainly not Rand.

“Should I suffer for them all, Nynaeve?” he asked quietly, rising, face still half in the darkness.

Oh okay so we’re doing pain now. Alright. Sure. Why not.

It’s still so…soft.

Also, I see what you’re doing there with the face still half in the darkness.

“Lay this death at my feet, if you wish. It will just be one of many. How many stones can you pile on a man’s body before the weight stops mattering? How far can you burn a lump of flesh until further heat is irrelevant? If I let myself feel guilty for this boy, then I would need to feel guilt for the others. And it would crush me.”

It’s just too much. (Am I talking about the quote or about what Rand has to endure? We may never know).

It’s too much, and it would break him. He knows what he’s doing, and the simplicity of it, the willingness to just explain it, explain his pain and what he’s been through so simply as if the magnitude isn’t overwhelming, and say so matter-of-factly that it would crush him, is…

Perhaps strangely, it reminds me of Lan telling Nynaeve what had happened to him, in Mashiara. Telling her simply ‘you would not want me bonded to you’ and calling it his last gift.

It’s not self-pity; it’s just fact, plainly stated and devastating.

“Oh, Rand,” she said, turning away. “This thing you have become, the heart without any emotion but anger. It will destroy you.”

“Yes,” he said softly.

She looked back at him, shocked.

“I continue to wonder,” he said, glancing down at Min, “why you all assume that I am too dense to see what you find so obvious. Yes, Nynaeve. Yes, this hardness will destroy me. I know.”

He knows. He knowswhat he’s doing. And he knows why; he has all along, as he’s fought to make himself harder and then harder still, patiently forging his soul in the fires of pain, bringing up the list of names, all so that he could harden himself enough to do what must be done. It’s always been deliberate. It’s just that at one point he thought he could stop short of that last line, could hold on to enough of himself to be worth saving. But now…now he knows better, or thinks he does. And here we see this softness of resignation and resolution; this is all there is for him now, this is how it must be, and he will not survive it much longer, so it doesn’t matter now. All that’s left is the doing, and the dying. He’s accepted it, stopped fighting, so there’s nothing but this calm, this clarity and the softness of finality.

They think he can’t see it, because who would willingly do this to themselves? They think he can’t see it, because he is supposed to be salvation even alongside destruction, hope and Light against despair and shadow and oblivion.

But that hurts too much.

I just. The self-awareness, and the gentle fatalism of it, is…oh, Rand.

(‘Your logic destroyed you, didn’t it?’)

“When I was much younger,” he said, voice soft “Tam told me of a story he’d heard while travelling the world. […] Tam’s stories claimed no man had ever climbed to Dragonmount’s peak. Not because it was impossible – but because reaching the top would take every last ounce of strength a man had. So tall was the mountain that besting it would be a struggle that drained a man completely.”

Leaving nothing left for the journey home. Yeah. Also, two things. First of all, the fact that he calls Tam by his name rather than saying ‘my father’ is just one more soft and sad thing in a chapter already overflowing with soft sadness. He resolved that inner conflict a long time ago; Tam is his father in all the ways that matter, so I don’t think that’s what this is. I think it’s just another measure of detachment, of relinquishing any last vestiges of emotion or humanity or hope. He is the Dragon Reborn, nothing else, and if the Dragon Reborn cannot be human then he certainly cannot have a father he loves, or a home he is bound to, or anyone he might want to stay alive for.

Second…yeah, about climbing Dragonmount. I joke a lot about Rand’s penchant for climbing on top of and then falling off of things, but Dragonmount has been both foreshadowed and honestly kind of inevitable more or less since the Prologue, I feel like. I just can’t see it remaining purely metaphorical, though I can’t see what purpose it would actually serve, except as a full-circle kind of thing.

“So they never climbed it. They always wanted to, but they waited, reserving that trip for another day. For they knew it would be their last.”

“But that’s just a story,” Nynaeve said. “A legend.”

“That’s what I am,” Rand said. “A story. A legend.”

YES THIS IS EVERYTHING I WANTED AND IT’S DEVASTATING.

He knows. It’s part of what makes this so painful, is that he walks into it eyes open. He knows the role he must fulfil, knows he must shoulder this duty or the world dies, knows it will be all but unendurable, knows what it will cost him. Always, at each step, each time he tore away another part of himself, he knew what he was doing, even knew, I think, where it would lead if taken too far.

“I don’t know how human the Dragon Reborn can afford to be,” he told Nynaeve in essentially the precursor to this conversation (and I think there’s a reason we see both through Nynaeve’s eyes, rather than his). When he truly didn’t know, but had begun to suspect. When he knew he would need to let go of at least some of himself, some of his humanity.

Because the Dragon Reborn is a legend, a story. “He belongs to the Pattern now, and to history.” He saw Rhuidean, saw the threads of the Pattern that wove him. He knows the prophecies, knows what they demand. And for a long time he fought to find some balance there, some way to be both himself – even if just to die as himself – and to be what prophecy and story and history demanded. But now he’s stopped fighting that, because it’s too much for anyone or anything but a legend and a story to carry, so that is what he will be. No longer a shepherd named Rand al’Thor, but the Dragon Reborn. And that’s all. The rest is gone.

But he…stopped fighting the wrong thing. Instead of surrendering the fight against himself, he surrendered the fight to live, to salvage anything of himself. And it’s the wrong surrender.

And the whole mood of this is almost like that of the time Rand wandered into Moridin’s dreams and the two of them sat quietly by the fire; that sense of inevitability and of being pulled into these roles and of ‘your logic destroyed you, didn’t it’ except this time Rand doesn’t bring any hope or balance with him. Just the gentle calm of accepting his own destruction. Welcoming it. As Moridin himself seemed to welcome the concept of a true ending.

But it’s all overlaid with this gentleness, this sadness that comes through even if Rand can’t feel it, and so it’s harder to see the horror beneath it. The wrongness of it all. Because that’s kind of the point, isn’t it? There’s less pain this way. Easier, softer, to just…let go.

“You all claim that I have grown too hard, that I will inevitably shatter and break if I continue on. But you assume that there needs to be something left of me to continue on. That I need to climb back down the mountain once I’ve reached the top.”

I still just cannot get past the honesty and clarity with which he recognises exactly what he is doing. It’s one thing to know he knows, and another thing to sit here and watch him state it like this, holding nothing back, not trying to disguise or mitigate it, but also not…caring anymore.

And it hurts because again, he’s done this to himself so that he can endure agony long enough to do what needs to be done, to fulfil his duty in the world’s salvation, and then die.

Just.

He didn’t want to. It’s not out of anger or malevolence or even temptation. Its done out of determination, because he didn’t know what else to do. Because he didn’t know how else to hold on long enough.

And now the only answer he sees is to not hold on anymore. To give up that last part of himself. It’s a sacrifice, and it just hurts more because it’s the wrong one.

It’s watching the slow death of hope in someone who has been forced to withstand too much in its name. It’s a lot.

“That’s the key, Nynaeve. I see it now. I will not live through this, and so I don’t need to worry about what might happen to me after the Last Battle. I don’t need to hold back, don’t need to salvage anything of this beaten up soul of mine.”

Except it doesn’t work that way.

He cannot go to the Last Battle like this, devoid of hope or care for what comes after, with no reason to fight except that it’s the last thing he must do before he can die. That’s too close to what Moridin is coming to it with, and what is the point of the Light’s victory if it isn’t to sustain and renew hope? The whole pointis that it means they get a future, a chance to salvage something from a broken soul or a broken world, and keep going. There are neither beginnings nor endings, and that means either an endless cycle of despair and pain, or a continued cycle of hope and renewal, and I think when you’re the champion of the Light, it matters which one you choose to see.

The Dragon is one with the land, and the land is one with the Dragon. He cannot succumb to despair, because to do so would damn the world. No one ever said it was fair.

“We can find a way, Rand,” Nynaeve said. “Surely there is a way to win but also let you live.”

Again, it’s like what she said to Lan, only…slightly higher stakes, perhaps. But this is who she is; Nynaeve doesn’t believe anything is impossible, doesn’t believe anything can’t be healed. She’s very much a creature of hope, in that sense, hope and determination and sheer force of will. She’s not going to stand by and let him die any more than she will Lan, no matter what either of them says must happen or will happen.

“No,” he growled softly. “Do not tempt me down that path again. It only leads to pain”

YEAH NO KIDDING IT DOES. I’M IN PAIN RIGHT NOW.

This is fine.

It’s the first break in that gentle, soft calm, as well. Because there isa temptation there, a part of him that still wants to keep fighting, and he has to fight notto. Once again she can almost get through to him, and he can’t let her. But it is a vulnerability in that armour. There is still a temptation there. And the fact that he sees it as a temptation, rather than as a lifeline…oh, Rand.

It just hurts too much. To hold on to any hope that maybe he can survive this, to let himself want anything at all anymore. It hurts to feel. Apathy is easier. But it’s a false sense of…absolution, almost, except its exact opposite. Absolute certainty of destruction and damnation. But through the lens of apathy they look almost the same, because they grant illusion that nothing else matters. That you don’t have to think about it anymore. Don’t have to weigh those choices or that pain or that action or inaction. It’s all the same, now. There’s no changing your path, so no need to try, so no need to struggle, so no need to hurt. It’s a powerful illusion.

But he can’t let go of it, because of the sheer magnitude of pain. And no guarantee that it would bring him anything but more suffering in the end.

So that’s…yeah. It’s just hard to condemn him for choosing the path he has, because at every turn it seemed like the only option, and he tried so hard.

“I…I used to think about leaving something behind to help the world survive once I died, but that was a struggle to keep living. I can’t indulge myself.”

He can’t let himself want, because wanting would be selfish and human and he doesn’t get to have that. He’s a legend and a story and a piece in the Pattern; he doesn’t get to have things like wants, or choices. Those are for humans and he’s the Dragon Reborn.

It’s irony bordering on paradox that to be the Dragon Reborn, he has to accept his place in prophecy and give everything he has to the world’s salvation…but in order for that to have any meaning, he has to see it as a choice, and retain his humanity and capacity to hope and also to want. He has to be willing to die, but has to want to live.

“I’ll climb this bloody mountain and face the sun.”

As if the sun, light and warmth and life, is something to be faced, something to be endured, rather than something to strive for.

“You all will deal with what comes next.”

There’s some truth to that, perhaps; I have a hard time seeing a place for the Dragon Reborn after Tarmon Gai’don, should Rand find a way to live by dying. If that is an immediate sort of thing rather than an eventual rebirth sort of thing. I think it is, but I’m far from certain. Anyway, I still don’t see him being the one to actually shape that future; his role is to enable it.

But he has to care about what comes next, because that’s what he’s doing all of this for.

“You did well tonight,” Rand said. “You have saved us all a lot of trouble.” “I did it because I want you to trust me,” Nynaeve said, then immediately cursed herself. Why had she said that?

Because he’s ta’veren, and because it’s true.

Rand just nodded. “I do trust you, Nynaeve. As much as I trust anyone; more than I trust most. You think you know what is best for me, even against my wishes, but that is something I can accept. The difference between you and Cadsuane is that you actually care about me. She only cares about my place in her plans. She wants me to be part of the Last Battle. You want me to live. For that, you have my thanks.”

WHAT. AM I. SUPPOSED. TO DO. WITH THIS.

HELP ME.

To have him just say all of that, so simply. To see that he knows, that he understands how much she cares about him and that it means something to him even if he can’t let himself feel it.

“You want me to live. For that, you have my thanks.”

Even if he doesn’t want to live, doesn’t believe he canlive, doesn’t want her to even tempt him into wanting it. Despite that, he thanks her for it. Because it matters.

And it’s kind of fascinating to see this through Nynaeve’s POV because from the outside it almost looks like he cares, like he’s touched by this. But we know from his previous chapters that it’s just…like when he said ‘I’m sorry’ after she told him about Lan. There’s no true feeling behind it, because he can’t permit that in himself.

And yet he thanks her anyway, because still it matters. Even unfeeling, even cuendillar, it matters that she wants him to live.

…….oh.

“Dream on my behalf, Nynaeve. Dream for things I no longer can.”

………

…………………

I’m just. Going to lie here, on the floor, forever.

What a line.

What a beautiful, perfect, absolutely devastating statement that is.

It’s as if the entire chapter has built towards this, with its gentle gestures and quiet sadness and stark acceptance of self-destruction and surrender to legend and story. With its calm and the knowledge that he feels nothing and yet somehow this means something to him despite that. The knowledge itself that he has gone beyond feeling, but that it shouldn’t be that way, and so he leaves the dreaming to someone else, because someone should.

That’s one of those lines I need to read several times over just to try to feel it.

Dream for things I no longer can.

The acknowledgment in that. The acceptance, the sadness felt as much through its absence as anything else, the secondhand hope alongside perfect calm despair.

Why is this HAPPENING WHAT DID I DO.

The gentleness of all of this just ruins me and the way it contrasts with and yet follows perfectly on from Rand’s own chapters just before, and how it all feels so final and almost at ease and yet is wrong but is still so beautiful and

Akfsleaksjralekjrljelsatea

Help.

Why couldn’t she come up with an argument against what he’d said? Why couldn’t she make herself yell at him that he was wrong? There was always hope. By surrendering that most important emotion, he might make himself strong – but risked losing all reason he might have to care about the outcome of his battles.

That says in about thirty words what I’ve been trying to say for about thirty thousand.

And she’s right, but it is hard to argue with his logic not because she’s wrong but because it means causing him pain. It means asking him to shatter this peace he’s found – dark and illusory and cold as it is – and and go back to the pain and the struggle and the guilt and self-hatred and anger and fear. She’s a healer; she doesn’t want him to be hurting, doesn’t want to ask that of him because it’s too much to ask. What right do they have to demand that of him? And yet he can’t go on like this.

But it’s part of why I think he needs to come to that realisation himself; it has to be his choice, not something he feels he is forced to do, or required to do.

And I would maybe have more to say but Dream on my behalf, Nynaeve. Dream for things I no longer can has effectively destroyed me so I’m just going to stop now, and maybe eventually pick myself up off of the floor, and go make a cup of tea, and stare at a wall.

Next (TGS ch 34) Previous (TGS ch 32)

[eng2100]

blog 08 - neuromancer

So as an introductory note, I’m actually quite a big fan of cyberpunk. I’m a hobbyist DnD player and the first campaign that I’ve Dungeon-Mastered for was actually a simplified version of Shadowrun that I wrote all the backstory and lore for. It’s in what I would call a “sequel” right now that I’m very much enjoying. So bla bla bla I was excited to get to Neuromancer this whole time because I’m a genre fan.

a brief primer to cyberpunk

So western Cyberpunk owes its roots largely to the detective fiction genre-- most notably the hardboiled detective archetype, a darker western interpretation of your Sherlock Holmes type who is usually a jaded antihero that works for money, but still has a sense of justice deep down. You see this more reflected in Blade Runner than you see it in Neuromancer’s Case, but there are still a number of correlations (Funnily enough, Neuromancer and Raymond Chandler’s The Big Sleep both end on nearly the same line-- “He never saw Molly again.” and “...and I never saw her again.” respectively.) Interestingly enough, Case kind of spawns his own kind of cyberpunk hero trope-- the rebellious hacker, seen in Neo. 

If detective fiction owes itself to the inescapable aura of The Great Depression, then cyberpunk owes itself to the Reagan administration. Cyberpunk’s whole thing, at least in the west, springs forward from the fear of unregulated corporate growth in tandem with the rise of technology, and what the mixture of the two might bode for humanity at large. Both Neuromancer and Blade Runner owe their entire aesthetics to the vision of a world taken over by neon advertisements, bereft of nature, replaced by plasticity. 

Now, why the primer? Well, I think it’s important to preface the discussion of this novel with the idea that cyberpunk is a deeply political genre in a way that not many other genres inherently are. (All fiction is, of course, inherently political, whether intentional or not, but most genres don’t regularly feature as much political charge as cyberpunk, is what I mean.) Neuromancer is politics from an era before most of us in this class were born, and as such, atop being a seminal work of genre fiction, it’s a lurid look into what the landscape looked like in the 80s. We are living now in the times that 80s Cyberpunk once called “the future”-- and, well, what does it look like for us? Are we living in the Urban Sprawl?

not quite

Our dystopian future is significantly more...mundane than coffin hotels and the television sky over Chiba. You might say we got all the corporate deregulation and none of the glimmering aesthetic slickness of cyberpunk-- we really are living in the worst timeline. If i’m going to have to labor under capitalism for the rest of my short life, couldn’t I at least have a slick pair of mirrorshades?

the text

There’s a lot about Neuromancer to like. It earned its reputation wholeheartedly-- it is definitely the legendary cyberpunk novel that it is well-known for being. Its writing style can often be abstract at the same time that it’s luridly detailed, and it uses strange and interesting words to create vivid images in the reader’s mind of this foreign landscape of the Sprawl. It uses a lot of “old world” associations to lend deeper weight to its descriptions (the Tank War Europa game comes to mind in tandem with the Screaming Fist operation that looms over the plot). 

The book doesn’t shy away from the visceral nature of its own plot and setting-- drug binges and cramped love affairs in coffin hotels, fear and violence are all described in visceral detail that grounds the book hard in its reality while simultaneously indulging in a sort of dream-like surreality. I really admire the ways in which Gibson writes physical sensation whether it comes to the sex or the pain or the weirdness of cyberspace. The introduction of the novel sort of failed to catch me until Gibson went into detail about Case’s harrowing journey after losing his ability to jack into cyberspace and the intense, surreal affair with Linda Lee. Perhaps my biggest issue with the writing of Neuromancer is, however, Gibson’s tendency to throw a lot of world-building terminology at you really fast. Nothing bogs down a fictional story more than having to pause to wonder what certain words mean.

Describing cyberspace during a time in which VR wasn’t even a thing yet had to have been a challenge and a half, but Gibson found interesting ways to visualize the experience, and coined interesting terminology for it (ice and icebreakers, most notably). The Sense/Net bits are also pretty cool, but I’m also biased because anything that gives Molly Millions more screentime is just the best thing.

Did I mention Molly is my favorite character? I just can’t get over her. It sucks that her and Case break up in the epilogue, but it also feels fitting in a weird way. She really struck me as a standout character for a woman in a cyberpunk novel-- she’s an active player in her own sexuality, she’s violent and the stronger of the two between herself and Case. She has a sort of unapologetic way about her that feels very fresh even today. The first time Case uses Sense/Net to see through her eyes, I was hit in an unexpectedly hard way by the description of people in a crowd moving out of the way for her-- for most girls in real life, that’s a fairly unheard of experience, and to me, as a female reader, it did a lot to establish to me just how powerful she is.

That being said, this is a good place to segue into the conversation you know my Obnoxious Feminist Ass has been waiting to bring up.

cyberpunk vs women

You can tell a lot about a person’s base assumptions about the world by the way they talk about people in their works of fiction. Now when I say “base assumptions” I don’t mean their political leanings, I mean something that’s on a deeper, more subconscious level-- in this way, base assumptions are inherently neutral in a way, they’re incapable of being truly malicious, even if they’re harmful, because they’re just the base coding of how a person regards things inherently.

What I’m getting at is that at the time of writing this book, I don’t think Gibson had much of a regard for women at all. When the first mention of women in your novel is calling them whores, I’m going to be forced to assume both that you don’t like women very much and that women are primarily sex objects to you-- or at the very least that women factor into your view of the world in a very marginal way that is largely informed by porn culture. Now, let’s suppose that maybe it’s actually the POV character Case that’s just a raging sexist-- that theory might hold water if this were a character trait that is brought up as a flaw, or indeed, if it were really brought up at all in his personality, but it’s not.

To my great frustration, in the Neuromancer world, it seems like “whore” is about the only job available for women! Who knew the job market would shrink in such a way? Now, perhaps you could argue that Gibson was actually trying to make a point about the way in which porn culture commodifies women into sexy leg lamps for male consumption, and I won’t claim to know his intent, but to me, it doesn’t really seem that deep. It seems like to me that, to Gibson, women being mostly vapid sex workers in his dystopia is a foregone conclusion-- he didn’t think about it that hard, that’s just his stereotypical image of what women in an criminal underbelly do.

This problem of a lack of regard for female perspectives in cyberpunk narratives that largely concern themselves with themes of objectification and oppression under capitalist systems and the regurgitation of harmful sexist tropes certainly isn’t exclusive to Neuromancer. Cyberpunk is a economic-political type of genre, so oppression in the genre tends to fall upon class lines rather than race or gender lines-- and perhaps, this could occur in a far flung future in which capital manages to supersede bias, however, I can’t help but feel that this is a lazy way to write a political narrative. Blade Runner, Blade Runner 2049, and The Matrix all have distinct problems with addressing the idea of intersectionality when it comes to the ways in which ones gender and race plays into their role in a capitalist system. 

Cyberpunk, for all its shining successes as interesting fiction and pointed political commentary, totally fails in the regard that it co-opts the struggle of lower-classes and applies the romanticized aesthetic to white male characters completely unironically. (You can read a pretty good take on Dystopias and post-racialism here.)

east versus west

So, when I went over the primer to the rise of Cyberpunk earlier, I left something out (on purpose!). During the 80s, there was another prime ingredient to the mix of the nascent genre’s formation: the rise of Japan as a technological leader in the global market. Before World War 2, and indeed, during it, American’s conceptualization of the future, was, well, American. They viewed themselves as the originator of innovation within the world and the blueprint from which the rest of the world should be based. However, this all changed in the post-war era as Japan began to participate in the market, leaving behind their isolationist ways-- suddenly, Japan was what the vision of the future looked like in American imagination-- the Tokyo urban sprawl.

The imagery of Japan is ubiquitous in western Cyberpunk, whether hardcore or or softcore or simply an incidental portrayal of futurism. Disney’s Big Hero 6 features San Fransokyo, San Franciso and Tokyo jammed together complete with neon signs in Japanese letters. During the 90s, Marvel launched Rampage 2099 and Spider-man 2099, both set in glittering neon cityscapes. The series Firefly featured a strange universe in which everyone seems to speak Chinese pidgins (but there’s no Chinese people in the show, funnily). MTV had Aeon Flux, a U.S. take on anime. Even movies like Total Recall borrowed the bright neon flavor. Video games such as Deus Ex and Cyberpunk 2077 feature these influences heavily, with less-bold-but-still-there influence being seen in games like Remember Me and Detroit: Become Human.

There’s an interesting cultural exchange going on between the east and west when it comes to Cyberpunk, as the 90s were rife with cyberpunk fiction in both places-- The U.S. saw The Matrix (which was inspired by Ghost in the Shell, as admitted by the Wachowskis in a phrasing that I find really annoying as an animator: “We want to make that but for real”.), while Japan had the seminal Ghost in the Shell and Akira. It’s interesting to note the stark contrast between western and eastern Cyberpunk-- eastern Cyberpunk misses entirely western Cyberpunk’s detective fiction roots, for one. For two, eastern Cyberpunk tends to concern itself more with philosophical questions about the nature of the soul in relation to technology and deep-seated cultural fears about weapons of mass destruction and government.

Neuromancer is deeply entrenched in eastern aesthetics-- many Japanese brands are brought up explicitly by name within the model (Mitsubishi, Sony, etc.). Gibson cites the “Kowloon Walled City” of Hong Kong as something that haunted him after he was told about it, and the idea of Coffin Hotels owes quite a lot to it. Gibson is quoted as saying:

“Modern Japan simply was cyberpunk. The Japanese themselves knew it and delighted in it. I remember my first glimpse of Shibuya, when one of the young Tokyo journalists who had taken me there, his face drenched with the light of a thousand media-suns - all that towering, animated crawl of commercial information - said, ‘You see? You see? It is Blade Runner town.' And it was. It so evidently was.“

One of Neuromancer’s primary settings is The Night City, a supposedly gaijin district of Tokyo on the bay-- this...sort of explains why there don’t seem to be a lot of Asian people in Asia, but the issue still stands. This isn’t a game-breakingly “I wouldn’t recommend this book” bad case, but it is something that I felt I should point out. Neuromancer is a foundational work to the genre, which means that not only are its successes carried over, but many of its flaws as well. Now, I don’t want this cricitism to sound like I think William Gibson is a raging bigot or anything-- I really don’t! I follow him on twitter and he’s a perfectly likable guy, actually. Problems aside, I really enjoy his work.

conclusions

Going into the future, I don’t think Cyberpunk is going away anytime soon, and certainly much of it owes its roots to Neuromancer. With shows like Altered Carbon and games like Cyberpunk 2077 on the horizon, I’m interested to see the ways in which our current economic political climate may effect what our vision of a technological dystopia may look like. Cyberpunk is easily one of the most interesting genres of fiction, and if you haven’t looked into it deeply, I highly recommend checking it out.

[isuzukuretsuki]

Welp I finished Psychedelica of the Ashen Hawk and my biggest comment is that this game has more plot holes than swiss cheese.

*insert more shifty eye uncomfortable emojis* 

What was...... that convoluted mess of a game I just played? Like this is reaching Zero Escape level of plot holes and “wow the writer clearly has no idea what the hell they are doing”. I don’t even know where I’m gonna start breaking down the amount of issues. Lots of spoilers beneath.

My favourite order is prob Levi > Elric > Lugus > Hugh > Eiar > Aria > Tee > Lord > Olgar > Lawrence >>>> Lavan >>>>>>>>>> Francisca

For starters, this felt like less of an otome game and more of a gang bang 5p fuck pile orgy. Seriously. One moment, Eiar is making out with Lavan, the next moment, Eiar is dreaming of sleeping with Lugus and wakes up panicking because “oh no! I think I’m in love with Lugus!”. If the romance is “the heroine being passed among all the guys”, I’d rather there be no romance at all. It felt more like a fucking badly written reverse harem anime than an otome. I had this problem with PBB but boy it was not this level of bad. 

None of the characters really develop, none of the relationships really develop. Let’s not even get started on the fact that 2/4 of your love interests are your adopted brothers who are actually your blood cousins. At first I enjoyed Lugus’s enchantment with Eiar but it doesn’t develop beyond that. Why is Lugus even in love with Eiar? His feelings never felt like anything beyond captivation, and the same applied for Eiar. Why is Lavan in love with Eiar? Because he’s some gross nii-chan lusty pervert who’s in love with his adopted sister??? IDK. 

The only one who genuinely felt like he loved Eiar was Levi, and even Levi’s character was butchered with the whole “yeah I’m a serial killer who enjoys inflicting pain onto other people”. Even if you blame it on the ~magical stone~, the revelation was like a slap in the face and it was so disconnected w everything we knew of Levi. The writers clearly didn’t know if they wanted to write him as a character who’s sadistic and ruthless, or if they wanted to write him as a character who was manipulated by his mother into becoming her assassin through abuse + gaslighting. The writers aimed for both, and failed miserably at both. 

Speaking of Francisca, the fact that Francisca is an evil bitch is literally NEVER brought up lol???? Like when Levi admits that Francisca was using him as an assassin, Eiar and Lavan are shocked but.......... that’s it. Especially in Levi’s ending, the fact that there’s never a hint of acknowledgement that Francisca was abusing him is jarring to say the least. There’s never any real discussion of how Eiar and the Wolf brothers feel about Francisca after they find out what she did to Aria and Olgar. Like wow we just found out our mom is a piece of shit, let us NEVER DISCUSS THIS or have ANY heart to heart talk about this EVER. Because that will give our characters perfect closure! The fact that Eiar never returns to her real name, the name given to her by her mother, also kind of bothers me.

Francisca’s character was honestly butchered along with Levi after everything she did to Aria was revealed. "That evil slut is taking away all the men in my life!” is not a good enough motive to burn a completely innocent woman to death, sorry. Her love for her sons felt shallow and her love for Eiar felt like she was just trying to show up Aria. I can’t find any redeemable thing about her and her character just ended up being at to the bottom of the barrel along with Rika and Mejojo. The only emotion I got out of the whole dumpster fire between the parents was “wow Aria deserved so much fucking better”.

Now lets get started with all the fucking plot holes this game has. 

For starters, if the whole town is actually Psychedelica and everyone lost their memories, it makes no sense for Francisca to be the only one who remembers killing Aria, and there’s never any indication to confirm whether or not Francisca is actually aware the fact that everyone is in Psychedelica.

Speaking of Aria, that scene where Aria is shown to be slumbering in the abyss and stops the kids from completing the Kaleido Via makes no sense either. For starters, why is Aria even in the abyss? She died in the real world, so her soul should have moved onto the afterlife, or she should have been trapped in the Psychedelica town too. Actually, the fact that she isn’t trapped makes no sense. Olgar activated the Kaleido Via with a desire to see Aria again (similar to Hikage with Usagi), so it makes no sense for Aria’s soul to not be drawn to the town if the town was created through Aprus and Olgar’s collective desires.

I don’t really understand why tf Aria would want to stop the kids from completing the Kaleido Via when that’s literally the only method to free the souls of the town so they continue into the afterlife? It’d make sense for Aria to stop them if their souls would go into the abyss, but again, it’s explicitly stated that your soul will only end up in the abyss if you die in Psychedelica. And again, the fact that Aria is supposedly in the abyss makes no sense in the first place. The scene with the kids and the kaleido via was so out of place it was ridiculous. How do you not remember a scene where a shard flew into your friend’s eye and caused her to bleed everywhere?

Moving on, it’s literally never explained what the hell is up with Eiar’s red eye. It can be assumed that Eiar inherited it from Aria who really was a witch, but then that doesn’t explain why only one of Eiar’s eyes glow red and not both. 

MOVING ON, who the fuck is Hugh and literally what is his damn role in the story. Like I looove character types like him bc and I’m a huge sucker for “mysterious observer characters who act as the story’s narrator” not to mention he’s beautiful but Hugh’s origins and role remains wishy washy from start to end and his character ends up being a plot device to give 30 minute info dumps on the plot. Like, he’s the dumb dead bird that lived with Ashen Witch (whom I assume is Aria’s mother), and after he’s killed by Aprus, Ashen Witch... releases his... soul? So he becomes... a mindless traveler traveling between the different Psychedelica worlds...? I guess??? It’s implied that Hugh is the one who gave Hikage the kaleidoscope but again, how or why he did so is never explained either. I also dunno wtf is up with his ending where Eiar just magically turns into a butterfly and whooshes away with Hugh.

I still have no idea what was with that scene where he chats with Aria about the stories in the Links ending, and I definitely don’t know what was with that scene where Aria talks with Eiar and decides to name her non born child off of her (who is the same Eiar). Like what?? are dreams and timelines converging or something??? No clue.

Also. What the fuck is the deal with Lawrence and Elric??? THAT’S NEVER EXPLAINED? Like yes, I know that much that they’re Kagiha and Hikage respectively but literally wtf is Kagiha and Hikage doing in Aprus/Olgar’s Psychedelica. Lawrence clearly retains his memories as Kagiha, but Hikage never does and it’s like ??? why?? Also why is Usagi in a form of a rabbit in this world? WHO KNOWS. I was just so tired of this game that by the time I was half way done all the endings I just wanted it to be over already.

No joke, I seriously thought that PAA took place in the real world where Hikage was born and raised because of the medieval/historical setting and we’d learn more about the lore of the manor and the kaleidoscope. Honestly though, I wish it was because it prob would have made this game a million times better. If the game was split between a “wolves” and “hawks” path like BWS, it probably would have fixed some of the problems with the terrible romance.

The one good thing I will say about this game is that it’s the first otome game localization from Aksys I’ve played that didn’t give me a migraine because of no proof readers. There were some issues with wrong tenses being used but other than that it wasn't littered with typos like literally EVERY OTHER otome they’ve localized so far lmao.

Presentation wise, this game is beautiful. The sprite work is beautiful and the cgs are amazing. I loved the character designs for all the guys like A++ pretty boys. Unfortunately, the OST really lacked in comparison to PBB this time around. This game had so much potential but everything just fell apart the further and further you go and that’s what makes it even more disappointing. It’s setting and premise were a million times more interesting than PBB. Like medieval setting? Check. Feud between two clans with the heroine caught in between? Check. It had everything I loved and I was confident I was going to love it but the execution was just so terribad that I don’t love it. I can’t love it. I do love all the characters sans Lavan and Francisca though and I think they all deserved better. They deserved better writing. They deserved better development. I wish I could just rework this entire game from the ground up because that’s how frustrated I am with it lmao.

TLDR; I am very very disappointed with this game and it’s such a shame because I loved Black Butterfly to bits and pieces but this game ended up being a convoluted mess of bad and inconsistent writing. PBB had a rather weak premise with an uninteresting and incredibly cliche “all childhood friends in love w the heroine and there’s ~tragedy~!”. However, it had a very interesting and well written lore and universe while simultaneously being clean and easy to understand so it didn’t make any unnecessary loop holes for itself. PAA was the complete opposite. I enjoyed the connections this game made to the first game, but that was pretty much it. 

anyway wow that was long, this is the first time I’ve played a game where all I can do is go on a tangent about all the problems I’ve had with it. Hopefully other people enjoyed this game more than I did HAHA.

[aion-rsa]

Batwoman Season 2 Episode 4 Review: Fair Skin, Blue Eyes

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This Batwoman review contains spoilers.

Batwoman Season 2, Episode 4

Batwoman is using its new protagonist to tell stories that matter about the people superheroes (and superhero shows) forget. It is also, simultaneously, trying to keep the audience invested in characters whose stories have run their course. Kate Kane might not be dead, but she should be. After Alice’s and Sophie’s visit with Safiyah where she revealed that Kate is alive, the search for her is in full force. Mary is hesitant to have hope because she’s already accepted the finality of Kate’s death. Luke, on the other hand, has never conceded, and takes Safiyah’s word at face value. 

Alice and Sophie are tasked with finding a man named Ocean for Safiyah, in exchange for Kate’s safe return. And while it makes sense for both of them to want Kate back, each for their own reasons, it also feels like an easy—cheap—way to keep them connected to the central story. Instead of giving Alice and Sophie (and Julia) new things to do, Batwoman is keeping Kate in play, and continuing to make their motivations about her. Sophie is a newly out lesbian and a Black, female cop. She really does not need to also have unrequited feelings for Kate and guilt about their past relationship to be interesting. Her reality sans Kate is full of potential. Similarly, Alice has a whole entire father she can shift all of that unhinged vengeful energy to. Kate being present, even without being on-screen, is the only real issue I have with the season so far. Let people let go of Kate.

I admit that my expectations for this new iteration of the hero of Gotham were… low. Casting a Black, queer woman in the titular role was an exciting choice but it didn’t necessarily signal any real intention to tell more meaningful stories. Surprisingly though, writers have embraced the challenge of writing for the character in specific and significant ways. Ryan is the product of an environment that we have only seen in this show, and in most superhero fare, as a backdrop for the heroics. The characterization of Ryan as someone who survived that environment was something I hoped the show would both lean into and not rest on. Batwoman is confidently navigating that very narrow path.

Ryan was raised in foster care and spent time in the carceral system in adolescence and as an adult. She is a survivor, and all of the victimization she has endured informs the choices she makes as a person now with the power to protect people. When a young boy triggers a store alarm to get Batwoman’s attention, he asks her to find his brother Kevin, who has been missing for weeks. When she looks into his disappearance, the circumstances mirror an experience from her past, where she was abducted and nobody came to look for her.

Ryan’s investigation into Kevin unlocks her own memories of the time she spent with the “nice neighborhood candy lady,” a white woman who abducts young people and sells them off to gangs after they’ve been spiritually broken. Ryan flashes back to a moment in captivity where she thought she’d be saved after a search party arrives at the house. Only to find that they were looking for a girl with “fair skin, blue eyes,” and not her. That search for Beth Kane was extensive, just as the search for Kate is now that there is a modicum of a chance that she survived the plane crash. The time and resources spent to find these white girls and women are juxtaposed against Ryan and Kevin, both missing, and neither sought. This highlights a real-world issue.

Luckily for Ryan, her friend Angelique (Kerensa Cooper) allows herself to get snatched by the Candy Lady, and she and Ryan escape together—without the help of any adult or authority figures. In the present, Ryan is too late to save Kevin from the Candy Lady before he’s sold off to a gang. But Ryan gets to him before he can be initiated into the False Faces by taking Jacob Kane’s life. Batwoman saves Jacob and Kevin, and when Jacob asks how she found Kevin, she says “easy, I Iooked.” And there it is. Ryan has been forgotten, she knows what that feels like. But she also knows what it feels like to be found. She understands what the people of Gotham who are just trying to survive need in a hero, and she’s becoming that for Gotham and for herself. She also reconnects with Angelique (Bevin Bru), someone who had her back, which is necessary in the vigilante life.

Batwoman is asking new questions with its storytelling and avoiding easy, palatable answers. A masked Black woman vigilante can’t change a system, but who she chooses to save and how she uses her power can spark conversation about the ways the system fails the citizens of Gotham and why Batwoman, or even the Crows, are needed. This is the kind of existential question I have while watching, and the kind of dilemmas I want the show to examine, especially when the show operates in such a morally gray area. We can have fun with costumed heroes and also interrogate the power structures that necessitate their existence.

cnx.cmd.push(function() { cnx({ playerId: "106e33c0-3911-473c-b599-b1426db57530", }).render("0270c398a82f44f49c23c16122516796"); });

Black Lightning is a Black AF show that is topical by virtue of the fact that it tries to honestly reflect the Black experience. Because it’s so relevant it is also, sometimes, a difficult watch. Batwoman is wading into these conversations with Ryan, and allowing her identity to drive her heroism. But there’s enough wackiness afoot in Gotham that Batwoman still feels like escapism. I enjoy the balance of realism and fantasy that the writers are maintaining this season and look forward to more elevated storytelling and a focus shift away from Kate Kane.

The post Batwoman Season 2 Episode 4 Review: Fair Skin, Blue Eyes appeared first on Den of Geek.

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[hudsonespie]

Class of 1980: 40 Years of Women at the U.S. Coast Guard Academy

[Cmdr. Kathy A. Hamblett, United States Coast Guard retired]

Framed as heroes, we are often labeled as courageous by others. To most of us, it felt like survival. And we persevered as only the young can–with verve and humor. - Cmdr. Kathy Hamblett (retired), Coast Guard Academy Class of 1980

In recognition of 40 years of women graduating from the United States Coast Guard Academy, the organizers for the USCGA Class of 2020's graduation asked the Class of 1980 women for words of wisdom. This request led me to consider how far away and long ago our graduation took place in Leamy Hall on a rainy day in May. By virtue of alphabetical order, the first woman to cross the stage was Jean Butler. She recalled the sounds of camera shutters clicking rapidly and simultaneously. She remembered, “It sounded like a cascading waterfall.” Not only was she the first woman in the Class of 1980 to graduate, she was the first woman to graduate from any armed forces service academy. The Air Force, Army, and Navy held graduations in June.

After graduation, the 14 of us fanned out across the cutter fleet, often being the first women to serve on board and the firsts in many assignments over our ensuing careers. Many of us retired as captains and commanders. Some of us found further success in academics, research, engineering, business and veterinary medicine with interests as diverse as the individuals we have always been.

The Coast Guard is credited with accepting women to the Academy before being forced to by legislation. Adm. Owen Siler, commandant, is recognized as starting it all 45 years ago on August 11, 1975, when a Transportation Department press release noted that, “Admiral Siler said his decision to admit women to the Academy was based on the many contributions he expected women to make in the peace-time missions of the Coast Guard.” Siler went on to state that “current statutes do not bar the admission of women to the Coast Guard Academy and that action by Congress will not be required. This decision is also in keeping with the strong commitment of the leadership of the Department of Transportation to assure equal rights for women.”

But it was another man who made the crucial difference. William Thaddeus Coleman, Jr., a distinguished attorney and judge, serving as the fourth Secretary of Transportation was the second African American to serve in the United States Cabinet. He served pivotal roles in significant civil rights cases as an attorney before becoming Transportation Secretary. While the Coast Guard had previously decided not to admit women to the Academy, Coleman asked the Commandant, “Admiral, are there any really valid reasons why women should be kept out of the Coast Guard Academy?” Siler replied in the negative. Coleman then asked, “Do we have to wait for Congress to act upon this?” Again, Admiral Siler responded in the negative. Coleman’s adept handling of the situation allowed the Commandant to shine.

Cadet Mary Jane East in dress uniform during rifle inspection on the Academy parade grounds. (U.S. Coast Guard)

This backstory was something I learned years later. As one of the women entering the Academy in 1976, I knew women were already in the Coast Guard. Beginning with female lighthouse keepers and World War II SPARS, followed by women graduating Officer Candidate School and being commissioned as Ensigns in 1973, it appeared women had been in the Coast Guard in some manner all along. Opening the Academy to women seemed a natural progression—how hard could it be? When I inquired about an application, I received a warm, encouraging letter. As an accepted candidate, I received another letter, professional and equally promising. Given this positive start, it appeared the 38 women accepted into the Academy would be as welcome as the men. But that’s not what happened.

Cadet Jean Butler navigating the obstacle course at the Academy. (U.S. Coast Guard)

For a number of cadets and staff, having women at the Academy was an experiment–one they were determined to help fail. Thankfully, a few were more open, providing respite and encouragement. Support came from chaplains, to cadet activity leaders, to faculty. Most of all, we garnered support from classmates and tackled challenges together–beginning on the first day. We were issued dungarees that needed hemming and the cadre (cadets two years our senior tasked with our indoctrination) yelled it had to be done before the swearing-in ceremony. This was meant to be a stress test, but most women of my generation possessed sewing skills courtesy of required home economics courses in high school. Much to the irritation of the cadre, my roommate and I easily hemmed our dungarees and those of several male classmates before the cadre rushed us outside to practice marching. That first day, unsewn dungarees were held up with tape and staples. But going forward, sewing skills were bartered for shoe shining or rifle cleaning. We learned teamwork, perhaps not in the way our cadre intended, but we learned it all the same.

Cadet Karen Tween serving scullery duty on board the Eagle during the summer cruise. (U.S. Coast Guard)

Our class motto—Old Traditions, New Horizons—says it all. We would honor traditions, but we would forge a new path as well. That new path included dealing with issues prior classes had not. As a class, we endured intense media scrutiny with press dogging our steps during Swab Summer. In more than one instance, cameramen jumped out from behind bushes to snap our photographs as we marched to and from Chase Hall. Once the academic semester started, individual women were pulled out of class for interviews, often at the last minute. We were not trained in conducting interviews so it was no surprise when several women were misrepresented. We learned the media could not be trusted with the nuances of our stories and even a hint that the women were not thriving sent repercussions rippling through the Corps of Cadets, to our detriment.

Consequently, we became masters at hiding certain realities from others, and even from ourselves. Our class determined that both male and female cadets would attend scheduled interviews or none at all. There were many questions. The tangible and often humorous topics concerning bathroom facilities, uniforms, sports, and haircuts were easier to talk about. They were temporary obstacles solved over time. By far, the most stubborn obstacles remained deeply entrenched attitudes. Nevertheless, facing these hurdles made us stronger.

From the time we entered to the time we graduated, we were engulfed in an expectation of failure, and discounted in ways both overt and subtle. At the same time, we were surrounded by the largest group of funny, creative, kind, and intelligent young people in one place. The dynamic was an adventure and we walked both paths.

We each had to find our own toeholds out of that quagmire of low expectations and psychological warfare in all its forms. Father Norman Ricard, U.S. Navy chaplain, provided one early toehold for me. Humor. His laughter and perspective helped me see the humor in a lot of situations. Other toeholds followed. Framed as heroes, we are often labeled as courageous by others. To most of us, it felt like survival. And we persevered as only the young can—with verve and humor.

Cadets Robin Gallagher and Tricia Edman marching in formation on the parade grounds. (U.S. Coast Guard)

Looking back, I reflect on how quickly one’s life can become history. It was 20 years ago that the Women of 1980 were invited to celebrate the 20-year anniversary of women at the Coast Guard Academy. During that visit, we met cadets who believed women had always attended the Academy. Women at the Academy was normalized; no one gave it a second thought. I found it refreshing. Now, suddenly, we are celebrating 40 years of women at the Academy. And once again, we dust off the memories of our moment in history and celebrate with the newest members of the long blue line.

This editorial appears courtesy of U.S. Coast Guard Compass and is shown here in an abbreviated form. It may be found in its original form here. 

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