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herinsectreflection · 4 years ago

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An Episode Within an Episode: An Analysis of ‘The Zeppo’

The Zeppo is one of those episodes that so consistently shows up on fan lists of “underrated” episodes, that I don’t know if it can really be considered “underrated” anymore, but I think it deserves a little extra appreciation. It’s definitely an episode that takes a second viewing to appreciate, thanks to how oddly it is constructed, in a way that isn’t immediately advertised to the viewer. Other episodes with unusual styles such as Once More With Feeling or Hush very much wear their concepts on their sleeve; you can’t watch them and not immediately realise what they are doing. That’s not a knock against those episodes - part of what makes them so great and iconic is that they get right to the point and so can do interesting things with the concept. The Zeppo is just a quieter kind of unique. It uses the limited perspective of both the characters and the audience themselves to show a cracked-mirror version of the world. It’s an episode of Buffy the Vampire Slayer told from the perspective of somebody looking in on another episode of Buffy the Vampire Slayer. It’s fun and weird and I want to dig into it a little bit.

We start off with a very typical Buffy scene. In its third season now, the show is pretty aware of and confident in its own tropes, and trusts the audience to be too. We don’t need any build-up explaining exactly what Giles has found out and what spell Willow is performing and what these monsters are doing and exactly how Buffy and Faith know how to kill them. We’ve all seen an episode of Buffy before, and we can fill in the blanks pretty easily. This confidence in the show’s own tropes and what the audience expects of it is key to what makes this episode work. We know exactly how a typical episode of Buffy goes, so we can receive this barely-cliff-notes version of one and understand it perfectly. It’s an episode that can only be done in a show’s third year, when viewers have become fluent in the show’s language.

After the fight and exposition is over, Xander stands up from the garbage, as out of context as we are as viewers. As this is a Xander-centric episode, he becomes the audience identification figure. As the one character not supernaturally gifted or linked in any way (as the episode points out several times), Xander makes sense as the viewer stand-in. Xander comments on how he wants to be more involved in the fights but is firmly rebuffed - and it’s clear he wouldn’t be able to impact them anyway. All he can do is watch the fights and plots happen from a distance. In this sense, Xander is no different to the viewer, watching an episode of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, unable to affect it in any way.

This is where the structure of the episode comes into play. The A plot is a fairly meaningless runaround with zombies, while the B-plot is a finale-worthy epic apocalyptic showdown. We only catch glimpses of it, but it seems to contain all the standard hallmarks of a Buffy apocalypse - an evil cult, opening the hellmouth, tearful Buffy/Angel melodrama. Specifically, it echoes the previous two season finales, with the final showdown apparently featuring both the literal monster from the S1 finale, and some kind of sacrifice that involved Angel (evoking the S2 finale). The very last bit of dialogue we hear during this plot is “Faith, go for the heart!” from Buffy, encouraging her to kill the demon in the library, which you could argue foreshadows the S3 finale, where Buffy will use the Mayor’s love for Faith to kill him in the library. This plot is a facsimile of a Buffy season finale, giving us everything we expect and have seen before, stripped of all context, the very bare bones of a story.

What this achieves is that it alienates the viewer from this story-within-a story, forcing us into an intentionally uncomfortable position, where it feels like we’re watching an episode through a keyhole. It intentionally exacerbates the divide between viewer and show, to highlight our inability to fully perceive or at all impact this world we tune into each week.

Xander is very purposefully chosen as the POV character for this experience. He is feeling very insecure and ineffectual - unable to help with either brains or brawn, and not having a whole lot of impact on the story. He feels alienated from his friends, fearful that they will leave him behind. The structure of this episode highlights this feeling of ineffectualness. Xander feels so alienated from the events and people around him that he, like the audience, becomes separated from them. A character from Buffy the Vampire Slayer becomes an outsider to the story, watching an episode of Buffy the Vampire Slayer. We are encouraged to empathise with Xander because we are in the same position. We too have been robbed of our usual intimacy with this group of people, forced to perceive the shadows of an episode. This meta-emotion dovetails with the character’s internal mental state nicely.

I think my favourite instance of this meta-perception being played with is in the scene between Buffy and Angel, where we are dropped without context into a tearful, dramatic argument where apparently Angel’s life is in the balance, filled with declarations of love and poetic exaltations, backed by this sweeping orchestral score - and then Xander pops his head in. The music immediately stops, he exchanges a few awkward lines with them before realising they have bigger things to worry about. As he leaves, Buffy turns back to the melodrama and the sweeping music surges back in. It’s brilliantly funny - it feels like Xander put an episode on pause for a quick interjection, then re-started it where we left off. It’s a joke relying entirely on the audience’s expectations of the kind of epic melodrama we might get from Buffy and Angel, and it works really well. In this moment, Xander completely becomes the viewer, peeking in on these two actors, observing through glass.

The Zeppo is very concerned with meta references, TV, and the act of watching. Obviously the title is a reference to Zeppo Marx, and there is also a running gag likening Xander to Jimmy Olsen. We are encouraged to think of Xander in relation to his narrative function as a fictional character, and so to watch this episode through this meta lens. One key shot just after Faith and Xander sleep together shows the two of them literally reflected in a TV screen. We are literally seeing a distorted reflection of reality in a TV screen, which on one level is essentially all we do whenever we watch any television show, but is also what we are seeing within this episode - a fuzzy reflection of a Buffy episode within a Buffy episode.

There’s another shot later that I like, of one of the zombies pausing during the final chase scene to look through the library window at the demon emerging from the hellmouth. We see him looking through the glass at this apocalypse monster for a couple of seconds before continuing on with his chase, like a channel-hopping viewer taking a brief glimpse of Buffy, momentarily enraptured, before switching back to what they were watching before.

One thing that stood out to me on this rewatch was how the villains are described. We purposefully get very little on the group, but what we do get is telling. “’Sisterhood of Jhe. Race of female demons, fierce warriors...' Eww. '...celebrate victory in battle by eating their foes.’”

A race of all-female warriors sounds very much like Slayers. They apparently eat after battles too, which according to Faith is also a feature of Slayers. The villain in this story is kind of a representation of the central concept of the show, which makes sense since it deals with Xander navigating around a typical episode of the show. You could also read it as representative of Xander’s pathologies when it comes to women and specifically women who are stronger than him.

What I like about this episode is that it doesn’t conclude by giving Xander a big important role in stopping the apocalypse, proving his worth to the group. That’s what a lesser show might have done. I like that here, Xander never gets involved with the epic finale-esque plot. He carries on existing in the spaces around it, becoming instead the hero of the monster-of-the-week runaround episode he has found himself in. Xander cannot be the hero of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, because he’s not Buffy. But he is still a human being, and all of us as human beings are the protagonists and heroes of our own stories. He can be the hero of his own life.

S3 is largely about identity and forging one’s own path in life - obviously Buffy starts by having given up her name, then has to deal with facing off against her dark equivalent and making major decisions about her future. This season’s focus-episodes for the other characters reflect that: Giles is stripped of his role in Helpless, Willow rails against hers in Doppelgangland. This episode is all about Xander coming to terms with his narrative role within Buffy - as the non-powered comedic relief and occasional pep-talker. He could become frustrated with that, throw up his hands and let himself be at the mercy of his narrative function. But this episode allows him to find his own space, his own story. He accepts that he can’t colonise Buffy’s story, but he is still in control of his own decisions, and he can still have his own story. He can create a little one-off episode of Xander the Zombie Fighter that can co-exist peacefully with the episode of Buffy the Vampire Slayer happening at the same time. It’s a smaller, quieter story without the same world-shaking melodrama - but that’s OK. As Xander says himself, he likes the quiet.

As viewers, we can never shape the course of the media we watch. That’s part of the appeal - we don’t always know what we want or need - a problem Xander faces himself when he clutches at things like “being cool” or “a car” for things that might make him happy - but a good show gives us what we didn’t realise we needed. But it remains an eternal frustration, that we can connect on a deep emotional level with these characters, but can never help them or solve their problems. A good set of characters can feel like family, but a character can never love you back. When Xander faces up against this same uselessness as he observes an episode of Buffy from afar, it is the same uselessness the viewer feels. When he accepts this and inhabits his own story, it reminds us that we can do the same thing. Television can be a great comfort, but it is not our lives. Because we can affect our own lives. We aren’t in control of them, but we can guide and impact them, and we can each be the hero of our own individual existences.

#xander harris #the zeppo #btvs #buffy the vampire slayer #meta #s3 #theme:meta #theme:identity #theme:choice

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onebadwinter · 4 years ago

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Baron Helmut Zemo Tropes

Taken from Here and Here

Anti-Villain: Sometimes verges on this, though it's a case of Depending on the Writer.

Arch-Enemy: After his father's death, he takes this role to Captain America and leads the Masters of Evil after inheriting the title.

Aristocrats Are Evil: He's a baron after all, and believes his aristocratic heritage entitles him to rule.

Avenging the Villain: Helmut's original motive was to kill Captain America because he killed his father. Eventually, Helmut came to the realization that actually, Heinrich was an awful father and an even worse person.

Badass Normal: Has no powers, but regularly fights the likes of Captain America and the Avengers. He usually has a contingency that will allow him to deal with his opponent's plans anyway; it's only when these contingencies fail (as happened during his battle with Moonstone at the end of the initial run on Thunderbolts) that he's in trouble.

The Big Bad: Of his fare share of arcs, particularly those involving the Masters of Evil.

Brain Uploading: He only survived being decapitated because Techno uploaded his consciousness to a computer.

Butter Face: A Rare Male Example. He has the body you'd expect of somebody who can keep up with Captain America in terms of physique... but that handsome form is contrasted by a hideously malformed visage. For a while, he had a young, dashing look again after hijacking the body of the Helmut from another Earth, but only two years later his face got disfigured again. When he got Carla Sofen's Moonstone, he used it to fix that, but when Melissa broke it again...

Calling the Old Man Out: During his trip back in time, he ran into his father while the latter was gleefully doing mad science for the Nazis. Helmut had long since discarded any Nazi prejudices he had once had, and was fuming watching his father put down other races, the handicapped, etc. Finally he had enough and started beating the hell out of him while giving a "Reason You Suck" Speech. Quite the sign of Character Development for the guy who started out worshiping and avenging his father's memory.

Captain Patriotic: At the beginning of the Thunderbolts, he disguised himself as Citizen V, supposedly the son of a previous hero who'd gone by that name, whom Zemo had killed. Zemo went the whole hog, even decking himself in a cape designed after the American flag.

The Chessmaster: Zemo has a plan for everything, and lays them out months in advance.

Cool Mask: Wears a tighter fitting version of his father's mask.

The Cynic: Has a generally negative view of humanity.

Daddy Issues: He loved his father, and his father loved him... until the Adhesive X incident, where he became outright abusive in every way. Originally, Helmut blamed Captain America. Now, he acknowledges that his father was just a horrible human being.

Did You Just Punch Out Cthulhu?: He once shot the Grandmaster, one of the Elders of the Universe and a being way outside his normal weight class, through the head. Admittedly, there were mitigating circustances that allowed him to do this, and the Grandmaster did get better (because, hey, comics).

Disney Villain Death: Many, many times (see Never Found the Body below).

Even Evil Has Standards: Arranged the death of one of his ancestors during a time-travel jaunt, after he found out the man was a rapist and a mass-murderer who did it all For the Evulz. He later clashed with another ancestor when he thought he was harassing a girl (the two were actually in love, and he quickly apologised).

Evil Genius

Evil Is Petty:

The Faceless: He rarely ever removes his mask, due to his face being horribly scarred in a accident.

Facial Horror: His head has been slashed up so badly that it's practically a skull, with ribbons of flesh draping over his eyes and sliced-off cheeks and lips. The sight of his face visibly disgusts everyone in the original Thunderbolts.

Freudian Excuse: Raised by his father to believe in his inherent superiority. There wasn't a lot of dad hugs down in that South American jungle, mostly just rants and lectures.

Good Scars, Evil Scars: Hideously disfigured beneath his mask.

Grand Theft Me: After becoming a "ghost", his mind was transferred to the actual son of Citizen V (Techno noted it was basically him playing a joke). That is, until an energy conflict - the V-Batallion tried to teleport Citizen V as the body was being sucked into a portal - made his mind be expelled into Techno's machinery. But given he arrived at Counter-Earth, this meant Zemo could do a literal case of the trope, and took the body of his self from this world.

Heel–Face Revolving Door: Cannot make up his mind which side he is supposed to be on. He even once took a bullet for Cap despite being his sworn enemy.

In the Blood: The arrogance and the drive for control certainly are.

Joker Immunity: Unlike his father, he can never seem to be put down for long.

The Leader: Of the Masters of Evil and the Thunderbolts.

Legacy Character: To his father, Baron Heinrich Zemo XII.

Manipulative Bastard: Zemo's very good at getting other people to do what he wants, playing on their emotions and desires.

Master Swordsman: One of the best in the Marvel Universe. Zemo's dueled the likes of Captain America and survived several decades worth of warfare on a time travel jaunt.

Nazi Nobleman: Started out as one, though he's moved away from fascism in recent years. Nowadays his goals align more with Dirty Communists.

Never Found the Body: During the run of Thunderbolts alone he was declared dead on four separate occasions, all of which turned out to be false. In each instance, his body was never found. By the fourth time, most of the team just assume he'll turn up eventually (not that they want him to).

Noble Demon: He's much more noble than his father,for sure.

Purple Is Powerful: Signifies his aristocratic leanings.

Secondary Color Nemesis: Purple, to oppose Cap's blue and red.

Take Over the World: He insists it's to save it. Some people (like Songbird) aren't convinced.

Taking the Bullet: Once leapt in the way of an energy blast an insane Moonstone aimed at Captain America. Messed his face up bad.

There Are No Therapists: This guy is seriously messed up and would probably have turned out differently if he got professional help.

Token Evil Teammate: Alongside Techno, he serves as this for the first iteration of Thunderbolts. While most members of the team fall somewhere between The Hero and the Anti-Hero, Zemo shows no signs of having softened whilst playing-hero, and alongside Techno manages to almost conquer the world and turn it into a Darwinist nightmare. He also constantly mocks his teammates for wanting to be heroes, calling them "weak" and "traitors to the cause" when they show the smallest signs of heroism outside of their pubic duties.

Unlucky Thirteen: He's the thirteenth Baron Zemo.

Well-Intentioned Extremist: In his mind, at any rate, after some Character Development, he becomes determined to take over the world for its own good. That doesn't mean that he's not an Axe-Crazy terrorist who's willing to perform some truly heinous actions for the sake of the "greater good." Zemo: I would never have hurt a world I worked so hard to save.

Western Terrorists: More like this than a Nazi.

Wicked Cultured: When being held at swordpoint by his worst ancestor, an evil aristocrat who believed only in the absolute of power, said ancestor's son (who'd struck up a friendship with Zemo) asked what was more absolute than power. Zemo's answer? "To be, or not to be."

Worthy Opponent: Sometimes sees Captain America this way, and definitely sees Sharon Carter this way.

Xanatos Speed Chess: He's good at incorporating the gambits of others into his plans, as evidenced by his deft manipulation of Moonstone when they were both members of the Thunderbolts.

One of his nastiest acts of spite was destroying a box of Cap's treasured belongings, including some of his last links to the past, right in front of his eyes.

What was his initial plan in founding the Thunderbolts? Pretend to be heroes, earn America and the world's trust, become famous and respected, and then gather knowledge on the other heroes to... sell to the criminal underworld? Eventually, Moonstone points out this is a freaking stupid plan.

Taken to the highest extreme possible. When he actually did have the power to implement whatever change he might have wanted, Songbird shut him down with the intention of killing him out of not trusting him. What were what he believed could have been his last words?

MCU Zemo Tropes

Adaptational Attractiveness: He's quite handsome here, while his comic counterpart usually has to wear a mask to hide his hideously charred, disfigured face. This is true to his first appearance in the comics as a one-shot villain, before he was scarred upon becoming a recurring character.

Adaptational Heroism: In The Falcon and the Winter Soldier, when he does don his iconic comic book alter ego, unlike in the comics where he was a straight-up one-note supervillain, Zemo here is depicted so far as an Ambiguously Evil Anti-Hero ally of Avengers Sam and Bucky without mostly ever betraying them until his escape from the hotel in the fourth episode with most of his redeeming and justifiable qualities shown upfront more than his villainous qualities that Civil War mostly showcased, but still likely an on-and-off antagonist simultaneously during his Enemy Mine with the two superheroes.

Adaptational Nationality: In the comics Helmut Zemo is German, but here he is a Sokovian. Ironically, his actor actually is German, and The Falcon and the Winter Soldier sees a bit of his German accent creep in. He also has a vast array of vehicles and a private plane in Germany, and seems very familiar with both Berlin and the German language. Whether this is a Retcon into making him part German or just a Mythology Gag is yet to be seen, though he does identify Sokovia as "his country".

Adaptational Nice Guy: His comic counterpart and that of his father were literal Nazis who wanted mass genocide and world domination, and while the Helmut of the comics did grow out of the former, he still tends to try the latter. This version of Zemo, despite being on a black ops killing team, has a much simpler and more sympathetic motivation, while his father was merely a civilian. Neither have any ties to HYDRA (aside from Helmut's exploitation of HYDRA's Winter Soldier project), while the versions from the comics are both prominent members of that organisation.

Adaptational Wimp: In the comics Zemo is a major adversary of Captain America and the Avengers, with a particular emphasis on his skills at fencing and manipulation. While this version retains his cunning, he is also presented as much less of a direct threat to anyone despite being a former black operative; when Black Panther decides to bring him in alive, he goes down with barely a struggle. Most of his success ties into this, with him exploiting his lack of obvious supervillainous affect to stay under the heroes' radar until his plan requires him to show his hand, then relying on Steve and Tony's flaws and personal issues to do most of the work for him. The Falcon and the Winter Soldier shows that he hasn't forgotten how to do his own dirty work, however, putting his soldier skills to use alongside his usual guile and strategizing once he gets back into the fray.

Adaptation Personality Change: In the comics, Zemo is generally depicted as an unapologetic villain who is primarily driven by a selfish desire to rule over others. His film version, on the other hand, has a much more sympathetic motive for his villainous actions, as he's just a victim of the Avengers' collateral damage in Sokovia seeking revenge for the death of his entire family.

Affably Evil:

Alas, Poor Villain: His defeat in Civil War is treated as an utterly somber affair, with him having nothing left after completing his plan and hoping to commit Suicide by Cop at T'Challa's hands before trying to kill himself when T'Challa refuses to be consumed by vengeance as Zemo has. Even though he got what he wanted (up to a point), it doesn't change the fact that his family is gone forever.

The Alcoholic: Following his escape from prison in The Falcon and the Winter Soldier, Zemo reveals himself to be a little bit of a tippler, partaking in shots, champagne, helping himself to Sharon's expensive liquor collection, then taking more shots at a club. He apparently approves of the way they party in Madripoor.

All for Nothing: He wanted to destroy the Avengers and was content with them dividing. Thanos's arrival and the events of Endgame undo all of that. In fact, the Avengers are no doubt more beloved than ever as a result.

Anti-Villain: Despite the grim and often hypocritical in hindsight actions he resorts to, he does have some good traits and was hoping for a cleaner way to get what he wanted first. Also, his motive — revenge for the collateral damage-induced loss of his family — is at least a little sympathetic.

Apple of Discord: His Evil Plan is to find evidence that Bucky Barnes murdered Tony Stark's parents while under HYDRA control and show it to Stark, so Bucky's friend Steve Rogers and Tony will turn on each other over whether to spare or kill Bucky, and the Avengers will be ripped apart as they side with one leader or the other.

Arch-Enemy: Since the death of Ulysses Klaue, it seems Zemo has taken his seat as Wakanda's most wanted for the death of King T'Chaka. Not a day after he breaks out of prison, Ayo is already hot on his trail to capture him.

Aristocrats Are Evil: It's revealed in The Falcon and the Winter Soldier that he is a nobleman like his comic counterpart. Though unlike said counterpart, his upbringing had nothing to do with him becoming a villain since his father was by all accounts a decent man in this universe.

Badass Longcoat: The events of The Falcon and the Winter Soldier have Zemo wearing a stylish winter coat, complete with Conspicuous Gloves.

Badass Normal: Unlike most of the Avengers, he's just a plain old human. But, through sheer patience and ingenuity, he still managed to tear them apart. During the trip to Madripoor he proves to be no slouch in combat either, reminding everyone he was former special forces. He also comes much closer to permanently stopping Morgenthau than Falcon or Bucky have ever managed so far, largely because he's fully willing to kill.

The Bad Guy Wins: Downplayed. Zemo has achieved his goals but with never with the fully desired outcome.

Batman Gambit: He's good at finding ways to make other people do things for him by exploiting their predictable behavior.

Beard of Evil: He has grown a beard during his eight years in prison as seen in Episode 2 of The Falcon and the Winter Soldier.

Beware the Superman: His return in The Falcon and the Winter Soldier reveals his own take on the idea. While he is against the idea of a Super Soldier on principle, he is not specifically against them as people, but more how they are precisely put on a pedestal, their flaws washed away/ignored and subsequently inspire Blind Obedience. He specifically notes how the personal loyalty inspired by Steve Rogers to Sam and Bucky (then, even now) precisely drives them to such extremes—even breaking the law much like they did to free him. Sam and Bucky do not protest the point. He admits that Steve was not corrupted by the power he was given but points out there was only one of him compared to the many who would abuse it. He is proven right on this point by John Walker taking the super soldier serum and going off the deep end.

Big Bad: Of Captain America: Civil War. He exploits and exacerbates the ideological differences between Captain America and Iron Man, resulting in the eponymous Good vs Good conflict that threatens to destroy the Avengers.

Big Damn Villains: As Sam, Bucky, and Sharon are pinned down by bounty hunters in the Madripoor shipyard, Zemo suddenly makes a grandiose entrance in full villain garb on a ledge, killing several assassins by shooting a nearby gas tank with his pistol before going to ground and taking down the rest in close combat, opening up the heroes' window of escape.

Blue Blood: The Falcon and The Winter Soldier reveals that he was always a baron. While the fall of Sokovia took away most of the power of the title he still has a lot of money and connections as a result of his position.

Breaking the Fellowship: Thanks to his efforts, the Avengers are severely compromised, with several of the foundational friendships that held them together torn apart and anyone who sided with Cap imprisoned or branded a fugitive. Even Tony and his supporters still bear physical and mental scars caused by fighting their friends.

The Bus Came Back: After being imprisoned at the end of Civil War, Zemo returns in The Falcon and the Winter Soldier, with the title characters seeking his assistance in tracking down the source of the Flag Smashers's Super Soldier powers.

Cape Busters: Has a personal grudge against the Avengers and plots to destroy them by pitting them against one another. By the time of The Falcon and the Winter Soldier, he has apparently narrowed his vendetta to all super soldiers, stating that they "cannot be allowed to exist." At the same time, as stated above in Beware the Superman, his is more nuanced compared to other versions of this trope.

Character Tic: He has a habit of tilting his head whenever he's attempting to manipulate someone. It seems to be a subconscious thing he does, as he immediately stops doing it when Sam notices and lampshades it in Episode 4 of The Falcon and The Winter Soldier.

The Chessmaster: He plays all the Avengers like pawns. He frames Bucky for a crime, to have the world hunt him and lure him out of hiding. This partially causes the Avengers to turn on each other, divided over Bucky's innocence. He takes the UN interrogator's place, extorting information out of Bucky and using the trigger words to activate Bucky's soldier conditioning. Before finally showing Tony the tape of what really happened to his parents, sending him into a murderous rage to kill Bucky.

Colonel Badass: He used to be a Colonel in the Sokovian Special Forces, and he is one of the most effective foes the Avengers have faced — though not because of his combat abilities, but because of how effective he is about executing his plans.

Comic-Book Movies Don't Use Codenames: In Civil War, he's never called "Baron Zemo", the title he goes by in the comics, and is instead referred to by his military rank Colonel. This is subverted in The Falcon and the Winter Soldier, which reveals that he was Sokovian royalty and has several characters address him as "Baron".

The Comically Serious: His stoic demeanour tends to stick out when he's in the same room as Sam and Bucky, like when he awkwardly jumps to the defense of Marvin Gaye's "Trouble Man" soundtrack, or his crappy dancing in Sharon's nightclub.

Composite Character: He takes Klaue's role as the man who murders King T'Chaka.

Cool Car: He actually has a lot of these. His family owned an impressive collection of classics, with plenty of Rolls' and Bentleys in his garage. It's a taste he himself had acquired, as he, Sam, Bucky and Sharon make their getaway out of Madripoor in a super-charged muscle car he had stashed in the docks.

Crusading Widower: His wife was among the civilian casualties in Sokovia. He keeps a recording of her last voice message on his phone.

Cunning Linguist: Zemo's multilingualism allows him to assume different identities. Aside from his native Sokovian, he speaks English, German, Russian, and presumably French, given that he was able to convincingly impersonate a French-speaking psychologist.

Death Seeker: Once he has put Iron Man against Bucky and Cap, he first attempts to persuade Black Panther into killing him, then decides to shoot himself. Black Panther catches the bullet before snagging him a headlock so he can face justice.

Determinator: He manages to find new resolve after Civil War, and Iron Man's sacrifice has done little to change his views. With Iron Man dead and Captain America retired, he decides he will stop the creation of any and all super soldiers in the world no matter what happens.

Divide and Conquer: His plan against the Avengers, seeing that there's absolutely no chance he can fight them on his own. He even compares the Avengers to some sort of a mighty empire, which can only be felled by using this tactic.

Driven to Suicide: Tries to goad T'Challa into killing him, and then to shoot himself when he refuses. Neither works out for him; making enemies of a guy with Super Strength and a bulletproof suit was a bad idea, evidently.

Elites Are More Glamorous: His family is Sokovian nobility and he was colonel in EKO Scorpion, Sokovia's black ops kill squad. Even if Sokovia was a developing Balkans country, that still makes him pretty dangerous.

Enemy Mine: Downplayed Trope. Despite not personally hating Sam and Bucky, the latter two consider their alliance with Zemo this due to Civil War and the damage he caused; the only reason they tolerate him is that he can accomodate them with the resources they need to take down the Flag-Smashers. To his credit, Zemo doesn't hesitate in helping their cause because of his Beware the Superman beliefs, even expressing interest in facing Karli Morgenthau herself.

Even Evil Has Standards:

Evil Genius: While he has combat training, his greatest strength is his intellect. Aside from his abilities as The Chessmaster, Zemo was able to crack the encrypted HYDRA files on the Winter Soldier program that Black Widow released to the Internet and build a very effective EMP bomb in his hotel room.

Face Death with Dignity: When T'Challa finally catches up with him at the end of Civil War, he's completely calm and fully prepared for T'Challa to kill him to avenge his father, even seeming to acknowledge that in his mind T'Challa's revenge against him is just as justified as his own revenge against the Avengers. Later, in episode 5 of The Falcon and the Winter Soldier, he's completely calm and accepting when it looks like Bucky is going to execute him, and later he calmly walks away with the Dora Milaje when they show up to take him into custody, knowing there's a decent chance he's going to be executed in a spectacular fashion in Wakanda for killing the king (for some reason the Dora Milaje went to all that trouble just to turn him over to the U.N. where he'll be held in the same prison that used to hold Captain America's half of the Avengers, but he's got no way of knowing that).

Facial Scruff: His brief appearance in the second episode of The Falcon and the Winter Soldier has Zemo with this due to his time spent in prison. Downplayed in that it looks relatively thin despite having been locked up for eight years at this point, and he shaves it off shortly after.

Fantastic Racism: He has a distaste for enhanced individuals in general, and super soldiers in specific. Specially if such super soldiers are put on pedestals he deems completely unearned.

Flaw Exploitation: He turns the Avengers, particularly Steve and Tony, against each other through a series of Batman Gambits with the ultimate goal of making them fight each other to the death — or if not that, at least to the point of no longer being a cohesive unit. In particular, he reveals to Tony the truth of what happened to his parents knowing that he'll go into an Unstoppable Rage against Bucky and that Cap will prioritise keeping Bucky alive even at Tony's expense.

Friend to All Children: Invoked in The Falcon and the Winter Soldier. In the fourth episode, Zemo earns the trust of a few children in Latvia by offering them sweets in exchange for information. But he also uses to opportunity to manipulate them into thinking Bucky and Sam aren't to be trusted.

Four Eyes, Zero Soul: When he infiltrates the UN compound to activate the Winter Soldier, he wears a pair of glasses as part of his disguise.

From Nobody to Nightmare:

Gambit Roulette: The final part his master plan relies on little other than his assumptions on the personalities and capabilities of various characters after studying thousands of pieces of intel from HYDRA and S.H.I.E.L.D. that Black Widow dumped online back in Winter Soldier. The whole thing would have fallen apart if...

Godzilla Threshold: Sam and Bucky see recruiting him to stop the Flag-Smashers at this...and ultimately cross it when they run out of options.

Heads I Win, Tails You Lose: Even if any of the above had happened, Zemo still would’ve won because his entire goal was for the Avengers to disband - whether through an amicable parting-of-ways or a bloodbath - it was always a matter of how big his win would be. The only real flaw in his plan was the interference of Black Panther, and the creation of the Sokovia Accords, both of which he’d have no way to account for.

He Who Fights Monsters: He wants to take revenge for the death of his family, which he blames on the Avengers for causing collateral damage in the Battle of Sokovia. In doing so, he is responsible for the deaths of dozens of innocent people himself. He even earns someone coming after him for revenge in T'Challa.

Hidden Agenda Villain: His motives remain unclear for much of Civil War and are only revealed as the final battle is taking place.

Hidden Depths: Like Sam, he's a fan of Marvin Gaye and considers "Trouble Man" a masterpiece.

High Collar of Doom: He does the Marquee Alter Ego and Not Wearing Tights through the whole of Civil War, but his winter gear in the third act features a large collar turned up, giving off this vibe. His supervillain gear in Falcon and the Winter Soldier also features one of these, albeit with his comic self's fur trim included.

Human Shield: Thanks to his EKO Scorpion training, is fully capable of taking hostages to hide and shoot behind, as a group of assassins in Madripoor discovered.

Hypocrite:

Interrupted Suicide: After explaining his motivations to T'Challa and apologizing for the death of his father, Zemo tries to shoot himself in the head. T'Challa, however, has none of that, and stops him to make sure he pays for his crimes and turns him over to the authorities.T'Challa: The living are not done with you yet.

It's Personal: Zemo has a personal vendetta against the Avengers. His family was killed during the Battle of Sokovia and he simply wants revenge on those he holds responsible. As pointed out in Beware the Superman, he extends this to any Super Soldier held in such high regard, which is why he has no problem teaming up with Sam (who's more or less Badass Normal like himself) and Bucky (who is a Super Soldier, but isn't exactly held in high regard). When he, Sam, Bucky, and Sharon come across the HYDRA scientist responsible for creating more Super Soldiers after the failed Siberian Winter Soldiers, Zemo quietly and stoically shoots the man before the team is attacked.

Jerkass Has a Point: In episode 4 of The Falcon and the Winter Soldier, Zemo explains why he doesn’t believe that super soldiers should be allowed to exist. By his own previous statements, Sam would probably agree with much of what he says, and John Walker spends the rest of the episode illustrating his arguments.

Kick the Son of a Bitch:

Kill and Replace: Murders the psychologist who was supposed to be evaluating Bucky and takes his place, taking the opportunity to activate Bucky's brainwashing during the evaluation.

Knight of Cerebus: He's a Villainous Underdog, but he manages to tear the Avengers apart through tactics. Unlike previous villains, his methods includes manipulating Tony into trying to execute Bucky to avenge the deaths of his parents and turning on Steve in the process. Averted in The Falcon and the Winter Soldier when his Laughably Evil side lightens the mood.

Know When to Fold 'Em:

Laser-Guided Karma:

Laughably Evil: Downplayed the next time he makes an appearance as he becomes The Comically Serious in an Endearingly Dorky kind of way when he joins in Sam's conversation with Bucky to praise Marvin Gaye's "Trouble Man" soundtrack, or his lame dancing in Sharon's nightclub.

Manipulative Bastard: He is very skilled at manipulation, having studied the Avengers' psychological profiles in order to exploit their individual weaknesses and play them against each other.

Man of Wealth and Taste: Zemo is a baron and more than loaded, owning a private jet, a fleet of classic cars, a personal retainer, and plenty of money and stashed resources.

Marquee Alter Ego: In Civil War, Zemo does not wear a mask — or any kind of costume at all, unlike his comic book counterpart. This changes in The Falcon and the Winter Soldier.

Master of Disguise: Zemo uses prosthetics and heavy makeup in order to convincingly make himself look like Bucky Barnes in the security cameras, fooling just about everyone into thinking the latter was responsible for the UN explosion. He later pulls a Kill and Replace on the psychiatrist who was intended to interview a contained Bucky with no one none the wiser until things start going wrong. Although the latter example is downplayed as when Tony finally discovers the real psychiatrist's body, he looks decidedly nothing like Zemo's impersonation of him.

Misplaced Retribution: Zemo holds the Avengers responsible for all the damage Ultron caused; while Tony and Bruce did create Ultron (after the former was influenced by Wanda), the "end all human life" thing was still his idea. The rest of the Avengers, however didn't know about Tony's plan, and did their best to stop Ultron once he went rogue.

Moral Myopia: He seeks to avenge his family, but he ends up killing multiple innocents who surely had family of their own. He acknowledges this, seeing as how he apologizes to Black Panther for killing his father but by that time he’s hoping to be killed so he can join his family, either by T’Challa or his own hand, so it’s more about easing his conscience rather than remorse for what his actions indirectly caused.

Movie Superheroes Wear Black: Instead of the purple and gold costume he had in the comics, he sticks to dark civilian clothes. Near the end of Civil War, he has a pitch-black coat with a large collar. The Falcon and the Winter Soldier trailers and promo images however reveal he’ll be getting a new costume featuring his signature purple mask and even incorporating the classic ermine trim on his collar.

Nazi Hunter: As part of his Adaptational Nice Guy he's no longer a member of the Nazi-affiliated and fascistic HYDRA group, but is shown to despite and openly oppose them, telling Karpov that "HYDRA deserves its place on the ash heap". The Falcon and the Winter Soldier has him openly despise Nazis and reveals that he'd been hunting down and killing HYDRA members for years as part of his quest to destroy the Super Serum, long before the destruction of Sokovia.

Necessary Evil: How Bucky, and especially Sam, view him in their fight against the Flag-Smashers. No one knows more about the super-soldier serum and Hydra than Zemo, and fortunately for them, they have a common enemy in the Flag-Smashers.

Nice Job Fixing It, Villain!: While his plan does succeed in its goal, it does allow Steve to find Bucky, after fruitlessly spending two years scouring the Earth for him, and gives them an ally who can get the brainwashing out of Bucky's head.

Nice to the Waiter: He is quite friendly and courteous to both a staff member of the hotel he stayed at for Civil War, and his old family butler.

No-Nonsense Nemesis: Zemo is an extremely pragmatic man who knows full well that he's just an ordinary person in an extraordinary world, and realizes that it will give him no quarter if he were to dally about with regards to his vengeance. He has no choice but to be utterly cutthroat if he wants to complete his goal. This is especially shown in his first full-blown action sequence in Falcon and the Winter Soldier, taking down assassins after himself and the heroes in a surprise attack that wouldn't be out of place in a first-person shooter game.

Non-Action Big Bad: Although he has military training, he never directly fights any of the Avengers in Civil War, acknowledging that he could never physically stand up to the likes of them. Instead, he relies more on subterfuge and deception. Becomes a Subverted Trope by the time of Falcon and the Winter Soldier, showing he's fully capable of taking down several assassins after the heroes, though all of them are still normal humans.

Not So Above It All: After being freed from prison in The Falcon and the Winter Soldier, Zemo shows that he isn't a stoic and unpleasant individual 24/7. Notably, he jumps in on Sam and Bucky's conversation about Marvin Gaye's Troubleman soundtrack to give his own thoughts on the record, and he can be seen thoroughly enjoying himself Madripoor, drinking quite a bit of hard liquor and awkwardly dancing at the Little Princess nightclub.

Nothing Left to Do but Die: After getting Tony to fight Steve and Bucky, Zemo decides to listen to his wife's voicemail one last time, before deleting it and attempting to commit suicide.

Nothing Personal: He tells T'Challa that he is sorry for killing his father and that he seemed like a good man in Civil War. While conversing with Bucky for the first time since the events of that film in The Falcon and the Winter Soldier, he says this verbatim about using him to tear apart the Avengers.

Not Wearing Tights: He doesn't wear anything remotely resembling a costume in Civil War. However, he dons the purple mask in The Falcon and the Winter Soldier.

Outliving One's Offspring: His son was a casualty from the Avengers' fight with Ultron.

Old Money: He is generationally wealthy due to his family being Sokovian royalty.

Only Sane Man: In The Falcon and the Winter Soldier, it says a lot about Sam's present circle of associates that (other than Sharon Carter) Zemo is by far the most mentally well-balanced individual Sam has around him at his job.

Papa Wolf: The reason he's out to destroy the Avengers? His family was killed in their fight with Ultron.

Patriotic Fervor: Averted. As Zemo himself remarks ruefully, while he served in Sokovia's armed forces, his drive for vengeance isn't out of any love for the country, as he never actually had much patriotic feeling. The Falcon and The Winter Soldier shows that he does have some serious grievances over how it ended up, though, even chastising Sam and Bucky for not visiting the memorial.

Politically Correct Villain: As part of his Adaptational Nice Guy he's no longer a member of the Nazi-affiliated and fascistic HYDRA group, but is a fan of Marvin Gaye and understands Trouble Man (Sam's favorite album) to be a condensation of the African-American experience. Also berates Sam for stereotyping himself as a "pimp" just because he's flamboyantly dressed.

Purple Is Powerful: The Falcon and the Winter Soldier sees Zemo don a purple mask, coat, and gloves as he resurfaces to the criminal world.

Put on a Prison Bus: Zemo is taken to prison by Black Panther before he can commit suicide, ultimately sitting out the next few years until his return in The Falcon and the Winter Soldier. And it happens again in Episode 5 of the aforementioned series, where he's taken by the Dora Milaje to the Raft.

Pyrrhic Victory: Zemo succeeds in fracturing the Avengers and getting the majority of them branded as fugitives, but he is also captured by Black Panther and still has to face prosecution for the murders he committed. It also works vice versa on his capture being a Pyrrhic Victory for the heroes. Best summarized by the following exchange:Everett K. Ross: So how does it feel? To spend all that time, all that effort, and to see it fail so spectacularly? Helmut Zemo: ...Did it?

Revenge Myopia: Getting his revenge was worth anything — including inflicting upon others the same pain he complained about suffering. Lampshaded at the end of the movie, when T'Challa observes that the revenge he seeks has consumed him. Worse still, because he tore the Avengers apart, they had no gameplan and were unable to present a united front against Thanos, leading to even more families the universe over being devastated by the Snap.

Rogues Gallery Transplant: Downplayed. While Zemo is still an enemy of Captain America and The Falcon as he was in the comics, he also ends up becoming an enemy of Black Panther's, due to his involvement in King T'Chaka's death. It extends to the entire nation of Wakanda as well, as they immediately dispatch Ayo to apprehend him when he escapes from prison in The Falcon and the Winter Soldier.

Royals Who Actually Do Something: His noble lineage while serving in the Sokovian special forces makes him this.

Secretly Wealthy: He may have been living the gritty villain life in Civil War (probably to fly under the radar), but The Falcon and the Winter Soldier reveals that he is a wealthy Baron like his comics counterpart. Sam even reacts with "So all this time, you've been rich?"

A Sinister Clue: Zemo is left-handed and is the Big Bad of Civil War. Shooting a gun with his left hand starts off his Big Damn Villains moment in Falcon and the Winter Soldier.

Sucks at Dancing: While the gang rests and spends the night at Sharon's club in Madripoor, Zemo's dancing moves leave him wanting. Let's just say he was channeling his inner Commander Shepard.

Suicide by Cop: After apologizing to T'Challa for killing his father, he says that he seemed like a good man "with a dutiful son", saying this last part with a meaningful glance, obviously hinting that he's fine with T'Challa taking vengeance upon him now. When T'Challa refuses to do so, Zemo attempts to just shoot himself, but T'Challa thwarts this effort as well.

Superhero Movie Villains Die: Subverted. After completing his plan to turn Iron Man and Captain America against each other, he first attempts Suicide by Black Panther. Attempts being the operative word, as T'Challa refuses when he realises how close he came to turning out like Zemo. As a result, Zemo attempts to shoot himself in the head, but Black Panther stops him and turns him into the authorities, leaving him incarcerated but very much alive.

Supporting Protagonist: Of The Falcon and the Winter Soldier, as most of Bucky's and Sam's story and dynamic are sometimes told from his viewpoint during his team-up with them.

They Look Just Like Everyone Else!: There's nothing from his looks that would suggest that he's more than just an everyday guy.

Took a Level in Cheerfulness: He's much more upbeat in The Falcon and the Winter Soldier than he was in Captain America: Civil War. Which makes sense: in the latter he had just lost his family and was on a revenge quest whereas in the former the stakes aren't as personal and he's had time to grieve for his family in prison, meaning he has the time and temperament to joke around, make fun of "allies" and dance badly.

Took a Level in Kindness: Downplayed, but in The Falcon and the Winter Soldier, he's much friendlier with Sam and Bucky than he was with Tony and Steve in Civil War. Justified, as this time around he's working together with them to take down the Flag-Smashers and even then he still takes the time to engage them in relatively civil conversations.

Tragic Villain: He pursues his vengeance purely because he feels he has nothing else to live for without his family. This is highlighted by his decision to goad Black Panther into killing him and, when that doesn't work, shoot himself.

Tritagonist: Of The Falcon and the Winter Soldier, when he teams up with Sam and Bucky in their crusade to defeat the Flag Smashers, while being more developed as a character in contrast to his debut in Civil War along the way of the narrative.

Tranquil Fury: Despite spending the whole movie on a murderous crusade, Zemo avoids all the theatrics of Loki or Ultron and seldom even raises his voice. This includes when he finally spells out his motives to the heroes.

Troll: Even when he's not manipulating or killing everyone around him, he's kind of a dick, as seen in his reappearance in Falcon and the Winter Soldier, reciting Bucky's trigger phrase, knowing it doesn't work, just to upset him, needling Sam about his experience in the Raft, and later telling his retainer to serve Sam and Bucky them any food that's gone off.

Truer to the Text: Zemo in Civil War was a borderline In Name Only depiction of him. The Falcon and the Winter Soldier retroactively adds a lot more aspects of the original comic character, such as his noble status, his costume, and his physical prowess.

Unknown Rival: To the Flag-Smashers, particularly Karli Morgenthau. Do to being enhanced with the super-soldier serum, Zemo considers the Flag-Smashers to be dangerous individuals, and is more than willing to form an Enemy Mine with Sam and Bucky to take them down. Karli on the other hand, isn't even aware that Zemo exists until he shoots her and destroys the serum right in front of her. Even then, she seems more content to get up and run than to try to confront him for his actions.

Unwitting Instigator of Doom: He successfully managed to break up the Avengers, hoping to bring down the most powerful team of beings in the universe to avenge the deaths of his family. Unfortunately for him, it worked a little too well, as they don't stand on a united front when Thanos arrives and, despite putting up a good fight, get flattened by the Mad Titan. Said Mad Titan then uses the Infinity Stones to wipe out half of all life in the universe, turning the world into a total mess that it spends five years trying to recover from until the Avengers find a way to set things right. Even when they do undo the Snap, the world falls into utter chaos once again trying to handle those that were restored to life, leading to the Flag-Smashers taking rise and causing just enough trouble to force Bucky and Sam to bust Zemo out of jail to help them.

Villain Protagonist: So far of The Falcon and the Winter Soldier, when he teams up with Sam and Bucky to take down the Flag Smashers, getting more screen time and more of his development unlike in Civil War.

Villain Respect: As of The Falcon and the Winter Soldier, Zemo develops this towards Sam Wilson due to his refusal to be ehnanced into being super soldier while maintaining his idealistic outlook. He also concedes that Steve Rogers was not corrupted by the power he held but holds him as an exception.

Villainous Underdog: He's not a Physical God, not an alien, nor a Super Soldier. He's just a former military colonel with patience, a simple yet effective plan, and The Power of Hate. This is exactly why Sam and Bucky decide to bring him into their crusade against the Flag-Smashers.

Weak, but Skilled: Invoked. Zemo is a professionally trained special ops colonel who has the combat skills to take down regular men with ease. However, he knows that no amount of skill can destroy a group of enhanced individuals like the Avengers, and so relies on his manipulation and espionage skills to turn them against each other instead.

Weapon of Choice: A Smith and Wesson 6906 pistol, which he uses to execute the other Winter Soldiers and attempt suicide.

Well-Intentioned Extremist: Zemo's objective in The Falcon and The Winter Soldier is to stop the creation of any and all super soldiers, believing that they create symbols of facism like the Red Skull once did. He accomplishes this in the fourth episode by shooting Karli Morgenthau multiple times and then smashing the remaining vials as Nico is helping her escape him.

What You Are in the Dark: When Zemo corners Karli and discovers the last of the Super Soldier Serum in her possession, rather than take it for himself, which would have made his mission a lot easier, he smashes the vials and would have successfully destroyed them all had Walker not intervened.

Wicked Cultured: He's a connoiseur of music and art, as revealed in Falcon and the Winter Soldier.

Woobie, Destroyer of Worlds: He has quite a sympathetic motive for his mission of revenge against the Avengers, namely that he blames them for the death of his family.

Xanatos Speed Chess: He's not in control of everything that happens in Civil War (for one thing, he has nothing to do with the Sokovia Accords), but he's good at taking advantage of unexpected situations to further his plans. Even more so in The Falcon and the Winter Soldier. In Civil War, at least he still instigates most of the events, but in the show, he's broken out of prison without having expected to and is more or less thrust into an ongoing conflict he has nothing to do with. He still manages to play the heroes and the villains—that he utterly disagrees with—and so far has gotten away completely unscathed, once again having succeeded at what he set out to do.

He's the Big Bad of Civil War and is more than willing to commit mass murder to achieve his ends, but the times he acts polite or remorseful are genuine. He states he'd rather avoid unnecessary deaths if he can, has a few standards, apologizes to T'Challa for killing his father, has regular courteous interactions with a staff member of the hotel he's staying at, and even eventually apologizes to Bucky for using him. Considering he's just a grieving man who's dedicated to avenging the deaths of his family, it makes sense he wouldn't act like a cackling maniac.

By The Falcon And The Winter Soldier, he is shown to be fairly courteous to those around him (who, apart from his family butler were his enemies before) and he is capable of holding civil conversations with Bucky, even offering him a genuine apology for his actions in Civil War. He also agrees to join Sam and Bucky's crusade against the Flag-Smashers, without the driving of a hard bargain one might expect from him. He is also fully willing to lend his resources from the criminal underground to Sam and Bucky to take the Flag-Smashers down, no questions asked.

While none of the Avengers die as a consequence of his plan in Captain America: Civil War, he accomplishes his main goal in dividing them and is content with this. While the looming threat of Thanos forces them back together in Avengers: Infinity War and Avengers: Endgame, the reunion turns out to be temporary — by the time of Spider-Man: Far From Home, WandaVision, and The Falcon and the Winter Soldier, the Avengers are still very much defunct.

In The Falcon and the Winter Soldier, he successfully killed the man who recreated the super soldier formula and destroyed all but one of the remaining samples while inadvertently leading to John Walker gaining the Super Serum for himself. This turns in Zemo's favor after Walker brutally executes a defenseless Flag Smasher in broad daylight in front of civilians, corrupting the image of super soldiers in the public eye. He willing gives up a chance at pulling a Villain: Exit, Stage Left to visit a memorial and allows him self to be captured, his work done.

He framed Bucky Barnes for bombing the United Nations, then relied on everyone else including Captain America hunting him down for it, and further that no one but the Avengers would even be capable of killing Bucky, to get access to Barnes and his knowledge of HYDRA bases.

He arranges for his ruse to be discovered by the media, relying on Tony to find out and make amends with Captain America, so they'll both find the Siberian compound where Zemo reveals to them that Bucky killed Tony's parents.

His entire plan is based on assumptions from the S.H.I.E.L.D. intel on the Avengers he's studied that Captain America's over-protectiveness of his friends and Iron Man's complex over the death of his parents would mean not only that the two would turn on each other if Bucky's involvement in the Starks' death was revealed, but that Steve wouldn't have talked to Tony about Bucky's potential involvement beforehand.

His setup gambled on the fact that it is a conflict that only works if there are no voices of reason to hold either of them back. The fact that the airport fight left only two active members of the Avengers, Bucky and a third party present in the Hydra compound in a place where no one would interfere was a happy accident for him since most of the Avengers present could have prevented things from reaching the breaking point. Of course, this is covered under Heads I Win, Tails You Lose.

Notably, this is also why he finds Bucky a bit tolerable, since he is being bewared of.

In a stark contrast to his comics depiction, he lacks any affiliation with HYDRA and outright states that they deserved to be brought down. A conversation in Falcon and the Winter Soldier reveals he despises the Red Skull and those who idolize him, and he kills Doctor Nagel while the man is gloating about being a god.

Despite his profound hatred of the Avengers, he declined to unleash the other five Winter Soldiers and shot them dead rather than risk someone else doing so, as they were worse than Bucky and would do untold damage to the world given the order. He also seems uncomfortable with the concept of experimenting on humans in general.Zemo: If it's any comfort, they died in their sleep. Did you really think I wanted more of you?

Zemo was "just" a special forces operative, but when his family was killed, he used his intel on HYDRA to take on the Avengers and came closer to destroying the team than any previous villain.

Falcon and the Winter Soldier reveals that at some point, he became involved with the criminal underground, under the simple but accurate alias of "Baron".

A) Captain America and Bucky had captured Zemo before Iron Man arrived (then again, he was in a fortified bunker that would take serious fire-power to break through).

B) Iron Man had not figured out where Cap and Bucky were headed in the first place.

C) Iron Man had not come alone, meaning there might have been someone to restrain him or talk him down after he learned the truth.

D) Black Panther had succeeded in killing Bucky during one of their three fights during the course of the film (of course it’s highly unlikely that he even knew the Black Panther existed).

E) Captain America told Iron Man that the deaths of his parents were orchestrated by HYDRA.

Zemo hates the Avengers after the collateral damage they caused killed his family. So he decides to split the team up and in the process causes collateral damage that kills other people's family members.

Zemo believes that "gods" like the Avengers should not be allowed to exist. Sam points out that be decreeing who deserves to exist, he's speaking like a god.

Tortures and kills Vasily Karpov for information. Karpov is not only a still loyal HYDRA operative but one of the main leaders of the Winter Soldier project and ordered the death of the Starks and his slow death is just desserts. He does the same to the HYDRA scientist responsible for making more Super Soldiers in Falcon and the Winter Soldier, finishing his work from Siberia.

He also happily participates in the interrogation of Doctor Nagel, the Mad Scientist who recreated the Super Soldier Serum via human experimentation, and personally guns the man down.

Zig-zagged; he knows very well that he can never kill the Avengers himself, since more powerful men than him have tried and all have failed, which is why he makes a plan to get them to kill each other for him.

In the secret HYDRA lab in Madripoor, he and his comrades come under attack. Not knowing where the assailants are, Zemo makes a quick getaway, causing Sam and the others to think he bailed... only to show up moments later when the assassins are in plain view, making it much easier for him to take them down.

When the Dora Milaje apprehend him a second time in episode 5 of The Falcon and the Winter Soldier, he surrenders himself without a fight, presumably both because he knew he had no chance of victory and because he had already achieved his goal of destroying the current iteration of the super-soldier serum.

He uses Bucky's Trigger Phrase while the latter's locked in an apparatus, making him go on a rampage. By the end of Civil War, he himself is locked in the same apparatus.

He kills T'Challa's father in the course of his Evil Plan. After T'Challa learns the truth about this, he foils Zemo's attempted suicide to ensure he faces justice for his crimes.

#HelmutInformation

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wonwoosthetic · 5 years ago

Text

Jake Gyllenhaal on Getting Set Up

MASTERLIST is on my blog :)

So, after quite some time it’s time for a new imagine! I’m now writing regularly again and taking requests for Spiderman FFH! :) Watched it and LOVED it!!! I’m also taking requests for Preacher and Sons Of Anarchy from now on as I have come to realise that there are just not enough on here and I would love to write some myself :)

Request: hi are your requests open? if so i was wondering if you would do a jake gyllenhaal fic based on an interview he had with ellen called “jake gyllenhaal on being single” and they talk about his mom setting him up with someone and that’s what happens

Characters: Jake Gyllenhaal x Reader, Ellen DeGeneres, Naomi Foner Gyllenhaal (mentioned)

Warnings: none

The Interview: Jake Gyllenhaal on Being Single (sorry, still can’t link anything)

Jake Gyllenhaal on Getting Set Up

The white sofa in the green room backstage was comfortable enough for you to chill and watch your boyfriend give an interview on TV. He was sitting across from Ellen laughing and making jokes while you looked at the recording with admiration. You had just heard someone yell "Back in 3, 2, 1", signalizing that they were back from the break and continuing the interview.

Ellen started, "We were just talking about first dates and bad first dates. Have you had bad first dates?" Jake shifted in his seat, "Uhm", he stuttered, "Well, one thing I always do, is.. I always bring my dates to my mother's house for the first date." His answer made everyone in the audience laugh, as well as you too. Ellen looked into the room playfully uncomfortable as she "didn't know" how to answer. Your boyfriend just had an expression of "what?" on his face, as if asking the people watching, what was wrong about his statement. "Well, that's like...", he mumbled but didn't continue his sentence. "See!", the blonde woman stated. Jake immediately defended himself, "I think that's a good move", and Ellen agreed, "It is a good move. Yeah, she thought so too, she thought it was a great idea", referring to a woman in the audience, making everyone laugh again. "My-my mother believes that, like, she thinks arranged marriages actually might be able to work, you know what I mean? Like, in a good way", the actor narrated. "Really?", Ellen asked, almost not believing, what he had just said. He nodded his head, "Yeah, she does, she thinks if she picks for me that I'd do a lot better." The audience laughed once more. Ellen wanted to know more, "And has she ever picked for you? Has she said 'Hey, I met somebody that maybe you should meet.'?"

--- Flashback ---

"Mom, I'm really not into blind dates, you should know that", Jake was leaning on the counter of his parents' house kitchen, discussing with his mother her newest idea involving his love life. "Trust me, Jakey, please", she begged him while stirring the spaghetti sauce for Sunday's family dinner, "I've only known her for a few months but she is A-MAZING. She's sweet, and lovely, and caring, and a good writer, god, such a good writer. That girl is gonna get far in her career." "Mom, your point?" She turned towards him, right arm on her hip, "My point young man, is, that for once you should listen to me and trust me with my taste in women for you. I've seen your relationships... maybe if I choose somebody for you, they will turn out differently", she explained with raised eyebrows. Jake didn't want to admit it right away, but that woman knew what she was talking about.

After thinking for a bit, he gave in, "Alright, what's her name?" Naomi smiled in triumph.

--- End of Flashback ---

Jake started laughing cheekily, "Ehm... yeah", he swiped his hands over his thighs, "yeah, she has", and cleared his throat - that was another reason for the people watching to laugh, as well as Ellen. "Aaand?", she was on to the details. Your boyfriend just looked at her with wide eyes, "Aaaand?", he imitated her. "How did it go?!", the woman asked excitedly. Jake hesitated at first, not knowing how much you wanted America to know, "Yeah... pretty smoothly?", his answer sounding more like a question. Ellen definitely didn't believe him and started chuckling.

You laughed backstage, not remembering it actually starting quite as smooth since both of you were actually quite nervous.

--- Flashback ---

Your heart was extremely close to pounding out of your chest as you were sitting in your car that was parked on the side of the road directly across from Naomi's house, more nervous than you have ever been. You closed your eyes, trying to collect yourself before you wanted to make your way to the front door.

"You can come in, you know?", a voice spoke up next to you. You jumped up and screamed, "OH GOD!", with your hand on your heart, you tried to calm yourself down, "Jesus", and breathed out. The woman at your open car window started laughing, "I'm sorry, I didn't mean to scare you like that, I just saw your car here. I was taking out the trash." You looked to your left and saw a brown-haired woman that looked exactly like a younger version of Naomi - it was Maggie, her daughter and Jake's sister. "Right, sorry, yeah", you were still a bit shaken up but grabbed your bag, and the flowers you bought and got out of the car. "I'm Maggie, by the way", she stuck her hand out with a smile, which you gladly took and shook, "(Y/N), very nice to meet you." "Can only say the same", she answered kindly, "my mom told me so much about you but I think she told Jake WAY more", making both of you laugh. "Oh, god", you shook your head with a smile.

You reached the door and Maggie opened it, letting you go in first, "Mom! Jake! Look who I found!", she shouted into the house. The faces of Naomi and her son appeared from around the corner, "(Y/N)!", the older woman came jogging to you, embracing you in a big and tight hug, clearly happy to see you, which she also said. She then stepped back and let Jake come closer, "Jake, this is (Y/N), (Y/N) Jake", she introduced the two of you with hand-gestures. You shook hands and he leaned in to give you a kiss on the cheek, the gentleman that he was - Naomi raised him right. "Very nice to meet you (Y/N), my mom can't shut up about you", he joked as you separated. You let out a chuckle, let your head fall a little bit, and looked at Naomi, who just smiled sheepishly at you.

An uncomfortable silence fell over the room until the older woman spoke up, "Maggie, would you help me in the kitchen?" She looked up quickly and nodded her head, "Yeah, sure." You wanted to offer your help but got cut off, " We're gonna let you two get to know each other a bit more", and with a wide grin, Maggie left the room as well.

The silence continued while awkward glances were shared by the two of you. Jake thoughts were racing through his brain, trying to find a subject to talk about - you were hoping he would come up with one. "Should I show you around the house?", he suddenly asked. Your head shot up and you nodded, "Yeah, that'd be great." Slowly but surely the actor came up with more questions to ask you, falling into a pleasant conversation between you. "So, you work with my mum? What do you do? She didn't want to tell me too much", he joked, making you chuckle. "I-I'm a writer, and hopefully one day a director. She's helping me rewrite a script", you explained. His eyebrows scrunched as you exited the house, walking into the garden, "Why rewriting? What happened?" You sighed, "It-It's kinda a long story." He just looked at you with a kind smile, "We've got time."

--- End of Flashback ---

But at least it ended well.

Lost in your thoughts, you didn't hear your boyfriend's explanation of your first meeting but quickly turned your attention back to the interview. "It sounds though, like - that she was just as nervous", Ellen said. Jake shifted in the seat, "Yeah, well, I mean a blind date is always something to be a bit nervous about right?", making a few people chuckle in response. "And, do you know what your mom told (Y/N) when she tried to set you two up?", she wanted to know. Jake thought for a bit and started telling your side of the story, bringing back old memories.

--- Flashback ---

You were sitting in the writer's room, collecting your thoughts, trying to write them down but scrapping every idea right after - slowly but surely you were getting frustrated. You had finally found a production company that would help you finance your movie. The script was pretty much done but all of a sudden they told you that you needed to rewrite pretty much half of it because all of a sudden they didn't agree with it anymore. Being too deep in thought, you didn't notice the door opening and the older woman entering, "(Y/N)?" You didn't hear her. She repeated your name three more times before starting to wave her hand in front of your face. You flinched and looked up," Hm?", you shook your head, "Sorry...", looking up, you saw the concerned face of Naomi Foner Gyllenhaal, the woman you trust with your life and who has been your writing partner for four months, "What's going on?"

You tried to collect yourself again, sat straight up and kept a straight face, trying not to let her show just how tired you were. She sat down on the other corner of the table and grabbed your hand, "Honey, what is going on? You've been sitting in this room every day for weeks now?" "I-", you tried to start to defend yourself but she cut you off, "And don't you dare try to talk yourself out of this! I've seen you sleep on this exact chair", pointing at your current sitting place. You stared at her. That was all you could do at that point. You haven't known each other for a very long time but the way she talked to you made your eyes water. She has been caring for you like a mother would for her daughter and you felt comforted just by her presence - and mainly also because she was the only one who liked your ideas and supported you through that hard time with the production company.

You were scared you wouldn't be able to get actual words out... and you were right, "It's all just too much right now,", you whispered, right followed by a big sob and the tears started falling, "I don't know what to do." Your head fell down on your arms that were rested on the table. Naomi jumped up, ran behind you and started running her hand up and down your back, "Oh, sweetie..." Her hand was then on your head, caressing your hair. She rested her head on your shoulder, holding you by your upper arms, "For how long have you been single now?"

You stopped crying and turned around, confusion written all over your face, "What?", you sobbed once more, "Don't you think that question is kind of, well... a little inappropriate?" But she only smiled.

--- End of Flashback ---

The entire audience laughed at the story, Ellen was almost not able to hold it together, "Wow... your mom really knows how to be smooth." Jake laughed, tilting his head slightly back, "Yeah, well", and shrugged his shoulders as he also raised his hands, "But she... she definitely does have great taste." The interviewer nodded, "I can tell, for how long have you been together now?" "Threeee? Years?", he looked at the woman in front of him, unsure of his answer - she nodded, letting him know his "question" was actually right, so he nodded confidently, "Yeah, right, three years. Well, a little bit over three, but yeah." "And I hope you thank your mom for that", she raised her eyebrows at him. "Oh yes, yeah definitely", Jake smiled at the camera, knowing you and his mom were watching.

After keeping up a bit of small talk, Ellen out of a sudden shot out a question Jake for sure didn't expect, "So, when are you going to drop the big question?" The entire audience started cheering and your boyfriend's cheeks heated up. "Of course you were gonna ask that question", he smiled smugly at the woman.

-------------------------------------------

A big thank you to all of you for your patience and support! Over the last month I’ve gained so many more followers and you guys wrote me so many wonderful comments, I’m incredibly thankful!!!

Thank you for the request, I hope you and everyone else enjoyed it!

Hope you all have a great day/night! :)

#jake gyllenhaal imagine #jake gyllenhaal masterlist #jake gyllenhaal x reader #jake gyllenhaal x fem!reader #jake gyllenhaal x female!reader

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buzzdixonwriter · 5 years ago

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You Don’t Say

For me, one of the unforeseen benefits of Facebook and other social media is that it gives me a chance to do rough drafts of ideas, assembling my thoughts and getting feedback before committing to more permanent form.

And sometimes, like asteroids colliding in space, two separate ideas / posts slam into one another and either create something new and unexpected, or else shatter themselves and reveal interesting aspects of their nature heretofore hidden from view.

That happened recently with a pair of Facebook posts I made on Dennis Prager and Harlan Ellison.

Let’s get the turd out of our mouth first.

. . .

Dennis Prager is a purveyor of herpetology lubricants admired by many on the right-leaning-nazi side of the spectrum, primarily because he keeps his mouth closed when chewing. Half of what he says is repackaged self-evident truths of the “Don’t eat the yellow snow” variety, a quarter is opinions that if not startling original are at least not genuinely harmful, and the remain quarter is egregious bullshit for which he deserves a public pants down spanking.

Hmm, what? Oh, yes; purely metaphorically, of course.

I long since wrote off Prager as a. utterer of inanities, but recently his turdmongering was forced on my attention by someone who posted a link to Prager’s argument that the “left” (i.e., basically anybody who thinks Auschwitz was a Bad Idea) is inflicting harm on both the American body politic and the universe at large by denying people like Prager the right to drop the N-bomb whenever they feel like it.

As some of you no doubt already knew, Prager is a member of what polite bigots used to refer to as “those of the Hebrew persuasion”.

That a person from an ethnicity that historically suffered hatred so vicious and specifically targeted that a special word had to be created for it (“anti-Semitism” because the original word -- “Jew-hatred” -- was too damned ugly even for bigots to use) now has his knickers in a twist because he’s “not allowed” to use the only other word of equal or greater impact -- also coined specifically by oppressors for expressing unrestrained hate and contempt against those oppressed -- is so rich in irony that all I can do is swipe a phrase from Jim Wright over at Stonekettle Station and say Dennis Prager has “all the self-awareness of a dog licking its own asshole in the middle of the street”.

First off, he’s lying: Neither the “left” nor American law prevents him from dropping the N-bomb whenever he feels like it and I invite him to go down to the intersection of Normandie and Florence in South Central and drop it at the top of his lungs for as long as he is able and please make sure to take plenty of video recorders along because I really wanna see what happens next.

Second, why the fuck would you want to say that? Seriously, other than in an evidentiary context (a cop giving testimony in court, a journalist reporting what some bigoted politician says, etc.), who today gains anything from repeating the word other than inflicting unjustified distress on people who have done nothing to deserve it?

(This is the point where a bunch of alt-right trolls are gonna jump up and say “but whatabout all the times when black people say it?” and to those trolls I’m gonna say STFU & STFD; if you can’t grasp the difference in context then you’re too damned stupid to be allowed out in public except at the end of a leash and with a ball gag in your mouth.)

It’s a word specifically created and designed to be used to brutally oppress people who did nothing to deserve that brutal oppression. Why would anybody outside that group use it except to participate in that brutal oppression?

. . .

Least there sit any in the cheap seats who presume the above rant was targeted at Dennis Prager simply because he was Jewish, guess again, ya yutzes.

Few writers enjoyed as brilliant and as incendiary a career as Harlan Ellison, and I count myself privileged to have been one of his friends.

Ellison, as many of you know, also was Jewish, a damned tough little bastard, singled out for hatred and abuse as the only Jewish child in his backwater Ohio school, growing up with nerves & balls of chromium, a bona fide Army Ranger, and a writer so honest and fearless that when he wrote about juvenile delinquency in the 1950s he did so by infiltrating and joining a street gang to get first hand experience and insight on the kids who ran in that crowd (and as icing on the cake, James Caan played him in the TV version!).

Top that, Dennis.

Harlan’s electric eclectic career features many highpoints, but the one I want to focus on is his brief 4-year run as TV critic for the legendary Los Angeles Free Press (a.k.a. The Freep) from 1968 to 1972.

What’s interesting is that Harlan did this while at the same time at the height of his demand as a TV writer.

You got any idea how hard it is to make a living while you’re gnawing on the hand that feeds you?

Harlan may have been crazy, but damn it, he was honest.

Back to the issue at hand.

Recently I’ve been re-reading his TV criticism columns, collected in two volumes, The Glass Teat and The Other Glass Teat.

The depressing thing is that all the evil we see today was in place back in those days, and the same smug pious frauds and their dimbulb marks kept congratulating themselves how wonderful they were as things continued to spiral out of control.

Oh, we've had good moments when we made changes that improved the lot of people who'd previously been marginalized, but the core cancer is still there. Harlan was no cock-eyed sentimentalist -- he was often filled with anger and could vent it spectacularly at deserving targets -- but he did have hope that somehow we could keep nudging the ball further towards the goal lines.

The columns make fascinating reading; they are nowhere near as dated as one might suspect. Sometimes they offer diamond-like brilliant dissections of a particular instant in the cultural gestalt, other times they examine the unseen (well, to most audiences, that is) tides of Hollywood that shape our media, sometimes he turns his attention to bear on seemingly insignificant and forgotten local programming only to show with McLuhan-esque clarity how that tiny piece of seemingly insignificant fluff is symptomatic of a much wider, much vaster, and far more serious problem.

One entry caught my eye in particular, the March 7, 1969 column on a failed ABC pilot called Those Were The Days.

Harlan sat in the studio audience watching the taping of that pilot, and his column praised the courage and insight of producers Norman Lear and Bud Yorkin, the brilliant performances of Carroll O’Connor and Jean Stapleton, and the raw honesty of the pilot’s sharp comedy and writing.

Those of you not in the cheap seats have already realized this was the second failed pilot for what would eventually become All In The Family over at CBS (there was an even earlier original pilot called Justice For All back when Archie and Edith’s last name was Justice, not Bunker.)

I remember the hoopla when All In The Family finally aired in January of 1971 as a mid-season replacement.

You might count Archie Bunker as the white Dolemite insofar as the comedy sprang from the shock of all the crude and vulgar things he said.

Lear and Yorkin were mocking that mindset, belittling bigotry, exposing the Babbittry of millions of “good” Americans who lacked either the self-awareness or the courage to take a long introspective look at themselves and realize how badly they were failing as citizens of this country.

Audiences weren’t supposed to like Archie Bunker.

And that’s where Lear and Yorkin made their fatal mistake.

No, audiences didn’t like Archie.

They loved him.

. . .

Asteroids collide, and sometimes they form new planets, and sometimes they shatter and expose what lies beneath.

Prager’s modern day Babbittry crashed into Harlan’s half-century old anti-Babbittry, and from the explosion a stark truth revealed itself.

It’s almost impossible to make an outlaw a villain in popular media.

No matter how many banks they rob, stages they hold up, sheriffs they shoot, the mere fact that somebody wrote a song / dime novel / movie about ‘em makes them into heroes.

Demi-gods.

People to be admired.

Emulated.

Professional wrestling knows this.

You can never be so big a heel that you won’t have a legion of followers.

And you can turn a heel into a baby face in the blink of an eye and none of the fans will remember the despicable acts the wrassler did just last week.

You put an Archie Bunker on TV, you do not get millions of people to recognize themselves in his hateful / hurtful behavior and change their ways.

Oh, hell no; you get millions of people to applaud him for saying and doing what they say and do in private.

And now that it’s all big and bold and brassy on TV, why it becomes even easier to say it in the privacy of your own home, then over the fence with the neighbors, then in the bar down the street, then on the street itself, and then against people who have done you no harm, who have committed no sin other than the heinous crime of not being exactly like you.

I remember watching and liking All In The Family when it first came on because I, like millions of other Americans, got the joke: Archie was no hero.

But it wasn’t long before the voices cheering Archie began to drown out the voices laughing at him.

Lear and Yorkin tried undoing their damage with Maude and The Jeffersons and Good Times and other spinoff shows, but the bigot was out of the bottle.

Archie Bunker, even though written in a way to ridicule his use of bigotry and stereotypes, became a champion and defender of those who clung to said bigotry and stereotypes.

So tell me again why you want to drop that N-bomb, Dennis.

Explain to me -- even while you talk out of both sides of your mouth and claim even if everybody can use they word maybe they shouldn’t use the word -- how that does anything to help anybody…

…other than bigots and hate mongers.

Your argument is as circular as the thumb and forefinger gesture white supremacists use to signal one another, a gesture deliberately chosen because it lets them transgress openly by lying about the truth meaning of their gesture.

And Harlan, you were right about Those Were The Days as it began evolving into All In The Family. Absolutely brilliant -- but absolutely deadly.

Not airing All In The Family wouldn’t have eliminated racial / ethnic / sexual prejudice in the United States…

…but it would have denied those ideas a voice.

The narcissist always proclaims, “I don’t care what they say about me so long as they spell my name right.”

Well, that’s what we got with Archie Bunker.

None of the bigots cared if we made fun of their ideas…

…just so long as they got their ideas out there.

Because ideas are made legitimate by their presence.

Now clearly, this is a bade that cuts both ways.

Ideas once unthinkable -- liberty and justice for all in the form of racial and gender equality, f’r instance -- need to be championed in public.

But we need to shout down and stamp out the bad ideas.

The United States took their foot off the neck of the defeated white racists after the end of the Civil War, and as a result jim crow came roaring back, and things did not change for millions of Americans for another entire century.

We allowed bigots and hate mongers and slavers to be whitewashed and glorified and forgiven for their crimes against humanity…

…and in the process we allowed them to continue victimizing African-Americans more and more.

Every song about the Ol’ South, every novel glorifying plantation life, every movie showing happy field hands, every statue commemorating murderous traitors as men of honor and principle, every single iteration of that idea made millions of people’s suffering not just possible but inevitable.

. . .

Now this is the point where the alt-right trolls are gonna jump up and ask “did you ever drop the N-word?”

Not in casual conversation, no.

I was born and raised in the South (Appalachia, mostly); my father’s side of the family were almost all Southerners.

Almost all.

My paternal grandmother was born and raised in New Jersey and met my grandfather when both served in the U.S. Army medical corps in WWI. When my grandfather died in his 40s, my grandmother originally moved back to New Jersey, but her three children (dad and two aunts) felt heartbroken at having to leave their Southern cousins and friends behind so even though she carried no particular love for the South, my grandmother moved her family back and stayed there for the most of her life (she and one of my aunts moved out to California to be near us, but that’s another story for another post).

One thing my grandmother absolutely refused to tolerate was use of the N-bomb anywhere near her, especially under her roof or in the homes of her children.

This included both the -er and -ra variants, because Southern racists who didn’t want to appear as uncultured and as boorish and as bigoted as their backwoods cousins preferred the second pronunciation because they could claim they were actually speaking respectfully about “colored people”.

So I grew up in the rare white Southern home where the N-bomb merely wasn’t used, it was actually denounced as wrong.

Now, don’t go thinking my grandmother was some great paragon of virtue; she wasn’t (she was hell on wheels, in fact, but that’s another story for another post).

But she did recognize there was something wrong with the use of the N-bomb, and whether she demanded her children never use it in any form to keep them from appearing to be boorish, bigoted louts, or whether she just thought it was simple good manners of the golden rule variety not to use it, I dunno.

But I do know we never used it, and when my parents heard our neighbors or schoolmates use it, we were reminded in no uncertain terms that we were never to use it.

But that doesn’t mean I haven’t used it.

A couple of decades ago I wrote a screenplay based on the life of Robert Smalls, in particular his incredible escape from Civil War Charleston by hijacking a Confederate gunboat and sailing it right past Ft. Sumter to join the Union fleet, bringing his wife and several other escaping African-Americans with him.

As a skilled harbor pilot, Smalls enjoyed certain privileges other enslaved African-Americans didn’t.

For example, he was allowed to go about the streets of Charleston unescorted…

…provided he wore a big diamond shaped brass tag around his neck.

Like a dog.

The tag indicated to slave catcher patrols that he was one of the “good” ones, that he could be trusted because he was helping his masters in their struggle against the Union by guiding blockade runners into the safety of Charleston harbor.

But knowing Southerners the way I do, and knowing the kind of low class good ol’ boy types they recruited for such jobs, I couldn’t imagine the slave catcher patrols being particularly courteous to him, even when they knew they had to let him pass because clearly he had the protection of some high positioned muckamuck.

And I could easily imagine them flinging the N-bomb at him with great glee, taunting him, daring him to act “uppity” so they could beat the crap out of him and teach him some manners and remind him of his place.

So I used the word in their dialog in my script.

Would I use that word today?

Probably not.

It’s not that crucial to the story, and if the viewer doesn’t grasp the concept that these are bigoted bully scum from their actions and attitude, then I’ve failed my job as a writer.

Have I ever quoted people who dropped the N-bomb?

Yeah, I have, in the past.

I’ve quoted Richard Pryor and Blazing Saddles and Reservoir Dogs and Pulp Fiction.

I would excuse it then as the aforementioned evidentiary context but ya know what? I don’t quote those lines anymore.

I still think Pryor is hilarious and will recommend his routines to anyone I think might be interested, but he as a member of the African-American community at large (because like any other ethnic group, African-Americans have numerous sub-cultures and sub-communities among them), he could say things in a way neither I nor any other white person could say them.

(And, yeah, there’s a big debate going on to this very day among African-Americans about the appropriateness of that word and you know what? Whatever decision African-Americans reach for themselves is their business and should not involve any input whatsoever from we white folk; we not only can’t use the word, we can’t even comment on how they choose to use it. Period. Full stop.)

Blazing Saddles when it came out used the N-bomb to be deliberately transgressive, to make a sympathetic point re how unfairly African-Americans were treated.

All well and good.

But nine years earlier there had been a movie called A Patch Of Blue and while it wasn’t a raucous comedy like Blazing Saddles it tried making a point about race relations in America and it was a really. Really good movie and it made some important points but today is virtually unwatchable not because of any flaws in it but because the times have changed.

Ditto Blazing Saddles.

We don’t need to approach the problem that way any more.

Quentin Tarantino? I really like what he does as a director and a screenwriter but his use of the N-bomb to show us how transgressive his characters are is really shallow. I have a strong feeling his movies are going to be considered embarrassingly passé’ in a generation or two, much the same way as benign-yet-stereotypical characters in 1940s movies render many of them passé’ today.

Reservoir Dogs and Pulp Fiction lose nothing by changing the N-word to something else.

Maybe an argument could be made for its use in Django Unchained or The Hateful 8 but even there I think substituting another word wouldn’t significantly change the tenor or tone of either movie.

So I stop quoting those lines from Tarantino’s films, at least not fully.

I can admire his skill / talent / craft without signing off on his problematic elements.

Let me offer an analogy: If a creator can get the same dramatic effect by pretending to shoot somebody but not actually blasting them with a gun, then they can get the same dramatic effect by using something evocative of the N-bomb without actually dropping it.

(By the way, for those who may be curious, my mother was from Naples and a bona fide card carrying member of Mussolini’s Fascist Youth Brigade, but that’s another story for another post.)

. . .

We are plunging into a new cultural conflict -- and while I think there will be violence, I don’t see it being violence on the scale or level of political organization as the Civil War -- and we can only win by refusing to let the bigots and the hate mongers spew their bullshit in the marketplace of ideas.

There is no compromise with an oppressor.

Stand up to it every time you encounter it.

Make it unthinkable, never acceptable.

#racism #race relations #morals #ethics #Harlan Ellison #Dennis Prager #N-bomb

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vastderp · 6 years ago

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Okage: Shadow King is such a great little game.

been replaying Okage: Shadow King this past week or two and it’s both better and worse than I remember. worse in that oh my lord they released this game too early and it’s buggy as fuck. better as in HOLY SHIT WHAT A GREAT STORY.

spoilers obviously.

like the part you play is fairly boilerplate RPG, but shit’s just... weird. the world is tiny, supposedly having been spared from a global catastrophe 300 years ago. roaming monsters all look like something a child would draw, except finished by a professional. There are monster paintings that are just crayon scribbles on a framed canvas. There is a floating anteater hanging from a party balloon. it has a scribbly checkered pattern that is only partly colored in, also with crayon.

NPCs are not named, they’re “classified” by their roles in the story. every now and then a list comes from the King of all the new “classifications” for the inhabitants of the world, telling them what they are. So they’ll be called stuff like YOUNG MAN WHO BELIEVES IN JUSTICE (and who can never shut up about Justice) and SLEEPY TOWN MANAGER (who was merely drowsy until he got "classified” at which point he couldn’t stay awake anymore to do his job).

the world is small and simplistic and the people are very limited, to the point of sometimes seeming to be sleepwalking. The NPC who watches over the nonfunctional train station is completely brain-fried, because there is no train and no purpose for him to fulfill but hey somebody needed a stationmaster for the train station scene. who is that guy? who was he before he was given his incredibly vague role? did it erase everything else about him? is that why he doesn’t know if he’s met me before?

half the people you talk to seem like fully realized individuals being mind controlled into playing a role. funny thing, that!

even the villains are just doing what a little voice told them. they got “classified” as an Evil King, and boom! evil powers! now the Hero has to go fight them! your character’s family are assholes who have sold your soul to the evil Shadow King (stan for short) in exchange for Stan reversing a pig latin curse on your older sister.

this matters because if your sister is forced to speak in pig latin, she will be “classified” (quotation marks are always around that word per game styling) as a comic relief girl and it will ruin her marriage prospects. we’re told “classifications” matter a lot in this world, as you will see for yourself later. something as simple as being “classified” as a different fictional character trope can and will result in your life and your actual personality changing to match it. It’s played for laughs, but imagine if you were a STRESSED-OUT SOPHOMORE and you went on a bad weekend pub crawl and got “classified” as a STUMBLING DRUNKARD three days from final exams.

anyway, your character has no “classification”. he’s so forgettable it just never happened, i guess? which makes him a perfect vessel for a power-drained demon king that needs to parasitize a person’s shadow to live. so, there you go. your job is to beat up the demons that stole Stan’s power, get him back to his full strength, and then... i dunno, watch your swordswoman companion and newly separated Stan fight to the death, probably. that’s what they plan on doing, anyway. and that’s what you’re told is the plot of the game. but nope, that’s just how you get to the plot. see, the fucked-upness of the world gets more and more apparent as you go. at first you can write it off as the gamemakers screwing up (this is a very rough game, so that is understandable) but it’s more than that.

after a while of truly lousy dungeons, hilarious dialogue and goofy monsters, there is a “joke” that you can hear from various NPCs. This joke is actually not a joke at all, but people can’t stop laughing long enough to tell the whole thing to you. the story is actually very sad, but because it’s “classified” as a joke, people are compelled to laugh at it and think of it as funny.

the story is about a parent turtle and its baby turtle. one day the baby turtle is playing in the safe little yard its parent made for it, and gets lost. while it’s looking for the baby, the parent comes across a pebble that looks like its baby, and takes it home all happy that it’s found its child. the real baby finds its way home, only to see the parent has replaced it with a damn rock. the parent turtle refuses to admit the pebble isn’t its real baby, because if it admits to its error, it would look stupid. deep down, the turtle knows the pebble isn’t really its child, that the real baby is out there somewhere alone because the parent can’t put aside its pride admit it’s been fooling itself all this time.

that’s basically a fairy tale about a narcissistic parent, isn’t it? it’s also the story of the big bad of this game, who made your world into a toybox for his daughter to play in, until she disappeared into it. not to worry, he made a pebble doll that looks just like his missing child and enchanted it to seem alive. don’t remind him it’s not really her. just don’t.

so.

this game has been pretending up til now to be a cheeky parody of the RPG genre with weird details that makes no sense. now we find out another reason why things are this way: the shitty enemies, the dazed and “classified” NPCs, the weirdly non-threatening child’s drawing monsters, all of these things are the creations of the big bad, and they look this way because they’re meant to be safe, fun game pieces for a little kid to play with.

“classification” is not just a winking acknowledgement of the genre, it’s an actual magical force used by the big bad to create roles for living human beings who are effectively mind controlled slaves. that’s some dark stuff right there, if you look past the cutesy video game storytelling for a sec and imagine what that must be like for the people. it’s a simple story, hidden inside the decoy RPG plot, but damn if it isn’t good.

so, about the the small world you can explore in the game: it used to be a lot bigger, but it’s been cut out of the much larger real world by magic and turned into a sort of childproofed playpen full of colorful NPCs specifically “classified” (presumably from the residents of the part of the world that got isolated) for the intended player to encounter on an adventure plot.

You aren’t the intended player of the game, either. your protagonist is a random boring teenager who didn’t get “classified” at all, presumably because everyone, including the big bad, forgets he’s there. He was left off the list entirely, making him very useful to the opponent of the big bad, a former collaborator and “classification” worker who rebelled. this former collaborator is the same guy who originally spread the story of the turtle and the pebble to shame the big bad, by the way. to make the story go away, big bad tried to “classify” it as a joke. ok dude, you do you.

People who don’t get “classified” can act however they choose, it looks like. they don’t get stuck in the story like YOUNG MAN WHO BELIEVES IN JUSTICE, who can only stand on the sidewalk and talk about justice. somebody who wanted to fight the big bad, who’s always looking for gaps in the system to drive a wedge into, could really break the game if he could find someone who wasn’t “classified” to work through. he’s done it before (unsuccessfully) but this time around, your player character is that wedge.

and what a wedge he is!

imagine Link running all those endless, thankless errands in all his endless, thankless incarnations. saving babies, fetching cheese, herding goats, getting no real say in things but always doing the hard work--that’s you. now imagine Link literally fades into invisibility from being ignored so hard. that is also you. as in, your character will disappear from existence at one point when the big bad decides you’re ruining his daughter’s RPG adventure (more like because you make him remember that she’s just a doll and not actually his missing daughter) and writes you out of the story. it’s easy to do because your character’s main trait is that people don’t really pay attention to him. even in the game itself, this character is just your vehicle to play Okage: Shadow King and enact the choices you make. (this game gets super meta and i love it.)

big bad just emphasizes your overshadowed (eh? ehhhh?) nature until you stop existing at all.

while you’re invisible, you end up in the town of Triste, where ignored people gather. this whole sequence is just amazing--half the businesses are closed, or they’re open and you can hear music and smell food but no one is inside. a lot of people who are inside their homes won’t open the door and might yell at you to go away. some folks hang around outside and will talk to you. everyone is sad but happy to have this place to belong when no one else can see they exist. Triste is well-named (means “sad” in french). it’s basically the town of social anxiety, hesitation, longing and depression. and it’s amazing.

you can find a closed up house where, when you knock, a guy inside yells “I HOPE IT BREAKS! THAT TINY WORLD OF YOURS!” like. someone’s extra mad at the big bad 0_0

and oh hey by the way, while you’re exploring this beautiful village of forgotten NPCs, you run into the voice of a certain princess who got lost in the world her father made for her to play in who knows how many hundreds of years ago. turns out this poor kid used to play all sorts of fun games in the world, but she ended up in Triste. while the doll version of her has adventures, she can watch through its eyes, so she knows you despite never having actually met.

man, imagine being that poor baby turtle princess and having to wait around all alone in a town full of invisible sad people because your dad has replaced you, in his grief, with an enchanted doll. but now someone’s come to help her, someone who is also sad and alone because everyone’s forgotten them. your defining flaw as a character, your tendency to be neglected to the point of non-existence, is what allows you to connect with the lost princess. your sorrow brings you to a place where you can plan to make real change and fix your broken ass world. i fucking love that!

first you have to get people to acknowledge you so you will stop being invisible, and then you have to confront the big bad’s weird grief-crazy reign of terror, bring the real princess back from Triste, and end the “classification” system that keeps the world isolated and its people enslaved. somewhere in all of this, you will also presumably need to deal with the fully-powered Shadow King, but eh. later for that.

this is the ps4 version, so first i have to get the goddamn Q of Hearts for the platinum trophy. THEN we’ll deal with Stan.

#okage #okage: shadow king #boku to maoh #okage spoilers #spoiler #i love when the gameplay and the story fit together #like even the many many bugs and glitches are OK in the context of the story #it almost becomes part of the story when this janky ass game goes clunk #there beiloune goes again i says to myself #just as long as i can save without hitting that bug i'll be fine says i #oh no it's frozen again says i #curse you beiloune but at least i saved twice #you have to save twice to be sure not to erase your game #it's a rare bug but it's devastating if you only have one file current #and oh my god can the q of hearts just drop already

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rndyounghowze · 5 years ago

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An Evening of Online Plays Right in our Living Room Directed by Missouri S&T Theatre

By: Ricky and Dana Young-Howze

St. Louis, Missouri

It was a cool and rainy evening when Dana and I followed the Zoom link and joined viewers across the country to see "An evening of Online Plays"

Produced by Missouri S&T Theatre. One of our dear friends Erin Lane had one of her pieces in the bill of four 10 minute plays to be presented that night and invited us to come watch. This night of online theater, produced by Taylor Gruenloh and presented by Missouri S&T theatre students was our first time reviewing a Zoom Production and definitely will not be our last.

This was directed by two students of Missouri S&T's directing program. When classes were cancelled for Victoria Hagni and Madeline Lechner their professor Taylor Gruenloh knew that unless they actually produced a finished project it wouldn't feel as if the two students weren't getting the most out of their independent study. So they quickly changed gears and commissioned ten minute plays from four playwrights from my graduate program Hollins University that would work perfectly in a Zoom format. This livestream is that final result.

It's worth mentioning what Dana and I are looking for when we review a production produced on an online platform streamed out of people's homes. We of course are looking at the level of acting and the production value of the plays but we are also looking at how this new medium of performance is taken advantage of and how the artists worked within those constraints. We are definitely as much beginners at reviewing this as the artists are performing in it. We also know that these students were ramping up and learning for something completely different than pioneering a new artform so we empathize. So now that we know we're both adjusting to a learning curve let's get down to the nitty gritty.

We've decided to talk about the plays grouped by the director not in the order that they were presented and since these were brand new plays written just for the production we're reviewing the plays too.

First we're looking at the plays directed by Madeline Lechner.

De-Equalized by Amy Lytle is a play about two students Katie (played by Natalie Arnold) and Jordan (played by Adam Bateman) who are working on a group project while they are separated on spring break.

I'll admit putting this play up as the first play we see was a very eerie experience. Not just because it was about two students talking about a group project over Zoom but also because this was Dana and my first primer into what a Zoom production is. Seeing the screen jump back and forth between the two actors like it was cutting back and forth like in a movie was bizarre but I was immediately intrigued by the possibilities.

I was very impressed with the actors trying their hardest to emote to somebody that is not physically in the room with them. I felt like Arnold did a better job at this than her acting partner. I can only imagine having to not only keep myself cheated open for the audience but also knowing that my acting partner is a small post card sized picture on a screen. Also knowing that your performance depends on the connectivity of your device and the tilt of your camera is probably as big of a rush as tightrope walking. But because of this feeling of risk some of their emotions seemed to go stagnant. I needed to feel like this energy could travel eight hundred miles.

This could have been an acting problem but I definitely feel like some of this sits on Lechner's shoulders as a director. If the energy isn't shaking the rafters you definitely need to find ways to ramp your actors up. But we also feel like the playscript didn't give them higher stakes to begin with. Not everyone reveals family secrets doing homework. Also Dana never believed she was going to walk out on him which really did kill the stakes.

As for the play Dana noticed there was a lot of exposition about scholarship and financial aid that anyone watching a college show would know. We would hope that in a further draft the playwright would trust her audience more. I loved the idea of students finding out something about a friend that they didn't know before but also wish that the action had started way earlier. The play spent so much time on exposition I feel like the play didn't start until the eight minute mark and then they only had two minutes left. In a future draft I really hope this is addressed.

Also directed by Lechner was Breathe by Erin Lane a play about Dory (played by Raelyn Twohy) and Michael (played by Michael Ellis) two parents having to coparent while being separated and trying to calm each other down while also trying to appear strong for the other.

I love that this play made use of ANY kind of action and it was a great refresher from Lechner's previous piece. I still would have asked for much more. Also Dana got the sense that this play was supposed to have a lot of chaos in it but in her words it was "the calmest chaos she's ever seen". I agree. Especially if this is a play about getting the results of a test be it Covid-19, AIDS, pregnancy, or even strep I think you would feel a TAD more tense than that. This harkens back to what I said before about Lechner and getting energy out of her performers. As a director I will tell her you have to do whatever it takes to get that energy out of your cast because if we as an audience don't feel it we're gone. This was a great first outing and if I'm sounding tough it's because I feel she does have potential to do well in the future. Just get that energy in!

As for the acting it seemed that while Dana and I believed the Dad instantly we felt something was "held back" from us. We don't know if that was an acting problem or a writing problem. I am leaning heavily towards acting because of the several "I forgot my line" pauses and constant repeats of cue lines we normally see in high school productions. I personally think it must have been hard to show so much emotion just using your eyes and not having a full stage to work with but if these pauses normally just slow down a stage show on Zoom they felt like an eternity.

This play utilized my very favorite kind of exposition where everything we needed to know about the action was fed to us through something that we already knew. We all know that kind of back and forth between a Mom and Dad as they suss out parenting. But then you have this through the lens of long distance. Someone can't be home and now they have to trust someone else to get it done. This is the coolest kind of love story for me. However due to dropped lines and pauses I totally lost the part where Dory is a nurse and that she's taking a Covid-19 test. Dana had to tell me based on her scrubs. I hope that a future production of this play has the faster pace and the higher stakes it deserved.

Also a quick note: I know that no one is really pioneering Zoom set design just yet but I feel that I have to mention the black curtain behind Ellis's back. Dana and I have a running joke where we wonder if there is a "different play behind the curtain" that's more interesting than the one we're seeing. This presented a literal version of that for us where we spent more time wondering what was behind that curtain than listening to what he was saying. Out of love for these actors and with mad respect for what they're doing even if the curtain is hiding dead bodies we kinda hope it isn't there in the future. You guys rock and deserve better than that.

Next we'll be talking about the plays directed by Victoria Hagni.

In Scaramouch and Pinochle by Mike Moran we meet Lizzie (played by Megan Baris) and Bella (played by Haley Jenkins) two sisters who were separated when they were little and adopted by families across the country. Now they're reconnecting.

I loved that this play involved some action that fills up the camera frame and that Hagni gave the actresses some business to do such as painting nails and looking for things. If you think of the screen as your proscenium arch then you start to realize that you can utilize all of that space to tell your story.

Dana loves the use of props and the chemistry between the two actresses even though there were some moments that seemed like they were talking more at the screens than to each other. As you guys know I'm a sucker for puppets so even a sock puppet wormed it's way into my heart.

As for the script I feel like the realization about the Mom’s death and other family drama wasn’t "earned". There was no build up to it so I don't know whether it really happened or if our character was just lying. Where the chemistry between the actresses seemed natural the tense moments in the play didn’t seem natural. Overall it was a very cute play and with a couple more revisions it would be perfect.

In Folies a Deux/Pas de deux by Kevin D. Ferguson we meet Amanda Toye as Woman and Luke Goekner as Man. They are a couple with an interesting history and reconnecting after a long time.

I absolutely ADORED the use of the whole kitchen and room as a playing space. Having her start "upstage" at the counter and then moving the camera around as she moved dropped us into the world of the play. This was the first time that I forgot I was watching a Zoom play and just started watching the show. If I have to give one criticism to Hagni at all it is that I would have loved to see this kind of blocking in her previous piece.

I really commend the actors for really knowing their lines, really getting this blocking down, and committing to it. I mean somebody made cupcakes for this show! That's commitment.

Dana feels like this one was the most theatrical because it would definitely work on a stage AND online. This was the play that she absolutely believed with all her heart. I was totally pulled in. This is one of those plays that just make you want to sit in front of a computer and write a play.

The hardest part I'm going to notice about directing and writing for this medium is that you're simultaneously directing a theatre production and producing a movie. The actors aren't just actors they become directors of photography. The only difference between these plays and a movie is that a movie would be recorded for later and edited by someone else. I'm predicting that the most successful Zoom productions will be the ones that blur these lines. Is this naturalistic theatre or an indie found footage film. Who knows and who cares? Actors are not just emoting as if they're in the smallest of black box theaters but also thinking in terms of setups and dynamic camera angles. This is going to be a hard skill to master and in thirty or so years we'll be reading textbooks about the people who started this trend thinking about how we were all just figuring it out.

Also I'm looking forward to the day when we literally don't have the big pink elephant of COVID-19 in the room with us. Right now anytime you see a play livestreamed we all kind of know why it's not being presented onstage. So effectively even if the play doesn't explicitly say so it inherently is about this pandemic I know it's going to be at least a few years before this isn't the case but I will welcome it with open arms.

You have one more opportunity to see this production tonight May 9th at 7 PM Central Time. For those of you teaching theatre right now it might be an excellent tool or opportunity to talk about this evolving theatre climate. Follow this link right here and enjoy the show!

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misscrawfords · 7 years ago

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The Force Awakens Rewatch: Part 2

See Part 1.

So I actually have less to say about the second half of the film, perhaps because a lot of it is following on from themes and characters already introduced and discussed in the first half and not much happens that is surprising. Perhaps also because I’ve had two glasses of reeeeeally nice wine and my head is buzzing and I’m listening to Roger and Hammerstein’s Cinderella and they’re telling me that it’s impossible for a country bumpkin and a prince to join in marriage. (”But the world is full of zanies and fools who don’t believe in sensible rules”…)

I’m sorry, where was I? Ah yes, Takodama…

- Hux. Already mentioned him separately, but, like, literally, what is the appeal? He is coded as a Nazi with no redeemable features whatsoever. I mean, by all means like him if you want. Fans can like who they want! But I see nothing to like. I mean, the First Order needs people like Hux, but fan favourite? I don’t get it at all.

- OK, I’m now listening to The Pursuit (”I just know I will find you, you’re the girl of my dreams and the thrill is more than I can bear”) and it’s making me think about Kylo going after Rey. I mean, this bit on Takodama (as others have said before and in much more detail) is another example of Kylo Ren the Dark Side Fail. He goes off on his own, abandons his mission when it would be so easy for him to take the droid and the girl and then drops his guard down to sweep Rey up into his arms. I mean, wtf? Again, we have an example of Kylo being just as young and earnest and naive as Finn and Rey. Also, what is up with what his attitude to her? That famous shot of him standing behind her with his lightsaber pointed over her shoulder? It’s such a weird position to take unless you’re meant to think of phallic symbolism tbh. Not wholly convinced by the Romeo and Juliet theme when he’s carrying her onto the ship - maybe for one bar. But the music when they leave is an epic version of Rey’s theme and that’s nice.

- Sticking with Kylo and Rey for now, the interrogation scene. I mean, so much has been written on this I’m not going to attempt anything detailed. Kylo’s removal of his helmet is shocking and deliberate and honestly, if they didn’t want people to think he was a dark prince and a Byronic antihero they probably should have cast somebody different. This isn’t being superficial, it’s being realistic. And that scene is not some massive scene of horrific abuse. I mean, COME ON. Stop saying everything is abuse! Yes, he tries to get in her mind, a fascinating experience for him and his emotions are so clear on his face. And then she stops him! This moment is all about Rey coming to terms with the Force. She blocks him out and then turns the tables. This is a fantasy. Mind reading is a fantasy thing. If they wanted to show this as a metaphor for rape, they would have presented this very differently. What we are clearly meant to take from this scene is that Rey is Kylo’s equal, that she is able to turn the tables on him, that she is awakening to her Force potential, and that he is not at all the monster he appears and is deeply affected by what he sees in her. Remember, the next time we see Rey, she manages to Force control two guards. Is Rey acting like someone who has just been brutally violated or as someone who has awoken to her own power? I’ll leave the answer to that with you. Anyway, it’s an incredibly compelling scene; I remember barely breathing through it when I first saw it in the cinema.

- The Han/Leia scenes are so beautiful and it’s lovely to even have these brief scenes of a mature couple and a little insight into the complexity of their relationship. And how can anyone think that this trilogy isn’t about the soul of Ben Solo/Kylo Ren? I mean, literally every character exists in relation to him and his decisions. I’m not trying to lessen the importance of Rey and Finn as heroes but Kylo and the possibility that he could be brought back to the light is the glue that holds the entire plot together.

- Starkiller base. Han’s death is so predictable. I mean, not predictable exactly, but it is not a twist - it’s set up very well so there’s not much to say about it. But Kylo is weakened immediately. The physical weakening from the bolt from Chewie and then Finn and eventually Rey are a symbol of his mental and emotional weakness. Making him stronger, my foot!

- The fight in the woods… I mean, everyone goes on about the interrogation scene and I do get that, but this is the sequence that does it for me. I really think the moment when the lightsaber nearly whacks Kylo in the face and Rey catches it is THE most important moment in the film. This is the moment Rey accepts her destiny for the second time. The first is when she uses the Force on the guards. Both times are inextricably linked to Kylo. But anyway, yes, this is Rey accepting the call to adventure properly. The look on her face as she glances between the lightsaber and Kylo as the music swells with the Force theme is just so beautiful and full of wonder and Kylo’s face is absolutely amazing. It’s not a look of “oh crap, she’s got a lightsaber” it’s a look of “oh wow, she has my lightsaber and it’s the best thing that’s happened all day”. Then they both ignite their sabers and you just think that this is where they have met their match and everything in their lives so far has led towards them facing each other like this. I could watch this 30 seconds or so of film over and over again (AND GUESS WHAT, I JUST HAVE). Then the fight starts in earnest and it’s interesting to look at it in contrast to Kylo and Finn’s fight. In both fights, they get right up and close to each other but Kylo and Finn seem to be just struggling together, Kylo and Rey take the opportunity for Kylo to offer to train her - he’s not trying to attack her properly - she’s the one on the offensive. And in fact, he actually starts teaching her here. He is the one mentions the Force and that is the catalyst for her to close her eyes and centre herself in the Force and gain enough control to actually push him back and control the fight. And that leads them to them being locked together, not with lightsabers but actually clutching each others’ arms like an embrace, with their lightsabers stretching one from the other and both facing the same way. It’s a really, really interesting few seconds because you could almost be mistaken for thinking they are working together. Yes, they are opposite each other, but they’re not pushing against each other. They struggle and then their lightsabers align with each other - red to the bottom, blue pointing upwards, and their faces are pointing in the same direction and they’re grabbing the other’s arms. All I’m saying is, this is a really different fight scene, especially compared to the Kylo and Finn fight and filled with a different kind of tension. I mean, there are several seconds where Rey has her eyes closed and everything goes completely calm and he’s just staring at her.

- Just to reiterate, in case you didn’t read that massive paragraph, it’s really interesting how both of the occasions when Rey uses the Force are enabled by Kylo. In other words, he is not responsible for her awakening (or is he?) but he is already teaching her to an extent. He invades her mind which allows her to fend him off, block him and invade his mind in turn. This then somehow gives her the understanding that she can manipulate the guards using the Force. He also reminds her that she can fight with the Force using the lightsaber. Thanks, Kylo! Rey’s use of the Force is intimately linked to Kylo Ren.

- Finn and Poe belong together. FIGHT ME ON THIS. What else is the purpose of the jacket line, Finn’s admiration of “one hell of a pilot” and the beautiful Regency dancing twirling camera work. Seriously. I’m torn because Rose looks like a great character but if she erases the potential of Finn/Poe then that will be such a lost opportunity. There is no way Poe is not gay and I headcanon Finn as bi because he does kind of have a crush on Rey. It’s all so beautiful.

- Rey and Leia’s hug makes me so emotional. Women comforting women! Unspoken understanding! Rey gets a mother figure from a woman who has lost her child! It’s so beautiful and sad.

- Finn and Rey remain an absolutely glorious relationship and I ship them platonically to the ends of the earth. And I really don’t think that is somehow lesser than shipping them romantically. For Finn and Rey to have a friend whom they love is the most amazing and important thing. A real friend > a romantic partner any day. I mean, come on. They’ve had nobody and now they have each other. It makes me so happy.

- I’m coming round increasingly to Rey Kenobi. Considering this is a SW trilogy, it makes sense that we should have a Kenobi in there somewhere and Rey’s use of the Force on those guards is extremely suggestive of Obi-Wan’s abilities. It really seems like a massive hint. It would be a great revelation, would link her in to the Skywalker saga, provide opportunities for even more parallels and contrasts, but also not force a relationship between her and the Skywalkers and Solos that would mean Han, Luke and Leia have conveniently forgot they had a child and never talk about it which is just stupid.

Anyway, that was my TFA re-watch and it was tremendous fun! It’s a great film and reading all the meta I’ve been reading recently has only enhanced it. My impressions are slightly different to when I saw it first in the cinema and overall slightly more positive because I’m seeing clever things in, for instance, the parallels with ANH, rather than being irritated by them. And considering how it sets up for TLJ adds a layer to what is going on and being suggested in this film.

Things that still confuse/annoy me:

- The relationship between Hux and Kylo and Snoke and the First Order and the Knights of Ren. How do they all fit together? I do not know. I am confused.

- Rey’s background???????? Lor San Tekka???????

- How did the First Order even arise and become so powerful in the relatively short period of time following the defeat of the Empire? It’s basically an Empire clone and I’m still a bit annoyed they went down that route for the sequel trilogy rather than do something original and deal with the fallout from the defeat of the Empire in a different way. Like, if the Empire was meant to imply the Nazis, then surely the sequel could do a metaphorical Cold War and that could be really interesting. This is where the parallels with ANH do still annoy me.

#star wars #reylo #kylo ren #rey #okay apparently I did have a lot to say #I mention rape and Nazis in this post #so maybe avoid if that's a trigger #meta

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consulting-caffrey · 7 years ago

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Fanfiction Questions!

A great big thank you to @tohavealifetimeoffun for letting me use these! 1. What was the first fandom you got involved in? Heartland. 2. What is your latest fandom? White Collar! 3. What is the best fandom you've ever been involved in? The best? That's tough. That's really tough. But in the end I have to go with White Collar. 4. Do you regret getting involved in any fandoms? Nope. Not a single one. 5. Which fandoms have you written fanfiction for? Mainly White Collar because I only started posting just before getting into that fandom seriously. Before that, it was Avengers. 6. List your OTP from each fandom you've been involved in. Heartland: Ty/Amy Iron Man: Pepper/Tony Avengers: Tony/Steve Supernatural: Dean/Lisa (judge me all you want, destiel shippers) White Collar: Neal/Sarah but hell, its hard to choose between that and Neal/Peter because COME ON that show is practically throwing it at us! 7. List your NoTPs from each fandom you've been in. Hoboy... Heartland: Amy/Soraya Uncharted: Chloe/Nadene Iron Man: Pepper/Natasha Avengers: Clint/Laura (I'm sorry but I can't. I will die for Clintasha) White Collar: Neal/Jones (I've seen it, I respect it, I admire from a distance, but I can't. Same with Neal/Diana) 8. How did you get involved in your latest fandom? Well, it started when I stumbled upon it on Netflix and thought one of the guys on there looked cute (I'll let you guess which one) and so I started watching it only to get bored partway through and I went galavanting in the Avengers fandom for a few years before coming back like "Hey I never finished that". And here I've stayed ever since. Stuck. Thanks, Jeff Eastin. 9. What are the best things about your current fandom? Even though the show has ended, the White Collar fandom is still alive and active. Its like we all still stick together and keep track of what Matt Bomer is up to these days like "hey, The Last Tycoon! Also I just wrote another White Collar fic haha pry this show from my cold dead hands". 10. Is there a fandom you read fic from but don't write in? Nah, I don't stray far from White Collar. 11. Who is your current OTP? Gotta be Neal/Peter at the moment. I just love their bromance though. I know those two are like THE ship but I usually prefer Neal/Sarah, which for some reason isn't very well liked, I hear??? 12. Who is your current OT3? Um, the only OT3 I've ever had. Peter/Neal/El 13. Any NoTPs? Neal/Jones, Neal/June (what?), and I don't wanna say its a definite no, because I miiiiight consider Neal/Mozzie. And I have written Neal/Diana but I don't particularly like it. 14. Go on, who are your BroTPs? Peter/Neal of course, Neal/Mozzie 15. Is there any obscure ship that you love? Well not really. Neal/Kate, but I wouldn't call it obscure. 16. Are there any popular ships in your fandom which you dislike? Ehhhh not really. 17. Who was your first OTP and are they still your favorite? Ty/Amy from Heartland and yes, I still love those two to bits. 18. What ship have you written the most about? Steve/Tony. Funny since I started out HATING those two together and it was EVERYWHERE all up in my face but then next thing I know I've got like fifty stories about them 19. Is there a ship you wish you could get behind but you just don't feel them? Neal/Mozzie. 20. Any ships which you surprised yourself by liking? Peter/Neal/El, like I said. I like it, I do. I've just never had an OT3 before and I think that's what threw me off a bit. 21. What was the first fanfic you ever wrote? That would be a Heartland fic that took up an entire notebook. 22. Is there anything you regret writing? Eh... Sometimes. I regret writing things that I don't finish. 23. Name a fic you've written that you're especially fond of and explain why you like it. Neal Caffreys. Oh man I want to continue that little project forever. There are so many possibilities. 24. What fic so you desperately need to rewrite or edit? Ummmm probably Take Me Back To Normal. I need to offer more explanation and reason for my torture haha 25. What's your most popular fanfic? I haven't checked in a while but I believe it's Neal Caffreys. 26. How do you come up with your fanfic titles? Sometimes song lyrics or they just... come to me? 27. What do you hate more: coming up with titles or writing summaries? Summaries oh god... 28. If someone were to draw a piece of fan art for your story, which story would it be and what would the picture be of? Oooooooo It would be for a story that I'm currently working on (actually a chapter for Neal Caffreys but I really want to make it a full story) where Neal is a horseman. The picture would be Neal standing next to his horse, and the horse would look all badass and everything AGH! Please somebody. Also hey I do have a piece of fan art for my story Tale Me Back To Normal done by @kanarek13 and I love it so much 29. Do you have a beta reader? Why/Why not? I do not. I am very good with English and writing so I can edit my own stuff. In fact, I prefer to. It just kinda feels lazy to pass a piece off to someone else to do that for me. 30. What inspires you to write? Well watching the show helps. Also reading fanfiction. 31. What's the nicest thing that someone has ever said about your writing? Oh gosh, that they go back and read it all the time so I should never take it down. That just made me so happy to hear. 32. Do you listen to music when you write or does music inspire you? If so, which band of music/genre does it for you? I cannot listen to music when I write. I like to have quiet so I can picture what I want better. If I have music on, I just end up drowning it out anyway. But music itself does inspire me sometimes. 33. Do you write one-shots, multi-chapter fics, or huuuge epics? Oneshots are what I try to stick to, but the multi-chapter thing is also okay. Huge epics? Lol not so much 34. What's the word count on your longest fic? Oh man I gotta go look this up... 35,038 ...Holy crap 35. Do you write drabble? If so, what do you write them about? Hmmm I think I've written maybe two drabble fics? I don't do them often because I like my h/c action torture awfulness. But I do like to get in Neal's head. 36. What's your favorite genre to write? Everybody whose read any of my stuff already knows it's hurt/comfort and angsty things. 37. First person or third person- What do you write in and why? Third person preferably. I just like to get a wider perspective, but with third person, you can also hone in on individuals and their thoughts. 38. Do you use established canon characters or do you create OCs? Both? Obviously my fics are always almost 99% canon characters but I do have OCs that I like to slip in there. I have OCs that I use for RPing but you can find Finnigan Roderas here and there as well as Victor "Vito" Odell in For Your Entertainment. They're a couple of mine. I am a proud parent to at least three more. 39. What is your greatest strength as a writer? The way I can put myself in a scene and imagine all the details, mostly emotions, that go with it. 40. What do you struggle with the most in your writing? Well like I mentioned, I tend to write stories around one small thing I want to get out, and once that thing is out and I've created a mess, I just go "...what now? I didn't think this far ahead..." 41. List and link to five fanfics you are currently reading. Oh man I usually only read one at a time... But I'll put that one down and then add four that I read before it. Enemies http://archiveofourown.org/works/2290154 You Look Like A Koala http://archiveofourown.org/works/2329949 Somehow, Sundown http://archiveofourown.org/works/6159619 Wrong Time, Wrong Place http://archiveofourown.org/works/2435216 Love Lift Me Up http://archiveofourown.org/works/2503781 42. List and link to five fanfiction authors that are amazing. Now this I can do. pooh_collector http://archiveofourown.org/users/pooh_collector/pseuds/pooh_collector Sholio http://archiveofourown.org/users/Sholio/pseuds/Sholio Huntress79 http://archiveofourown.org/users/Huntress79/pseuds/Huntress79 Ashley5627 http://archiveofourown.org/users/Ashley5627/pseuds/Ashley5627 NYWCgirl http://archiveofourown.org/users/NYWCgirl/pseuds/NYWCgirl 43. Is there anyone in your fandom who really inspires you? Definitely @kanarek13 and @archivistsrock Also @hirunoka and all the anons who keep encouraging me to write and keep writing~ 44. What ship do you feel needs more attention? Mozzie/Gina 45. What is your all time favorite fanfic? A week ago, I wouldn't have been able to tell you, but then I found Out of the Wastes by Sholio and I can't tell you how much I love it. Seriously. Go check it out. 46. If someone was to read one of your fanfics, which fic would you recommend to them and why? Mmmmm... I don't know that I'd recommend any of them, but I guess Neal Caffreys is my pride and joy. That one. 47. Archive of our Own, Dreamwidth, LiveJournal, Fanfiction.net, or Tumblr- Where do you prefer to post and why? AO3 for sure. I like the setup and everyone on there seems nice so far (barring one strange incident). I used to post on FF but eh... A couple people on there really pissed me off. I'll leave it at that. 48. Do you care if people comment/reboot your writing? Why/Why not? I'm not sure what that means. Comments on my writing in a separate post? Rebooting my story to make a better version themselves? Idk I've never really experienced either of those things, if that's what this means. I guess maybe I wouldn't mind. Not sure. 49. How did you get into reading and/or writing fanfiction? I got into writing it first because the idea came to me all on its own and I thought I was a genius. Then I believe my dear friend @tfwhancock was like "let me show you FF" and I was stuck there for months. 50. Rant or hush about one thing you love or hate in the world of fanfiction! Go! I LOVE THAT IT EXISTS OH MY GOD YES I love that I can use characters that I love and write them and make them do what I want and just AGHHGGH I LOVE IT SO MUCH. It's so fun and exciting and just reading what people come up with is the most amazing thing! When you have to stop reading and just appreciate a line or a phrase like "oh that's good" Mmmmm love me that feeling~ Tagging: anyone who wants to do this!

#ask post #fanfiction questions

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themoneybuff-blog · 6 years ago

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The pros and cons of Personal Capital

If you've read money blogs over the past five years, you've heard about Personal Capital. Personal Capital is a free money-tracking tool with a beautiful interface and gasp no advertising. (One of my big complains about Mint is that it shoves ads in your face.) Many of my friends and colleagues promote the hell out of Personal Capital because the company pays good money when people sign up. (And yes, links to Personal Capital in this review absolutely put money in my pocket. But any Personal Capital link you see anywhere on the web puts money in somebody's pocket.) I sometimes wonder, though, if any of my pals actually uses Personal Capital, you know? All of their reviews are glowing. While I like Personal Capital, I've been frustrated by the app in the past. Even today, I find that it's not as useful as I'd like. What are my issues with Personal Capital? For a long time, I was frustrated trying to get Personal Capital to connect to my accounts. It still won't connect to my credit union, but that's fine. I can enter my balance manually. It was frustrating, though, that for years I couldn't get Personal Capital to connect to my Fidelity investment accounts. They work nowbut I'm always worried that they won't. The app still won't connect to my Capital One credit card and hasn't for over a year, which I find mind-blowing.

Personal Capital, as an app, isn't robust enough to replace something like Quicken or You Need a Budget. The latter tools allow you to track and manage your money on a transaction by transaction level. Okay, maybe you can track your transactions, but you can't do anything meaningful with them, the same way you could with Quicken or YNAB.The phone calls! My god, the phone calls! Here's a not-so-secret secret: The Personal Capital app while beautiful and useful is actually bait. It's a lure. Its aim is to attract high net-worth users to connect their accounts. When they do, Personal Capital (the company) begins a phone campaign in an attempt to recruit the users as clients. Personal Capital isn't actually an app company; it's a wealth-management company. They want people with lots of money to sign up. (I can't comment on whether this is a good deal or not. I don't want a financial advisor. I ignore all of the calls from Personal Capital.)

Personal Capital has pretty reports, but there aren't enough of them. My copy of Quicken 2007 ugly as it is has 23 different reports and 10 different graphs. (Plus, you can customize many more.) Personal Capital has maybenine ways to look at your money? (I can't tell for sure.)The security is over the top. I suppose I should be happy about this, but I'm not. It feels like I'm constantly having to verify my identity via email or text message. Some of my other accounts make me do this occasionally, but it feels like Personal Capital does this multiple times per week. That's crazy! Now, these complaints aside, here's a confession: I've been using the Personal Capital app for 5+ years. For real. I can't remember when I started, but I do remember being cranky because a Personal Capital rep didn't know who I was at Fincon 2013 in St. Louis. I use your app, I told him. And I have a big blog. (I wince now at the thought of my arrogance.) Despite the drawbacks, there must be something to it. Right? Today using my current financial situation let's look at the pros and cons of Personal Capital. Quicken 2007 vs. Personal Capital As regular readers know, I'm an old fogey. My money management tool of choice is an antiquated copy of Quicken for Mac 2007. This tool is so important to me, in fact, that I'm currently refusing to update my system software to the latest version (Mac OS Mojave) because I'm afraid it'll break Quicken. (Other user experiences are mixed.) How important is Quicken 2007 to me? No joke: I would buy a used Mac laptop just to run that software. As much as I love Quicken, it has its drawbacks. One of those is that it's a pre-mobile app. Quicken 2007 is almost as old as this blog. It came out roughly one year before the first iPhone. (Get Rich Slowly launched on 15 April 2006. I can't find a release date for Quicken 2007, but it was available by at least 30 August 2006. The iPhone launched on 29 June 2007.) If I want to interact with Quicken, I have to sit down at my desktop computer. Because I'm a nerd, I'm attached to my mobile devices. I have an iPad. And an iPhone. And an Apple Watch. (Why isn't it an iWatch? I don't know. Apple doesn't give a fig about consistency.) I want to be able to track my money from my mobile devices. Trust me: I've tried tons of other mobile apps. I don't really like any of them. I do, however, like Personal Capitalwarts and all. I would never ever use it as my only money management tool, but as one piece of a bigger package, it'a actually kind of awesome. Personal Capital is the only mobile money management app that I use. There are others out there, sure, but for my needs, Personal Capital fills a nicheand fills it well. Personal Capital as Daily Money Tracker I use Personal Capital as a daily tracker. Quicken 2007 is my actual go-to tool for entering and analyzing my data, but Personal Capital is what I've used for the past five years to check on my accounts to make sure everything is okay. Believe it or not, Personal Capital has saved my bacon several times. What? My credit card payment is due today? Whoops! I'd better go pay it. Wait! What's this strange charge on my account? That's not me. Let me call my bank. Whoa! I forgot to pay my garbage bill. I'd better handle that when I get home. Because Personal Capital connects to (most of) my accounts, I'm able to look at everything from a unified dashboard. I don't have to log in to each credit card and bank account to verify everything. I can do it from one place. (Okay, not my credit union. I still have to go check that separately.) Here, for instance, is a look at my recent transactions. (I have no idea what the graph is tracking. I'm not sure I care.)

When I shared my financial situation recently, a few readers wondered why I don't count my business finances when tracking my entire money picture. Well, in Personal Capital I do. Because I can connect the app to both personal and business accounts, I can get an idea of the Big Picture. Here you can see that most of my expenses for January so far have been blog related.

I'll admit, it's very nice to have a single app where I can view all of my recent transactions, both personal and business. Although I only take action on this info maybe twice per year, it sets my mind at ease. It takes thirty seconds of my time each day, but that's thirty seconds I'm happy to spend. Personal Capital as Investment Tracker Honestly, though, Personal Capital isn't meant to be a daily money-management tool. For that, I'd use something like You Need a Budget. Personal Capital is specifically designed to monitor your investments. Because of this, the Personal Capital app has a variety of tools to help investors. First up, there's the plain ol' portfolio view:

Nothing special here, right? You get a list of your investments and a graph of their performance over the past 90 days. Nothing special, but still easier for me than logging into the Fidelity website (or app). (As a passive investor, though, I don't actually look at investment performance that often. I might check it once per weekbut a couple of times per month is more likely.) You can also get a breakdown of your asset allocation:

The Personal Capital app also offers something interesting something I think Vanguard and Fidelity should offer. They have a tool that analyzes the fees on your investment accounts. As you probably know, fees are one of the top drags on the average investor's performance. Too many suckers pay 1% or 2% per year (or more!) in mutual fund costs. Index funds have risen to prominence because they promise management fees of 0.20% or 0.10% (or lower). Personal Capital makes it clear just how much you're paying in fees.

In my case, I'm doing fairly well except in my rollover IRA. But I'm okay with that. That rollover IRA is 100% invested in a real-estate investment trust (or REIT), and those carry higher expense ratios. (True story: That REIT is actually my highest performing investment over the past decade!) Personal Capital's Retirement Calculator All of these other features are great, but there's one main reason I continue to use Personal Capital: its retirement calculator. As I mentioned the other day, I hate most retirement calculators. They're overly simplistic. Their assumptions are bogus. They're designed to get users to save more than they need. The Personal Capital retirement calculator isn't the best tool on the market we'll look at two better tools during the next week but it's pretty damn good for something that's free and built into an otherwise useful app. This section is going to be the biggest part of this review, and it's going to contain plenty of screenshots. You've been warned. First up, here's a look at my own personal financial situation as of this morning. (Sorry for the mute notification in the middle of the screenshot. My bad. Not sure why I was muting my iPad, but I can't fix it now.)

Based on my current situation $736,170 in liquid investments and roughly $60,000 of annual expenses Personal Capital says I'll run out of money at 62. This doesn't differ much from other retirement calculators I've looked at. But here is where Personal Capital gets fun (and the reason I'm obsessed with it). Do you see those + signs across from Investment Events and Spending Goals? If you click on those, you can add new events. (And if you click on existing events, you can modify those.) This means you can tweak your parameters over and over and over again. What if, for instance, I decreased my spending from $60,000 per year to $42,000 per year? (This is my aim for 2019.)

Well, look at that. If I re-embrace frugality, my money will likely last until I'm 72 instead of 62. Nice! And now that I'm back to work at the box factory, what if I stay there for ten years and earn $20,000 annually?

Holy cats! As you can see, working part-time makes a ginormous difference. If I reduce my spending to $3500 per month while earning $20,000 per year, I'm golden. I shouldn't run out of money before my projected age of demise. (Even in a worst-case scenario, my money would last until age 67.) And if I end up with an inheritance? Party time!

Okay, maybe I'm getting a little too out of control there. Let's dial things back. Let's get rid of the inheritance and bring my spending back to current levels. If I work part-time for ten years, what then?

Hm. Not enough to get me to where I want to go, is it? (Plus, I was muting the sound again. What the heck?) Okay, what if I decide to sell this house at some point in the next ten years. What then?

Okay, not bad. That makes me wonder, though, what if I did not decide to go back to work for the family business. What then?

Well, I guess that's not bad, but it's not nearly as good as if I'm bringing in some sort of income. Okay, let's look at the ultimate optimistic scenario. Let's say I trim my spending from $60,000 per year to $42,000 per year. Let's assume I spend the next decade at the box factory earning $20,000 per year. Let's assume that my mother dies in ten years or so and leaves me an inheritance. Let's assume that Kim and I sell this place after increasing frustration with the never-ending repairs, then move into a rented apartment. After all those assumptions, what does my future look like?

But that's a future that's far too rosy than the one I think lies ahead. You get the point, though. Even without the app's other features, I'd love Personal Capital just for its retirement calculator. It's more fun and flexible than 95% of the other retirement calculators on the market. (As I mentioned, we'll take a peek at the 5% that are better over the next few days.) The Bottom Line I have been using Personal Capital for five years now. It's nowhere near a complete money-management tool, and I know that. But I don't care. I don't expect it to be the biggest and bestest. I accept it for what it is. Personal Capital is great at a few things: Monitoring your money on a daily basis.Tracking (and analyzing) your investment portfolio.Playing with various retirement scenarios. If you're not interested in these three tasks, Personal Capital probably isn't right for you. If you want a lot of detail and analysis, Personal Capital probably isn't right for you. If you have a lot of money invested and don't want people to pester you with phone calls, Personal Capital probably isn't right for you. For everyone else, though, Personal Capital is a useful (if imperfect) tool. If you decide to use it, just be aware of its limitations. As I say, I've been using it for five years. It's not my top tool, but it's the one I access most often. That's worth something, I guess. I'm curious, though. Many GRS readers must also be using Personal Capital. What are your experiences like? Do you recommend it? What are your favorite features? What do you not like? Would you recommend Personal Capital to a friend?

Author: J.D. Roth In 2006, J.D. founded Get Rich Slowly to document his quest to get out of debt. Over time, he learned how to save and how to invest. Today, he's managed to reach early retirement! He wants to help you master your money and your life. No scams. No gimmicks. Just smart money advice to help you reach your goals. https://www.getrichslowly.org/personal-capital/

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translationandbetrayals · 4 years ago

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Wolf's Rain: Understanding its Opening and Ending Songs

A post-apocalyptic world. A cold land covered in snow or never ending deserts. It’s a dying world.

In this world, wolves are believed to have been extinct for 200 years and a legend tells of the doors to Paradise one day opening, however, the only ones who will be able to find their way there will be the wolves. The story follows a group of 4 wolves who are looking for Paradise. They don’t know anything about each other’s pasts and are all alone until finding one another. I remember first watching this anime when I was about 9 or 10 years old, that was about a year or two after its release. Back then I thought it was a nice story about wolves. Now, about 15 years later, I watched it again. In this re-watching I found myself immersed in a completely different experience. I started to understand the depth of the story, its solitude and sparkles of hope. And more than anything I found myself reflected in each of the characters (in different ways and degrees). On the other hand, all my life I’ve loved music, it moves me. And this anime has, in my opinion, an exceptional soundtrack. So, here I will discuss the relevance of Wolf’s Rain’s opening and ending songs. Below are the complete lyrics (not the shortened versions they use as op/ed) and the links to the music. Both songs (and the whole ost) are original for this production and mainly composed, produces and arranged by Yoko Kanno, therefore, they add value to the story and lucky for us these lyrics are, originally, in English.

Stray (op) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mxju870VwdA

Stray! Stray! In the cold breeze That I walk alone The memories of generations burn within me Been forever Since I've cried the pain of sorrow I'll live and die the pride that my people gave me I'm here standing on the edge And staring up at where the moon should be Ooohhhhhh [Chorus] Stray No regret cause I've got nothing to lose Ever stray So I'm gonna live my life as I choose Until I fall Stray! In the white freeze Never spoke of tears Or opened up to anyone including myself I would like to Find a way to open to you Been a while, don't know if I remember how to I'm here waiting on the edge Would I be alright showing myself to you It's always been so hard to do [Chorus] Is there a place waiting for me? Somewhere that I belong Or will I always live this way? Always stray No regret cause I've got nothing to lose Ever stray So I'm gonna live my life as I choose Cause all things fall Stray For the opening they used a strong song. There is a sense of vitality to the rhythm and lyrics. The first paragraph talks about cold breeze, this can be interpreted as the state of the world, dying, taking its last breaths before the end. Then goes on to memories burning within, not crying out the pain and sorrow and lastly pride of their people. This is all linked to being a wolf. Normally, wolves live in packs, however, this story starts by showing wolves who live alone or not with their own species (they live surrounded by humans). These lines also make a direct reference to the main character, Kiba, a white wolf who is proud to the point of telling another wolf he has lost his “wolf pride” by walking in human form and not his original one. Kiba represents not only pride but idealism. He does not see anything truly good in the way humans live and is always aiming for something humans can never reach, Paradise. He feels the imprint of the wolf’s calling to find it within him. He is the most “wolf-like” one of the characters, even when they are all wolves. Then it goes to say “I’m here standing on the edge / And staring up at where the moon should be”. The edge would signify the “end of the world” not in the sense of a literal edge where it just finished physically but as the collapse of the way of living or even of all living creatures. And as they are wolves they howl to the moon, even more if this moon they are howling to is a full one. The chorus, even when it is strong and lively, brings a sense of loss. The reason why they have nothing to lose and will live as they choose is because they have already lost everything that they had. And being a stray means no attachments. Therefore, it is time to just go and find a “future” in Paradise. As Kiba, at some point in the story, answers when asked “what is in Paradise?”, the future. The second paragraph talks about never talking about tears in the storm and trying to open up to others as well as themselves. The tears are the sorrows they have all lived separately and don’t share. Nevertheless, little by little, they start opening up to each other and accepting what has happened and what they have done and tried to leave behind. In the end, all their experiences made them who they are and have led them to where they are. Then there is a reaffirmation of the end of the world and their effort at acceptance. The third paragraph, which is more of an encore, talks about the insecurity of never finding what they are looking for, a place to belong, where they are wanted. There is a shadow hanging over them, the shadow of never being able to rest. The song ends with a slightly different chorus. First, an affirmation of them always being strays, even if they found each other they are not and will never be a real pack. And second, the realisation that not only they will fall but that everything falls.

Gravity (ed) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AQlFoiY2KVU

Been a long road to follow, Been there and gone tomorrow, Without saying goodbye to yesterday Are the memories I hold still valid? Or have the tears deluded them? Maybe this time tomorrow, The rain will cease to follow, And the mist will fade into one more today Something somewhere out there keeps calling Am I going home? Will I hear someone Singing solace to the silent moon? Zero gravity What's it like? (Am I alone?) Is somebody there beyond these heavy aching feet? Still the road keeps on telling me to go on… Something is pulling me I feel the gravity of it all The ending song is a complete opposite of the opening. The rhythm is soft and nostalgic, however, the lyrics are somehow hopeful and soft. At first it talks about the long journey and never staying anywhere. And the last line “without saying goodbye to yesterday” tells us the past is a hunting presence as there is no really leaving it behind. Then it shows there is recognition of the memories, there is acceptance. But as there is acceptance there is the questioning of their validity. Now the past is a part of them but as such will it somehow change their perspective? The next lines give hope of a new beginning. The possibility of the rain (sorrow) to stop. The fourth paragraph talks about their motivation. Finding home, someone. And finally “Singing solace to the silent moon”, is the hope of finding other wolves who have made the same journey. This is followed by “Zero gravity / What’s it like (am I alone?)” which may be the indication of a dream-like state. Like floating without real direction because the wolves’ journey to find Paradise is not really physical, it is spiritual. Finally there is a recognition of the tiredness from the journey, the sense of finality, and the wondering if they will find what they are looking for. Nevertheless, even if they have no certainties, there is a calling pushing them to go on. They feel a gravity pulling them towards Paradise. The ending song is melancholic by its melody but uplifting by its message. I consider relevant how both songs relate so closely to the story and the characters. It shows a diversity of emotions and the complexity and depth of the wolves. P.D. This post will have a follow up analysing some of the songs within the anime that have English lyrics.

Alejandra Donoso

#Anime #essay #submission

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biofunmy · 5 years ago

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‘The Handmaid’s Tale’ Wants to Be More Than TV Medicine

What do you do when reality starts looking uncomfortably like your dystopian fiction?

When Bruce Miller began work on a TV adaptation of Margaret Atwood’s 1985 book “The Handmaid’s Tale,” the primaries for the 2016 presidential election still hadn’t happened. The Supreme Court was less conservative. Thousands of children hadn’t yet been separated from their families at the southern border.

The events in Atwood’s novel, set in a religious dictatorship called Gilead in which the few fertile women are separated from their own children and forced to reproduce for powerful couples, seemed … if not quite impossible, then at least not imminent.

Since then, legislators in several states have voted to ban or limit women’s access to abortions, and it seems increasingly possible that Roe v. Wade will be challenged. Families have been broken up. Isolationism has flourished. Many of the things that happen in the third season of “The Handmaid’s Tale,” which began Wednesday on Hulu, “are close to what’s happening” in America, Miller said.

“It’s horrible,” he added. “Our job is to think of what would happen in one of the worst places on Earth. Then it’s our place.”

After sticking to the plot of Atwood’s novel for its first season, Miller and his writers went beyond their source material for the second, imagining the transformation of June (Elisabeth Moss) from a regular young woman into more of a freedom fighter. Given the opportunity to escape Gilead in the Season 2 finale, she chose to stay. Critics wondered if the misery was sustainable.

In an interview in New York last week, Miller discussed violence fatigue, his efforts to keep the series entertaining in a heavy political climate, and how he runs a show so intimately interested in the experience and pain of being a woman. These are edited excerpts from that conversation.

It seems to me there is a less violence in this new season than there was in Season 2.

It depends how you define violence. Gilead is a brutal place. Brutal places express themselves through brutality. Just because I’m tired of it doesn’t mean it’s going to stop. I really try to show only the things that if you didn’t see, you wouldn’t understand the story or the characters. You have to go through it with June in order to understand her. To take that away is to take away what June is fighting against.

Also, there’s the cautionary part of the tale. We don’t ever make up cruelties, because that just seems like pornography. We unfortunately have plenty of material that exists in the world.

The first season debuted in the first half of 2017. How has the political climate in America over the last two years affected the show?

I started writing Season 1 before the primaries began. I had no idea who was going to run. It’s nice to feel like you’re doing a political show at a political time — it’s not all the time that people are thinking about how government works, or doesn’t work. I think all that stuff has much more of a bearing on conversations and in the world now.

It’s not just in America. I notice that when I go to other countries, they feel like the show completely reflects their political system, especially when I was in Rio de Janeiro. They were crazy for the show because they’re having a #MeToo movement in their culture, which has different and more serious problems than ours.

I think there’s a little bit of this story that you can see in your political world. That’s been the case for 35 years, since the book came out. It’s the universality of Margaret that I’m hitching my wagon to.

There is a sense that watching a show about a repressive dystopia isn’t the best escapism when your political reality feels repressive. Has that changed the way you think about the show as entertainment?

I want the show to be entertaining. The most important thing is that when you turn it on, you want to keep watching until the end. You don’t want it to be people taking their medicine. You want it to be an interesting story.

I want to play with viewers’ expectations and my kids’ expectations because they have consumed so much more narrative than I did. They see 70 stories a day. My daughter who’s 14 walks in and goes, “That’s the bad guy,” just from the angle of the shot. All I’m trying to do is fool Tess.

Can you tell me about the writers room and how you make a show that is so centered on women’s experiences?

We’ve had pretty much the same people in the writers room since the beginning. The room is majority women.

It’s a show driven by a woman’s point of view: It’s June moving through the world. I don’t know what that’s like, as much as I imagine. That’s the entirety of my job, I’m always writing somebody else, so there are things I don’t know.

I think one of the problems with the journey for more diversity and diverse voices in the writers room is you don’t want a singular voice, because a singular voice ends up being just as stereotyping. You want people to fight it out. So you need people who are both willing to be honest and also don’t feel bad when you start asking them questions about superpersonal things, about sexual assault, about child-rearing, about their feelings about being pregnant, miscarriages … all of those things you have to discuss in the writers room.

We tried to bring in at least one new writer every year because you’ve got to have someone who watched the previous season and can say, “Well that didn’t make any sense.”

So much of the plot is driven by these deeply horrific experiences: rape, torture, imprisonment. How do you approach writing about trauma on the show?

We do research through experts. We do a ton of research. I always like to start with the real thing, because you can extrapolate off that.

I’m certainly not an expert in feminism, or totalitarianism, or the Bible, and the people in the show are, so I have to bring in people. And I think the biggest assumption that I can make that’s going to screw me is to assume I know what it’s like.

For example, we were very interested in this season about what happens when Emily [a handmaid played by Alexis Bledel] gets across the border. She’s now a refugee. What the hell does that look like? And so we got the statement that you have to make, and that’s what the guy says to her: “If you return to your home country, would you be persecuted based on being a woman? Would you be subject to the danger of torture or risk to your life? As a person in need of protection, do you wish to seek asylum in the country of Canada?”

June’s relationship with Serena, the wife of the Commander she is assigned to, was so nuanced in the last season and continues to evolve. At what point did you decide to develop their relationship?

It happens naturally. I think it was Margaret Atwood who made the decision for them to have such a close and complicated relationship because that’s how it was in the book. I also think we follow Elisabeth and [Yvonne Strahovski, who plays Serena] more than they follow us. That’s the great thing about TV, you can watch an episode and then adjust the next one based on what the actors do. They’re just as much storytellers, narrators as we are.

What is the show’s relationship to the book at this point?

I feel like the show is very closely connected with the book. The goal for the show was just to make the book into a TV show; I had no interest in changing anything.

Everybody’s like, “How could you continue the book?” I’m like, “How could I not?” If I’m given the chance, all I want is to know what happens next.

I really do think that I’m never getting very far away from the book. I know people feel like the story is going beyond it, but it’s June and Gilead. I am in contact with Margaret a lot. She reads all the scripts. She sees episodes, and so she feels the same way, I think — that it’s a good extrapolation of her world.

But now Margaret’s writing a sequel.

Yeah, that’s going to be interesting, isn’t it?

Yes. That’s a nice word. The degree of difficulty was 10 and now it becomes 10 plus.

June does seem to have had an awakening over the course of the show, and certainly the June in the book was much less rebellious in a lot of ways.

She was also a woman from a different time. We were mindful that this June should be more like Elisabeth is in the world, rather than like someone who was that age 35 years ago.

Elisabeth has shown me what a real hero looks like, that it’s about being knocked down. It’s about having tiny little victories that you use to build tiny little other victories. What do you learn from your failures? I don’t feel like we see it very much, the heroism of just doggedness.

There’s a moment in the third episode of the new season where June’s voice-over talks to her mom and says: “You wanted a women’s culture, well now there is one. It isn’t what you meant, but it exists.” The idea of the resistance in Gilead’s being a version of the female-led society some feminists have wanted for decades is really interesting.

That’s from the book. And there are some things from the book that have fascinated the writers room ever since we sat down. We have quotes from the book up all over the place. It’s much more about things that have stuck with us and puzzled us. We spent three years kind of teasing that quote apart.

I love the fact that it shows that a women’s culture can be just as toxic as positive. This is a women’s culture, but it’s a women’s culture that has been vulcanized and then turned on itself.

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andrewdburton · 6 years ago

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The pros and cons of Personal Capital

If you've read money blogs over the past five years, you've heard about Personal Capital. Personal Capital is a free money-tracking tool with a beautiful interface and — gasp — no advertising. (One of my big complains about Mint is that it shoves ads in your face.)

Many of my friends and colleagues promote the hell out of Personal Capital because the company pays good money when people sign up. (And yes, links to Personal Capital in this review absolutely put money in my pocket. But any Personal Capital link you see anywhere on the web puts money in somebody's pocket.)

I sometimes wonder, though, if any of my pals actually uses Personal Capital, you know? All of their reviews are glowing. While I like Personal Capital, I've been frustrated by the app in the past. Even today, I find that it's not as useful as I'd like.

What are my issues with Personal Capital?

For a long time, I was frustrated trying to get Personal Capital to connect to my accounts. It still won't connect to my credit union, but that's fine. I can enter my balance manually. It was frustrating, though, that for years I couldn't get Personal Capital to connect to my Fidelity investment accounts. They work now…but I'm always worried that they won't. The app still won't connect to my Capital One credit card — and hasn't for over a year, which I find mind-blowing.

The phone calls! My god, the phone calls! Here's a not-so-secret secret: The Personal Capital app — while beautiful and useful — is actually bait. It's a lure. Its aim is to attract high net-worth users to connect their accounts. When they do, Personal Capital (the company) begins a phone campaign in an attempt to recruit the users as clients. Personal Capital isn't actually an app company; it's a wealth-management company. They want people with lots of money to sign up. (I can't comment on whether this is a good deal or not. I don't want a financial advisor. I ignore all of the calls from Personal Capital.)

Personal Capital has pretty reports, but there aren't enough of them. My copy of Quicken 2007 — ugly as it is — has 23 different reports and 10 different graphs. (Plus, you can customize many more.) Personal Capital has maybe…nine ways to look at your money? (I can't tell for sure.)

The security is over the top. I suppose I should be happy about this, but I'm not. It feels like I'm constantly having to verify my identity via email or text message. Some of my other accounts make me do this occasionally, but it feels like Personal Capital does this multiple times per week. That's crazy!

Now, these complaints aside, here's a confession: I've been using the Personal Capital app for 5+ years. For real. I can't remember when I started, but I do remember being cranky because a Personal Capital rep didn't know who I was at Fincon 2013 in St. Louis. “I use your app,” I told him. “And I have a big blog.” (I wince now at the thought of my arrogance.)

Despite the drawbacks, there must be something to it. Right? Today — using my current financial situation — let's look at the pros and cons of Personal Capital.

Quicken 2007 vs. Personal Capital

As regular readers know, I'm an old fogey. My money management tool of choice is an antiquated copy of Quicken for Mac 2007. This tool is so important to me, in fact, that I'm currently refusing to update my system software to the latest version (Mac OS Mojave) because I'm afraid it'll break Quicken. (Other user experiences are mixed.) How important is Quicken 2007 to me? No joke: I would buy a used Mac laptop just to run that software.

As much as I love Quicken, it has its drawbacks. One of those is that it's a pre-mobile app. Quicken 2007 is almost as old as this blog. It came out roughly one year before the first iPhone. (Get Rich Slowly launched on 15 April 2006. I can't find a release date for Quicken 2007, but it was available by at least 30 August 2006. The iPhone launched on 29 June 2007.) If I want to interact with Quicken, I have to sit down at my desktop computer.

Because I'm a nerd, I'm attached to my mobile devices. I have an iPad. And an iPhone. And an Apple Watch. (Why isn't it an iWatch? I don't know. Apple doesn't give a fig about consistency.) I want to be able to track my money from my mobile devices.

Trust me: I've tried tons of other mobile apps. I don't really like any of them. I do, however, like Personal Capital…warts and all. I would never ever use it as my only money management tool, but as one piece of a bigger package, it'a actually kind of awesome.

Personal Capital is the only mobile money management app that I use. There are others out there, sure, but for my needs, Personal Capital fills a niche…and fills it well.

Personal Capital as Daily Money Tracker

I use Personal Capital as a daily tracker. Quicken 2007 is my actual go-to tool for entering and analyzing my data, but Personal Capital is what I've used for the past five years to check on my accounts to make sure everything is okay.

Believe it or not, Personal Capital has saved my bacon several times. What? My credit card payment is due today? Whoops! I'd better go pay it. Wait! What's this strange charge on my account? That's not me. Let me call my bank. Whoa! I forgot to pay my garbage bill. I'd better handle that when I get home.

Because Personal Capital connects to (most of) my accounts, I'm able to look at everything from a unified dashboard. I don't have to log in to each credit card and bank account to verify everything. I can do it from one place. (Okay, not my credit union. I still have to go check that separately.)

Here, for instance, is a look at my recent transactions. (I have no idea what the graph is tracking. I'm not sure I care.)

Personal Capital as Investment Tracker

Honestly, though, Personal Capital isn't meant to be a daily money-management tool. For that, I'd use something like You Need a Budget. Personal Capital is specifically designed to monitor your investments. Because of this, the Personal Capital app has a variety of tools to help investors.

First up, there's the plain ol' portfolio view:

(As a passive investor, though, I don't actually look at investment performance that often. I might check it once per week…but a couple of times per month is more likely.)

You can also get a breakdown of your asset allocation:

The Personal Capital app also offers something interesting — something I think Vanguard and Fidelity should offer. They have a tool that analyzes the fees on your investment accounts. As you probably know, fees are one of the top drags on the average investor's performance. Too many suckers pay 1% or 2% per year (or more!) in mutual fund costs. Index funds have risen to prominence because they promise management fees of 0.20% or 0.10% (or lower).

Personal Capital makes it clear just how much you're paying in fees.

Personal Capital's Retirement Calculator

All of these other features are great, but there's one main reason I continue to use Personal Capital: its retirement calculator.

As I mentioned the other day, I hate most retirement calculators. They're overly simplistic. Their assumptions are bogus. They're designed to get users to save more than they need.

The Personal Capital retirement calculator isn't the best tool on the market — we'll look at two better tools during the next week — but it's pretty damn good for something that's free and built into an otherwise useful app.

This section is going to be the biggest part of this review, and it's going to contain plenty of screenshots. You've been warned.

First up, here's a look at my own personal financial situation as of this morning. (Sorry for the “mute” notification in the middle of the screenshot. My bad. Not sure why I was muting my iPad, but I can't fix it now.)

Based on my current situation — $736,170 in liquid investments and roughly $60,000 of annual expenses — Personal Capital says I'll run out of money at 62. This doesn't differ much from other retirement calculators I've looked at.

But here is where Personal Capital gets fun (and the reason I'm obsessed with it). Do you see those + signs across from Investment Events and Spending Goals? If you click on those, you can add new events. (And if you click on existing events, you can modify those.) This means you can tweak your parameters over and over and over again.

What if, for instance, I decreased my spending from $60,000 per year to $42,000 per year? (This is my aim for 2019.)

Well, look at that. If I re-embrace frugality, my money will likely last until I'm 72 instead of 62. Nice!

And now that I'm back to work at the box factory, what if I stay there for ten years and earn $20,000 annually?

Holy cats! As you can see, working part-time makes a ginormous difference. If I reduce my spending to $3500 per month while earning $20,000 per year, I'm golden. I shouldn't run out of money before my projected age of demise. (Even in a “worst-case scenario”, my money would last until age 67.)

And if I end up with an inheritance? Party time!

Hm. Not enough to get me to where I want to go, is it? (Plus, I was muting the sound again. What the heck?) Okay, what if I decide to sell this house at some point in the next ten years. What then?

Okay, not bad. That makes me wonder, though, what if I did not decide to go back to work for the family business. What then?

Well, I guess that's not bad, but it's not nearly as good as if I'm bringing in some sort of income.

Okay, let's look at the ultimate optimistic scenario. Let's say I trim my spending from $60,000 per year to $42,000 per year. Let's assume I spend the next decade at the box factory earning $20,000 per year. Let's assume that my mother dies in ten years or so and leaves me an inheritance. Let's assume that Kim and I sell this place after increasing frustration with the never-ending repairs, then move into a rented apartment.

After all those assumptions, what does my future look like?

But that's a future that's far too rosy than the one I think lies ahead.

You get the point, though. Even without the app's other features, I'd love Personal Capital just for its retirement calculator. It's more fun and flexible than 95% of the other retirement calculators on the market. (As I mentioned, we'll take a peek at the 5% that are better over the next few days.)

The Bottom Line

I have been using Personal Capital for five years now. It's nowhere near a complete money-management tool, and I know that. But I don't care. I don't expect it to be the biggest and bestest. I accept it for what it is.

Personal Capital is great at a few things:

Monitoring your money on a daily basis.

Tracking (and analyzing) your investment portfolio.

Playing with various retirement scenarios.

If you're not interested in these three tasks, Personal Capital probably isn't right for you. If you want a lot of detail and analysis, Personal Capital probably isn't right for you. If you have a lot of money invested and don't want people to pester you with phone calls, Personal Capital probably isn't right for you.

For everyone else, though, Personal Capital is a useful (if imperfect) tool. If you decide to use it, just be aware of its limitations. As I say, I've been using it for five years. It's not my top tool, but it's the one I access most often. That's worth something, I guess.

I'm curious, though. Many GRS readers must also be using Personal Capital. What are your experiences like? Do you recommend it? What are your favorite features? What do you not like? Would you recommend Personal Capital to a friend?

The post The pros and cons of Personal Capital appeared first on Get Rich Slowly.

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abckidstvyara · 7 years ago

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Mobile gaming is having a moment, and Apple has the reins

It’s moved beyond tradition and into the realm of meme that Apple manages to dominate the news cycle around major industry events all while not actually participating in said events. CES rolls around and every story is about HomeKit or its competitors, another tech giant has a conference and the news is that Apple updated some random subsystem of its ever-larger ecosystem of devices and software.

This is, undoubtedly planned by Apple in many instances. And why not? Why shouldn’t it own the cycle when it can, it’s only strategically sound.

This week, the 2018 Game Developer’s Conference is going on and there’s a bunch of news coverage about various aspects of the show. There are all of the pre-written embargo bits about big titles and high-profile indies, there are the trend pieces and, of course, there’s the traditional ennui-laden ‘who is this event even for’ post that accompanies any industry event that achieves critical mass.

But the absolute biggest story of the event wasn’t even at the event. It was the launch of Fortnite and, shortly thereafter, PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds on mobile devices. Specifically, both were launched on iOS and PUBG hit Android simultaneously.

The launch of Fortnite, especially, resonates across the larger gaming spectrum in several unique ways. It’s the full and complete game as present on consoles, it’s iOS-first and it supports cross-platform play with console and PC players.

This has, essentially, never happened before. There have been stabs at one or more of those conditions on experimental levels but it really marks a watershed in the games industry that could serve to change the psychology around the platform discussion in major ways.

For one, though the shape of GDC has changed over the years as it relates to mobile gaming – it’s only recently that the conference has become dominated by indie titles that are mobile centric. The big players and triple-A console titles still take up a lot of air, but the long tail is very long and mobile is not synonymous with “casual gamers” as it once was.

“I remember the GDC before we launched Monument Valley,” says Dan Gray of Monument Valley 2 studio ustwo. “We were fortunate enough that Unity offered us a place on their stand. Nobody had heard of us or our game and we were begging journalists to come say hello, it’s crazy how things have changed in four years. We’ve now got three speakers at the conference this year, people stop you in the street (within a two block radius) and we’re asked to be part of interviews like this about the future of mobile.”

Zach Gage, the creator of SpellTower, says that things feel like they have calmed down a bit. “It seems like that might be boring, but actually I think it’s quite exciting, because a consequence of it is that playing games has become just a normal thing that everyone does… which frankly, is wild. Games have never had the cultural reach that they do now, and it’s largely because of the App Store and these magical devices that are in everyones pockets.”

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Alto’s Odyssey is the followup to Snowman’s 2015 endless boarder Alto’s Adventure. If you look at these two titles, three years apart, you can see the encapsulation of the growth and maturity of gaming on iOS. The original game was fun, but the newer title is beyond fun and into a realm where you can see the form being elevated into art. And it’s happening blazingly fast.

“There’s a real and continually growing sense that mobile is a platform to launch compelling, artful experiences,” says Snowman’s Ryan Cash. “This has always been the sentiment among the really amazing community of developers we’ve been lucky enough to meet. What’s most exciting to me, now, though, is hearing this acknowledged by representatives of major console platforms. Having conversations with people about their favorite games from the past year, and seeing that many of them are titles tailor-made for mobile platforms, is really gratifying. I definitely don’t want to paint the picture that mobile gaming has ever been some sort of pariah, but there’s a definite sense that more people are realizing how unique an experience it is to play games on these deeply personal devices.”

Mobile gaming as a whole has fought since the beginning against the depiction that it was for wasting time only, not making ‘true art’, which was reserved for consoles or dedicated gaming platforms. Aside from the ‘casual’ vs. ‘hardcore’ debate, which is more about mechanics, there was a general stigma that mobile gaming was a sidecar bet to the main functions of these devices, and that their depth would always reflect that. But the narratives and themes being tackled on the platform beyond just clever mechanics are really incredible.

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Playing Monument Valley 2 together with my daughter really just blew my doors off, and I think it changed a lot of people’s minds in this regard. The interplay between the characters and environment and a surprisingly emotional undercurrent for a puzzle game made it a breakout that was also a breakthrough of sorts.

“There’s so many things about games that are so awesome that the average person on the street doesn’t even know about,” says Gray. “As small developers right now we have the chance to make somebody feel a range of emotions about a video game for the first time, it’s not often you’re in the right place at the right time for this and to do it with the most personal device that sits in your pocket is the perfect opportunity.”

The fact that so many of the highest profile titles are launching on iOS first is a constant source of consternation for Android users, but it’s largely a function of addressable audience.

I spoke to Apple VP Greg Joswiak about Apple’s place in the industry. “Gaming has always been one of the most popular categories on the App Store,” he says. A recent relaunch of the App Store put gaming into its own section and introduced a Today tab that tells stories about the games and about their developers.

That redesign, he says, has been effective. “Traffic to the App Store is up significantly, and with higher traffic, of course, comes higher sales.”

“One thing I think smaller developers appreciate from this is the ability to show the people behind the games,” says ustwo’s Gray about the new gaming and Today sections in the App Store. “Previously customers would just see an icon and assume a corporation of 200 made the game, but now it’s great we can show this really is a labour of love for a small group of people who’re trying to make something special. Hopefully this leads to players seeing the value in paying up front for games in the future once they can see the craft that goes into something.”

Snowman’s Cash agrees. “It’s often hard to communicate the why behind the games you’re making — not just what your game is and does, but how much went into making it, and what it could mean to your players. The stories that now sit on the Today tab are a really exciting way to do this; as an example, when Alto’s Odyssey released for pre-order, we saw a really positive player response to the discussion of the game’s development. I think the variety that the new App Store encourages as well, through rotational stories and regularly refreshed sections, infuses a sense of variety that’s great for both players and developers. There’s a real sense I’m hearing that this setup is equipped to help apps and games surface, and stayed surfaced, in a longer term and more sustainable way.”

In addition, there are some technical advantages that keep Apple ahead of Android in this arena. Plenty of Android devices are very performant and capable in individual ways, but Apple has a deep holistic grasp of its hardware that allow it to push platform advantages in introducing new frameworks like ARKit. Google’s efforts in the area with AR Core are just getting started with the first batch of 1.0 apps coming online now, but Google will always be hamstrung by the platform fragmentation that forces developers to target a huge array of possible software and hardware limitations that their apps and games will run up against.

This makes shipping technically ambitious projects like Fortnite on Android as well as iOS a daunting task. “There’s a very wide range of Android devices that we want to support,” Epic Games’ Nick Chester told Forbes. “We want to make sure Android players have a great experience, so we’re taking more time to get it right.“

That wide range of devices includes an insane differential in GPU capability, processing power, Android version and update status.

“We bring a very homogenous customer base to developers where 90% of [devices] are on the current versions of iOS,” says Joswiak. Apple’s customers embrace those changes and updates quickly, he says, and this allows developers to target new features and the full capabilities of the devices more quickly.

Ryan Cash sees these launches on iOS of ‘full games’ as they exist elsewhere as a touchstone of sorts that could legitimize the idea of mobile as a parity platform.

“We have a few die-hard Fortnite players on the team, and the mobile version has them extremely excited,” says Cash. “I think more than the completeness of these games (which is in of itself a technical feat worth celebrating!), things like Epic’s dedication to cross-platform play are massive. Creating these linked ecosystems where players who prefer gaming on their iPhones can enjoy huge cultural touchstone titles like Fortnite alongside console players is massive. That brings us one step closer to an industry attitude which focuses more on accessibility, and less on siloing off experiences and separating them into tiers of perceived quality.”

“I think what is happening is people are starting to recognize that ios devices are everywhere, and they are the primary computers of many people,” says Zach Gage. “When people watch a game on Twitch, they take their iPhone out of their pocket and download it. Not because they want to know if there’s a mobile version, but because they just want the game. It’s natural to assume that these games available for a computer or a playstation, and it’s now natural to assume that it would be available for your phone.”

Ustwo’s Gray says that it’s great that the big games are transitioning, but also cautions that there needs to be a sustainable environment for mid-priced games on iOS that specifically use the new capabilities of these devices.

It’s great that such huge games are transitioning this way, but for me I’d really like to see more $30+ titles designed and developed specifically for iPhone and iPad as new IP, really taking advantage of of how these devices are used,” he says. “It’s definitely going to benefit the AppStore as a whole, but It does need to be acknowledged however that the way players interact with console/PC platforms and mobile are inherently different and should be designed accordingly. Session lengths and the interaction vocabulary of players are two of the main things to consider, but if a game manages to somehow satisfy the benefits of all those platforms then great, but I think it’s hard.”

Apple may not be an official sponsor of GDC, but it is hosting two sessions at the show including an introduction to Metal 2, its rendering pipeline, and ARKit, its hope for the future of gaming on mobile. This presence is exciting for a number of reasons, as it shows a greater willingness by Apple to engage the community that has grown around its platforms, but also that the industry is becoming truly integrated, with mobile taking its rightful place alongside console and portable gaming as a viable target for the industry’s most capable and interesting talent.

“They’re bringing the current generation of console games to iOS,” Joswiak says, of launches like Fortnite and PUBG and notes that he believes we’re at a tipping point when it comes to mobile gaming, because mobile platforms like the iPhone and iOS offer completely unique combinations of hardware and software features that are iterated on quickly.

“Every year we are able to amp up the tech that we bring to developers,” he says, comparing it to the 4-5 year cycle in console gaming hardware. “Before the industry knew it, we were blowing people away [with the tech]. The full gameplay of these titles has woken a lot of people up.”

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roselleparknews · 7 years ago

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The first meeting of the municipality was rescheduled due to snow from its original January 4th date to this past Sunday. At noon, with a pounding of the gavel, as Mayor Carl Hokanson started the last year of his first-term as the head of the borough, Roselle Park introduced the 118th version of the borough’s governing body.

After Mariann Brenner led those in attendance with singing the National Anthem, First Ward Councilman Eugene Meola gave his farewell address. Counilwoman-At-Large Charlene Storey was not in attendance, having stated during the December 28th special meeting of the governing body that she would be absent due to the health of her 96-year-old father-in-law. At that meeting, Councilwoman Storey gave her closing remarks and are available in a separate article [link].

[accordions load=”0″] [accordion title=”Click to read Councilman Meola’s Farewell Address”][In] 2011, I sat here and I said my farewells and I thought that everyone on council was going to have a hard time without me but I said, ‘No, they’ll be just fine.’

I’ve seen a lot more now since then and I know the hard work that goes into being a councilperson. What you see here, just us sitting up here and saying ‘yes’ or ‘no’ to certain questions put before us, is just the tip. Meetings that come and… every day there seems to be something that we have to talk about, some fires that we have to put out, and some things that need to be discussed. It’s a long process and I wish Jayme all the luck in the world and I will be at her disposal should she need me for any reason at all. I’ll be available for any questions or any particular person in the first ward you might want me to comfort or talk to. Because I know over the years, they’ve chewed my ears a few times and told me how they like things and how they didn’t like them and we always came to a compromise. These are first ward residents.

Being a councilperson, I made a lot of friends that will be here after I step off this dais. I expect to speak with them now that I’m not a councilperson anymore and they’ve taken the time to tell me so. This is a plus to me. I can’t put it [into] words [but] it comes from my heart. There’s a lot of good people in this community; people that make this community. The people in the borough hall, I take my hat off to you; to do this every day. The councilpeople, all the clerks, and the people in charge. I don’t know how Ken [Blum] does this. I wish he was here so I could tell him, I don’t know how he does it but he makes the borough run, and the clerk, everyone. So I’m going to just be brief and I will come back from time-to-time to tell people what I liked [and] what I don’t like but I’ll be sitting out there when I do it.

So, that being that, I will just say my farewells to everyone on council, wish them the best of luck, and that’s it. Say [my] goodbyes and that’s it. Thank you very much for hearing me out and farewell.

Thank you.[/accordion] [/accordions]

Mr. Meola stepped down and entered private life as he sat in the audience.

The oaths of office were then given publicly and formally to two new councilmembers. Newcomer, and the only woman on the dais, Jayme Negron, was sworn in as first ward councilwoman. Former mayor Joseph DeIorio also, for the seventh time, raised his hand and gave his word that he would do his best for Roselle Park as Councilman-At-Large. This is the third elected office Mr. DeIorio has held in local government.

Once both took their seats on the dais, the 2018 municipal governing body roll call was held with all elected officials in attendance. The only person missing from the dais was Chief Financial Officer Ken Blum.

Mayor Hokanson started the year’s offical business with his annual address.

[accordions load=”0″] [accordion title=”Click to read Mayor Hokanson’s Annual Address”]There are some old and new faces – two new faces to be exact – sitting up here on the dais. I want to ‘tank’ Councilman Meola for his services that he’s given to the people of the first ward and to the borough. I also want to ‘tank’ [that’s] t-a-n-k, it’s a little thing I have, the rest of council and the other department heads for their service. I have always viewed this time of year as a time to stop and reflect on the past accomplishments and also set aggressive goals – but still realistically – for the coming year.

Recently, a friend reminded me of a quote by a baseball coach. He said, “It’s amazing how much can be accomplished when no one worries about taking the credit.”

This is so true, and the point is that as a group we are able to accomplish much. And to those who are privileged to sit up here, hopefully, we will do more.

The borough is on the move. The Meridia project – the largest construction in 50 years – means growth and tax ratables for you, the taxpayers of the Borough of Roselle Park. The new development of the old Sullivan property, as in baseball terms, is on the on-deck circle, which will bring more ratables for you, the taxpayer of the Borough of Roselle Park. Beyond the economic benefit, I am encouraged that the new developments on Westfield Avenue mean foot traffic to help the businesses that are already here to grow and be more prosperous. To meet the needs of the new development, we, not me, we – as council – expanded the hours of the construction department. Thank you, Frank. All new development will [be] up to code and in full compliance.

No one can say that Roselle Park is no business-friendly anymore. You have seen this action take place. It applies to the Hawthorne Street project [which] remained stagnant for 17 years. Again, thank you, Frank. I have said it; if you build it, they will come. And they are coming, folks. Yes, they are coming. I made a promise to my members of the Municipal Land Use Board. I told them last year I will keep you busy. I’m going to keep that promise again this year. Promises will bring in more tax revenue to help you, the taxpayer of the Borough of Roselle Park.

My proposal to grant tax abatement [for] home improvements has also been adopted to help you, again, the taxpayer of Roselle Park, and [to] watch the impact this has on – not mine – our community.

As we enter the new year, I believe that real leadership means always striving to carve out a fresh path. Our differences are so minor compared to our common goals. Let us not be afraid to boast about – not mine, not yours – [but] our Roselle Park. All the different ethnic mix of this community, the fact that we are readily available for rail service, accesses to major highways, and other big businesses [are big pluses]. Thank you, Tom Kean, for getting us that handicap accessibility to make Roselle Park even greater.

Our residents are intense, and the spirit of Roselle Park is alive, very much alive. For those who know me, you know I can’t end my remarks without a reference to the great tank commander General George S. Patton, Jr. He once said, “If everyone is thinking alike, then somebody isn’t thinking.”

Let us strive to work together and show respect for one another’s input so that our wonderful borough can achieve, grow, and prosper. Support our troops. God bless.[/accordion] [/accordions]

First Ward Councilwoman Jayme Negron gave her inaugural address as a public official:

[accordions load=”0″] [accordion title=”Click to read Councilwoman Negron’s remarks”]Good afternoon everyone. First of all, I’m honored to take the place of first ward councilwoman. It is a privilege to serve the first ward, and I hope residents reach out to me with any concerns they might have.

Campaigning can bring out the worst in people. I made a very deliberate choice early on to not speak negatively about my opponents. To be honest, every person who has sat up here has made a mistake at some point. Every person who will hold a place here in the future, myself included, will make a mistake. We are human. Those mistakes will be learning experiences for some and for others their mistakes will be their undoing. But I’d like to believe one of the things that binds all of the previous councilmembers and mayors to the future ones is their love for this town. I know that’s what drove me to run.

So with that said, I’d like to thank Eugene Meola and Maxine Padulsky for running during this election. I believe we all want what’s best for this borough and I have nothing but respect for both candidates. I’d like to thank Eugene specifically for his kindness and support. We stood side-by-side in the rain on election day thanking every resident for coming out to vote, regardless of who they were voting for. That is the way small-town politics should be.

Next, I would like to thank the team of people who worked alongside me and believed in me during my campaign. I chose to run as a Republican not because I believe in party politics but because running with a party of people like Joe DeIorio, Thos Shipley, and Will Fahoury was an honor and a privilege. I knew these men for their character and dedication to Roselle Park before I knew which party they belonged to. Thank you all for your support, advice, and hard work. I have met so many supporters during my campaign and now have the privilege to call some friends. You all know who you are so, in an attempt to keep this speech brief, thank you to each and every one of you.

From the bottom of my heart, I’d like to thank my family. To my husband Antonio, your support and love are what drives me, your encouragement is what fuels me, and your belief in me is what keeps me going. I always will love you more than yesterday. To my children Ayden and Dyanna, you are two pieces of my heart that beat outside of me. I can never tell you enough how proud I am to be your mother. God truly blessed me with two of the most polite, optimistic, tender, cheerful, and loving children any woman could ever hope to have. To all of my family and friends that are here today, thank you for your support, and I love you all endlessly.

In closing, I’d like to give my gratitude to God. My husband and I try our best to go to church on Sundays and apply the lessons we learn to our life every day. At the beginning of my campaign, there were times I doubted myself. Then, one Sunday, our pastor spoke about Nehemiah. God called Nehemiah to rebuild the walls of Jerusalem. Nehemiah faced all kinds of criticism. He was not a carpenter, and many thought he would fail. But he stayed the course and did what he felt God wanted him to do. And he knew God had a plan for him. And in just 52 days he had rebuilt the walls and temple with the help of people who rallied around him and had faith his vision could be accomplished. That Sunday, my doubts were put to rest. I related to Nehemiah’s story. I know I will be faced with opposition often. I know there will be those that prefer to criticize the decisions I make while I’m on council. But there will also be people that stand tall, roll up their sleeves, and work with me to move our borough into a brighter future. It might take longer than 52 days, but we’ll get there if we work together. Thank you all, God bless, and I look forward to working together to make the town we all love even better.

Thank you.[/accordion] [/accordions]

Councilman-At-Large Joseph DeIorio, for the 21st time, addressed residents as an elected official:

[accordions load=”0″] [accordion title=”Click to read Councilman DeIorio’s Remarks”]Ladies and Gentlemen, I am honored to be given the opportunity to return to the governing body as your Councilman-At-Large. My return would not have been possible without the support of the people of Roselle Park – the new families and longtime residents – and for that, I am deeply grateful. For those that chose to vote differently or not vote at all, I hope to earn your trust and support.

It goes without saying that my mom, Gilda DeIorio, is my number one fan. She has been there since day one in good times and in bad and continues to be the strong-willed, independent businesswoman and caring individual that I love and admire. By the way, right now she’s cooking up a storm at La Casa di Martino, so after today’s ceremonies, please join all of us regardless of party or… If you want a good time, come to La Casa di Martino after today’s meeting and enjoy some good hot food and say hi to mom.

I would also like to offer my sincere gratitude to my extended family of friends, new and old; many who are here today, and special thank you to Councilman William Fahoury and to Jessica Johns for your tenacity during this campaign and to most of all for your friendship. To Councilwoman Jayme Lynn Negron, I could not have run with a better person and have been able to know such a wonderful family. I look forward to your new energy and perspective on council.

I would like to thank the members of the local and county Republican Committee, the Roselle Park Chairman Larry Leone, and our 21st District representatives Senator Tom Kean, Assembly members Bramnick and Munoz. Thank you for being here today.

I would also like to thank my husband, Councilman Thos Shipley. It wasn’t surprising that we became the focus of a negative campaign because of the possibility of us being in elected office and as a married couple. But the ever-changing opinions of the people of Roselle Park and the acceptance of the voters thought otherwise, and today we make history in the State of New Jersey and possibly nationwide. As my husband, I love you dearly, but as councilman, I can assure you and to the public that our opinions will not always be the same.

To our retiring members Councilwoman Charlene Storey and Councilman Eugene Meola, thank you. Thank you for your service, and I wish you well in private life. Your service to the borough did not go unnoticed, and many times it was a thankless job. And especially to Councilman Meola; you showed many times that you can be a true gentleman.

I look forward to serving with you Mayor Hokanson and the members of governing body. Individually, we have strengths, skills, and experiences to offer. If we can place our focus on these strengths, we can accomplish much.

While I return to this governing body as councilman-at-large, I return with a different perspective. I did not have to run. I wanted to run for office to share my experiences, more so from my experiences working for and with other communities outside Roselle Park. Interacting with other professionals, learning about their best practices and strengths and strategies and tools, has afforded me the opportunity to bring this knowledge back to Roselle Park.

I have many ideas to share but to implement those ideas and the ideas of all of my colleagues; we need your help. Everyone, not just us sitting up here, but the public at large. This is our community. We play a role, big or small in its development, its successes or its failures.

That is why I will be starting a regular ‘Conversations with your Councilman’ program based on Mayor Hokanson’s successful ‘Meetings with the Mayor’. These meetings will be held periodically in small businesses and other locations throughout the borough, giving small business and organizations the opportunity to share information about their product or service and then lead into an interactive discussion about town business. These ideas will be conveyed over time, but the focus of business development will be paramount.

It has been said [that] Roselle Park is not business-friendly. They said that when I was in office and the same has been said even today. Back then I did not want to believe it, and to some degree, I took offense to it. You see, while I consider elected officials back then and now to be friendly, welcoming of businesses, and excited to recognize existing businesses, as [a] borough government we convey the sentiment inside and outside our municipality in a different way.

I grew up around small business. I grew up pumping gas at my father’s gas station and later working at my mother’s delicatessen. Owning a small business isn’t glamorous. You work long hours, you don’t get paid holidays or paid vacation, and there’s no such thing as sick time. And paid health insurance? Unheard of.That is why 20% of businesses will fail in their first year, and by their fifth year, only half of them will survive. So as everyday people struggle to make ends meet, businesses are also struggling to survive, not only to pay their business expenses but to pay to keep the roof over theirs and their family’s heads.

We have all of the key elements to be a greater community. I’m not just saying this. Statewide research has pointed out that Roselle Park has the key features to succeed and prosper. We all want to be business-friendly, but how we prove will be the larger question.

In his book “Looking Forward”, President Franklin D. Roosevelt wrote, “It is common sense to [take] a method and try it. If it fails, admit it frankly, and try another but above all, try something.”

We have a lot of challenges facing us, but I am positive with the right attitude and the work of this governing body we will get the job done. Thank you.[/accordion] [/accordions]

The meeting proceeding with the necessary business of appointments of those who would serve, in one capacity or another, the residents of Roselle Park.

Fourth Ward Councilman William Fahoury was unanimously elected as council president.

Councilman-At-Large Joseph DeIorio was appointed without objection as the liaison to the Municipal Land Use Board (MLUB).

Fourth Ward Councilman William Fahoury was reappointed by all as the Diversity Committee Council Liaison.

The Recreation Committee liaison was, once again, Second Ward Councilman Joseph Petrosky.

Committees of council was the next item to be voted on with five out of the seven members of council getting two appointments each. Councilman Petrosky was given appointed to the Legislative Committee. Mayor Carl Hokanson was appointed only as the police commissioner.

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The library board saw the return of Jenny Lichtenwalner for a five-year term, replacing Maxine Padulsky who was not re-appointed after completing Alex Balaban’s unexpired term. Ms. Lichtenwalner had been on the board previously but was not re-appointed when her initial term was completed.

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The arts committee had Joseph DeIorio appointed as a resident with Councilman Shipley remaining as the council liaison.

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Animal Control had an additional appointment of former Roselle Park resident Alex Balaban.

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Noticeable from this Solid Waster Advisory Council is that the designee is listed as a position, DPW Superintendent, and not the actual current superintendent Mark Pasquali.

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36 resolutions were read into the record and voted on. There was only resolution, the appointment of the borough historian, that was not unanimous. Resolution 29-18 had Councilman-At-Large DeIorio voting against appointing Patricia Butler as borough historian. When asked for his vote, Councilman-At-Large DeIorio stated, “I felt that the position has become too partisan. Back in March of 2016, I had addressed the governing body at that time regarding an incident that disturbed me when certain members of council were acknowledged by the historian for their donation to the borough’s 115 birthday celebration – leaving out the mayor and other councilmembers. So specifically, because I felt that it’s become partisan.”

Another significant change in the order of business was the postponement of various service professional providers’ appointments, which are usually approved at the first meeting of the year. Those appointments will be made at the January 18th Mayor & Council meeting, after bidders for annual service contracts – which include various attorney positions – are interviewed on two nights – January 9th and 15th.

The 2018 annual organization meeting ended with Mariann Brenner – once again – leading those in attendance in singing “God Bless America”.

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2018 Roselle Park Governing Body

2018 Municipal Annual Organization Meeting The first meeting of the municipality was rescheduled due to snow from its original January 4th date to this past Sunday.

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