#this job has made me the villain to hundreds people's stories and the worst version of myself

[ordinarytalk]

The plan is to stay in this hell job until I get public service loan forgiveness but damn if I'm not having a month that's making me consider just quitting right now and having all $50,000 of that debt fall right on my head just so I don't have to be here one single solitary second longer

[scullysflannel]

☕️ not really a topic but i would LOVE it if you try to convince someone who has not seen a single episode of x files (me) to watch x files

thank you for this dream assignment. I’m unhinging my jaw now.

Mulder and Scully aren’t like their reputations. they get talked about like these big ideas—the Believer and the Skeptic—but they are so not dry or one-dimensional or anything else that you might be expecting. they’re the most human characters I’ve ever seen on screen. Scully is curious and earnest and so eager to succeed, but she throws away her definition of success to do the right thing (and because she’s a little rebel. I’m not spoiling anything beyond the first few minutes of the pilot to say that she’s assigned to Mulder to spy on him, but she likes and respects him too much to do it). Mulder is hardworking, kind, restless. so idealistic it looks selfish. he sees his lost sister in every victim. he has trouble sleeping, and I love that it’s not part of the plot. it’s just part of him. some procedurals don’t like to go home with the characters at the end of the day. The X-Files feels like it’s always going home with Mulder and Scully, even when they’re on the road.

every good thing about the show goes through them. that’s the whole point of the story: you think the truth is “out there,” but it isn’t—it’s in other people. and that might sound sentimental or obvious, but The X-Files makes you feel how heavy it is to love and be loved. a lot of Mulder and Scully’s connection is unspoken. and yes, sometimes that gives them communication issues, which I personally think is very sexy and interesting of them, but it’s also so powerful. here are these two people whose job forces them to question everything about the world, but they don’t question each other.

I know I’m getting very Always Sunny conspiracy board about this, but nothing else feels like The X-Files. it’s a mood at the highest level. the whole philosophy behind the show is that knowing there’s a monster in the shadows is scarier and more interesting than seeing that monster. the most powerful things are the ones that can’t really be understood or explained. it’s the same with Mulder and Scully. Chris Carter, the creator, fought so hard against making them romantic, but the joke is on him for a lot of reasons, like (1) he cast David Duchovny and Gillian Anderson, who have more chemistry than anyone else on this sad little planet and who like kissing for fun, (2) nothing is more romantic than an intellectual partnership between equals based on trust and mutual respect, and (3) the more he refused to define their relationship with words, the more powerful he inadvertently made it, because, again, the most important things are too big for words. it’s like the show respects Mulder and Scully’s connection too much to try to explain it.

The X-Files made me realize how sick I am of bickering on TV. a lot of shows want us to think that love looks like a little boy pulling a girl’s hair on the playground. but Mulder and Scully have a friendship between adults. they like each other. I know I literally just went on about how their relationship is so powerful it transcends the bounds of fiction etc., but it’s not stuffy. there’s a fun little kernel of madness and codependence at the center of their relationship, which I love because I love watching women in fiction pick their own poison. and Scully’s is Mulder. they’re a little bit mutually destructive with each other, but they’re even more self-destructive on their own. it’s compelling.

shifting to a different corner of my conspiracy board. Mulder and Scully are as great as they are because The X-Files understands exactly where they fit in the world of the show and what brings them together: their shared integrity in the face of the FBI’s manipulation. The X-Files is really about the abuses committed by the government; the villains are men in suits who would do anything to hold on to the power they feel slipping away. this show can go hard when it wants to. I can’t and don’t want to absolve it for being written and directed almost exclusively by white men, which comes through in all kinds of toxic ways. but as far as cop shows go its perspective on the world holds up impressively well—better than shows that are on right now. I can think of a hundred ways The X-Files could have been a better version of itself, but every other show still wants what it has. 

even when The X-Files is bad it’s good. sometimes the frustrating things about it only make it more interesting. it’s a show that draws you in; it makes you part of the process of interpreting what’s happening and assigning meaning to it. there wasn’t a writers’ room for the writers to communicate with each other (a concept), which means the story can sometimes feel fragmented, but that also gave the show the capacity to look at Mulder and Scully through a lot of different lenses, which ultimately only makes them more vibrant. they can fit into a comedy or a tragedy or a thriller. they can be unbearably sentimental one week (or one scene) and unbearably withholding the next. but that’s real. people are inconsistent. it also makes it possible for the monster-of-the-week episodes to keep getting better and more inventive even as the mythology starts to fall apart. the great standalone episodes are like short stories, and even the worst ones have Mulder and Scully.

I don’t find The X-Files scary in a jump-scare kind of way; it’s cozy, and it’s got a powerful sense of wonder at the the world. but it does get at the creeping horror of realizing the world doesn’t make sense. what makes the story hopeful is that Mulder and Scully keep trying to make sense of it anyway. they tear down everything they thought they knew because the comfort of a lie is less important than the truth. I just love that the little grey men and the UFOs and the tractor beams all look exactly like you’d expect them to, but belief still isn’t easy. it’s not a show about what exactly real-ass aliens might look like. it’s about how the truth can be really simple and really hard to accept at the same time.

[jq37]

Maybe I'm also being animal racist, but a current guess I have for oMaM is that the rabbit Sly saw at the docks was actually the newspaper photographer who seems to be spending a lot of energy documenting Sly's movements at this party, and the bad lighting/state of intoxicated introspection led Syl to make a wrong assumption. (Also did you ever watch Hoodwinked? Spoilers: the reporter bunny did it)

lol hey guys. So I've been fairly MIA the past couple of weeks due to my job trying to actively murder me but I wanted to pop in for a hot second to talk about where we are theory-wise at this point in the season.

First of all, to address the actual ask, I feel like Brennan must have known Longfoot would be suspicious due to ~animal racism~ and put him in as a red herring and now we have even more info to back that up.

I suspect that what's going on with the stuff in the manor is a version of the Pepper's ghost illusion which involves mirrors to do ghostly projections and look pretty darn good for an effect that was invented hundreds of years ago. If you've ever ridden Haunted Mansion at Disney, that's the effect they use to do the waltzing ghosts (fun fact, because the effect mirrors the objects it's used on and the Imagineers forgot to take that into account, all of the female ghosts are leading in the dance!) But that's just fluff, let's talk plot.

So last week's ep threw a LOT of suspicion on Sly with him literally being painted at the villain and Grant doing absolutely nothing to defend himself. And, I'll admit, it would be pretty delicious to not only have Sly foreshadow it earlier with his coy, "Why yes, it also could have been me," and also that Grant himself would have [REDACTED] Rekha a SECOND TIME (watch the Murder Mystery ep of Game Changers if you don't know what I mean--it's my fave ep). But I talked it over with my watch buddy @camwritery and I don't think Sly is actually a baddie. I think this is a double double cross (Lol a cross from Mr. Cross). Here's my thought process.

(1) Yes there's that stack of letters Daisy found in Sly's hand but those easily could have been forged. I'd like Buck to take a look at those since he has that rogue handwriting checking ability.

(2) Squire Badger specially said something was coming to F Sly up and Sly could tell he wasn't the mastermind. Fletcher would make the most sense as to who the mastermind actually is. Like, it wouldn't be so much a twist to the audience but it would be a big ass twist to the CHARACTERS who thought he was fully dead (for the most part) and I feel like that matters more than "subverting expectations" or whatever. It's possible we find out it's actually another party guest I guess (or more likely, that some number of them are involved as accomplices) but Brennan said last week we've met all the characters and it's too late to introduce a new person at this point. And Fletcher is such a through line in Sly and Daisy's stories, it would be weird to not go for the payoff.

(3) So Fletcher is alive. We know this. What would a dead but not dead criminal mastermind want? To ruin his arch nemesis, obv. So, how do you do that? Maybe you fake the death of some mouse to create an unsolvable murder to drive him crazy? And then maybe you work with the person who the fake murder pissed off (because of Sly's inability to "solve" it) to ruin Sly because that guy hates Sly now? And maybe you involve some element of faking deaths in your plan because a faked death is what was central to the original plot that made Sly's reputation and ruined your family? That's so convoluted but this is a guy who handcuffed himself to his enemy and jumped off a waterfall. He's clearly a drama queen and he has nothing but time.

(4) I think Sly has figured this out to some degree and he's decided that letting himself get captured is the best option for him at the moment. Like, he didn't protest at all. Which, yes, checks out to his laidback, posh casual persona but I think he knows that if anything happens to anyone while he's locked up then it casts suspicion on someone besides him or it means the "murders" have to stop because no one will kill anyone while he's not active as a possible suspect due to literally not being able to murder anyone. Speaking of--

(5) Yeah, I don't believe these are murders. All those dead bodies from the list? Badgers, corvids, horned animals. That's the badger fam and their spouses. And the one guy we "knew" was dead also doesn't seem to be dead (which Brennan seeded from the start with Conor's widow hearing his voice which seems possible if she lives so close and he was alive this whole time). I guess framing Sly for a full family murder or something was the plan? But that doesn't quite check out because presumably they'd un-die at some point and I feel like they wouldn't want to live under assumed identities in animal Bavaria or something. I know news doesn't travel fast w/o the internet but they're prominent people. News would spread I assume. Maybe the death faking was to make Sly believe he was crazy? Or to believe in ghosts? Messing with a genius's mind is I'm sure one of the worst things you can do. There's also Buck's Frankenstein theory which is a little out there but they were trying crazy stuff with electricity and dead bodies back in the day. Kind of a wild pull but cam sent me this about a Dr. Squires from the same-ish time period shocking someone back to life. It would be wild and now we have some alt explanations for the electricity but gotta explore all options. And this would Constance to call her dad a madman, lol.

(6) Grant/Sly has a lot more info than us with all those maddening redacted texts so it's very likely he has some long game happening we know nothing about. I wondered if he might have known about Fletcher for a while--when Daisy revealed he was alive he was surprised but I don't remember if he was surprised that he was alive or if it was ambiguous and it might just be that he didn't tell her. I assumed he didn't know at all (because I feel like that's what Brennan narrated in episode 1) but I need to go back and check.

(7) At the end of the day, D20 is a show that rewards love and friendship over betrayal and the like. This very much could be the first season with a real betrayal but I'm kinda skeptical. Sly could just be a big faker but he seems genuine to me. Also, what would his motive even be here? This doesn't seem like his style and I don't know why he'd do this.

(8) Lars failed their check on purpose and Ian saw full puppydog earnestness. Sly if you've been a bad guy this whole time and Lars didn't know, bitch I'll kill you

(9) Not really on topic but I want to note, Daisy's find of that second trick portrait makes me thing my theory was correct and there's a third somewhere. I wonder where.

(10) Even less on topic but the "Show Her Your Butt 2: Electric Boogaloo" sequence last week made me spit soda everywhere and I think that should be acknowledged.

[technoturian]

So after dipping my toe in the Pedro Pascal stan side of tumblr I decided to give his Netflix movies a try. Yesterday was Prospect which I *loved* and today was Triple Frontier which was... possibly the worst movie I’ve seen in the last couple of years.

Spoilers under the tag but honestly... Just don’t watch this movie. If you’re a fan of one of the cute men in it then just search the internet for gifs, I promise you you will get more out of that than you will out of this movie. Ranting below, you’ve been warned.

I have to commend the Pedro fans for their fanon version of his character in this film, as they pretty much were forced to invent him from whole cloth because basically none of that is in the text. And that’s because he doesn’t have a character. None of them have characters! None of them have arcs! The plot doesn’t even have an arc! The movie ended in the biggest shrug I’ve ever seen. They didn’t fail, they didn’t succeed, it was just kind of... well that happened.

Every time I thought, “Okay, I see where this narrative is going...” It just... didn’t. It didn’t go anywhere. The main thrust of the movie was done 30 minutes in and then the rest of the movie was them walking around killing people. Now, it could have been about that, about that they were killing civilians and growing increasingly more cruel and emotionless in their actions, but that was not reflected in the resolution. Nothing that happened in the movie was concluded in a way that made sense. It just was a collection of bad things that happened that then stopped eventually. What about the characters and their families who at the start of the film were stated would be hunted to the ends of the earth by ALL THE CARTELS!! (and other unspecified Bad Criminal People) and at the end just kind of shrug off the fact that they have no money to disappear with? Are Santiago’s fake passports supposed to fix that? Or maybe they deserve that because of the ~horrible things they did~ but then why such a light-hearted, optimistic-ish ending note where they all cheerfully say goodbye? What is the message here?

It was like two producers came together, one said he wanted to make an indie film that was a blunt drama on the horrors of war and dehumanization of the American soldier and a scathing, unflinching indictment of the military industrial complex, and the other one said he wanted to make a shoot-em-up heist movie with big budget actors and lots of explosive action and they were like...

...and mushed them together without any attempt to make a cohesive and narratively satisfying story. It fails at both of these aspects by committing to neither. I saw only the briefest hints of any kind of thematic thread that was so incompetently conveyed that it might as well have never existed. I can’t understand how this movie has such high approval from critics??? What did you like here, was it all of the monologues about how war takes and takes and doesn’t pay well enough? Because if you like that, there was a lot of that. It doesn’t actually go anywhere but it’s there and gee, it’s a thinker, huh, war is bad actually. Groundbreaking.

And this is not an indictment on the actors at all (except for Ben Affl*ck, he can choke). They were honestly working so hard, I could see that, and it made me angrier than if they’d phoned it in. I honestly cannot imagine how they got all of these big actors in this movie and gave them absolutely nothing to work with!

Every one of these characters save Santiago had the same ~arc~, “I don’t like what being a soldier did to me except I’m super loyal so I’m just going to do this one last job oh crap everything is terrible better turn on my murder training...” Which is like... Yeah that happens when you join the military, it’s awful, sure. “War is hell” and all that. But just pointing that out doesn’t make these successful, rounded characters or make this a good movie. I again applaud fans that found any value in these characters, it honestly feels like a case of “I like this actor so much that he deserves a lot better than this, let me invent an alternate reality where he actually had substance”. I can’t feel bad for them too much because I guess, I hope they had fun filming it on location and made a lot of that Netflix money?

As an exercise I tried to think of a single line in this movie that, if shifted from one character to another, would have changed... anything. If it would’ve effected their character at all. If it would’ve felt like it didn’t fit, like, “well HE wouldn’t say THAT”. I couldn’t think of one. They were all completely interchangeable. They all switch from being guilty about killing people to not really caring to straight up going murder-happy depending on the scene, excusing their actions and condemning them. ~Oho, but don’t you see, that’s the duality of the soldier, the hero and the villain~ shut up, it’s bad narrative if you can’t even figure out what a character’s motivations and baseline personality are.

Literally the only person I saw any slight arc from was Santiago, who basically got all of his plot threads neatly tied up by the halfway point and then was just a shell of regret like the other characters. From then on the only person with any sort of arc potential was Tom, because he was the first to get greedy and he was the one to shoot first and I thought “Okay cool, so he’s going to turn on them or something as the money dwindles because he’s going to put his family first and they’re really going to show how far they’ve fallen” and nope he’s dead, of course he’s dead, that’s the end of the only character that seemed like he MIGHT be going anywhere (not that I cared because Ben Affl*ck can choke). Even the romance arc didn’t go anywhere! It literally stops halfway through the movie just like everything else???? This movie feels like they lost the second half of the script days before filming and they were like, “Um, and, um, lots of... climbing the Andes, and, um, this Andes thing is going to be very long and so that’ll pad it out and, um??? War is bad, look what they make you do, look what they make you give etcetera etcetera? Then, uh, action driving scene, uh, yeah. There we go, finished.”

I honestly just can’t believe I sat through a movie with Ben Affl*ck, Charlie Hunn*m’s absolute travesty of an American accent, and 70s-80s dad rock music just because two hot Star Wars boys were in it. Maybe the real message of the movie is the hot boys we looked at along the way.

* And because it didn’t fit anywhere else, just a shoutout to this particular part: William’s character introduction being a recruitment speech that starts with “My PTSD is so bad I have violent blackouts” and somehow with a scene cut manages to circle back around to “So anyway kids stay in the Army it’s the best and you’re all patriots” is the most heinous thing that completely undermines A, his place as the moral center/voice of reason of the film and B, any anti-military message the movie might be vaguely attempting. I just keep remembering that compilation video of young, desperately sad military recruits saying “f*ck you” and “you lied” to their recruiter and thinking, “This guy has given this speech HUNDREDS of times??”

[razorblade180]

More Breakthrough

Months ago I was asked a question about if I ever thought about an original story; which I answered. Check it out right here!

In that I post I only talked about the lore and world building of that story. Plenty of you seemed interested and I’ve had this on my brain a lot recently so I thought I’d talk about it some more.

Modern Day creation

Centuries have past since the tale of the eight warriors who saved the world was immortalized into history. Today As humanity grew developed it’s knowledge, the story sounded more and more like a legend; one that sprouted a religion that branched out. The main group celebrates all the crystals and keeps the story alive and well while the smaller groups devote themselves to a single crystal and live near them like the old days. It was this shared celebration that spurred on the idea of traveling. New groups of people met, ideas were shared, ideas became reality. Cities, transportation, machinery; nothing was impossible. The threats of elementals became easier to handle. People lived longer, which meant more people made settlements. And for insurance, a special school was built for those willing to continue learning about the power of potential in order to keep the world safe. Much like the churches, that school spawned smaller schools across countries for more to learn and focus on particular techniques of one’s choosing. All the ideas and development created the world as they now it. A place where finding modern day art is a common as locating nomadic group that stick to surviving of the vast lands the world has always offered.

Synopsis

Christian, a six teen year old ice user, takes the test to get into Breakthrough: the school for aspiring hunters. What started off as a joke attempt just to test his abilities suddenly becomes serious when he gets accepted in along with his older sister, Amber. Now he goes from a boy from a small town, to being the youngest student in over a decade going to the most intimidating school in the world where every day is one chaotic step closer to his dream to be like the ice warrior of legend.

Additional lore

It has been recorded over the years that there are people who don’t stay on the normal track when it comes to unlocking limitations to access greater potential. Stories of people encountering or hearing an unknown voice whenever they were in a time of great need circumvent the world. All stories differ from each person, but the endings are all the same. breakthroughs that should’ve taken considerable amount of training, effort, and self discovery were already unlocked; making those people prime candidates to fight elementals or contribute to the common man actively. If they so choose that is. The phenomenon while incredible, isn’t something people fear or particularly seek. At the end of the day, that gap in power can still be closed by the regular means. Such is the beauty of potential. Many jobs have incorporated a special group in their line of work for people with advanced skill sets. Not only does it make business better, but it doesn’t lock trap talented people into only being a hunter or a soldier in order to use their power to the fullest. (I might’ve said that before but I can’t remember.)

Threats

Elementals are still a big problem; constantly causing natural disasters, attacking people, stunting progress. The only changes itself are humans willing to commit crimes and do things for personal gain. Naturally leading to wars, hate, and unnecessary loss of life. The two threats mix in mingle in mysterious ways that can be rather unpredictable and create situations beyond control....

Other stuff

Overall I think there’s 49 characters with significant and interesting things people would latch on to and 29/30-ish of them could be considered a main character, or at the very least, Grade A supporting character; that’s including villains in that list and third party individuals. They are all introduced over time, have backstory, and you bet your bottom dollar that not everyone makes it to the end of the story. There’s also a bunch of other characters that pop in and out.

The more I look at those characters and the. Look at some of my RWBY Au concepts I realize my brain was set on doing certain things, but knew I wouldn’t know how to if I started from scratch. I literally groaned out loud because I realized certain things I put in Twin Snowflakes is essentially a baby version of how key things happen in Breakthrough. It honestly tempts me in the worst way possible to just write it; that’s dangerous. This world is so dense and vast because I wrote it like a JRPG. I could easily see this being over a hundred chapters unless I made it multiple stories that weaved together one massive arc. Yet here I am, refusing to spoil everything about my original story I’ve thought about for what has be six years now? Maybe one day in a far off future when I know how to adult 💀 [Or I finish my rwbaby stuff.]

[nunaya-business]

Hi, Let’s Talk About Some Controversial Shit Yeah?

So lately people have been telling Horikoshi Kohei to go kill himself, because they’re trying to be a shitty version of Shane Dawson exploring conspiracy theories that have no right to exist. I don’t even know where to fucking start, but since I’m not a YouTuber, but I’m a writer, I decided to ditch my phone for this one, and am currently typing this shit out on my laptop. Yes, that is how pissed I am.

A new decade and a new start to the shittiness that was 2010-2020. More and more people of the LGBTQ started coming out of the dark and trying to accept who they are to the chagrin of assholes who have no business in their lives anyway. I feel like there’s been a lot more racism here than there was from 2000-2010, or maybe that’s just me. I think it’s because people are getting more vocal with their opinions as the earth goes to shit. We are slowly killing it after all. Not only is there more racism, sexism, anti-LGBTQ pricks, and people prejudice against other religions (the prejudice against Muslims is a big one. Poor Muslims, it’ll be okay, Brookie’s on your side), but there are now people who don’t like freedom of speech, or the right to write a story, and people who are just plain pussies because they don’t wike dere wittle feewings huwt 😥. 

I could write for hours about all of those subjects. But since I’m an aspiring writer myself, I picked the right to write. What do I mean by that? I mean the right for an author of any kind to write their story, their way, without these little pussies coming around and being like, “bro can you not mention the Mongols breaking through the Great Wall of China? Yeah, because I’m from a Chinese family and I don’t want to be reminded of my ancestor’s tribulations even though it was 800 years ago. Thanks”. Let me break this shit down like I’m in debate class and my entire University grade depends on me winning this “argument”.

Writing is an art. Duh. People don’t write because they had a good life, I don’t care what anyone says. Writers write because it relieves stress, allows them to get their feelings out in a healthy way, take them away to their own little world in their own special way to escape the hell they’re living through, lets them vent the dark desires and thoughts they may have, and get their opinions out there when they feel like no one listens. Writing is a cure for depression for some people. It’s a healthy kind of drug that doesn’t make someone overdose (unless they’re like me and write’s for hours on end losing sleep and starving themselves just to write an idea down before they forget it). 

People write about what they can’t speak. My mom has this saying “say it forget it, write it regret it”, and in certain contexts that saying is a good moral to have, but that’s not always the case. My mom and I watched the movie “Her” the other day and (spoilers) at the end of the movie, the main character Theodore, who’s a writer, writes a letter to his ex-wife. He writes about how they met, how they grew up together, how they grew to be the best of friends, then lovers, then built a trust they couldn’t replace, and the sorrow he felt when the relationship started crumbling. Joaquin Phoenix did an amazing job lamenting about the character’s past, most likely because he’s been through a lot too, and the character did an astounding job putting his words to paper (or in this case email) and getting out years of stress and sadness so that he can start loving life again.

The point of me describing that scene was to show the impact writing has on some people. It’s the escape they need and sometimes the emotions they feel put into a context where they can explain it all they want without having to waste a breath.

Now, picture if you will, that you’re a writer down on your luck. You have an amazing story to tell and the audience in mind that you want to tell it to, but no one believes in you. They want to alter your story to suit a wider audience, but, you don’t give a shit about appealing to people, you’re telling a story that helped you and may help others too, no matter the money you might lose or recognition you’ll never gain. Imagine that you found a way to both appeal to a wider audience and tell that story you have in your mind’s view. It gets more popular than most media to come out of your country and helps you bring in more than enough money you need to survive. Suddenly people are falling in love with the characters you wrote in more ways than one. People are starting to call it a modern classic and then, you start getting letters from people all around the world telling you how much your writings helped them and that they’re living better lives because they were inspired or motivated by the words you oh so carefully put onto a page, with the art you spent hours, upon days, upon weeks on opening people’s eyes to what they’re capable of.

I may have put some personal shit in that last paragraph, but I was mainly talking about the subject of this... (essay?) Horikoshi Kohei. A man who never gave up because dammit, he had a story to tell and fuck anyone who doesn’t want to hear it. All that matters to real writers is that someone feels special because of the words you put together on a page. Horikoshi puts a lot of time and effort into My Hero Academia, and what does his fans do? They tell him to kill himself because he dared wordplay to get the names of some characters. Y’know it’s funny, I don’t hear a lot of Jews, trans, gay, or Polish people complain about the shit their ancestors went through 70 years ago during the Holocaust like they went through it as well, but I always hear about Korean, Chinese, and Black people (off the top of my head don’t @ me) complain about shit their ancestors went through from 70 all the way back to a thousand years ago. Not to say that everyone in those races do that. because they don’t. I’m sure a majority probably doesn’t give two flying fucks what someone writes as long as they aren’t being personally targeted or threatened. But go on Horikoshi’s Twitter once and tell me that you don’t see hundreds of his followers (mostly Asian) threatening him and criticizing his naming of his characters. If you’re Korean or Chinese and you find issue with the fact that Horikoshi named a mother fucking villain character after a place where your specific race was tortured and experimented on, decades before were even fucking thought of, please tell me why. If you feel personally attacked then you’re... (I don’t wanna use retarded because people will automatically stop reading and DM me about my word choice) doltish. That’s a fancy word for stupid by the way. Maybe if it were one of the heroes named that way then I would completely understand, but it’s not. It’s a fucking villain. 

But hey, what do I know? I’ve never been through shit. I’m just a plain, short and chubby little white girl with a big mouth that’s never been the victim of prejudice or racism. No one’s ever taken a look at me and judged me based on my ancestors or religious choices. No one’s ever made fun of my accent or the color of my skin, or the birth defect that effected my feet and slightly effected my hands. 

Oh by the way, my mom’s a closet Psychopath that wasn’t diagnosed because the rest of the family is too fucking psycho for anyone to notice her torturing animals at a young age. My dad was a Paranoid Schizophrenic with an undiagnosed Psychosis and severe PTSD (diagnosed) that grew up in a home with an abusive father and a mother that was too busy grooming her oldest son (take that how you will) to pay any attention to him. Not to mention she also killed him. It’s not like my dad’s dad was also a psychopath that purposefully killed my unborn brother and laughed when my mom miscarried It’s not like my life was at risk because there was people shooting at my house (where I lived with my grandfather) and I could hear the bullets bouncing off of the trees. It’s not like I was bullied when I was little leading to a brain injury that caused my memory to be fucked up and my speech to slur and stutter. Oh and I definitely didn’t have to start being a second mom to my brother, and an actual mom to my little cousin because my family doesn’t give a fuck how their actions effect others.

I didn’t have the worst life by all means. There’s a lot more people that I know personally that have had it way worse than I have. I’m just saying, don’t take shit so fucking personally. Grow some goddamn balls and stop telling people to go kill themselves because they named a character something you didn’t like. Stop bringing up shit from the past unless people ask about it, or you’re telling you life story. It’s 2020. It’s time to stop being pussies and act like functioning members of society. 

Oh and one last thing. Ya’ll are telling a man to kill himself while the corona virus is spreading like the plague. I think we should be more fucking worried about the fact that humanity could easily be wiped out thanks to the Chinese government silencing a scientist who know about the damn virus a year ago. If anything, we should be targeting them and Trump for being awful, not a poor mangaka that was just word playing with the names of his characters. 

[nichebim]

Sanders Sides/ Boku no Hero Academia Quirk AU

Yes, you heard me.

Maybe this warrants some context.

So, I was looking for bizarre crossover fanfiction, as you do, and I came across one Sanders Sides and BNHA fic called “What Makes Up Midoriya” by kalopsic on ao3. I read it and, it’s a bit rough but damn did the idea stick in the best ways.

Anyways, I can’t seem to write a fic fast enough to post it . I’m already working on trying to adapt it into a comic or something but I’d honestly rather just read it. I already posted this on my ao3 account, though I don’t have any fics written there but I’m gonna copy and paste the google doc here. There will be criticism of the original fic and if you end up reading it, kalopsic, just know that I love your fanfiction and will be waiting for your next update if you’re still working on it.

Basic plot: My Hero Academia--Canon Divergence

The divergence being that Izuku basically had physical manifestations of the Sanders sides

Sides:

Rin/ Anxiety: didn’t start out with dark bags like real Thomas’ Anxiety, he developed them over time for reasons I’ll say later

Yoshi/ Morality: the child of the group, as opposed to Thomas’ being the dad

Akio/ Hero/ Princey: basically Roman but Izuku just wanting to be a hero

Satoshi/ Logic: basically Logan

Original fic dislikes:

each side had a quirk and I felt that, that it easily made Izuku very OP (overpowered), even they acknowledged it,  but I just felt like it was too much, no matter how convenient it was (Prince character had the power to double Izuku’s quirk power, Anxiety had the power to cause illusions, Morality had the power to heal, Logic could strategize)

everyone just dismissing his quirk just because that's how everyone treated him in MHA; SERIOUSLY EVERY SEPARATE PERSONALITY HAD ITS OWN QUIRK! HOW IS THAT NOT HERO MATERIAL?! It just didn’t make any sense to me and made me feel disillusioned.

Even if the sides didn't have quirks, they would still be useful; it just seemed like the author was looking for excuses to keep Izuku on track for receiving One For All

Likes:

story had a lot of potential to explore Izuku’s character and emotions, especially if I keep it the same track of it being undiscovered for the majority of his life

It’s just an interesting idea to see these characters placed in such a situation that would for sure require teamwork on the field and each of their reaction and reception to certain events and responsibilities

each facet of his personality may hold more radical opinions or measures to complete certain tasks that Izuku may not want to believe he’d be capable of or like (kinda exploring his character, like I said before); maybe Rin is willing to kill or sacrifice people for “the greater good” kinda thing

if I keep it in the same track of him not discovering it until he’s fourteen or fifteen, it could keep his “growing up quirkless” complex he retains in the show and I think watching work it out between all of the facets of his personality would be nice and comforting; they help him move through the whole treating people with “heroic” quirks like they’re on a pedestal and his inferiority complex

I like the whole emotional aspect of the sides, it’s kinda what entices me about this concept

Things that stay the same:

they first manifest at his thought of “I don’t want to be alone”

they’re basically all the same as Logic, Morality, Anxiety and Hero

he still meets All Might

Sludge villain still happens

he could summon each one individually if he wants

Rin does cares about everyone and the constant danger they’re in causes him so much stress/anxiety (minor change in that he develops the bags overtime)

Changes:

no, each side will not have a quirk

I don’t know if I’ll have them be able to directly talk to him like they do inside his head; small handicap that I feel would help the story would be that he could only talk to them in their physical form but I don’t think I’ll adhere to that for the sake of convenience

he will not get One For All, or at least if he does, it will not be like the canon version, maybe All Might will go with his original plan of bestowing it on one of the students in UA and he saw Izuku has potential

I’ll focus on the growing bond of the personalities because they manifested too late and honestly too close to high school that they need to learn teamwork and cooperation between each other and how to master their quirk

the sides are not omniscient; they don’t come into existence immediately knowing what they are and how they work; they’re all kinda blown away when they appear out of nowhere

he doesn’t need a phrase or punchline to summon them

they choose to have their own names: Satoshi with kanji meaning clear-thinking and quick-witted for Logic, Yoshi with kanji meaning joyful for Morality, Akio with kanji for hero and manly, and Rin with kanji for dignified, severe and cold

Satoshi will develop his need for glasses since he’s always reading and, unwisely, often does it in dark lighting; the only one who needs glasses

Maybe just to have fun, I’ll have each side actually be the other characteristic at their core, like how Yoshi/Morality is actually Izuku’s Hero and not Akio; possibility is Satoshi is actually Anxiety/ Izuku’s fear because at his core, he doesn’t want Izuku to become a hero because it’s reckless and dangerous even though he has all the statistics showing him that it’s, for the most part, a safe enough job with experience and training, and Rin could be Izuku’s strategic heart because he could sense the weakness in any tactic and theirs but he also knows all the possibilities that the plan could go wrong and that’s what makes him so stressed and anxious (I don’t know, this one kinda feels weak); what could Akio be, if he’s not the Hero? Eh, I don’t think I should do this, it’s kinda powerful on its own with just the revelation of Yoshi being Izuku’s true heroic heart

Overview of the “Sides” quirk:

-four full-bodied duplicates of Izuku can be manifested at Izuku’s will; each duplicate houses different aspects of Izuku’s personality

-when a Side is injured, time spent in Izuku’s mind will heal them; time it takes depends on the severity of the injurys

-if a Side’s body is destroyed or “killed” they will regenerate within Izuku’s mind and he can summon them again

-the Sides aren’t hivemind clones but aren’t completely independently people; can feel and think for themselves but regain energy in the time Izuku keeps them stored in himself and have Izuku’s safety as their number one priority instinctually; irrationally ready to die for Izuku (Rin is more subtle about it)

-by default are summoned in the Sanders Sides order of a circle with Izuku standing at the head and Satoshi to his right and Rin at Satoshi’s right, Akio to Rin’s right and Yoshi to Akio’s right, by Izuku’s left; standing in a circle

-farthest Izuku can summon them is twenty feet away from him

-can summon them at light speed after enough practice

-can summon them off the ground (places above him and the like) after a bit of practice

-if he gets One for All, the power Izuku uses for One for All (like 5%) gets distributed evenly between them (they end up with 1% each); it takes them a while to figure this out when they went one hundred percent but all of them were only at twenty-something

-the Sides gain whatever memories Izuku has, even when they’re separated from him but it doesn’t work the other way around until the mind meld; for instance, if Izuku found out an important piece of information while the Sides weren’t there and then Izuku took them back in, they would automatically know what the information is but if a Side found out, then they would have to intentionally tell or “send” the memory/info to Izuku when they’re in the mind

Little Character Quirks (Not the superpower kind):

-Rin hogs Izuku’s phone because (since he’s Izuku’s fear, doubt and pessimism amplified into one single person) he can recognize everything that is potentially dangerous and fatal around him and uses the phone to distract himself; if he’s sitting on the couch by himself, he can recognize about fifteen different fire hazards and weak points in the living room and the danger gives him potentially crippling anxiety even though he knows that the majority of the danger is highly unlikely to happen; he distracts himself by reading articles of all the good things that have happened in the passing year and good deeds that people have done because his mind tends to take a turn for the worst in terms of his faith in humanity

-Satoshi is more believing in the fact that heroes are pretentious assholes, but in much fancier, intellectual words; people like Mt. Lady and Endeavor disgust him, whereas Izuku simply doesn’t care for them; don’t know where he stands on All Might; he, like Logan, wants Izuku to have a career in the scientific field and reminds him of it every other hour

-Akio is very quick to start a fight; has little inhibition and is very confident in his abilities, since he is Izuku’s brave, “heroic” side so he’s quick to act on whatever impulse he has even if he knows it won't end well.

-Yoshi is the ultimate All Might otaku--Izuku’s fanaticism but amplified about ten times--becomes incapacitated every time they talk to All Might. TH3 PHANBOI.

-They each have a different favorite food; Izuku with his pork cutlet bowl, Satoshi with his grilled salmon (he’s a simple man), Akio and his beef teriyaki bowl, Yoshi with his onigiri and bento box-lunch (he’s partial to the cute bento box, the kind that has panda onigiri and octopus sausage), and Rin with his ramen (doesn’t like eating it as much because he’s scared of choking--he has to have a really shitty day to eat it)

-Rin and Akio are suckers for Yoshi (though they’ll never admit to it), since he’s like the child of the group

-Rin can (and actually likes to) cook; learned how to by spending most of his time with his mom and Yoshi; has a little handkerchief that he wraps around his head to cover his hair when he cooks; he keeps it tucked into his front pocket, flowing out in classic emo fashion; makes Yoshi’s cute bento boxes for lunch, though he’ll take that secret to his grave and made Yoshi swear to do so as well; eventually tells the rest and they find it hilarious because he can make the bento boxes super cute; the first one to find out, aside from Yoshi, is Akio and he will help him out with cooking the octopus dogs since he gets really anxious around the jumping grease and Yoshi can’t cook for shit (friendship?); eventually, when everyone finds out, he begins to regularly cook for them since it relieves his stress after a while in the dorms

-ironically, Satoshi is the best fighter of all of them because he has the technique down to a fucking art but Akio is the physically strongest; Satoshi can still beat Akio any time any day

-In terms of fighting, Akio and Satoshi are the more aggressive fighters, but for different reasons; Akio is just the gung-ho, trigger happy type that dives in head first and Satoshi recognizes the circumstances where being on offense is the greater tactical action he could take; Yoshi and Rin are more evasive, Yoshi because he doesn’t want to hurt anyone and Rin because he’s skittish and always scared of being hurt, despite seeing holes in any enemy he faces; Yoshi is more likely to go on offense than Rin when he knows that the enemy is a villian but he can never bring himself to fight seriously with all his power against his classmates or friends, especially Kacchan; it’s not rare to see Rin go on offense, it’s just that he prefers to run because that’s who he is

-Akio is SUPER into fashion; cares a lot about his outward appearance and is the most muscular out of all of them because of it; his money never lasts when he goes out shopping; has ear piercings because why the hell not?

Actual Fic Outline

Act 1

-Izuku is a child, talks to “imaginary friends” that would be triggered by certain events or emotions; he would talk to “Hero” or whatever when he would watch All Might and when he sees animals or kids that need help or when he's sad (maybe Inko’s POV)

-Inko thinks Izuku’s short conversations with himself are kinda odd but she thinks its just something related to his quirk

-when they go to the doctor, the doctor tells them about his toe and that he won’t have a quirk at all

-Inko asks if his conversations with himself and imaginary friends were a sign of a quirk manifestation but doctor dismisses it as child’s imagination; their logic is that if Izuku did manifest a quirk  it would either be hers or her husband’s and the chance of Izuku manifesting something so radically different while having the vestigial toe joint are infinitesimal, practically impossible

-Inko takes his word for it but still thinks about Izuku talking to his “hero side” in front of the computer when she sees her son so heartbroken for being quirkless; she hears him say “we can do it” (all broken and dramatic)

-the sides begin as passing thoughts and sometimes make comments but since it is in Izuku’s head, it feels like he’s talking to himself but just a bit different but he can’t really tell the difference

-goes through childhood “quirkless”

-recall key events but with the “sides” included to show how natural it seems to Izuku and how easily it could be confused for the average thought process; helps an old man with his groceries when he’s like eight (Yoshi); snide comments of him being quirkless (include Akio and Rin); chasing to find the next hero fight and analyzing it (Satoshi) and Kacchan finds him and gets pissed off because he’s interested in becoming a hero (Rin and Akio); stuff like that

-Manifest physically in the beginning of the third year of middle school after Midoriya finally accepts that Kacchan is no longer his friend and thinks “I don’t want to be alone” and passes out for a moment because, seriously, he’s conjuring up at least four physical human beings with a quirk he’s never used before; on a Friday so he doesn’t have to worry about school for at least two days (or whatever day is the start of the weekend in Japan)

-They manifest, all of them have no idea what exactly happened but each have varying reactions

-all of them go home because they don’t know what to do and Inko has a mild freak out

-Have some trouble knowing which Izuku is the real one, even Izuku, but Logic immediately knows that he’s not Izuku and deduces which one of them is the real one by rationalizing that this is his quirk manifesting

-immediate first impressions are Logic is smart and rational, Hero is charismatic and exaggerated; won’t stop droning about how he wants to be a hero, Morality is sweet and kind, and Anxiety is dark and pessimistic

-Inko and Izuku have a teary moment and they all group hug and go to bed, all the Izuku’s are given camitas and stuff

-Next morning they’re all gone and Izuku freaks out just a bit and tries to summon them, with difficulty; starts crying because it doesn’t work until Inko helps him

-Inko and him work on discovering his abilities and stuff, along with Logic; discover that they have all of Izuku’s memories, even the ones when they’re outside of Izuku’s mind, but they only receive it when they are summoned back inside Izuku; they could see and feel what Izuku does but they have their own feelings and awareness; he could summon a specific side if he wants; they get hungry if they are physically manifested but they have no clue why?; if Izuku falls asleep with them still physical, he subconsciously calls them back

-Whenever Inko calls for Izuku, they all turn around

-Inko gives them all, except Anxiety, names to not get them confused ( Satoshi with characters meaning “wise and clever” for Logic,  Yoshi with kanji meaning “joyful” for Morality, Akio with the kanji “manly” for Hero); Anxiety gives himself the name Rin

-Goes to school and accidentally summons Satoshi when he was having trouble figuring out a math problem in class; Kacchan sees this shit and flips out the first time he sees Satoshi and Izuku being nervous and scared summoned Rin subconsciously

-Kacchan gets mad and starts being an ass and Izuku summons Akio subconsciously and Akio immediately fights with Kacchan; Rin suggests they leave Akio behind because it’s his decision to start fighting Kacchan while knowing what the guy is capable of but Izuku tells him that they aren’t leaving him; Rin or Izuku give Akio advice that helps Akio drop Kacchan, shocking everyone including Kacchan; leave while the Bakugou is stunned

-Izuku starts to doubt Rin’s reliability and trustworthiness because he suggested to leave Akio behind

-Izuku activates his quirk sometimes in class and gets made fun of, mostly summoning Rin when he gets really nervous or Satoshi when he’s having trouble with a math problem or something (“He’s like a preschooler!”)

-Appointment with a doctor to confirm his quirk and have it registered in the system; doctor flips out at the astronomical odds that Izuku faced to have his quirk

-Izuku starts noticing that Rin is developing bags under his eyes

-Inko takes them to get clothes after their doctor’s appointment because I want cute shit like that with name tags to help her out

-Meet Kacchan there and, while the moms catch up and stuff, Kacchan and Izuku and the sides have a confrontation; Akio immediately almost starts a fight, Yoshi tries to calm them down but Kacchan hurts his feelings and he cries, Rin just backs off, sulking and Satoshi gets them out of there, closer to the parents within hearing range; all are given nicknames by Kacchan ( “Useless” for Hero, “Smartass” for Logic, “Crybaby” for Morality and “Villian” for Anxiety) 

-leave all nice and color coded but kinda bummed; Inko has no clue what just went down but Izuku and Yoshi won’t let Satoshi or Rin tell her what happened

-back at school, classmates suddenly interested in Izuku now that he’s not “quirkless” and Izuku gains more control over his quirk accidents

-Izuku pals up with some dude Tomoe-kun that has metal fists and becomes friends after a few weeks.

-Tomoe has met all his sides and they’re all chill with him except for Rin because he doesn’t think he’s a real friend since he never talked to them before he knew he had a quirk and Tomue-kun never stood up to Kacchan before

-indicator of the tension between Rin and the rest of the sides as well as Izuku

-Some point when the rest are hanging out with Tomue, Inko brings Rin into the kitchen when she saw him fidgeting without Izuku’s phone and has him help with the dinner, having him cut the vegetables; takes him a while of deliberation while standing over the cutting board with a knife over vegetables, thinking of the hundred of ways the knife could kill him or chop his or his mom’s fingers off when she tells him to just do it and focus on what’s in front of him; once he gets going, he realizes how therapeutic cutting vegetables is; Inko tells him he’s great help; Rin wonders why he isn’t panicking while being surrounded by knives, fire and scalding water

-Izuku and Tomue work to find out more about Izuku’s quirk; if he can summon the sides to wherever he wants and if he can, how far or close can they be? (Maybe their default is in the same position as the Sanders sides? Definitely can only be summoned as far as six feet away) Hypothetical questions of if they can only summoned on the ground, how quick can Izuku summon them, etc.; when they combine back into Izuku’s body again, they gain Izuku’s memories but Izuku doesn’t gain theirs

-Some point during the testing, they figure out they’re facets of Izuku’s personality; maybe at a doctor’s visit by scanning his brain; when they aren’t physical, Izuku’s brain has parts buzzing with activity and they are inactive when Izuku has them all summoned; conclusion, the strange, active parts of the brain are the sides; they all just figure out which aspect each one of them is, which is easy at this point

-Yoshi and Rin have a heart to heart after Rin has a panic attack without Izuku’s phone while Inko was at work or something; finds out how butthurt Rin is that the others treat him the way they do; not directly said but it’s implied that Rin is afraid to get attached to them for reasons unknown right now ( “It’s fine. It makes this easier.”--Rin, 2k18)

-Yoshi begins to hang out more with Rin and his mom when Izuku, Akio and Satoshi hang out with Tomue; Yoshi gets Rin a Tamagotchi to use instead of Izuku’s phone for when he goes out

-All hanging out in the mall sometime after a testing session and Yoshi sees an ultra-cute lunch box with panda onigiri and octopus sausages and he loses it; discovery of Yoshi’s favorite food (not that important, just a wholesome little moment for later)

-when tension between Tomue and Rin during a practice session makes Izuku uncomfortable enough to force Rin to disappear during one of their tests

-Inko and Rin have a heart to heart after a tense, awkward dinner but nothing is resolved; conversation ends with Rin telling Inko that he knows that all the sides and Izuku don't like him, maybe not even she does and she just hugs him and tells him that she loves him but nothing else; she knows that what he said about Izuku is mostly true but she doesn't know how to help him

-(time skip?) months pass and Izuku and Tomue are still pals and Rin is still a pessimistic outcast in the group; Rin spends time with Inko mostly and Yoshi, isolating himself from Izuku and the others; Akio doesn’t understand why Yoshi likes Rin so much

-end of the year thing with burned notebook happens and the scrutiny of his ability to become a hero because his quirk isn’t flashy or powerful; “You might as well be quirkless” “Your uselessness just multiplied itself four times.”

-Satoshi shares the same sentiment and tells Izuku that they would help save more lives by being a scientist or engineer and they would be more financially stable because heroes with flashier quirks tend to make more and their quirk isn’t particularly flashy

-sludge villain happens, Tomue runs to get help, Izuku summons all the Sides subconsciously and Rin calls All Might when he sees him looking for the slime villain

-Izuku asks All Might if he could become a hero even though he’s not particularly powerful or experienced with his quirk; All Might says yes but with much training and education; All Might recognizes that Izuku is a one man team and tells him to build on all their teamwork; Izuku asks him of he could train him or something but All Might rushes off because he was about to return to his normal form

-Izuku starts looking for Tomue to tell him the news but Rin says “screw him, he left us” because All Might was literally wandering around in the direction that Tomue went and he still didn’t focus on getting help instead of running away but everyone is against Rin for ruining the good vibes they all had

-Rin stalks off and Yoshi goes after him; Izuku and the rest find Tomue in the clutches of the sludge villain, save him when Rin and Yoshi come back (they had a “gut feeling”) and All Might talks to Izuku again, scolding him for being reckless but agreeing to draw him up a fitness regimen to help him strengthen up, inspired by the Sides teamwork and strategy; he tells them to get enrolled in cheerleading (For lols but it actually helps establish trust and build agility) and Izuku and Akio are mortified about it but won’t reject any advice from their idol

-begin training with Tomue, but he tends to flake; during the months they discover that they all will continuously match Izuku’s image and body because Rin doesn't do the training but he’s still growing the muscles like Izuku and the rest but he doesn't have the hand to hand combat skills they're building

-Izuku tells Tomue about cheerleading and Tomue tells him there’s not a chance he’s joining with him

-Izuku joins the community cheerleading group with adults who already graduated high school and they help him out; makes friends with them and they all love Yoshi; meets small time retired hero who attends to keep in shape and stay active (grew up in a circus in a family of trapeze artists); helps him with combat moves and techniques as well as acrobatics since he’s a total noob; combat lessons for free!

-Izuku and Akio are the most enthusiastic fighters and spar in their spare time; Satoshi is the best fighter out of all of them and this pisses off Akio to no end

-Yoshi is trying to integrate Rin with the rest of the group (begs him to go with them to the cheer practice and combat sessions with the veteran hero and Rin actually gets along with the veteran hero), telling the others that they’re being unfair but they don’t particularly care or make an effort to connect with Rin because Rin isn’t trying either

-Small scene at home where Yoshi used some leftover rice from dinner to try to make onigiri and Rin watches painfully from the sidelines; everyone else is busy getting ready for bed or studying so Rin decides to cut in before anything gets worse and asks what the hell Yoshi is trying to do; Yoshi tells him he wants to make the cute “Kawaii” panda onigiri he had in that one bento box they got at the mall that one time because it was “amazing” and “adorable” but he’s failing miserably; Rin looks at the messed up seaweed and rice balls and sighs, quickly cutting little designs and magically making one, blowing Yoshi’s mind into another dimension (“Like this?” Yoshi looks at the little panda and his jaw drops, eyes sparkling in adoration and disbelief as they look at him in wonder.); soon, Yoshi starts mysteriously ending up with cute bento box lunches; Rin makes him swear to take this information to his grave

-During a cheerleading session, the retired hero tells Izuku that he has to bond with his Sides more and grow the trust they have in each other because they don’t have enough to become an effective team (regarding Rin and the frequently bickering Sides); tells him trust is a two way street and that trust is not something that is given freely (Rin’s perceived lack of trust in Izuku and Izuku in him); tells them they have to connect on a deeper level *wink, wink* foreshadowing *wink, wink*

-Tomue and Izuku plan on taking the UA test together and do but Tomue ditches Izuku to get points and Izuku only managed to get one five pointer and one ten pointer because Satoshi and Rin are arguing over the chances of winning with Satoshi’s strategy (some ways he defeats them is having them chase two of the Sides and have the run toward each other and make them disappear before they crash, making the robots crash; Satoshi recognizes a mechanism in one of the hinge joints of the robots and Rin helps him discover a weakness to exploit and render it useless; stupid stuff like that)

-the zero pointer comes; Izuku and Yoshi immediately run to help Uraraka and Satoshi pulls them back to make a plan where he and Rin distract the zero pointer and Akio, Yoshi and Izuku free Uraraka and once they get them to a safe distance, Izuku summons them back and he, Yoshi, Akio and Uraraka go hide and the timer runs out

-Izuku is devastated because he “knows” he failed; Akio tries to cheer him up by telling him that they could just take the general studies course and participate in the sports festival or go to another school and study in their hero department and Satoshi tells him that now he could focus on science rather than heroism and Izuku shuts them out for a while

-Tomue tries to comfort him and tells him he’ll tell him all about the school because he’s confident he at least passed

-Izuko gets his acceptance and tells his mom, summons his Sides (apologizes for shutting them out for days) and they all go to tell Tomue, except for Rin who’s still salty

-Izuku and the rest get to Tomue’s house and turns out Tomue didn’t get in and he’s a wreck; says “let’s grieve together”, assuming that Izuku didn’t get in either but Izuku tells him that he got in

-Tomue gets mad that Izuku did even though he scored way more kill points than he did and his quirk is way better and more “heroic”; Izuku asks him if that’s what he’s always thought and Tomue says yes but that he’d planned to make Izuku and his Sides his sidekicks so that they could be an entire combat squad of only two people; Izuku is hurt and so is Yoshi and Akio but Akio gets mad rather than showing his hurt so openly; Satoshi gets them all to leave before all hell breaks loose between Akio and Tomue; Yoshi is crying

-Izuku comes to the realization that they’ve ignored Rin more than this once regarding his opinion about things when he was right; Tomue isn’t a friend

-return home and Izuku apologizes to Rin, telling him he was right about Tomue and that he will make an effort to make Rin know that he is heard; Rin tries to be all nonchalant but from this point, their attitudes towards him is different, more respected but still tense

-celebrate his acceptance that night and they all get along and feel connected for once

-When Izuku and the rest are registering their quirk, they agree that they are sides of Izuku, so they call their quirk “Sides”

Act 2

-high school starts and the canon events happened except that he got help with the long jump and grip strength so he didn't get last place in every one, only got last place in about five or six (don’t focus so much on it; kinda just skim over it)

-Lunch time with his sides; Izuku is not a star student or particularly outstanding at first like in the manga or anime but he still trains hard and strategizes with Satoshi even though Satoshi tries to convince him to become a scientist instead every other minute; Ochako is introduced to all the sides at this time and he explains his quirk to her; wish each other luck with their hero careers; Akio has obvious crush on her and is, unfortunately, confident enough to flirt with her, but they go way over her head

-Emphasize the struggle to keep up in the quirk exercises; Kacchan is relentless with his teasing because of his non-flashy quirk; Ochako backs Izuku up when Akio gets ready to square up; Kacchan almost loses it when Yoshi tells Akio not to fight with “friends” and Kacchan tells him he’s not his friend; Aizawa breaks up whatever would’ve happened, making the sides disappear and erasing Kacchan’s quirk

-gets recognized for his strategy skills (mostly Satoshi and Rin) and combat skills (mostly Akio and Izuku) in the hero vs. villain weapon test

-teamwork between Rin and Akio is incredibly sloppy but they get the job done of distracting Kacchan with Izuku while Yoshi, Satoshi and Uraraka get the weapon

-Izuku has all the sides out and teams up with Rin and Akio to distract Kacchan while Ochako, Yoshi and Satoshi go after the weapon with Iida

-Rin and Akio begin to fight over how to handle Kacchan since Rin wants to keep his distance with him and be evasive while Akio wants to take him on hand to hand; Akio is less forgiving of Kacchan and would like some physical revenge

-Satoshi has a plan with Yoshi and Satoshi both engaging Iida in combat while Ochako stealths her way to the weapon but Iida makes sure to stay close

-Yoshi pulls his punches with Iida and Satoshi reprimands him for being too forgiving (“If this was a real battle, you would be risking your life and everyone else’s!”); Yoshi blocks a quick kick that would’ve hit Satoshi cause he was distracted

-Get Iida just far away enough for Ochako to get to the weapon

-test revealed the obvious tension between Akio and Rin and the hypothetical liability of having Yoshi on the field because he didn't want to hurt anyone and would pull his punches with Iida

-Izuku notices that Rin could dodge and would warn them of punches and attacks that Kacchan hadn’t thrown yet before even Izuku could process them and protected any weak spots in their stances that he could, warning them of their open spots and reminding them of the basic defensive stances; first signs of Rin’s keen ability to sense and find weakness in the group and in an enemy that is hyper focused when he is not in Izuku’s mind

-All Might gives Midoriya a pep talk; Izuku shares the progress he made with his quirk and the technique he's working on

-All Might compliments his hero suit; it is, unfortunately, still the same as the anime (not a big fan of the bunny ears, sorry)

-after this Akio decided that instead of wearing normal clothes, he will be wearing his hero suit at all times because “you never know when a villian attack could happen”

-Izuku is working on a technique where he summons them at different heights and certain distances so they could grab hands and propel him further towards where he wants; kinda weird to explain: it would be very quick and they would need to manifest nanoseconds at a time for it

-Can never get it quite right because they’re still off and not in harmony; end up bickering by the end of it

-Izuku tries to get Rin and Akio to hang out together alone and get on friendlier terms but they just end up fighting and insulting each other and stop when Yoshi just begs for them to get along (they’re both kinda suckers for Yoshi but Rin will never admit it); it usually starts with Akio saying something insensitive or Rin joking in a way that insults Akio and he takes it personally

-Izuku and the sides are hanging out in the dorm living room with Ochako and Iida; Akio pesters Satoshi while he’s studying and asks him how he’s on such good terms with Rin and how to get along with him; Satoshi simply tells him that he and Rin are amiable and have common interests in terms of strategy, though Rin usually focuses on the potential failure rate of each strategy; Akio tries to see if he and Rin have common interests

-Akio notices Satoshi is squinting his eyes and they realize that Satoshi needs glasses now, since he’s strained his eyes by reading articles on the computers and read books late at night, in bad lighting for close to a year and a half; Momo makes him some glasses in class during break when Yoshi reprimands Satoshi for straining his eyes while reading an article without glasses and asks for the prescription that they took at the last doctor’s visit; Satoshi just tells her because he memorized all the words in the prescription paper he was given

-Izuku is elected class rep because of Satoshi’s analytical mind and Akio’s charisma but Izuku thinks about how he could barely get all his sides to get along and doubts his ability to be class rep even though Akio and Yoshi are all for it at lunch with Ochako and Iida

-Ochako asks Yoshi where he got his super cute bento lunch and Rin gives Yoshi a death glare, making him stutter and change the subject

-Akio tries desperately to find common ground with Rin about food but Rin finds it weird and uncomfortable; unintentionally insults the bento box that Yoshi has that Akio doesn’t know Rin made

-media incident starts and in the panic, Yoshi and Satoshi are separated from Izuku, Rin and Akio; Akio suggests a reckless idea to Izuku to try to get everyone’s attention and then Rin tells him it’s stupid and dangerous, whatever it was; Akio tells him that this is why they don’t get along and they start to fight and yell at each other while Izuku tries to calm them down

-Iida intervenes and Izuku hands off the class representative to him, knowing that he can’t lead if he can’t even get his sides to get along

-Izuku realizes that, for the most part, he has no idea how to work with his sides and doubts his abilities to lead them

-has heart to heart with his sides that brings all the issues between them to light; Satoshi tries to deter him from being a hero and Akio and Yoshi strongly disagree; Rin still feels like an outsider and doesn’t think it will change anytime soon (doesn’t think he wants it to change); Izuku tries to tell him he accepts him and cares about him but Rin won't let himself feel; kinda bittersweet while they go to bed

-USJ incident occurs and he, Asui and Mineta escape by having Satoshi hot wire the boat (discover that Satoshi is basically the library of all of Izuku’s knowledge even if he himself forgot it or just glossed over it) and have Akio spin it around with Mineta’s sticky balls in the water, getting some villains stuck on the boat, to each other or their hands together, unable to use their quirk while Asui got them out with her tongue and Izuku summons the sides back to fight off just a few escaped villains

-Yoshi jumps in the way of Tomura’s hand when he reaches for Asui, gets disintegrated: brief moment before contact where Izuku was instinctively gonna call back Yoshi but he hears Yoshi tell him not to in his head; Izuku and Akio have a mild meltdown and, despite Satoshi and Rin’s warnings, attempts to punch Tomura but Nomu gets in the way, breaks Akio’s arm and almost kills Izuku before pros show up

-Akio is taken to Recovery Girl and Izuku, Rin and Satoshi are with Principal Nedzu, talking about their loss and a grace period for grieving and their ability to go home

-meet Akio outside nurse’s office and see through his nonchalant, victorious act

-are outside the school late at sunset and they see All Might; he tells him not to give up, that they need heroes like him and Yoshi, true heroes and then he walks away (foreshadow All Might’s decision to choose Izuku as next One For All?)

-Akio breaks down on his knees and Rin tries to calm him but all of them are shedding varying degrees of tears; Rin breaks down, too

-Rin reveals that he’s made effort to prevent himself being attached to them because they want to be heroes and people fucking die doing this shit (dun dun dun! Big emotional reveal! Wow!); (“Dammit, why does it still hurt?!”); guilty because Yoshi probably died not knowing how important he really was to Rin

-Izuku has a flashback of the first time he ever saved something; a bird that fell out of its nest; birth of Yoshi, his “morality”; goes over every interaction he had with Yoshi in his life in a split second and he discovers that Yoshi was Hero from when he was little, not Akio, like they all thought

-they hear Yoshi in their head; Izuku tries to summon Yoshi and it works; happy reunion, tears everywhere: Yoshi legit thought he was dead (comic relief, sorta)

-discovery that Yoshi is the true hero in Izuku, the one that wants to save lives and make the world better, as opposed to Aiko who likes the thrill, action and glory; He’s just the brave one with the dream

-Akio has an interesting reaction to the news that Yoshi is the Hero in Izuku and not him; he doesn’t know how to react to that

-a new thing about his quirk has been discovered; you can't kill a side without killing Izuku (total cop-out but I hope it’s still emotional and doesn’t ruin the story)

-they go home, something in their relationship different than before; discovery of Rin’s ability to care and his confession of being afraid to care; Yoshi's connection with everyone; they all admit they care about each other, even Akio to Rin but there's still issues to sort out there

-Izuku discover the next morning that he could hear Yoshi in his head when he's not physically manifested

-the psychic manifestation of their quirk is developing; questions about why he can't talk to the others in his head arise

Act 3

-They’re leaving Recovery Girl’s office the day of Sports Festival Announcement, Izuku, Akio and Yoshi get hella pumped now that Akio can fight again while Satoshi struggles to understand why they’re so excited for the event; says so during lunch (fun fact: they each have a different favorite food)

-Ochako asks Yoshi where he got his adorable as hell bento box again; Rin gives him the death glare; Izuku and Akio notice that it’s the second time he does this but brush it off

-Izuku and Akio mention how they hope to get first place and that they’ll need to practice their movesets to get better and stand a chance; Satoshi makes it clear that he doesn’t think they’ll get in the one on one rounds

-Izuku and Satoshi get in an argument at lunch; Izuku just wants support from Satoshi for once and wants to make his chances of being a good hero higher; winning first in the sports festival will get him recognized

-Izuku knows that he isn’t anyone special or significant like he is in the show and he’s hoping this will change that

-Satoshi tells him that he doesn’t understand why he wants to become a hero in the first place; “You can save just as much, even more lives, by becoming an engineer or doctor than becoming something as presumptuous as those self-proclaimed heroes you idolize so much.”

-Izuku and Satoshi are no longer on speaking terms in the two weeks of training for the festival

-Izuku decides that he will win the sports festival with or without him

-Day of festival comes and Izuku wins the race in first like the anime and fares maybe a bit better in the cavalry battle; only Akio and Rin helping out, but they butt heads a lot

-Satoshi is watching within the depths of Izuku’s consciousness; watches him struggle throughout the cavalry battle and race but doesn’t help out of spite; slowly and slowly becoming more aware and more self-thinking within Izuku as he watches him struggle through Hitoshi’s battle; snaps when he sees Izuku barely able to dodge some of Todoroki’s first shots when he tried to end the battle with the massive ice blast; Satoshi is awakened and suddenly aware of himself in Izuku’s mind

-(Flashback to Satoshi’s birth) first inkling of Logic was born during the creation of the first hero notebook, finally fully realized in the first notebook where Izuku actually began breaking down certain tactics instead of just writing them down and going through alternative strategies and criticisms; the infamous “muttering”

-Satoshi begins speaking to Izuku in his mind and gives him a strategy to have Todoroki exhaust his ice power by dodging the blasts with some help from precisely-timed appearances from the other Sides to propel him in certain directions at a certain timing but the Side that propels him has to be hit by the blast, since they haven’t mastered the half-second, quick version of it; at a certain point, Satoshi stops directly talking to Izuku because, since they’re psychically connected now, Satoshi just thinks it and Izuku and the rest just know what he’s trying to tell him; they bring him to close quarters in hand to hand with Todoroki but Todoroki gets desperate and uses his flames to blast him away, which Satoshi warned Izuku was a possibility and that they should be prepared to lose if that happened; this completes the link between Satoshi and the rest; Izuku gets gets the place that he got in the anime

-Todoroki hates Izuku for making him desperate enough to use his fire; Izuku never got to Todoroki about it being his power, not his father’s

-after matches, Satoshi tells Izuku to speak to him physically; Satoshi tells him that he doesn’t understand him and his recklessness, his need to become a hero; he tells him that he doesn’t understand but that he will help him become the greatest hero he can be

-Brushes off the emotions as best as he could

-Few weeks, Izuku’s recognized as the one in the second to last round and being so resourceful with a non flashy quirk; Akio is relishing it

-small note about the Sides healing along with Izuku because they got pretty fucked up by Todoroki

-Some domestic scenes of training and teamwork; more smooth with Satoshi and Yoshi because of the completed link; can do the split second propelling technique they’ve been developing with those two; Rin and Akio are still on the outside

-Yoshi gets scraped pretty bad when Akio and Rin fail to catch Yoshi during training because of their incompatibility and Akio feels guilty; finds Rin in the kitchen that night while Izuku is studying with Satoshi; finds out Rin is the one that makes Yoshi’s bento boxes and Rin has him swear that he won’t tell any of the others he does this; Akio asks him why he’s doing it tonight since he doesn’t always do it and Rin admits that he feels bad for letting Yoshi fall earlier; Akio says he’ll keep his secret, but offers to help with the stove work because Rin looks uncomfortable around the stove while he is frying the octopus sausages; Rin decorates extra cute since he feels bad for Yoshi getting hurt

-small bonding moment where Akio realizes he knows how to cook because, while the others were partying it up with Tomue, Rin was hanging out with his mom, helping make lunch and dinner (thinks about one time when Akio complimented his mom on a bowl of beef teriyaki that he loved and his mom was gonna tell him something that sounded like she was saying that she didn’t make it but Rin cut her off, eyes pleading her to not say anything; no one notices the small blush when Akio goes on and on about how good the teriyaki bowl is); begs Rin to make him some more beef teriyaki and Rin shoves him away, saying that the bonding moment is over but after this point, they’re on more friendly terms

-Day of internship picking starts and Izuku chooses to apply for a clone hero but is surprised when All Might chooses him as an intern

-Akio, Yoshi and Izuku fanboy the fuck out and Rin and Satoshi are all like “this has to be a mistake” but for different reasons; Rin thinks All Might would never intentionally choose them because nobody would want to choose them as an intern; Satoshi just thinks it was a mistake with paperwork

-find out it isn’t a joke when All Might goes to them during lunch and talks to them personally about his life and why he wants to be a hero

-Izuku tells him his answer and how Yoshi is kinda Izuku’s heroic soul personified; Akio’s still butthurt by this but doesn’t deny it because he knows it’s true

-Lunch ends and Ochako and Iida pester him about the meeting; Izuku tells them what they talked about

-Day of internships begin and All Might takes them out on a three hour patrol before going out to eat with them; tells them he just wants to get to know them and no villain attacks happened so he doesn’t need to waste much energy

-All Might brings them to his apartment after dinner; Izuku and Yoshi are taking in his apartment as avid fans would and Akio is still gushing over him while Rin and Satoshi just chill out; Rin’s using the Tamagotchi

-All Might orders out and they have dinner; Rin criticizes the rice balls they got and Satoshi makes the smart remark of “I’d like to see you attempt to make some.”; Akio sends Rin a knowing smirk and Rin glares at him

-All Might calls the night off short because he could feel himself losing the energy to keep his form; sort of startles Izuku, but they accept it and go to bed

-Next day they wake up early and find that All Might is still in his room, but his door is locked; Rin finds it suspicious, Satoshi just mildly so, but ultimately sides with Izuku, Yoshi and Akio when they say he just likes his privacy and he’s a hero so there might be some attempts on his life

-Out of money and out of options, Akio settles for volunteering to make omelettes, since he’s seen Rin make some and thought “why the hell not?” and fails horribly; Rin decides to let the group know that he likes to cook and he can cook well when he sees Akio try to make omelettes the second time and cuts in before things can get too bad; ties his hair back with a black handkerchief that he keeps in his pocket for “fashionable purposes”

-All Might gets out of the room around eleven and sees them all eating breakfast, talking pretty easily in his dining room; tells them he expected them to be asleep still, but this will be revealed later to be a lie since he heard them up and changed into his All Might form; compliments Rin on his cooking and Rin blushes cause he deep, deep, deeep down inside, he’s still an All Might fan and All Might just complimented his cooking; Izuku and Akio see this and get weirded out (“I didn’t know Rin was capable of being flustered.”)

-All Might tells them the plan for the day: visit some kids at a children’s hospital and then go on patrol around a certain, defined section of the city then have lunch, then patrol the second part of the city; tells Izuku he might have to take frequent bathroom breaks because he hasn’t been feeling well these past few days; end of the day, he’s going to be cleaning the beach that he cleans in the anime and tells him his goal is to clear the horizon before the week of the internship ends

-Akio asks him why they’re spending time with kids and cleaning up a beach after only spending two or three hours patrolling; All Might tells him that to be a hero, you don’t need to fight villains, you need to do what’s right and good for the world

-Satoshi asks for some clarity on the symptoms he’s experiencing and lists off several illnesses it can be but All Might brushes it off shakily

-This system, somehow, succeeds for the first few days; All Might assessed Izuku’s behavior with the children, even Rin’s, who’s been cordial; saw him help out with a few elderly looking for help with carrying things; watches the boys working together during the beach clean up and notices that Rin and Akio seem to get along better, still bicker though; takes a lot of bathroom breaks

-End of the day, All Might calls it a night at the beach and head to the apartment but then the Hosu attack happens

-All Might goes and tells Izuku to stay put but Izuku decides to head on there anyway on a bike, since the city they’re in is close to Hosu; calls all the Sides to himself

-While on his way to the fight, Izuku passes the alley with Iida and Stain; interferes immediately when he sees Iida pinned and sends location to Todoroki like in the anime; Todoroki shows up but he doesn’t consider Izuku a friend in this world

-Yoshi and Satoshi take Native and Iida out of the scene while Todoroki, Akio, Izuku and Rin stay and Satoshi feeds Izuku possible strategies in their heads; Midoriya gets paralyzed and Satoshi is left to work with Rin and Akio

-Todoroki gets paralyzed and Rin and Akio are left; Hero Killer deems Akio a fake hero because he just wants the title, making Akio have a small crisis ( “Even you’re more of a hero than I am” Akio to Rin) have to settle differences and work together during the Rin/Akio teamwork, it becomes something close to yin and yang; defense and offense; Rin defends, Akio attacks

-Remembers birth of “Hero” and “Anxiety”; remembers that they were born at the same time; Akio was born the time that Izuku stood up to Kacchan; Rin manifested that same moment, which is the first time he was really afraid of Kacchan; all his doubt and fear and inferiority almost made him not stand up to Kacchan but Hero hyped him up and made him brave enough to stand up to him; was scared to stand up to him but he did; Akio and Rin were wrestling for dominance in that instance when he was crying and shaking but still standing strong

-they link with Midoriya at the same time when he’s able to move again; bond between all of them is complete and they all sense it

-Rin, Akio and Izuku work in perfect harmony (do the split second summoning technique with Izuku and each other), knowing what each of them are thinking; Yoshi and Satoshi can see what’s going on and help in their place protecting Iida and Native far away; Yoshi helps Iida with his crisis, gets him moving; Satoshi tells the rest he’s messaged All Might about the situation and he should be there soon if he sees it, though he could be busy with whatever disaster is happening further away (keep in mind here, Izuku didn’t see the Nomus)

-All Might comes in later while Akio is incapacitated and Rin, Izuku, and Todoroki are keeping him at bay; cuts the fight short when Stain tries to jump him

-Restrain Stain with the rope and All Might reprimands the students for doing something so reckless and dangerous; other heroes show up; All Might is staring at Izuku the whole time and he can feel his gaze

-Tell them about the fabricated story and to not tell others about that night; goes back to the apartment with All Might and it’s all quiet since Izuku brought the Sides back to himself

-All Might starts to steam up and Izuku starts freaking out but Toshinori tells him to ignore it and explains his quirk and why it’s so powerful and reveals his true form by the time he’s done with his explanation; has Izuku sit down with him and he tells him that Izuku is a true hero and that he’s what the world needs; he won’t be there for very long and One for All needs to be passed on to a worthy predecessor; tells Izuku he wants to pass his power onto him

-Izuku short-circuits and passes out

End of this story because I’m a sucker for cliffhangers. Figures that my first post would be the longest thing ever.

[zaggitz]

VIDEO GAMES 2017: ONE MILLION GAMES ENTER, TEN GAMES LEAVE.

Well that sure was the best year in video games since probably 1998, wasn’t it? Nintendo put out a new console and 3 major franchise entries, basically every anticipated game of the early 10′s finally frickin’ came out, we got 4 new English Falcom games, 3 of which with good locs, and they made a new Nier? What??? 

What a time to be alive.

Let’s not waste any time getting to the list, lord knows VIDEO GAMES 2017 has already sucked out enough time from me for a lifetime.

Before we begin, here’s my lists for 2015 and 2016.

Honorable Mentions:

Persona 5:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jaIo82uT0qs

It’s insane that this game isn’t in my top ten, hell, it’s insane that it isn’t in my top five. It’s less a commentary on Persona 5′s quality and more that the games that did make the list resonated with me a whole lot more. VG2017 truly was too powerful.

P5 is mired with stiff localization problems, but even without the loc in consideration, the thematic through-line of the game gets muddled and becomes a toothless version of the promising rebellious first ten hours the game provides by the time you reach the finish line, which also just happens to come 20 hours too late, in my opinion.

What a great looking and feeling game though.

Tales of Berseria:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oYXwD2CfxOs

On the flipside we have this game, the first Tales game I’ve enjoyed since Tales of Vesperia back in 2008. This game has an amazing story and great characters with a thematic backbone that sticks to your ribs after you finish it.

Now if I didn’t hate the act of actually playing it and having to scour its way too big boring empty dungeons and crappily designed world, it’d be a list maker for sure.

OKAY NOW IT’S TIME FOR THE CERTIFIED BANGERS:

10. Metroid: Samus Returns

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yhQWJG-_Oco

Somehow my least favorite Metroid game got two remakes that both made my list two years in a row?? This game is pretty great in it’s own right though it has a few control scheme imperfections and I could see a switch port easily being the definitive version to get.

The reason this game really makes the list though is because of how it lives up to its title. Finally an official Nintendo Metroid game that comes out and undoes Sakamoto’s vile character assassination of Samus back in Other M. . 

The queen is back, and she has been missed.

9. Horizon: Zero Dawn

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FD0DByDxJBA

An engrossing open world, great stealth/hunting/gathering systems AND robot dinosaurs are just a part of what makes this first outing for what seems like an extremely promising series great.

No, what really sets this game apart from its contemporaries is how it fleshes out its backstory, culminating in the creation of what might actually be the most despicable piece of shit villain ever put to writing for a video game. And he’s been dead for a thousand years so you can’t do shit to him.

Fuck you, Ted Faro.

8. Night in the Woods

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o2UUFFMGcgY

This game hit extremely close to home for me. Forced to come back home to a small, dying town full of people clinging to the good old days instead of doing anything for the generation after them, having this game to play and have it be said out loud that yeah, other people are living this nightmare too, was insanely refreshing.

For as much as we all need a bit of direction sometimes, sometimes what we also need to know being a directionless 20-something asshole trying their best is okay too.

Also Gregg rulz ok.

7. Ys VIII: Lacrimosa of Dana

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dNgph1g422Q

Great gameplay, great music, fun characters, one of the most fun to explore worlds in an action adventure game. This game truly nails the sense of pure adventure Ys is known for.

It’s a shame then that it’s plagued with one of the most laughable translation efforts in the industry, much of the games personality comes from the fact that even a bad localization job can’t overwrite some character quirks, but this still leaves the rest of the script feeling extremely stiff at best and incomprehensible at worst.

I hope the re-translation patch is good. Until then, Fuck NISA and have a good day.

6. The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fiU65nQdZE8

I would describe this game as a great first step in evolving the Zelda formula. That’s not even really that accurate, the real first step was in Link Between World’s item rental/no dungeon order systems. 

Nevertheless, BOTW amazes with a sense of scope and exploration no game has ever really come close to, and achieves it almost effortlessly by simply giving you the ability to climb anything.

More music, more proper dungeons, a deeper story and a few durability tweaks are basically all you need to make the next Zelda game the easy best in series.

5. Yakuza 0

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MYB-D9qEwzI

This isn’t the best game this year, but it is easily, no question, the MOST video game this year. 110 hours in and only 60% complete, Yakuza 0 is the game that keeps on giving, with an enthralling true crime story that reshapes what we know about its protagonists. It’s pretty much a non stop emotional thrill ride to the finish line.

It effortlessly incorporates the best side story aspects from the many games in the series to come out before it, and utilizes them with a fantastical glee that keeps you with a smile on your face for the whole run. This is easily the funniest game I’ve played this year. Thank you SEGA.

4. Hollow Knight

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1unm0LS10ao

God I can’t wait for this game to get ported to consoles. I bought a new laptop basically just to play this game and the absolutely enthralling metroidvania world design, hand drawn and animated aesthetic, and fantastic npc characters blew me away.

The encounter designs are tough but fair(except maybe the Colisseum) and the DLC so far has been great. I can’t wait for all the post release content to come out so I can play through it all again on Switch and probably PS4. 

It’s insane only 3 people made this game.

3. Super Mario Odyssey

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PhciLj5VzOk

Nothing to say here that hasn’t been said by hundreds of others. SMO is pure joy distilled into video game form.

I can’t wait for Odyssey 2 to come out and somehow blow this one out of the water like Galaxy 2 did for Galaxy.

2. Nier: Automata

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CKOM3lNFajE

An amazing contemplation on what it means to be alive, and a thoroughly satisfying conclusion to a story that, for me at least, has been told since Drakengard in 2003. Game after game of sad tragic stories with bad endings and characters fighting an imperfect world imperfectly and only making things worse while temporarily making things better for themselves.

And really even in those cases there’s caveats.

Caviats???? Anyway.

Ending E of this game finally brings some semblance of peace for this fucked up world where a deranged killer and his dragon fell through the sky and made things the worst for everyone for literally tens of thousands of years. Finally Devola and Popola can sleep. All is well.

1. The Legend of Heroes: Trails in the Sky the 3rd

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wld2q4mLhYM

Another year, another Trails game at number 1. I’ll be real with you, I’m about to drop a bunch of personal rambly stuff about what this entire trilogy means to me so if you don’t wanna read that, that’s fine. 

This game is basically a perfect epilogue to a game that means a whole lot to me and serves as an amazing capper to an amazing jrpg trilogy.

When I first played Trails in the Sky First Chapter, it was the PC version in 2014. Now in 2014 I was coming off being in college for about 6 years, switching majors a few times and not really being into what I was doing but, yknow, you gotta major in something and then you gotta get a job, that’s kind of what getting started as an adult is. 

So I played this weird little jrpg that was, fundamentally, about a country and the people in it trying to move on from a tragic war years prior, hiding their still fresh wounds in plain sight and just trying to go on with their lives. 

It was an extremely interesting game, for how plot-light it was in the early goings, you got to really feel the struggle of these people and the unseemly past they were trying to run away from or avoid repeating. This underlying conflict builds and builds until we can’t ignore it anymore.

When I played Second Chapter a year later, I had been laid off from a job I got right out of College and had no employment prospects. I hated the fact that I’d spent basically my entire adult life up to that point doing something I wasn’t passionate about and then got let down by the system. 

At the same time, the shame of my situation lead me to close up and not tell anyone about the problems I had, I was broke, I owed two months rent, on the verge of getting evicted, I felt extremely alone.

All this to get to the point that Second Chapter was ultimately a game about pulling out the dark shit we don’t like talking about and saying “it’s okay to talk about this stuff, there’s always someone who will listen.” It got me to get over myself somewhat and actually reach out for help, and I’m really thankful for it not letting me hit rock bottom.

Two years later still, I’m in a much better place, I finally feel happy about where my life is and what I’m doing and oh boy here comes Trails in the Sky the 3rd.

Completing the journey I started back in 2014, I found myself playing a game all about how it’s okay to acknowledge the bad things that happened to us, so long as we learn and move on from them accordingly.

This trilogy has so much heart, and so many memorable characters, and so much to say. It’s so, so special to me, and I was openly weeping when all the characters I’ve come to know and love over 4 years finally parted ways.

Thank you Falcom for making these games, and thank you Xseed for bringing these games to us.

TL;DR

[imheresothedeadcanrestinpea-blog]

Do strong female characters still exists?

It’s me again. Been a while, right? well... this post has been created thanks to a random thought in my brain were I compared Sarah (from Labyrinth) and Tauriel (yes, her again, I know that many years have passed but I’m still pissed by her existence).

So what do we understand by “Strong Female Character” or, better yet, what do we want as one?

Lately the entertainment industry has placed in our brains that a Strong Woman is the one who can kick ass just as good as a man. Is it like that? My answer is no.

A Strong Character (male or female) is the one that doesn’t give up no matter if the odds are on it’s favor or not. Someone who literally has the world against but is still ready to fight in the name of whatever he or she protects because deep down he/she knows is the right thing to do according to his/her morals. It’s quite important to highlight the “ is the right thing to do according to his/her morals” so we don’t fall through the ilussion that everything this character does is good or in name of a greater good: no everybody is goodie-goodie, you know... a villain can -and should- be a strong character too. He/she must evolve by learning from his/her mistakes and assume the consecuences of his/her actions. Doesn’t it sounds more compelling than an “super awesome strong character”? It does to me.

Strong Female Character

In the field of “women inside fictional stories” you can find the typical “Damsel in Distress”, the (so feared) “Mary Sue” and, I’d like to believe, the “Strong Female”.

For several years the Damsel in Distress was the norm. That virginal, pure, sweet girl or princess that had to be rescued from the claws of evil so she could live happily ever after in the arms of her beloved was The Thing. She was a role model back on the day when girls had to marry beasts (that sometimes were kind of a good guy after all) like Belle, or “be nice” like Cinderella, Sleeping Beauty and Snowhite. Beeing physically weak was (apparently) quite appealing in a young woman and it was even better if she was ill as well (nothing to serious,off course, but enough for her to lie in a couch all day suffering... and I’m not making this up, I’ve read it in Agatha Christie’s autobiography. She complains more than once of how her grandmother seemed to wanted her to embody Camille’s -or La Dame aux Camélias- lead character so she could get a husband). All of us has seen this girl at least once.

Time passed by and women became a little more powerful year after year. And no, I didn’t made a big jump from 1700′s to the final days of 2016. I’m talking about those women who started to write and, while doing it, creating a new place for women. Louisa May Alcott, the Brontë sisters, Jane Austen, Mary Shelley are the names that all of us know and many might have read -I didn’t, I’ve only read Shelley’s Frankenstein, the others are not my cup of tea- and I’m quite sure that there are many many more. With them Strong Females were born. I know, “all of them dressed in pretty dresses and had no violent action nor knew how to fight... how could they be Strong Females?” well... maybe because they were always fighting to have a voice? or because they were trying to break the tradition of beeing a daugther to become a wife and later a mother? Jo March, trying to be a writer and not caring if anyone said that she wasn’t feminine enough (when she cuts her hair to get some money or because she whistles!), not to mention certain sacrifices she (and her sisters) do to live day by day, is a strong character. Would you deny it? Maybe she’s not “the one” that will end an evil goverment, she won’t beat the crap out of her enemies nor will face the world alone holding nothing but a pocket-knife... but she’s strong and anyone can relate herself with her (and a young woman who doesn’t like “Little Women” and never could read beyond the chapter of the party at Laurie’s -after trying to read the book twice- is saying that!). Josephine March can kick some serious Strong Female’s asses today and she was “born” in 1868! Those were real Strong Females and that’s why nowdays they are still considerated role models -maybe-.

The All Mighty Mary Sue: now we found a big jump in time... times where women gotta be everything (good, pure and innocent at the same time that she’s a master assasin who can kill a hundred men blindfolded in the middle of the dark). I know that “Mary Sue” has becomed pretty much a curse word specially among those who write this type of characters -or at least enjoy them-. No-one likes to say that they like a token character that is as empty as the head of a Barbie doll and brings nothing to the story beyond her charming presence. Ok, there is another kind of Mary Sue, the Lead Character, she and her issues are the main reason why the story exists (Bella Swan from Twilight is a good example). In both roles (side character or main one) she’s worthless and depends A LOT of the men around her. Main Character Bella is nothing without her relationship with Edward, Jacob and her dad. Sure, she’s got some female friends but, in comparison with those three guys, she hardly talks to them. How do you think the book would’ve been without the love story and the differences with her dad? Side Character Tauriel (sorry, I can’t help it) is nothing without her relationships with Thranduil, Legolas and Kili. And she has NO female friends. What other version of this character could’ve existed without all of it?

Strong Females in movies

As I said, lately we had wave after wave of “strong female characters” that are just amaizing in everything they do and, sometimes, are even better than the men around them. Is it bad? No, but it could be a big “yes” depending on the story or in how often we get to see it.

All movies nowdays seem to believe that having a super-powerful woman is good and having a more “traditional” one is as bad as having a damsel in distress. Times have changed, I know, we do not need to “have” a man to be someone as it used to happen in the ‘50s... we can save ourselves, we can use guns, we can fight but does that mean that we are strong? Physically strong: sure... Strong-strong? not quite.

Of course it’s awesome to see a good fight on a movie (I quite enjoy them) but beyond the fantastic moves of this character we love is there anything to back it up? Is there a good reason to take that road? Was there a better choice? Here’s the random thought on my brain that made me write this article. Scene comparison ahead:

Labyrinth (1986):

The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies (2014)

Let’s see... In both cases the heroines (filled with anger while thinking of calling Tauriel like that) find themselves against someone who doesn’t let them go on or their journey to save a baby brother (Sarah) or hot dwarf  a bunch of dwarves (Tauriel). In both cases this obstacle is an authority figure, Sir Didymus -guardian of the bridge- and Thranduil, the Elvenking. It’s the same dilemma... but two different reactions. Sarah, a teenager, chooses to talk to the guardian, to be reasonable with him so she can get his permision... and she has it! Tauriel, an adult elf, chooses to shut up and threatens the King’s life.

“You idiot! Tauriel is trying to save the dwarves lifes, there’s no time to talk and be nice! It’s a war!” Oh, really? What if I tell you that Sarah only has 13 hours to save her baby brother before he turns into a goblin? Actually maybe she has less than three hours to save him in that scene, considerating that sometime later we see a 13 hours clock marking 11 sharp. She doesn’t have that much time does she? We saw that Ludo defeated Sir Didymus and that he’s also capable of holding him in his hand, Sarah could’ve easily asked Ludo to hold him until she crossed the bridge... heck! she could’ve kicked Sir Didymus out of her way and cross! But she didn’t because she didn’t needed another enemy behind her and she had no reasons to be a jerk. Tauriel decided that convincing her King to help her was a waste of time. After all why a man that knows her, raised her, gave her a job, and send his son to get her back to his kingdom (so she wouldn’t get into trouble) would care about her or her needs? He’s a  cold hearted King, after all (major eye roll).

Which one is the strongest (and again, we’re not talking about physical strength)? The one that chooses to be gentle and polite or the one that chooses brutal force? It can be resumed in this: wisdom or brutality?

It’s quite funny that the question of wisdom or brutalilty shows up since Tauriel is a Silvan Elf, and they are -as said by Tolkien- less wise and more dangerous. As I said before “less wise” doesn’t mean “stupid” nor means “savage” as everybody seems to believe. Tolkien was reffering to the way of living of this elves, who turned away from the Valar’s invitation to join them and decided to live in a more “natural” way. A possible paralel to our society would be the hippie movement... we wouldn’t call them savages, would we?

As a character that was created to show how merceful we are it’s quite shocking to see Tauriel taking such a violent turn to get what she wants. The worst thing now is that we (anti-Tauriel people) can’t even say that that’s how teenagers behave, since Sarah in her 15s has shown the opposite reaction.

I ask you: of all the movies you’ve seen this year... did all the women took the high road instead of the easy one -that one beeing beating the crap out of someone to get what they wanted-? If violence was used: was this choice the only option? Did them had a really good reason to do so? If the answer is a “yes” congratulations! you’ve watched a movie with a strong female character (or at least, a good try to be one).

Can a Female Strong Character fall in love?

Of course she can!

Many people believe that their favourite females are criticized because they’ve fallen in love. Once Upon a Time said it first: love is not weakness, it’s strength. Everything’s OK if the girl loves someone, the problem begins when this love is the only reason why she moves a finger or when there’s nothing more for her than it or when love blinds her and makes her take stupid choices (and even forget her awesome set of skills).

Believe it or not, there’s a title for those strong females that after falling in love became -pretty much- damsels in distress or that were never intended to be Strong Females: Trinity Syndrome (you can read more about it here)

A strong female who falls in love? Glad you ask. The first one that comes to my mind is Lisbeth Salander from the Millennium Trilogy by Stieg Larsson, she goes through hell and yet falls in love but it never really affects her personality in a negative way (she was distant to people around her and opens up to Mikael -the guy she loves- but only with him and SPOILER ALERT once her heart breaks she’s still the same one). What about Princess Leia (RIP Carrie Fisher) she was tough, and smart and completly capable of comanding a group of rebels... but she falls in love anyway and it doesn’t change her at all. Any ot Tolkien’s women who fall in love are still the same and because of their love they push the boundaries and accomplish great deeds (Lúthien), others doesn’t need to fall in love to do so (Éowyn, Haleth). There are many more examples, sadly no so many from the last decade.

I’d like to do just one more comparison before finish this part.

Singin’ in the rain (1952)

The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug (2013)

Both of them ended up facing the love of their lives (yikes! in Tauriel’s case). Both men think that only because of their looks (probably) they got the girl and will live together happily ever after but first, they have to charm her and both go the wrong way with sexual innuendos, touches and glances. Kathy Selden (RIP Debbie Reynolds) knows what’s going on and thinks of the best way to get out of such situation, she even uses physical strength when it’s needed. She won’t let a men to get his way with her. Tauriel knows what’s going on and decides to go on with the game... say what? Girl, you hardly know him! He could be a dangerous prisioner... and you’re flirting with him? How did you get the title of Captain of the Guard? I wonder if any orc has pulled such a move on her and if she reacted the same way.

Again, we have a strong female and a female (I’ll even say that she’s how men would love to see women behave).

Conclussion

So? Do they still exists? Yes, I think. There aren’t many, but every now and then one shows up (Lisbeth Salander is the last one I’ve meet so far).

What about all the other women in the movies and books? They could be strong characters if the writers could put a little more effort. So far we have the male idealization of a woman (you know: super hot, awesome fighter, love-sick puppy, independent but not that much) and the female version of this male idealization (fighter, sometimes insecure, lives to love her man and protect him, etc). It’s quite scary if we see them like that. I wouldn’t be frightened if all girls grew up the way I did; I know, I’m not the best example out there, but I know that I was taught not to let anyone (male or female) to put me down or to “show me my place”. And this teaching came from my family, not movies, TV shows or books (at least not in my early years) this three tools were for entertainment purposes, nothing more.

Today we live in a different world were the image prevails and this is the same world were parents have no time to be with their kids or doesn’t know how to prepare them for the world out there or don’t want to be the kind of parents that smother their kids by controlling what they watch or read because that will make them “bad parents”. It’s not like that, kids depend on us all. WE have to be their role models, not a character or toy. How come that I grew up playing with my Barbie dolls and I don’t want to be a supermodel or blonde or super skinny? Because I had a good education at home. How is it possible that I grew up watching and admiring the Disney’s princesses and yet I’m not looking for Prince Charming nor I care if I look like them or not? Because I was taught the difference between a movie and the real life. I also learned, many years later, that gender doesn’t matter: if a character has a good set of morals we can apply them too... who cares if said character was a men or a woman?

I wish that newer generations could be able to learn that you have to be yourself, that makes you strong not your ability with the sword but the reason why you’re using it and the fears you’re facing.

I wish that newer generations wouldn’t need a Strong Female Character because they’ll be their own.

[archandbillwiseguys]

Review: Christopher Robin

August 3, 2018

Arch: I loved Christopher Robin. It made me blubber like an elderly woman.

Bill: It’s just about perfect.

Arch: As you know, I very rarely stay for the closing credits of films, but I had to stay seated and compose myself!  

Bill: I was captivated from the opening frames.

Arch: It starts with this scene with Christopher Robin as a young boy in the Hundred Acre Wood, and all the animals are there to say goodbye to him.  The animals are sad, but they’re okay with it because they understand that children grow up and move on.

Bill: I love that it sort of looks like an office retirement party. There’s a cake and one of them even has a little speech prepared.

Arch: It was very touching. And then we see the after-story; what happens to Christopher after he grows up. And that’s even more touching. By that time I was completely losing it!

Bill: In tone it reminded me a lot of the opening sequence of the Disney animated film Up, which makes me cry every time I see it.

Arch: Yes! I was thinking about Up, too!  The whole melancholy concept of how life goes on, whether we’re ready for it to or not. There’s also a touch of It’s a Wonderful Life in the film.

Bill: What I loved seeing here was top-notch digital filmmaking being used, for once, not in the service of making super heroes fly, or buildings collapse, or villains to be vaporized. The technology is being used to take a gentle, thoughtful fantasy and make it breathe.

Arch: The combination of live action, digital animation, and animatronics was, I thought, amazing. It was all so seamless. But it’s the whole spirit of the film that made me cry like a grandmother. It reminded me of things that happened to me as a child, and my mother reading A Child’s Garden of Verses and The Wind in the Willows.

Bill: And Winnie the Pooh?

Arch: Oddly enough, no! Still, I was a basket case by the time this was over.

Bill: I didn’t read the books until I was older, but I feel like this movie does a much better job of capturing the languid, thoughtful pace of the books than the 1960s animated versions did. Those films were very much cartoons, with slapstick and action almost throughout — but there are long passages in this film where virtually nothing happens, and that’s really all right. I mean, at some points Pooh just stands there — just stands there — thinking. It’s a real tribute to the filmmakers, because you just know there had to be someone at the studio saying, “Hey, we’ve gotta move this thing along!”

Arch: Ewan McGregor is one of my favorite actors, and he’s wonderful in this. It reminded me of a movie he made some time ago called Big Fish.

Bill: Yes! I hadn’t even thought of that, but you’re right.

Arch: He’s a grown son, and he and his father are sort of estranged, and his father tells him all these outrageous stories, and at the end you find out they were all true. He finally comes to terms with his father. That’s another one that gets me!

Bill: You’re just an old softie, Arch! But I have to admit I was stifling a sob here and there, as well.  I couldn’t believe I was being sucked in by those old Hollywood tropes: “Don’t Forget the Important Things in Life” and “Always put your family ahead of your work.” Usually it annoys me, because I’m so aware of how poisonous the movie business is for people with families. It just seems so cynical.

Arch: Disney especially!  I understand it’s the worst place to work in Hollywood! They make you work all the time, turn your back on your family and do nothing but dance to the tune they’re playing!

Bill: I guess the power of that message is proven by the way it triumphs over hypocrisy.

Arch: Yeah, I forgive them. I think we also need to praise the voice work in Christopher Robin. Jim Cummings is the voice of Pooh and Tigger, and Brad Garrett is Eeyore, and they’re just perfect.

Bill: I find it interesting that those voices, as good as they are, are still approximations of the voices as they were done in the original 1960s cartoons. They were so perfectly cast back then that we still expect Pooh to sound like Sterling Holloway and Tigger to sound like Paul Winchell.

Arch: It was all so artfully done. And as I said, like you did I stayed for the credits because I had to decompress. And I was glad I did because the credits reward you with a little song and what looks like a home movie of the characters.

Bill: That guy you see playing piano and singing during the credits is Richard Sherman, one of the Sherman brothers, who wrote all the songs in the original Pooh movies. He’s at least 90.

Arch: I once worked with a guy we all called Eeyore. He was always extremely pessimistic.

Bill: I think we’ve all known a couple of Eeyores.

[chrisoncinema]

The Year in Review: 2017 Honorable Mentions

Originally this post was just going to list my top ten films of the year and provide a brief commentary on the honorable mentions that didn’t make the cut but I got carried away with the latter and wrote way too much. So here’s a holiday surprise: a full summation of my year at the movies for you to enjoy as I work on my top ten list.

2016 Addenda

Silence and Paterson were two 2016 films that I was only able to see in early 2017. Had I been able to view them when they were first released, both would have made my 2016 top ten list (which never got a proper post but is accessible via my twitter) and both would have vied for spots in my top three. I highly recommend that everyone watch both films. They are both challenging films in their own ways. Silence is emotionally exhausting; moments of shocking brutality and quiet delicacy abound. It’s an examination of faith worth mulling over regardless of your worldview or philosophy because, in the end, faith is an emanation of our basic humanity. Paterson is similar to Silence in its singular voice and vision. It is meandering, seemingly plotless, and deceptively simple, but sometimes one has to walk slowly in order to see clearly.

Films I Missed

As seen above, every year there are a number of films I am unable to see because I didn’t have time or it wasn’t playing in Michigan or I didn’t have the press credentials to get into a screening. This year, the most disappointing miss was Paul Thomas Anderson’s Phantom Threadwhich, apparently, didn’t make it to my local art theater. I’ve loved Anderson’s last three films (and enjoy his entire filmography, in varying degrees) and believe Phantom Thread would have made it onto my top ten list this year, had I been able to see it. Other films I missed this year, in no particular order, include: A Quiet Passion, The Post, Menashe, The Shape of Water, Three Billboards Outside Ebbing Missouri, I Tonya, Menashe, Graduation, Manifesto, Dawson City: Frozen Time, Call My By Your Name, and The Square.

Honorable and Dishonorable Mentions

Despite missing a lot, I saw more films this year than I have in a long time. This meant that my top ten list was an enjoyable challenge and that a number of films, for a variety of reasons, didn’t make the cut. These are their stories…

Lemon was the worst movie that I saw this year – or, at the very least, it was the movie I disliked the most that I watched all the way through nonetheless. The anti-comedy antihero that Tim Heidecker played to cringey perfection in the weird and wonderful The Comedy should be hereby retired with Brett Gelman’s new film. I think Brett Gelman is a very funny comedian and his wife, Janicza Bravo, who directed Lemon has a unique enough directorial voice but, in a year of terrible men, we didn’t need this one. In a year of interesting commentary on race, we didn’t need this half-hearted, cynical, frustrating attempt.

Lemon

I swore off comic book movies years ago and have only watched DC movies out of morbid, masochistic curiosity (I did not see Wonder Woman or Justice League, for the record, and don’t plan on ever watching them). That said, the first superhero movie to pique my interest in years was Logan. I hadn’t seen an X-Men movie since First Class, which I found rather pointless, but, as a childhood fan of the X-Men comics, something about Logan seemed different. And indeed it was.

Logan works incredibly well as a neo-Western road movie that happens to feature mutated humans with superpowers. Hugh Jackman is probably the best actor to ever lead a comic book movie and here he finally has a movie that is worth his time. The three leads that form a quasi-familial unit in the form of Patrick Stewart, Jackman, and young breakout Dafne Keen, all perform incredibly well together and individually. The movie falters when it tries to introduce its villains and an action-y plotline. The dude with the Anakin Skywalker hand was sufficient, the evil doctor guy played by Richard E. Grant was introduced too late to matter, and the robo-Wolverine or whatever he was called was just kind of awkward and weird and dumb. Still, I was genuinely moved by the end of this movie – brought closer to tears by this movie than any comic book movie I’ve watched. It’s not a great film, but it’s a very good comic book movie. Count it among the few classics.

Another movie that I was surprisingly moved by was Okja. I felt like I had this film’s number from the start. Not that predictability is inherently negative, I just didn’t think I’d get that much out of it. But this movie is incredibly well-crafted. The performances from Jake Gyllenhaal and Tilda Swinton are so over the top that they actually work as caricatures of evil people. This movie feels like a live-action anime. It has the energy, the flow, and the colorful cast of characters. The message is simple and perhaps a bit obvious but it works. And while I will continue blaming it on the severe cold I had while watching the film, I did get choked up at the end. Also, Paul Dano continues to be a tragically underrated performer who needs to be cast in way more projects.

Okja

Okja was very good at world-building and, unsurprisingly, Blade Runner 2049 was great at it. I was wary of this film going in and didn’t even know if I’d ever watch it – tired as I am of reboots and unnecessary sequels. Much to my surprise, though, I was captivated by this movie when it was simply following Ryan Gosling’s K through his detective work and personal life. His relationship with his holographic girlfriend is as weird and sweet and inventive as Her. Denis Villeneuve is a director I’ve written about beforewhose work I enjoy – Arrival remains his best film. Roger Deakins, as widely reported, does great work as he always does in this film. Unfortunately, 2049decided to be a legacy act. The second half of the movie is bogged down in a plot that ties the film in with the original completely unnecessarily.

2049 falls apart when it dredges up old Harry Ford in his all-too-ordinary gray t-shirt. Is he playing Rick Deckard or is he someone’s aging stepdad? Credit where it’s due: Harrison Ford performs dutifully and effectively in this movie but 1: I can’t watch Harrison Ford in a movie anymore without it completely taking me out of the narrative (Oh look, it’s ancient curmudgeon Harrison Ford. Remember Indiana Jones?) and, more importantly, 2: there was no reason why this film needed to bring him back. As I said, there were so many interesting directions this film could have gone but, like The Force Awakens, it grinds to a halt so we can see Harrison Ford react to stuff related to a movie he was in a hundred years ago. Also, Jared Leto is a scenery-chewing nuisance who should not be cast in anything ever. My suggestion: if you didn’t see this movie in IMAX, just wait and watch the 90 minute version I’ll inevitably make in 2018.

And while Blade Runner and Star Wars provided science fiction fodder for franchise devotees, horror fans were treated to a vast array of unique offerings. A horror/drama that got a little over-hyped for me was Raw. As with most gross-out horror films, there were early reports of people passing out and throwing up in screenings. With that in mind, I prepared myself for something truly shocking and was, honestly, somewhat disappointed. The story centers on a college freshman who discovers she has a hunger for human flesh. It’s a fun film if you’re a fan of body horror but even so the scenes get rather formulaic. There’s some great, atmospheric stuff in this movie, including some solid cinematography, but the moments when something gross is about to happen are never a surprise. Raw's great failure is its ending which ties such a deliciously messy story together too neatly.

Raw

Another horror film that could be accused of receiving too much early hype was, of course, mother! This movie is incredibly effective as a comedy of manners. Darren Aronofsky does an amazing job of capturing the panic and confusion of actual nightmares where you know the people populating your dream should be able to hear and understand you but their blank, unresponsive stares simply add to the horror. I had no idea what mother!was actually about or where it was going while I watched it and I found myself disappointed in myself once I realized. The thing is, though, even when the film’s narrative fully commits to its pedestrian eschatology, it’s still churning out moments that are absolutely bonkers. The ways mother! doesn’t work might be more interesting than the ways it does (Javier Bardem and Michelle Pfeiffer are particularly effective; Jennifer Lawrence remains an amateurish performer) but…I kind of loved this film in all of its sadistic, messy glory.  

I really wanted mother! to make it into my top ten list simply because it felt so different. That is, until I saw another film about the dismantling of domesticity: The Killing of a Sacred Deer. I should state for the record that I was not a huge fan of Yorgos Lanthimos’s last film The Lobster. That film always felt a bit obvious and stunted to me – though I’m a big fan of both Colin Farrell and Rachel Weisz. Sacred Deer is a similar beast. The deadpan, monotone dialogue takes a lot of getting used to and I’m sure it’ll be a sticking point for a lot of viewers. It remains an interesting and puzzling choice by Lanthimos who seems to want to strip his films of melodramatic artifice while writing screenplays that contain the drama of Greek tragedies. 

Sacred Deer is a film that knows it’s weird, knows you think it’s weird, but also knows it’s weirdness is making you feel weird. If you can let yourself get into it, this is a pretty rewarding film reminiscent of The Shining (I know this is blasphemy but I actually like it more). Colin Farrell and Nicole Kidman both give incredibly performances with what is surely challenging material to work with. The film’s real star, though, is Dunkirk breakout Barry Keoghan. As his character grows more strange and sinister, he somehow becomes even more magnetic. Regardless of what you think of the movie, Keoghan is one of the best performers of the year.

The Killing of a Sacred Deer

Of course, one cannot discuss the year’s horror films without mentioning Get Out. I have to admit I had trouble with this film for a number of months. I really struggled to see what everyone else was seeing in it. That is, until I watched Detroit. Both films are ostensibly horror flicks where the great evil is white power. Kathryn Bigelow’s film posits itself as a visceral work of journalism but beneath that facade, it’s clear she has nothing to say. Her camera is in a constant Paul Greengrass-esque tremor whether it’s a tense moment or not. Detroitis false immediacy. Detroit is torture porn. Get Out, on the other hand, has a voice and it came to make a statement. Get Out, like They Liveor Night of the Living Dead before it, is not high art. It is, for better or worse, a reaction to the sociopolitical milieu that surrounds it. Hopefully it will soon be considered the first of innumerable, blockbuster works by filmmakers of color that invades the cultural consciousness. For now, Get Out is a film that manages to be both scary and funny thanks to Jordan Peele’s vision and direction.

Logan Lucky and Baby Driver were two films by directors whose work I enjoy and admire immensely that just didn’t quite bring enough to the table to make it into a top ten list. Both films are self-assured, fun, and full of magnetic characters (save for the titular Baby) but they also seem to be exercises in style over substance. Still, I’d recommend both films in a heartbeat.

Another film that comes highly recommended by yours truly that seems to have been completely forgotten is The Red Turtle: an animated, nearly-wordless folk tale about nature, love, and letting go. The Red Turtle is refreshingly simple and unassuming – I’ve heard it described as a children’s film and, while a patient child may be able to sit through it, there’s a depth and maturity to the story that will speak to anyone who would stop to listen. Come for the animation, stay for the beautiful score and sound design.

The Red Turtle

Speaking of design, a couple films that look incredibly good are A Ghost Story and The Beguiled. Both films held spots in my top ten list but were knocked out. I really wanted to love A Ghost Story – I felt like I was really giving it my all – but about two thirds of the way through the film, it starts to preach about what it is and some of the mystery and nuance is lost. Visually, it remains one of the most interesting films of the year, but the story remains half-baked. The same could be said for Sofia Coppola’s new film. It features some of the best cinematography of the year and incredible performances from everyone involved. The aforementioned Colin Farrell and Nicole Kidman give it their all; Kirsten Dunst is strong as ever; and Elle Fanning continues to prove she is one of the great young actors working today. The film’s only real fault is its table manners. Reserved and cautious, when the film finally boils over, the room has already chilled.

I also saw The Florida Project this year. I have very little to say about it, apparently. As I’ve been putting it off through this whole post. I thought it was…fine. It’s good, not great. Willem Dafoe is very good in it. If you want to know how I feel about the ending, I’m in the camp that thought it completely undercut the emotional depth and complexity that the film was just about to reach.

So there you have it – my year at the movies, save for my upcoming top ten films of the year. As I said above, many of these films could have, or perhaps should have, been in my top ten list. And if you were to ask me in a few months, some of them might return. As these things go, art is subjective and fluid, but I’m very excited to share the films that I found the most engrossing and moving this year. Some will be obvious, but hopefully some will be new discoveries for you. Come back New Year’s Eve to find out!

[totesmccoats]

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Batman #28

It’s not surprising that Tom King knows how to write a gripping war diary, but it is kind of incredible how well he can put one in Batman’s voice using Gotham as a backdrop.

After having meetings with the Joker and the Riddler, Gordon is told that both sides’ top priority is killing Batman; and each side sends their top assassin to get the job done. Deathstroke and Deadshot are both gunning for Batman, but find each-other first, causing a fight that lasts five days and ends hundreds of lives in the crossfire. And while the entire story is told in flashback, this is the first time in the story that it sounds like Batman has an actual episode of PTSD; his narration of events becoming aggravated, repeating “five days,” over and over, still having trouble getting over the carnage.

In this arc, King has gone out of his way to note how Batman remembers the fine details of this story, giving every victim in the second issue a name, devoting another entirely to Kite Man. In this one, we finally see the actual impact of all of this on Batman himself, the emotional scarring the War left on him – why he still remembers all of it so vividly.

  Superman #28

Jeezus Christ. I thought last issue was a mess of intention and execution, but this one blows it out of the water.

After spending a third of a page telling Jon about the importance of free speech, and doing a half-assed job of it at that; it’s a return to the tour of war memorials. Clark and Lois take Jon to the World War II memorial, where they tell him about the two theaters of war, without mentioning the Holocaust or the Atom bomb, of course; and then to the Vietnam memorial where they neglect to mention the draft riots or Americans burning down villages. And then, after touring Gettysburg National Military Park, where slavery is once again never brought, but the Kents do meet the decedents of a union soldier who died and whose body was never recovered – Superman literally FINDS THE DUDE’S 154 YEAR OLD SKELETON, WRAPS IT IN AN AMERICAN FLAG, AND DROPS IT OFF AT THE FAMILY’S HOME IN THE MIDDLE OF THE NIGHT.

HOLY FUCKING SHIT. WHAT IS TOMASI ON THAT HE THINKS THIS IS OKAY!?

PLEASE, NEXT ISSUE, CAN THINGS GET BACK TO NORMAL!!

Ending on a good thing though, Jorge Jimenez’s variant cover for this issue is fantastic, and everything Superman should be about. Pick it up if you can find it.

  Green Arrow #28

Green Arrow goes to Metropolis to warn Lex Luthor that the Ninth Circle will be coming for LexCorp, since Lex refused their offer to join. And, not incidentally, a spree of suicide attempts starts all over the city. Luckily, Metropolis has another hero that looks out for everybody.

This story keeps on getting better and better. Despite Lex Luthor being a major character in the issue, there are no villains – no fighting. Green Arrow tells what he has to tell Lex, and then, noticing the suicide attempts, helps Superman prevent any of them from becoming successful. It’s an issue of Superman and Green Arrow, and eventually Lex Luthor, all teaming up to save people from making the worst decision. And in doing so, the issue still illustrates its economic-political point, that capital is nothing without the inherent worth of people’s lives giving it meaning; that its people, not money, that have real value and power.

Ferreyra’s Superman is the most Christopher Reeves inspired version of the character in comics today – although that might just be because he draws the costume as a soft looking, muscultature smoothing material rather than a second latex skin; and basically recreates the “You’ve got me but whose got you?” scene for an entire issue. The issue also seems to happen entirely right before sunset, giving everything a hopeful golden glow.

Now I’m really hoping that this team gets to work on a Superman title, because they nailed it.

  Black Bolt #4

Once again trapped by the Warden, this time in a room where the air is being drained out, Crusher and Black Bolt take what might be their final moments to reminisce on the decisions they’ve made to end up here, and bond over uncommon histories.

A lot of this comic is about Crusher Creel; how he was raised, how he started boxing, fell into crime, got his powers, etc. Crusher has played audience surrogate for the past three issues, reacting to the strangeness of Black Bolt’s life and mannerisms approximately how we would; and this issue finally fully humanizes him – giving him that past and his own emotional anchors.

And then, after making us, and Black Bolt, fully sympathize with Crusher, including a scene where he tells BB a joke so bad it makes him laugh in the face of death; Ahmed pulls an ending out of nowhere that punches us swiftly and surely in the gut. Like, Saga levels of final page gut-punch. It’s a cruel final page, and I kinda love Ahmed for it.

  Hawkeye #9

Katie wakes up in a cage in the fight club from last issue, but on the bright side, she found Anna’s father! But, on the dark side, again, she’s being forced to have a cage match with a dude who can Human Torch himself.

I’m still enjoying Hawkeye, but it’s the sort of book that’s consistent enough issue to issue, not really any huge ups-and-downs in the drama, where it’s looking like a good candidate for trade-waiting. It’s the sort of book, like Unbeatable Squirrel Girl, where every month I basically have the same things to say about it; but unlike USG, doesn’t deliver the sort of jokes that work on their own outside the story to make each issue worth picking up individually as they come out.

  Injection #14

Escaping from the phantom grasp of the Cold House, Brigid and Emma return to interrogate Kerwick about everything she’s been hiding from them about the moor.

Warren Ellis wrote recently in a newsletter that this arc was his take on Doctor Who, and except for the fight sequence where Brigid and Emma kill two guys using a box cutter and a screwdriver; I can totally see it. Brigid uses her wearable computer, Sheela much like a sonic screwdriver, and seemingly has a contingency plan for any situation, no matter how weird. Meanwhile, Emma fills the role of The Doctor’s companion – new to this strange world, but up for anything.

The Injection itself also makes a reappearance in this issue, having been pulling Kerwick’s strings the entire time, and every appearance it manages to get both, more affable and scarier – a bit like Ellis himself.

  Sex Criminals #20

Well, this fun comic about sex and some weirdos who do it that usually makes me laugh for the entire issue just gone and broke my heart, it did.

A series of miscommunications lead to bad decisions that culminate in every meaningful relationship in the series falling apart. Like melting icecaps, the cracks formed gradually through these past issues, and in this one things finally break off. And what stings is how real it is. Like, I’ve made the same poor decision before, recently, and multiple times with the same person. Because as much as we like to think that we improve as a person with every relationship we make, a lot of us don’t; and just keep making the same mistakes because we tell ourselves that this time it’ll work out alright.

And I hope that it works out alright for the characters in this dumb story about weirdo sex too. And maybe, because it’s fiction, it will.

Comic Reviews for 8/2/17 Batman #28 It’s not surprising that Tom King knows how to write a gripping war diary, but it is kind of incredible how well he can put one in Batman’s voice using Gotham as a backdrop.