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anneapocalypse · 2 years ago

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The Whole Nug: Culinary Treasures of Thedas

Warnings: discussion of fantasy imperialism and real-world imperialism and colonialism.

The final chapter of The World of Thedas Volume 2 is dedicated to a collection of in-universe recipes! Originally this was just going to be a part of my general World of Thedas write-up, but this part got long enough that I decided to break it off on its own, so here we are.

"The Whole Nug" is on the whole a really cool chapter, and besides the flavor text added to various cultures of Thedas by these dishes, I love what it contributes to the worldbuilding just to see such an array of ingredients confirmed as existing in this universe. I would feel pretty confident at this point saying that if a fruit or vegetable exists in the real world, it is probably not lorebreaking to assume it exists in Thedas unless there is some specific reason why it wouldn't. Which is great if you want to write fanfiction about food!

That said, there are some real-world imports that I find kind of questionable.

Let's start with the fact that Thedas apparently has baking powder. I understand that Dragon Age does not correspond either culturally or aesthetically to any one era of real human history and while it draws from history, it does so broadly, vaguely, and with many creative liberties. At this point it doesn't really feel accurate to say that Dragon Age is medieval fantasy even in the loosest sense, as even the aesthetic of the games has been increasingly diverging from stock medieval fantasy ever since the first game, culminating in Tight Pants for Everyone in Inquisition. (I wonder what the costuming in DA4 is going to look like now that skinny jeans aren't fashionable anymore.) I'm not going to get into the whole history of baking powder and its precursors here, but if you want to fall down the same rabbit hole I did in reading this, here you go. Suffice it to say, it does feel a little weird to me that a distinctly pre-industrial setting would have widely available a product that wasn't even invented, never mind mass-produced, until the mid-19th century.

The south hasn't figured out black powder yet, but they sure did chemical leavening agents! Orlais needs its tiny cakes, I guess.

Incidentally, I am pretty sure Marie du Lac Erre's Sweet Ruin is milano cookies. The story behind it does seem very Orlesian, and certainly works in-universe, so if we accept the existence of baking powder as our premise, well, I'm fine with it.

The funny thing about this is that despite the inclusion of easily-accessible but lore-questionable ingredients in some recipes which make them actually usable, other recipes are clearly included for entertainment purposes only and not intended to be usable in real life, unless you happen to have access to a peat bog. There are also recipes whose instructions definitely do not describe precisely what the illustrations show, such as the Fish and Egg Pie and Nug-Nug, but I don't mind this because the illustrations are highly entertaining. We also get a little bit of plausible in-universe error, as Lady Ledoure seems unaware that Starkhaven is ruled by a Prince and not a King.

On the whole, the recipes are really fun to read and the illustrations enjoyable to look at. But I do have some issues from a worldbuilding perspective with dishes that don't seem to take into account the availability and cost of certain foods.

For example, the Raider Queen's Bread of Many Tongues, aka banana bread:

They say the Inquisition lived off this bread at the height of the war against Corypheus.

This is, as a piece of worldbuilding, utterly baffling. Bananas are tropical. In Thedas, they apparently grow only in the far north, namely Par Vollen and Rivain. A note on the recipe itself recommends Rivaini bananas as "an acceptable substitute," noting that "Most of us aren't mad enough to rain Qunari lands solely for the purposes of baking." So we have right here an acknowledgment that trade with Par Vollen is pretty much out of the question. Therefore the crates of bananas we see all over the place in Inquisition likely come from Rivain, which still means they had to make their way all the way south to the Frostback Mountains.

Look, bananas are cheap and plentiful in most of North America in this real world that we live in because... of a mess of sociopolitical factors I'm not here to write about today but here's a rundown if you like. I have a hard time believing that bananas come so cheap in the south of Thedas. Barring some sort of extremely lucrative trade deal between the Inquisition and Rivain, which I don't recall hearing anything about, bananas should be a luxury food, not a staple. Furthermore, banana bread is a recipe perfect for old bananas beginning to go soft, not what you do with a perfect, ripe and rare tropical fruit.

If anything, the staples of the Inquisition diet should be like, ram meat and well-aged cheese. You know, the sort of stuff you can't walk twenty paces from Haven without stumbling over. Not a fruit that only grows clear across the continent.

So for kicks, here's two possible Watsonian explanations for this very silly line:

Josie knocked out an incredible deal with Rivain or Rivaini merchants offscreen somewhere that resulted in the Inquisition being shipped piles of bananas. Just, a fuckload. All these bananas started going off before they could eat them all so the head cook ordered sacks of Orlesian baking powder and everyone had to eat banana bread for weeks until they were all sick of it. (This is probably the theory I'm going to favor.)

The line isn't true. It's a piece of marketing cooked up by the Rivaini banana industry looking to expand their trade routes.

But I don't think anything tops one the "Dalish" recipes for sheer level of "Whose idea was this?"

First, the one that I think works: "Dalish Deep Forest Comfort." This recipe is presented in the notes as being conferred to us by someone who is not Dalish, and furthermore the author already notes a substitution in the ingredients, calling for cherry tomatoes in place of the beetle larvae which the Dalish prize but which offends the author's palate. Therefore we could assume that the recipe has been altered in other ways from the way the Dalish might eat it, and is not necessarily "authentic." Then too, as the author claims that the "Dalish elf clans in southern Orlais have enjoyed this dish for hundreds of years," this dish could date back to the time of the elven state, before the Dalish were nomadic, and would likely have undergone adaptation by the Dalish themselves when they were displaced and became nomadic.

That said, most of these ingredients work! Halla butter and cheese, garlic and mushrooms and elfroot which grow wild, edible nuts and flowers. While I have more questions about "string squash" (which the author specifically notes is essential to the authentic dish), gourds very well could grow wild in Orlais, making this dish very possible for a people who hunt and forage. Even the rock salt might be gathered from caves. This works. I accept this.

I do want to talk about “Hearth Cakes,” though. (Note: When I first wrote this post, I made an incorrect assumption about the inspiration for Hearth Cakes. This post has since been edited to correct that mistake.)

Hearth Cakes are presented here as “common Dalish fare,” though again, presented here as from an author who is not Dalish. The author notes that the Dalish use “hardwood ash” as leavening, and this actually does make a lot of sense, as this likely corresponds to potash, the real world precursor to baking soda. It’s also the sort of thing that could be made by nomadic people (see the history of baking powder I linked above). The egg is a little less plausible since I don’t remember ever seeing a Dalish clan with chickens, but it is possible they collect eggs from wild fowl. The spices are harder for me to explain, because I doubt that cinnamon and nutmeg can be foraged in the south, and they would be expensive to procure even through trade. I could believe that this is an addition to make the cakes richer for an Orlesian palette; the egg could also be explained this way.

We also have this little sidebar:

One wonders where the Dalish obtain their sugar. They certainly do not trade with Tevinter or Rivain, as we do. Where, then do they gain the precious stuff that makes baking such a delight? I shall tell you: they steal it. I have heard many a story of roving Dalish bands attacking freeholds, robbing them of gold, livestock, and, yes, sugar and spices. So guard well your kitchens, my dears. You never know when an elf may be watching.

Okay, sure. So, this is clearly coming to us from an in-universe source repeating common human prejudices against the Dalish and against elves in general. I am not going to try to argue that no elf has ever stolen anything, or that a desperate clan would never resort to raiding to fend off starvation. I would note though that nothing we’ve seen of the Dalish clans in the games—including an origin story in which you play an elf living with their clan—indicates that robbing freeholds provides a notable share of their food. In fact, Keeper Marethari in the Dalish elf opening of Origins will chide you if you kill the shemlen who venture too close to the camp, pointing out that provoking local human settlements endangers the whole clan. By contrast, we do hear quite a bit about Dalish hunters and how important they are to the clan’s sustenance. So, let’s take biased information with the appropriate grain of salt. Or sugar.

But this raises a larger question and it’s not just about sugar. You could remove the sugar and spices from this recipe and it would still produce a tasty bread, just not such a sweet one. We could write off sugar as an Orlesian addition. What we can’t write off is the core ingredient: wheat flour. This is a question I had when reading The Masked Empire, too, which specifically noted a Dalish clan eating food made from wheat. This isn’t an ingredient that can be foraged and processed by a nomadic people at the kind of scale required to make it a staple food. I don’t see how the Dalish could be regularly eating wheat without regular contact with humans—something we know most clans avoid, both for the preservation of their culture and for their own safety. Some clans do engage in limited trade, but this would be supplemental to their staples of hunting and foraging. It simply makes no sense for these ingredients to comprise dietary staples for nomadic clans who sustain themselves mainly through hunting. It would actually make far more sense for these foods to be a staple of alienage culture, since alienage elves live in human cities, trade in their markets, and eat the same foods.

Since writing this original post, I've since learned that according to this tweet from writer Joanna Berry, the recipe for Hearth Cakes is based on her mother's recipe for Welsh cakes. I think it's really sweet that she contributed a family recipe for the book, and I hate to knock that inspiration, but I still don't think it particularly makes sense in this in-universe context, and I do wish the application had been thought through a little more.

There is nothing wrong with drawing inspiration from real-world sources, where the resulting worldbuilding makes sense within the fictional universe. The prejudice of elves as thieves, for example, does mirror real-world prejudices against nomadic peoples such as the Roma and Travellers, and it maps fine onto the fictional world of Dragon Age for humans to hold such prejudices against nomadic elves. Where the inspiration does not make in-world sense, however, it sticks out, draws attention to itself in a way that does no justice to either the real history from which it draws, or the fiction it serves (or doesn't).

So I'm calling this one a swing and a miss.

Lest I end on a sour note, let's talk about some more recipes I like!

Spiced Wine sounds quite delicious and is something I might even try for real at a party sometime. I might not be so eager to construct my own Fish and Egg Pie, but it makes for a fun little morsel of worldbuilding for a city-state we haven't yet seen, taking the local geography into account with the note that the pie is made with poached fish from the Minanter River. Likewise, Pig Oat Mash is a staple at the Hanged Man that I'm now going to be able to imagine Hawke and company tearing into from steaming bowls after a long night of questing. Pickled Eggs, Alamarri Picked Krone, and Turnip and Barley Stew are great flavor text for Ferelden. Nug-Nug and Mad Bernard's Gift of Flesh are entertaining creations with wonderful illustrations.

Despite some fumbles, this little culinary compendium is on the whole a really great addition to the book and the greater body of Dragon Age lore. Besides which, returning to these recipes and writing about them has made me very hungry. I'm going to go get a snack.

If you've read this chapter, do you have a favorite recipe? Any that you would try making (or have tried) yourself? And if you haven't read it, do you have any favorite in-universe food items generally? Any foods you wonder about their existence in Thedas, or think they should exist?

Crosspost. Originally posted on dreamwidth on 5/18/21.

#dragon age #dragon age meta #world of thedas #blunders of thedas

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the-indie-owl · 2 years ago

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I just have to say I REALLY love your designs for the Gods and Goddesses of both Greek AND Roman Mythology if they appeared in SpongeBob SquarePants. And I'm really pumped to see what you have planned for the future ^^

I just wanna say, First of All, THANK YOU SO MUCH for the Love that you really enjoy my own personal takes on the Greco-Roman Gods themselves it really means so much to Me within my Heart that I will keep going on drawing my versions of Neptune and Poseidon's own Families if they would appear in that Universe since I enjoy Greek Mythology a lot as well as any Media's takes on any God and Neptune/Poseidon is one of my Most Favorite Gods ever in all of Mythology. I will keep on trying to figure out which design will suit any Greek God and their Counterpart 💖

As well as figuring out on which Voice will suit on each of them for what I headcanon to what they will sound like if they appeared in the franchise (which I know that will never happened because Sea Gods are only allowed BUT let's just imagine it instead if they did include some Other Non-Water Deities ^^).

Second of All, I have been getting to know the SpongeBob fandom recently since June. Ever since I've cried so hard because of what was happening during the first months this year (lost my Uncle who was one of the Brothers of My Mother (RIP)), I've been through a lot of Pain, Stress, Toxic Fans, and Dramas, I couldn't take it anymore as I instantly quit on that and started a new life (which I am currently in right now as you can tell).

I have re-watched the show and got a chance to watch its Modern Episodes through Streaming (Mostly Amazon and Paramount+) since I haven't seen the Show in such a long time even after I stopped watching it since Season 9. But now that I am currently in it's fandom since it somehow just became one of my main and most favorite medias of all time since I've looked back into it, I even remembered all the good times that I had when I watched the show ever since childhood (Ah, the Nostalgia).

Plus, SpongeBob is a very Good Show that keeps Me calm and makes Me want to forget about the Bad Times that I've been through and even the Fandom around Me is so very Healthy! Not even one single Toxic Fan was bumped into Me! ^^

I of course have watched its Two Spin-Offs despite Stephen being unsure if he wanted to have one (I know that many people say that he didn't want one for his own creation but I heard that there was someone saying that He didn't know IF a Spinoff could work). Kamp Koral is cute (despite on how none of the backstory behind SpongeBob and his Friends were true in the first place) and even The Patrick Star Show is a bit Funny.

If you are wondering on how I got the idea of Greek and Roman Gods being in the show, well, chances are, since we've all know that Neptune has been around in the show since when it was first started around the 90s. He's one of the very few first versions of the Roman God of the Seas as well as being the Counterpart of the Greek God of the Seas himself that we all know. But when I got to watch "Sponge On The Run", I immediately fell in love with their version/take on Poseidon (Neptune's Greek Counterpart). This made Me wonder if perhaps that the series itself somehow takes place in an Alternative Universe where if Gods existed in a Reality where if all Myths and Legends were real (Of course, we do see in Some Media of Gods living in the Modern Era that we are currently in living in our world like Percy Jackson or Lore Olympus).

Considering the fact that I love OCXCanon and have always done that throughout the years, I've put up a big twist behind my version on Salacia (The Roman Counterpart of Amphitrite and Neptune's Real Wife from Roman Mythology) into turning her a Wife of Poseidon as well as still being accurate to her Original version. Needless to say, she's little of an OC and is way more of a personal take on one of the Roman Goddesses.

We don't really get much Poseidon and Amphitrite versions like Hades and Persephone but even though Poseidon cheats on his wife, I bet Amphitrite doesn't care cuz she still loves her Husband (I wonder why she is never shown towards being angry at him).

Thirdly of all, this is going to surprise you one bit but my personal take on Greco-Roman Gods wasn't really the first time that I've used Gods in an AU story of a Certain Media. The First One that I did was a SMG4 AU of Mine and I even wrote a story about it on Wattpad (which had my own Arc that involved around Marine Cultures of Sea Life since Splatoon is another one of those Beach/Ocean themed Media of Video Games). I even had Greek Gods in my that Other AU of Mine (I haven't been in an SMG4 mood since and I'm still doubting about wanting to remake it like maybe change my own SMG4 AU Arc up a bit and maybe take out the Greek Gods away OR just only keep one of them like Zeus for instance just so that I would keep focusing on my true Take on Greco-Roman Mythology which is in My Own SpongeBob AU for now on).

So yeah, I would just probably have to remake my SMG4 AU just so that people wouldn't be confuse by my other AU which also has Greek Gods in it (Little Reminder that just because I have been using Gods in my AU stories doesn't mean I'm gonna keep using the Greek Gods in ALL of my AU stories because that would be very boring and overused a lot so I would just only use them only for a Single AU of Mine). I would just have to probably remove the Greek Gods for my SMG4 AU and keep them only for my SpongeBob AU since Neptune and Poseidon are around (which means I could perhaps re-write my own SMG4 Arc).

I have been recently thinking that maybe I could also add in the Other Water Deities from Other Mythologies as well as adding in Other Non-Water Gods with them. It would be like on how if SpongeBob SquarePants was like a Disney's Hercules 2.0. (Adding in Other Mythologies including both the Other Foreign Water Deities and The Non-Water Gods all together), quite similar to yours when you design what the Other Gods would look like if they were in Hercules ^^

I'm somehow unsure if Hillenburg himself was ever a Mythologist on Ancient Greece and Rome. Perhaps he was somehow fascinated in Poseidon and that's how his own personal take on Neptune was born (I dunno, just a little guess ;^^).

I know that the Show itself isn't all about Mythology but just only imagine if they ever did on personal takes on Other Gods (then Neptune and Poseidon wouldn't have to be the only ones). I've been a Greco-Roman Mythologist for a very long time ever since I got into Lore Olympus since 2018 and it has really made Me love Greek Mythology and all of its Personal Takes on it (either in Movies, Shows, Books, Video Games, ect.) I'll never hate on any adaptation of Greco-Roman Mythology, no matter on how the Gods are portrayed differently from their Mythical Names.

Anyways, I just wanna say, Thank You for your Kind Compliment, it really warms up my Heart. It's very nice to see on someone who loves my own versions on Greek and Roman Gods as separated people, as well as being accurate to what they would look like in the Franchise's Style! 💗

#I'm also planning on doing my own take on a SpongeBob spinoff prequel of Neptune and Poseidon as well as giving my very own SB Next Gen #indie text #spongebob squarepants #the spongebob movie sponge on the run #sponge on the run #but anyhow MANY THANKS TO YOUR KIND WORDS! 💕#greek mythology #roman mythology #greco roman mythology #ask answered #violetrose-art #this one just made my heart filled with joy 💘#the spongebob greek roman prequel project #clash of the deities #ancient times before spongebob

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sorceressferaly · 4 years ago

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No, I do not believe this makes sense.

While I appreciate that this is mostly meant as a joke about the never-changing climate of Jorvik due to the limitations of the game (similar to the running joke about how there’s no moon in Jorvik), there is no way a “real” Jorvik would have these kind of temperatures.

Global warming jokes aside, Jorvik is an island in the Atlantic, said to be located somewhere in between the north coast of the British Isles, Iceland and Norway. As anyone living on the islands in that region, say, the Faroe Islands, can tell you - the Atlantic winds are cold.

However, for absolutely no reason other than that it amuses me, I thought it would be fun to figure out what the climate of "real-life” Jorvik would look like.

Some presumptions that I’m going to make for this:

This is only considering Jorvik in the summer. The winters are likely mild, but on average colder. Not to mention darker.

Jorvik does have an inherent mystical magic that brings a warmer climate than the island realistically should have. This magic is stronger in certain regions than others.

People reading this may not be familiar with the Celsius scale, so I will be providing USA units in parenthesis when mentioning specific degrees. (If I miss making a conversion somewhere, you can approximately convert by doubling the celsius number and adding 32.)

And as a disclaimer: This isn’t meant to mock anyone at the SSO social media making this joke. I thought it was funny! And I just find it fun to build on it and take it more seriously than anyone expected.

Finally, we have to guess regarding the approximate real life size and position of Jorvik. From the information available, I have chosen to place it here:

(Credit to SSO forum user SSO Theory Time for the general shape of the island.)

But… that would put it right on top of the Faroe Islands! That can’t be right, can it?

Well, I don’t recall the Faroe Islands have ever been mentioned in any lore related to SSO, despite the fact they should be Jorvik’s closest neighbor!

Could it in fact be the case, that in this world in which Jorvik exists, this island takes up the space that is occupied by the Faroe Islands in our reality?

Probably not! If we ask SSE, Jorvik is likely a bit north or west of the Faroe Islands. But on the other hand, that would contradict the established position of Jorvik, there is nothing that really contradicts this assumption, and it sure makes it easier to compare temperatures. So I’m going to roll with it. Congratulations, Faroe people, you are citizens of Jorvik!

So then, what is the average temperature of the Faroe Islands in the summer?

Well, that’s significantly lower than presented. This chart shows the July averages with a high of 13°C (55,4°F)!

But wait, doesn’t Jorvik have vineyards? Surely, that must hint of a much warmer climate!

Well, not necessarily. Following global warming, there are currently vineyards in countries like Sweden, Denmark, UK, and Ireland. While I couldn’t find any vineyards in the Faroe Islands or Iceland (not for grape wine anyway), if we consider Aideen’s Gift to grant Jorvik a warmer climate and a more fertile soil, it should at least be comparable to the wineries in Cork. (Average July temperatures of high 20°C (68°F) / low 13°C (55,4°F), an increase of about 50%.)

Now, keeping in mind that Jorvik has a visually varied climate over a small area, we’d have to examine each region separately. Perhaps Aideen just favoured certain regions more than others.

First, we should talk about Dino Valley. Dino Valley is a magical place covered in a permafrost, and many people have already reacted to hearing it’s as warm as -2°C (28,4°F).

However, this might actually be the most accurate temperature on the map! Even when you are looking at places in the world covered by permafrost, it is not unusual to see seasonal temperatures rise to higher levels, even above the freezing temperature of water.

Of course, this is usually the warmest temperature taken at the time of the day when the sun has warmed up the location to its warmest, and once nightfall approaches, temperatures will once again drop drastically.

I think we can make the assumption that -2°C (28,4°F) is a reasonable warm-day temperature for a summer in the Valley of the Hidden Dinosaur. It would require far warmer temperatures for far longer in order to be able to melt the ice.

We also know that mammals such as snow weasels and snow foxes are able to live and thrive in Dino Valley, which means it can’t be a complete frozen wasteland, and is likely more similar to Greenland than Antarctica, with higher temperatures closer to the edges of the valley.

At the time of writing, several regions of Greenland are experiencing varied temperatures. Some regions have warm days of 0°C (28,4°F). (weather-forecast.com)

In conclusion, Dino Valley’s temperature seems accurate, but it might drop far lower during the nights. Wouldn’t recommend camping out there, particularly not for loony professors.

Moving on west towards Golden Hills Valley and Cape West, this region seems to be locked in a perpetual autumn. Besides the eponymous trees, there doesn’t seem to be a lot of vegetation in this mountainous region. Cape West itself does not seem to have any protection from the cold Atlantic winds, and this seems to be reflected in the architecture and dress-sense of the people in the region. Overall, I would put Cape West - and most of Golden Hills - closer to the average Faroe Islands temperatures, 13°C (55,4°F).

While we’re at it, I’m just going to put South Hoof in about the same category. While South Hoof is further south and has some inspiration from the Scottish highlands, South Hoof is just really one flat plateau. We could compare the Cairngorms with an average high of 12°C (53,6°F), but due to being further north and open for all the Atlantic winds (and they have a lot of winds, as enthusiastic surfer Holly can tell), it likely feels even colder most of the time. Wear a scarf, Madison!

The Forgotten Fields may have been warmer once upon a time, when it had lush forests granting protection from the winds. Not anymore.

Jon Jarl ordered the forest that once grew here be cut down in order to provide lumber for the houses and stables. As if that was not enough, it is said that a curse was put on these fields by some of the original Vala that lived here, to make sure the Jarl could never settle north of the Devil’s Gap, as he drove them away from their homes. Now, there is nothing that grows here except grass and weeds, and Aideen’s gift is likely weak in this corner of the island.

No one on Jorvik would run a farm here voluntarily, and while I’m sure that the sunsets here makes the fields a romantic spot for a picnic, the temperatures are likely in line with those observed at Cape West.

Anyone trying to run a farm here surely must be filled with determination.

Dundull and southern Mistfall is a bit further into the east, and while most western winds are likely caught by South Hoof, the citizens of Dundull sure seems to be dressing warm when you go there to visit. Even in the animated series - which also takes place in the summer - Rania and Skye seem to be wearing jackets at all times, and Sigry has a fire lit in the fireplace, hinting that Mistfall does not have particularly warm summers. It’s likely less windy than South Hoof, but might be stuck with an average comparable to Vik, Iceland, of 15°C (59°F).

With the easier coastal regions identified, the rest of Jorvik is trickier.

South Harvest Counties and Epona are the weirdest regions on Jorvik. While their temperatures should be much lower, Harvest Countries seems to enjoy pleasant summer temperatures, and Epona has a downright warm climate. Even mediterranean in places!

We must assume that these regions are strong with the magic of Aideen’s Gift, and give them the 50% temperature increase compared to other regions.

The South Harvest Countries should have a temperature comparable to Reyjkjavik, but with Aideen’s gift, they may get pleasant summers around 20-25°C(68-77°F).

Epona now… despite facing the western winds of the southwest Atlantic, they seem to have not only vineyards, but an inland marshland, and an almost tropical valley where giant Jorvegian tarantula spiders live! Tarantulas prefer temperatures in the 24-27°C(75-80°F) range, and it seems like these temperatures might be brought forward by hot springs deep inside the mountains. We know that the Mirror Marshes do not freeze over during the winter, and seasonal storms are pretty common, so likely there is a sharp contrast between the temperatures coming from the land, and the winds coming from the sea.

Silverglade is a bit inlands, and are protected from the worst winds by some mountains around Devil’s Gap. There is also another vineyard here, but not one that seems to display a mediterranean climate. The earlier mentioned Cork in Ireland might be a close enough comparison, landing Silverglade around 20°C(68°F), with the weather likely warmer in some places and colder in others. Firgrove, high in the mountains, probably gets a lot of rain and is a bit cooler, while Fort Pinta seems to be quite the popular beach resort. Valedale is inhabited by druids, and next to Dino Valley, getting a lot of its meltwater and shade from the forest, but is strong with Aideen’s Gift and likely somewhat warmer than Firgrove. (The Silversong River still freezes over in winter though!)

The only location left is the Wildwoods, which seems like a pretty warm place, considering the badlands-look of the warriors’ tribe, and the lush forests of the foresters.

It can likely be assumed that Aideen’s Gift is stronger here than anywhere else on the island, considering talking horses.

So now when we went through all that, what should Jorvik really look like on a warm summer’s day?

tl;dr

And there we have our conclusion. Using science and magic, we now have a more accurate warm summer map of Jorvik!

Thanks for reading!

#sso #starstable #star stable online #meteorology in fantasy doesn't need to make sense #but it's still funny #feel free to use this Nadia #long post

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danteinthedevildom · 4 years ago

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So, talkin abt multilingual Mams,

I was gonna make this post anyway but then I saw @cheerypining put this in the tags of my post re: Mams’ English in his character song:

I would like to hollar out a hell yes!

The thing with Mams is that he isn’t stupid. He’s smart as fuck, he’s just motivated by self interest and fixation. It’s easier for him to learn things that are of interest to him, or that expand his interests. He’s got that sweet, sweet ADD brain.

So, if language helps him spread out his influence, make money, expand his contacts? It’s gonna be that lil bit easier for him to figure out. It might even be a fixation of his. Learn a language; open opportunities in the place that language hails from. Gain an interest in how language works. Learn other languages bc it’s fun.

Consider, then, if you will, for some of that tastey lore-building,

Mams starting out learning the languages of the most influencial/opulent human powers. It’s beneficial for him to figure out how to speak their language if he really wants to get at their pockets, and you can’t really smooth talk someone if you barely understand the way their haggling works. How is anyone going to trust you if their idioms go over your head, or if you miss some slang that marks you very starkly as an outsider? It’s a lot easier if they think you’re like them; if you know the little things that’ll get them lowering their guard around you.

He’s great with dialects, too. With differences between the upper and lower classes. It only takes one slip-up using court language around the common folk, or using the dialet of the north in the south, for him to recognise how important those divisions are. He works with trust, and the eventual corruption of that trust, and it becomes pretty clear to him pretty quick that trust can only be attained the more like his target he sounds.

Dead languages still live on in Mammon’s brain. He’s fluent in them, and even though he hasn’t really had to use them in some time, for some reason they’ve just never faded away. You can pretty much use him as a way to track how languages changed over time, how regional variants were influenced by other languages or cultures, when various languages died out and what replaced them.

It’s not something that he really thinks about. It was beneficial for him, so he learnt it. Beyond that, it was fun, and he enjoyed it. He doesn’t really give himself credit for just how much linguistic history he has stored inside his head, and he really doesn’t put much credit into how goddamn useful it is - or would be - for modern historians. That’s not what he’s interested in. He’s content to leave Satan to the books, to the past; he’s got more of a propensity for the practicality, anyway.

Listening to him talk is actually pretty astounding. The ease with which he slips into each language, the depth of his understanding for even the slight nuances between regions, makes him seem like a native speaker. The speed, too, is absolutely stunning; you’ve never seen a more baffling sight than Mammon, speaking mild-mannered in Russian to a witch, switching mid-sentence into heavily-flirtatious French to order from the waitress that came to their table. It’s like he doesn’t even stumble between the two, both as natural to him as breathing.

He has his preferences, of course. When he’s not using the language for his own goals - doesn’t need to, for instance, be careful about his word choice to ensure a bond of trust is made - he quickly slips into a dialect that is most comfortable for him. He might use ‘watashi’ or ‘ore’ when he’s on the job, might tack on the ‘gozaimasu’ to his greetings to make them polite, but when he’s just generally speaking Japanese? That’s when he starts using ‘ore-sama’, when he drops all the humble or stilted phrases; uses ‘ja ne’ instead of ‘sayounara'. That’s when, in English, he stops making sure to enunciate fully; starts shortening ‘you’ to ‘ya’, cuts off the ‘g’ from ‘ing’ words, starts peppering in ‘crap’ instead of ‘stuff’, lets his words slur together to make ‘whaddaya’ out of ‘what are you’.

He’s naturally an informal guy! It’s just the way he prefers to talk. He hates the pompous lingo, even if it’s usually the most beneficial to learn for what he does. If the language he’s speaking has a way to show belligerent informality, he will absolutely use it whenever he can. It’s a choice, make no mistake; he can arguably speak better in most languages than the stupid high academics. He just doesn’t enjoy that crap when it’s not immediately useful to him.

(Yes, that does mean he can comprehend even the most pompously written academic papers. No, that doesn’t mean he wants to read them. He would much sooner stab a fork into his giblets than sit down for any period of time and read that wordy bullshit. Same goes for a lot of Satan’s literature; it’s just not enjoyable for him to read, even if he can perfectly understand it.)

Sometimes a word works better in one language than another. It can get extremely frustrating for him, if he has a very specific point to get across; unless someone knows both languages, they’re never going to fully understand. And why use five words in the inefficient language when one in the efficient language would have been even better for his intent? ‘Fernweh’ works much better than ‘imagine being homesick for a place you’ve never been’, after all.

Mams has a tendency to drop in words he likes from other languages, which makes some of his speech sound a little confusing. He doesn’t think it makes him sound smarter, and he’s not doing it to show off; just, sometimes, he thinks ‘hey’ sounds better than ‘ohayou’, or that ‘ciao’ is cooler and more aloof than ‘au revoir’. Plus, it’s kinda funny when you’re talking to someone Lucifer and you insult them in a language they don’t understand.

(I mean, in English, we literally say stuff like “it has a little je ne sais quoi,” [it has a little something that I can’t adequately express] so we merge languages into our own in order to better express ourselves. Mams does the same. He just does it with words and phrases that aren’t always naturally used together within that language.)

Do you understand the amount of skill that comes with being able to do this without even stopping to think? He somehow manages to do it in a way that makes each sentence still perfectly fluent and understandable in translation. It’s a little incredible, actually, considering he doesn’t put any stock into this ability. It’s just natural for him. Why’s he gotta think on it more than that?

(This does mean, the few times someone points it out, that he gets incredibly flustered. Especially if they say it in awe, or in praise. It really is just second nature to him, not even something he’s putting on for show or something that he’s trying to be good at, so being given so much positive attention for it is... well. It’s surprising, and a little nice, actually. But also genuinely embarrasing. It’s perhaps the only time he’ll struggle to find words in any language.)

In conclusion:

Hell yeah I love reinforcin the idea that Mams ain’t stupid and that there’s a lot of goddamn skill that comes with learnin languages and learnin them to such a degree you can accurately pepper their words into your speech without stoppin to think.

#obey me #obey me headcanons #obey me hc #obey me mammon

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thenightling · 4 years ago

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My scatter-brained review of Wonder Woman 1984 (written partly while watching and then revised afterward)

I finally got curious enough to watch Wonder Woman 1984.

Warning: There ARE spoilers here!

I was reluctant to watch it because I knew the plot would deal with wishes coming true “But at a price” and Wonder Woman’s love coming back as a result of this plot Magoffin. This is something I have seen many times before. And frankly I was bored with it years ago.

The predictable plot beats being a “Be careful what you wish for” theme. The Monkey’s Paw (and all adaptations of the story) and variations like The Twisted Claw in “Are you Afraid of the Dark?” It was obvious to me that such a wish would bring Steve back and he would eventually “have to “ return to being dead. Frankly, I’m tired of that. I think a great twist would be if the person didn’t have to return to being dead for once. I’ve seen this plot done too often in comics, TV, and film.

Now for the good. I LOVE the early 80s aesthetic. I even got a bit of Legend of Billie Jean vibes. It’s very accurate to the look and feel of a 1980s film. It felt authentic, not just “Hey, remember this!”

Nineteen minutes in and I saw the ham-handed tell-tale signs that Diana would have to learn to love again, to trust and open her heart, and to invite others in again. And to heal she would have to “learn to let go” of Steve. But as I said, I’m tired of these grief messages. Especially now, especially in 2020. I want a new twist . I want the lost loved one to come back, I want the happily ever after with the formerly dead loved one. I’m tired of this trope.

They even out-right compare it to “The Monkey’s Paw” story in the film. Acknowledging that something is a cliché doesn’t make it any less of a cliché. You’re just trying to lampshade it by pointing it out in story and it just didn’t really work for me.

The “Dreamstone” in this does not look like Morpheus’ ruby amulet but instead it resembles the “ruby” (this one is a citrine) from Justice League Dark (the animated movie). And no, the God mentioned is NOT Morpheus. The God in question is a “trickster and a liar.” Gee, I wonder who that could be? I suspect the “true name” wasn’t given because they were afraid of confusion with Marvel’s depiction of the same character. A lot of people don’t realize Loki is in the public domain. Even Joanne Harris (author of Gospel of Loki) thinks her book can’t be adapted into film because Marvel / Disney owns Loki but that’s not true. The character is as public as Snow White or Robin Hood. Anyone can use him.

There’s some subtle hints of Diana’s bisexuality. I’m glad for this, I still come across fans who refuse to accept she’s bi and insist word of author (Gail Simone) don’t count because she didn’t “create” Wonder Woman. The same people should REALLY look up the behind the scenes life of the man who did. Anyway, I almost thought Diana lean in and kiss Barbara after the rescue in the park but she didn’t.

Maxwell Lord offers Diana a nineteen inch TV. Note to kids: that is NOT big even by 80s standards. We did have large screen TVs back then. My grandfather had a very big one back in the 80s.

I also really like the soundtrack.

When the camera spun around Diana and Steve’s reunion it made me dizzy. I don’t like that effect. It’s so common with romantic scenes but I found it dizzying. Flashbacks of the film Legend of Hercules from 2014...

The dreamstone in this appears to have been made of sand all along so maybe it is one of Dream of The Endless’ dreamstones after all. But that’s the only hint to even suggest this.

When Steve shows up, it’s like the writers forgot modern history. He shouldn’t be THAT impressed with an escalator or a a subway. Subways were already in existence when he died! The New York City subway, for example, opened in 1904. And he knows what trash cans are! I know that was meant to be funny but that’s stupid. He’s from the early twentieth century, not five-hundred-years-ago.

How did Maxwell Lord know Steve Trevor was inhabiting someone else’s body but didn’t know for certain Barbara had made a wish? Does he just know everything the stone touched or does he sense the desires of others? How did he know to suggest “Don’t you want to be a real boy?” with Steve?

Steve’s fate was painfully predictable, so much so that I felt nothing when she had to let him go. See, these “realistic” / “have to stay” dead plots they’re shoe-horning into comic stories are now done so often that they are trite. You know what’s coming. You know what they want you to feel and you (or I, at least) went numb instead. I think I would have felt more if she somehow got to keep him . But the fact that he wasn’t even in his own body was the first clue that my prediction was right.

Finally, I actually really like how they resolved the Maxwell Lord (Trump-esque) plot and his character arc. It was very late in the story that they decided to show a sympathetic side to him, and flashbacks of his upbringing and I feel it should have been done earlier in the film but it still worked. I like that love for his son is what saved everyone. I am a sucker for a redemption story.

I like the themes of love and hope even though I still resent the predictability of what happened with Steve Trevor and the hamhanded “She needed to learn to move on” part.

The Steve plot was the weakest part of the story, in my opinion. But as far as superhero movies go this was decent . It wasn’t boring and the morals weren’t too preachy. Sure, it had some corny and predicable moments (Not just with Steve Trevor) but in general it was enjoyable to watch.

I don’t think it was as good as the first Wonder Woman movie but I do like it more than most of the Marvel sequels so that says something. I’d like it a lot more if the Steve Trevor plot wasn’t even in there or had a new and interesting twist rather than the “You have to learn to let me go.” As I said, I’m tired of death. I’m tired of grief plots. And I’m tired of how predictable this new obsession with perma-deaths in comic book-inspired stories has become.

I’d say the film is a seventy nine out of a hundred for me, maybe three and a half out of five stars. Not the best superhero film and definitely not as good as the first Wonder Woman movie but still better than many other superhero movie sequels.

Also a certain outfit was added to the movie shamelessly to sell a new action figure. Even kids know the trick. A superhero movie gets a sequel, that means the hero has to get some new costume, or their look has to change in some way, just to sell a new action figure distinctly from this movie and not the first. Marvel did this all the time. Loki went through three distinct outfits for three films.

I loved Lynda Carter’s cameo in the end credits bonus scene for her. That was the perfect role to her and very respectful to her legacy as having been the 1970s Wonder Woman. That was one of the nicest and most respectful “original actor” cameos I had ever seen.

Something else, I kind of wish the films would reveal the Greek Gods aren’t dead. It really bugs me that they have implied since the first Wonder Woman movie that all the Greek Gods are dead / gone. Then why do things imbued with their power still work? I wish Hollywood would be more respectful to the old lore and polytheistic beliefs that many people (such as Neo pagans) still have.

Anyway, good. Not great. But still god and better than a lot of other superhero sequels and still better than more than half of DC’s other films of the last ten years.

#Wonder Woman 1984 #DC Comics #Wonder Woman #Spoilers

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toooldforfandom-liveblogs · 5 years ago

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She-Ra and the Princesses of Power S02E04 - Roll With It

Huh. Interesting title. There have been some changes in the lives of some of the main characters so maybe it's about how they are reacting to them. Catra with being effectively demoted after Entrapta managed to catch Hordrak's attention, or maybe Glimmer with everything that has happened? Although I guess Adora is the one who hasn't really dealt yet with everything that's been happening to her so it could be her way of postponing doing that.

I don’t know, so let’s do this!

I thought Glimmer was usually the leader in these missions, interesting. Is Adora's training with Light Hope taking effect?

Welp, I guess Bow is dead now.

Wait, wait, what? Why are they taking it so seriously like they'd actually let Bow die?

It has to be a dream, right? But who's? She-Ra was the leader so it'd make sense if it was her having stress nightmares.

...oh, they are playing a RPG. Okay then, nevermind all that tragic stuff.

Also, why don't figures that look like that exist?

Look at that! It's so cute! It's like a She-Ra amiibo! Or a Nendoroid maybe?

Are they actually using a tabletop rpg to plan out their missions? Because that's awesome. And weird. How would an observation check work in real life?

I mean, they can't count on having rainbow powers so there'll always be some improvisation.

I'm dying at the show's suddenly getting out the sad strings for this joke.

It's either going to be Kyle or Scorpia, right?

Also, Adora is really showing some cracks under the pressure. I understand her being serious about it but her attitude seems a bit beyond that.

there you go

Oh Scorpia, I missed you.

I mean, Scorpia is a Force Captain. How does the horde's hierarchy work anyway? Catra is also a Force Captain but in charge of... everything below Hordrak?

We should all strive to be as positive as Scorpia.

So far I've been kinda joking about Scorpia having a crush not really believing it'd go beyond some insinuation and jokes but there aren't a lot of other ways to interpret that line. Poor Scorpia, they are really setting her up to get horribly disappointed and/or hurt at some point, huh?

Anyway, what's Catra doing? Preparing for the season finale?

That slow blink is such a perfect reaction image, even though it only works in context.

This is extremely cute and now everything I want is for Scorpia to be happy.

I can't remember if the lizard guy has a name, but he looks like he regrets waking up that morning.

I just realized that the episode title is probably about Adora accepting that she can't plan everything in advance.

This is the coolest and most unexpected thing I have seen this week. Wow. It kinda feels like a direct reference to something but I'm not sure what, but it does have the feel of the 80s, especially with all that purple neon aesthetic.

And Kyle's pompadour is the absolute best and he'd gain the instant respect and love of everyone in the Horde if he managed to get that haircut.

I really missed Glimmer. She may not have the most strategic or realistic of plans but damn she's going to look awesome while executing it and isn't that the most important goal of all?

Actually, they need to change reality to make Glimmer's plan viable because now I want to watch that show.

"Fee Fi Fo Fugh so annoying"

There's absolutely no way Glimmer would have resisted using her powers long enough to make this the first time they detect them.

Wow, soldiers. Can't wait to not see them during the attack.

This episode could kill everyone by the end and I'd still walk away thinking it was awesome just because of these scenes.

Catra did capture Glimmer and then completely bamboozled them when they captured her so... it kinda makes sense that Glimmer sees her as some slick and sophisticated super villain.

Noooo, don't interrupt that line.

After seeing the awesomeness of Glimmer's imagination, I want to see what Bow's plan.

Rooting for the villains here.

"mom?"

One more thing to crush Scorpia's heart when it inevitably gets destroyed.

I hope someday the Horde will become accessible to everyone, including those with claws for hands.

"Scorpia fails to do something with her claws" is the one joke in She-Ra that feels weirdly cruel.

Mermista flexing her kingdom's budget with her custom articulated Revoltech figure vs Bow's nendoroids.

Yessssss

The biggest lore drop so far, Glimmer watched anime when she was a kid, Bow watched 80s cartoons.

OH MY GOD

Those are the original costumes, right? Poor, poor Mermista.

This is absolutely amazing.

Yup, still amazing.

Isn't that the reason why all the characters have the same body in the original show? They are really having fun with this episode.

Undertale, 2015

Adora's rage counter.

...I mean, how do you argue with that?

This episode keeps getting better and better.

Bow's nod is just * chef's kiss *

SEA-RA

Oooh, this is going to be good.

I hesitate to mention a specific site because I have no idea where kids post OCs and self-insert fics these days but, wherever it is, Frosta is 100% there.

The best part is that Mermista keeps being the only who likes Frosta's edgy OC.

Yeah, she's definitely posting that OC fanart everywhere.

oh my god this episode

Scorpia is going to take their OCs seriously, isn't she?

This is reaaally not going to help fight the Horde's "the princesses are evil and can't control their powers" propaganda.

How is it possible for the episode to keep outdoing itself.

Another example of the princesses' disregard for the lives of the innocent. That child had a family!

There's always a lower place on the totem pole.

Wow, perfectly accurate. I had no idea Perfuma understood Catra so deeply.

Catra is rocking those sunglasses.

I have nothing to write, this screenshot is perfect as-is.

Everyone writing their awesome self-insert fics while Adora writes angst and hurt/comfort.

This episode has been absolutely amazing so far but I was waiting for Adora to explode at some point. I'm glad she's finally telling them about the pressure she's feeling.

That went from hilarious to sad to heartwarming in like 60 seconds.

...the tower is going to be empty, isn't it?

Unexpectedly cute.

THANK YOU

oh my god, I'm speechless at everything that's going on

I just found out your name, Rogelio! You can't die now!

welp, rip.

It looks like no one told Scorpia how Glimmer escaped Shadow Weaver.

I can't tell if Scorpia didn't meant to kill Glimmer so she threw her where she was safe or if she did it on accident.

aw, they were waiting for her

It's the hair, main, the hair. This wouldn't have happened if he had a pompadour.

What an amazing episode to come back to, even though I ended up watching it in pieces (I watched a bit in March before the hiatus). Somehow it managed to get better every time I pressed play.

I don't really have a lot to say because the episode was mostly comedy but almost every joke landed for me. I'm just a tiny bit worried about what an episode so funny means for the season since Adora's explosion wasn't as big of a downer as it could have been. Was this the breather before it all goes to pot?

In any case, I'm glad Adora opened up at least a bit, that I got to hear Glimmer doing an "oh ho ho" laugh and that everyone got their chance to shine with their roleplaying abilities.

Until next time!

[patreon - discord]

#shera liveblog #shera #shera s02e04 #spop

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anomalouscodex · 4 years ago

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So funny enough, I'm not a chemical engineer but I have a lot of anecdotal knowledge about chemical engineering (at least a little bit in the field of how explosives are made. Industrially! Not a kind one person could make! FBI man I do not know anything I shouldn't know!!!)

Waver's analogy about taking nitroglycerin out of a huge vat is actually really good- in the case of pure nitroglycerin (you can dilute it with common chemicals to make it much safer, or just... freeze it. But those both have their own issues.)

Anyway, assuming the grail is just filled with absolute pure evil, then the comparison could be assumed to be to pure nitroglycerin. Grail mud is super bad, turns stuff evil, sets things on fire (I guess). I'm not sure if it's been like... fermenting and getting worse as it sat in the grail. But it's been there a while. Maybe, I'm not up to date on all the lore. Nitroglycerin can explode on contact, creates a powerful pressure wave, and burns really really hot (doesn't generally light fires because it eats up all the oxygen. It can sometimes). It also gets worse as it sits for a time, breaking down into some even nastier components (like most chemicals that are complicated at all).

Because of its properties, if you had a vat of nitroglycerin, it would be a real pain to clean up without diluting it, and an even worse pain to transport and dispose of it. In addition, most of the time when someone needs to do that, it involves cleaning up all the equipment used to make it, which is just as bad on some ways. A lot of precautionary measures need to be taken, as many of the chemicals used are dangerous in their own rights (very strong acids and bases, other fairly reactive components.)

The greater grail probably was an awful pain to dismantle if the comparison is accurate. Just an awful magical pain, rather than a chemical one.

Also! Waver making this comparison is really interesting for two reasons:

1) He knows not only what nitroglycerin is, but at least some about its properties and is confident enough in that knowledge to make the analogy. It's just another way of showing how he's not stuck in old school magecraft and how he goes out of his way to learn about lots of stuff.

2) He's saying this to Kiritsugu, who definitely knows about explosives. He'll probably understand how dangerous and difficult this is by hearing the comparison. Waver might not know that the assassin is Kiritsugu at this point (I'm not sure), but he's probably seen this assassin using modern weaponry and figured that he might know.

#I don't know how to end this lol #I'm definitely not writing it to take a break from finishing the event nooo #Anyway Waver is real smart and I like him #Long post #Excuse any mistakes I make chemical engineering and Fate lore are not my domain

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zydrateacademy · 7 years ago

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Review: Destiny 2

It took me a while to compile enough thoughts for a proper review, and to find time to actually begin writing because I’ve been far too busy actually playing it. This will come with a minor disclaimer or two. First, I haven’t played the first game. It was on console and I’ve been on PC for a long time. Secondly, I may mention a lot of other game comparisons and there’s a reason for that. This game feels like it borrows some of the best parts of other games and stitched them together to make something great. I can’t really comment on the game’s previous story, but I hear from most players that there wasn’t much of one. Somehow I feel that this is hyperbole on their part because you can’t really have a game without a story. Even team shooters like Overwatch shoehorn some lore within their dialog or various external material. All the same, I’ve gathered that a giant alien ball gave a large portion of the Earth population immortality topped with magical powers. Not exaggerating, I have literally heard the word “magic” be used in what seems to be a Sci Fi adventure. The game proper starts off with a full on assault from an enemy faction that only had a tertiary presence in the first game. They win pretty swiftly and kick you off a tower. Your guardian loses their “light” powers and must traverse the first forty-five minutes or so of the game without the ability to resurrect. Of course that is of limited value as checkpoints are still a thing so feel free to die if you don’t quite have a handle on the gunplay.

The campaign is stated to be around six hours long and that’s fairly accurate. It felt incredibly short and it was surprising to learn about this sun-destroying device that the Red Legion created. Funny enough, that’s actually the halfway point and the exact moment where the story becomes less interesting. Before that, you hop between planets to “get the band back together”, essentially. You collect the various class leaders across the system, each with their own unique problems that you solve and get back together to help lead the push against the guys who took everyone’s light. After that, it’s a generic doomsday device that you must disable, and the campaign missions themselves feel a bit padded at times. You’re often assigned to disable something, only for it to not work so you must go destroy something else two more times before the thing actually works. The old school trope of “You cannot thwart stage one” is in full effect here folks, and you’ll likely predict what will happen to the big bad Ghaul himself long before you actually see it. Weak story aside, the gunplay is some of the best feeling in a first person shooter I’ve had in a while. At first glance the game looks and feels like a less irritating version of Borderlands, a franchise of which I love anyway like a slowly improving problem child. Enemies have large health bars and every hit you land, magical floating numbers pop up signifying your damage. Ultimately these numbers mean very little because max level players can play with level three’s and nobody can really one-shot anything except for the basics. There’s some strange autobalancing coding going on in the background, but it still manages to make sure that anyone can play with their friends regardless of people’s gear level. This includes the fact that max level players will constantly get tokens and can break down lesser gear for yet another type of turn-in token. There’s always a reason to do things and I find that it’s a great mechanic.

The story is mostly just an excuse to get you to maximum level and have access to the tower. After that, the full game unlocks to you which is common MMO fare. It lets you dip your toes in some player-versus-player but after you beat the campaign, every planet and game mode will have a set of challenges and milestones for you to work towards and continually get your item level up, also known as a “Gearscore” if you’re a veteran of WoW. Ultimately this is where the game shines and where I typically have the most fun, because it essentially becomes a first person sandbox. No, there’s not really an open world and there’s not much to explore unless you’re hunting for Lost Sectors, secret sections of the map that typically have yield chests with better loot that will only unlock when you defeat the local miniboss. They’re a lot of fun. Each planet has this sort of “hub” area that you’ll find a few other players running around in. I figure they’re instanced with a likely player cap because I’ve never seen more than a few at a time. At most I think I saw about seven other people joining in on a public event with me, one of my favorite features of the game. Public Events are not a new concept in recent gaming history. The earliest comparison I can personally think of is Rift (2011), but I think they started dipping into MMO’s a year or so before that. It’s as it sounds, in hub areas these events will trigger down from a five minute timer to allow other people gather and prepare and it will spawn a moderately difficult boss or objective based event. They’re typically too difficult for me to solo but I’m sure other, better players can manage. By completing optional objectives you can help upgrade every event to “heroic”, which yields a lot more experience and a bit more loot. You might have to research or simply take cues from other players and see what you have to do, but if you see people shooting at that ship circling the area or slamming on this random device in the middle of the firefight - That’s probably why. Those side challenges I mentioned can be a bit fickle sometimes. Sometimes they’ll require you to kill enemies with a certain weapon or a certain way that doesn’t necessarily to cater to my playstyle. One in PvP once wanted me to make a few kills with a subclass I never used and thus had no upgrade points put into. I never got that challenges because, as per the game’s meta, there’s certain gun types or subclasses people just don’t use in certain modes. For example, nobody ever really uses the Hunter’s “Nightstalker” subclass in PvP because it’s a sort of crowd control that’s useful against several clustered enemies. In PvP that almost never happens and it would be too easy for actual players to escape the little orb that the Hunter created.

There’s also a multitude of gun types, all with their varying clip sizes, fire rates, and range capabilities that are more useful in one mode than the other, so this typically encourages you to keep a certain ‘collection’ of things depending on what you’re playing. So far I’ve only talked about challenges and public events. I’ve found it hard to talk about what and first because there’s a lot to the game to chew through between the various updates the game will inevitably have. Of this writing, the game’s first expansion has already been announced for the fifth of December which will likely bring a whole new set of milestones, strikes, missions and most importantly, loot. I’ll try to get through some of the fun stuff you can get a hold of at the endgame which mercifully doesn’t take long to get to. Strikes are basically just dungeons from other fantasy based MMO’s. There’s not a lot to say about them, they’re ten to twenty minute encounters with a variety of bosses and mechanics you need to figure out. My least favorite so far is this Fallen boss who will constantly disappear after just a few hits and spawn these electrified robots that will limit your movement and now allow you to jump at all (and there’s a LOT of jumping in this game). They’ll also constantly damage you because of course they will. It reminds me of a survival game to be honest.

There’s the Crucible, Destiny’s name for PvP combat. It’s run of the mill PvP with your usual zone controls, team deathmatch and even a mode that’s reminiscent of Call of Duty’s “kill confirmed” mode where you only get points by picking up a sigil from a fallen enemy; Or else let their allies pick them up and get denied the score. I enjoy it and I can sometimes get rewards from it even by losing. I’m currently working on an exotic weapon quest where you have to dismantle rare or better scout rifles, which the crucible rewarded me with one just for losing. So hey, progress! There’s also something called “Nightfalls”, which remind me of “Heroic dungeons” from World of Warcraft, but are actually more comparable to Starcraft 2′s mutator mode in their Co-Op. Every week it changes, typically with some kind of timer mechanic to make sure your team is at their most optimal. On our first week, in addition to the timer, all of our skills recharges what seemed to be five times faster. So the mutations are not always there to hurt us. Naturally it gives much better loot than their more basic versions and can be incredibly intense. Myself and two buddies from my gaming community managed to kill the boss of one with a mere four seconds left on the timer. Our first ever Nightfall, to boot. I alluded earlier to the fact that there’s tokens you get from a variety of activities. This mostly gives incentive for high level players to continue playing, as you can turn these tokens in to a variety of faction leaders for engrams (a fancy word for “loot boxes”) that typically level with you so they’re usually good to grind out.

And yes, there is a grind here to a certain degree. There’s a sort of soft cap to gear levels, I found it a crawl to get past the 260-265 hump but then slingshot past it on the game’s second week with a new rollout of milestones that wanted me to play several crucible games, complete five challenges out in the world, and a few other things. Each of them gave me 269′s and 271′s and helped me gear up a bit. At a certain point it becomes advantageous to roll multiple characters so you can do all of this more than once, padding the gameplay and turning it into a grind. There is a bit of fatigue once you hit that soft cap I will admit but it’s typically relieved by playing with friends. This goes with any multiplayer game, true enough. As mentioned I can continue playing missions with newer players, hunt for public events, or toss my scrub ass into the unforgiving ring of failure that is Crucible and I’ll always get something for my trouble. There’s never not anything to do. All this time I’ve actually forgotten to talk about how really damn pretty the game is, to boot. Most of my settings are on maximum with the sole exception of my textures, which have to be medium as to not stress my unfortunately low about of VRAM. I’ve had people smarter than me try to explain why exceeding it matters but regardless, the game is still one of the best looking things in my entire library.

There’s a lot of chatter about microtransactions in the industry lately. Yes, they are present here in the form of “Bright” engrams, which can be acquired in two ways. Obviously you can buy “Silver” which acts as a separate currency for Bright engrams. The other way is, as a level 20 you will get one per ‘level up’ as you continue to play. The flow of such is pretty slow and I typically only get one or two a day (If I’m actively playing my main Hunter) as opposed to dropping ten dollars and getting five immediately. They typically contain cosmetics, some more practical than others like faster speederbikes that will help you traverse stretches of land on planets with a bit more ease. They’re the primary source of the shinier “shaders”, or armor dyes. You can get shaders out of basic chests and other loot boxes but shaders do have “rarity” like any gear does and I don’t think I’ve gotten some of the better looking ones through more basic means. Still, the microtransaction craze does speak to a seedier part of the industry and I will admit the “It’s just cosmetic!” argument doesn’t quite hold up, but I’ll leave that for the individual to decide. I’ve already purchased some silver twice now, but that’s my prerogative. I’ll just say that the game never, not once, beats me over the head with “BUY SOME OF THIS AND YOUR LIFE WILL BE MORE COMPLETE”. They better not, after I spent the full hundred dollars to begin with. In conclusion, the game feels like the most refined collection of a dozen games I could name, like the world’s cleanest zombie. Borderlands, The Division, World of Warcraft, Rift. The gameplay constantly reminds me of other games but is the absolute best version of all of them. The gunplay will keep me coming back as I do occasionally itch for an ironsight shooter but all the current ones I have are boring or have dead communities with long matchmaking. A large portion of my gaming community is playing so I can typically play at my own pace, or get others to join me if I feel like I want my objectives to go a little quicker than usual. There’s plenty to do and it’s all up to me to figure out what I want to prioritize when I log in. For a game with this much in it, it can only improve with more content.

#Destiny 2 #Bungie #Activision #Blizzard

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volubrjotr · 7 years ago

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Henry Ford January 14, 1935

“The only statement I care to make about the PROTOCOLS is that they fit in with what is going on. They are sixteen years old, and they have fitted the world situation up to this time. THEY FIT IT NOW.”

Zionism Sum Of All Evil

Protocol Of Zionism 5.17.

We must direct the education of Christian societies in such a way, that in all cases where initiative is required for an enterprise, their hands should drop in hopeless despair. Tension, brought about by freedom of action, loses force when it encounters the freedom of others.

Hence come — moral shocks,disappointments and failures. By all these means we will so oppress the Christians that they will be forced to ask us to govern them internationally.

When we attain such a position we shall be able, straightway, to absorb all powers of governing throughout the whole world, and to form a universal Super- government. In the place of existing governments we will place a monster, which will be called the Administration of the Supergovernment.

Its hands will be outstretched like far- reaching pinchers, and it will have such an organisation at its disposal, that it will not possibly be able to fail in subduing all countries.

Ziowood Propaganda Sleazes Onto The Big Screen:

Edison may have invented the ‘motion picture’ – but Jewish immigrants from Europe created Hollywood. (Read ‘How The Jews [zionists] Invented Hollywood’ by Neal Gabler) Remarkably, in the century since Meyer, the Warner Brothers and a handful of other Ashkenazi Jewish immigrants who began the ‘studio system’, Hollywood maintains a distinctly Yiddish accent

Some critics, however, posit that Hollywood doesn’t play fair, since it employs the mesmerizing power of cinema to manipulate the mindset of complacent viewers. How? By relentlessly injecting sordid scenarios and denigrating images of once-respected American archetypes and institutions. Current targets: the Catholic Church and , as usual, Arabs.

One very recent example out of many is the comic-book styled action film “Sin City.” Here, many of the villains are sporting multiple crucifixion crosses, a symbol held sacred by many Christians, and mixed in with a smattering of swastikas. Indeed, the film’s arch-villain turns out to be a satanic, cannibalistic Catholic cardinal!

Out Of This Second Temple That Was Destroyed 70 A.D. ~ The Only Remnant Is The Western Wailing Wall In Rothschild’s State Israel ~ Never To Be rebuilt

A Litany of Harvey Weinstein’s Catholic-Bashing Films

Zionist Netanyahu Freezes Catholic Bank Accounts In Israel: Resurrects Talmudic Christian Hatred.

OK, this is fictional ‘entertainment’ but Hollywood knows these scenarios have a visceral, even subliminal, impact. That’s basically why we don’t see any Hollywood-fabricated demons and bad guys sporting a Star of David nor do we see any rabid psychopathic rabbis dished up for popular entertainment.

King David Of The Bible Had No Star.

The unspoken code of Tinseltown is simple: Jewish archetypes and Jewish religious sensitivities are to be respected. Others may be casually smeared.

Although Catholics and Arabs are expected to survive this non-lethal, but inherently pernicious onslaught, considering the laudatory treatment Hollywood’s Jews regularly heap upon themselves when portraying their brethren, it’s becoming a bit of an outrage, as it should. How is it that Jews, Arabs and Christians receive such different treatment under Hollywood’s gaze?

In polite terms, the Jewish presence in American film and media is “without peer.”

Hollywood is an insider business. While talent is essential, there is a political element to success in Hollywood. One must pass muster with the specifically Jewish dictates of political correctness. Otherwise, one may find oneself very much unemployed and ignored.

It took an actor/producer with the stature of Mel Gibson to buck the kosher Hollywood code to produce and distribute his controversial, but wildly successful film “The Passion.” Roman Catholic

He endured a tidal wave of organized, Jewish protest, including death threats to his family.

Not surprisingly, Bob and Harvey Weinstein of Miramax Films declined to distribute The Passion assuming it would offend their crowd and/or fan the “eternal” flames of “anti-Semitism”.

Harvey Weinstein and Michael Moore ‘FAHRENHEIT 9/11’ FILM PREMIERE, LOS ANGELES, AMERICA – 08 JUN 2004

On the other hand, the Weinstein brothers did distribute “Sin City” as well as Michael Moore’s much ballyhooped Fahrenheit 9/11.

Why? Both films respected the unwritten kosher code: vilification and defamation of Arab and/or Christians is perfectly fine, but one must never – even in the context of analyzing terrorism or U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East – demean Israel, Zionism or neo-conservatism.

President Trump Now Knows The Truth About Zionist’s 9-11: The Five Dancing Mossad Israelis Arrested On 9-11

In fact, in Fahrenheit 9/11, Moore totally ignored the roles of Israel, Zionism and neo-conservatives, while tossing in a gratuitous, hefty dose of Arab-bashing. Good boy, Michael. Here’s a million dollars!

Debauched Zionist Sarah Silverman: “I Love You America” ~ “I Hope The Jews Did Kill Christ! I’d Fucking Do It Again In A Second”

For the ambitious film maker, it’s crucial to remember three things:

1: Jews remain at the top of the Hollywood food chain.

2: They intend to remain there.

3: Don’t’ forget those first two things.

Like it or not, the gatekeepers of American mass media are disproportionately of Jewish stock. Though they famously disdain “white racism”, prevailing Hollywodd customs affirm aggressive white Jewish networking. The results are nothing less than astonishing.

Much of America has come to “think Jewish” as attitudes have magically shifted on matters such as race, ‘minority rights’, school prayer, abortion rights, celebrating the ‘holidays’, and ‘promoting our values’ via an aggressive mission to impose democracy in all Mid-East countries except for the ethnocentric, and many say openly-racist, Jewish state of Israel.

OK, Israel may qualify as a “democracy” in the same way the white, apartheid South Africa did but there’s one huge difference: concerted interevention from around the world finally brought the segregated Apartheid country of South Africa to its knees. White racial discrimination was declared to be “evil.” Interestingly, Jewish activists played a decisive role in that campaign.

Dustin Hoffman ~ Polio Victim & Jon Voight ~ Bi Male Prostitute. Jon Voight Father Of Angelina Jolie Claiming To Be A Catholic Slammed Mel Gibson’s “The Passion”

Rothschild’s State Of Israel: The Midnight Cowboy

Rothschild Zionism Is Not Abrahamic Judaism: British Landmark Case

However, Jewish Israelis and international Zionists – both Jewish and now so-called Christian Zionists – suffer no similar intense pressure, except by a growing grassroots movement of human rights and peace activists, who, thus far, lack any real significant political clout. Without apology, Israel and its supporters get to play by their own rules.

It’s no accident that America’s expanding global militancy implicitly hold the “security” of the Jewish state as its centerpiece. And with the help of vital US aid, Israel militarily maintains its commitment to a segregated society, with hellish consequences for the indigenous non-Jewish Palestinians.

U.S. Taxpayers Funds $40 Billion Arms Deal For Terrorist State Israel

How are the highly-placed “friends of Israel” able to bamboozle so much of the world? Through a complicated but interconnected array of media and grass-roots propaganda, political pressure, complex legalisms, victimhood identity via the Holocaust, and raw political muscle.

In today’s America, just an allegation of “anti-Semitism” can damage the career of public figures. And to fortify this taboo, Americans are regularly fed a hefty ration of Holocaust lore.

As a sidebar, here’s an additional fact that would be funny if only it wasn’t true: Holocaust “experts” are almost all Jewish. Does their collective obsession produce scholarship, or an appetite and license to propagandize? In any case, for the latest Holocaust news, about all one needs do is simply turn on the TV or pick up any ‘major’ newspaper.

Yet, an accurate telling of the Jewish experience in America should spotlight not suffering or persecution, but success, acceptance, privilege and influence. Jews are, in fact, America’s pre-eminent success story.

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The Forgotten 50 Million Victims Of The Orthodox Christian Holocaust.

Although reportedly substantially less than 3% of our population, Jewish per capita income is unsurpassed, as is their presence at our nation’s top universities and think tanks. As noted, American Jews make up a majority of Hollywood’s ruling class and beyond that, Jewish over-representation is an accomplished fact in the fields of law, medicine and the entire entertainment and general media, including print and TV. This is no small matter.

With the average American watching over four hours of TV or film every day, listening to radio, and perusing mainstream newspapers and magazines, these figures are evidence of a profound ethnic imbalance in the management and dissemination of news and information. For America’s Jews, this translates into formidable political power.

Rothschild’s Media: To Control Information, To Assure NWO Propaganda, To Be Both Dominant And Ubiquitous.

The enduring fact remains that whoever owns and controls the media, can also leverage public opinion, and from there, government policies.

Indeed, Jewish media mavens have the means to easily advance their particular viewpoint of history, with far reaching consequences. And with the Jewish state of Israel embroiled in a condition of near-perpetual war since its founding in 1948, the question must be posed:

Might many of our country’s most accomplished editors and story-tellers, who qualify as Israeli-Americans, have at least a minor conflict of interest?

Put another way: how can they NOT?

Zionism Sum Of All Evil

Protocol Of Zionism 2.5:

The triumph of our theory is its adaptability to the temperament of the nations with which we come contact. It cannot be successful if its practical application is not based on the experience of the past in conjunction with observations of the present.

The press in the hands of existing governments is a great power, by which the control of peoples’ minds is obtained. The press demonstrates the vital claims of the populace, advertises complaints and sometimes creates discontent among the mob. The realisation of free speech is born in the press.

After all, Israeli ‘security’ remains the essential focus of organized Jewry. Countless pro-Israel organizations famously apply incessant pressure on government officials, political parties, candidates, journalists and fellow ‘tribe-members’ to lobby on Israel’s behalf, since countless billions of dollars in U.S. aid are harnessed to advance the Jewish state’s regional hegemony.

Texas Zionism: Corruption On The Border

A state law in Texas could prevent anyone who boycotts Israel from receiving Hurricane Harvey aid.

Consequently, maintaining a public willingness to favor America’s present interventionist, pro-Israel/anti-Arab foreign policy is an essential component in any scenario culminating in The Final Zionist Solution. It’s essential therefore that American gentiles “think correctly” on key Jewish issues.

Thus, when Jewish interests are at stake, good and evil are neatly drawn (preferably in clear, unambiguous fashion) so that American consumers of news and entertainment can easily and passively draw the proper conclusions.

Christian Zionism Is A Monumental Lie And Illegal Racket

Thus Arabs (particularly Palestinians) are “terrorists”, Nazi demonology is a growth industry, and Holocaust Revisionism (widely misrepresented as “Holocaust Denial”) is being peddled as a threat to global security.

In fact, in numerous “free, Western democracies”, such as Germany, the Netherlands, Austria and Switzerland, for example, to question the version of The Holocaust promoted by Zionists, including the six million figure and the gas chambers, is an actual crime punishable by fines and imprisonment.

Randy Paul ~ Zionist

Rand Paul Blackmails Palestine Into Silence About War Crimes Committed Against Her People

Ernst Zundel was deported from the U.S. ostensibly for “visa violations” to Canada where he spent two years of his life in solitary confinement. Following that outrage, he was then recently was deported to solitary confinement in a German jail. His crime? Publicly questioning aspects of the Holocaust. Who’s next?

International Red Cross ~ One Is Too Many And 6 Million Is Incorrect ~ Click Here To Enlarge

Organized Jewry, progenitors of “speech codes” on countless American campuses, are raising the bar from censoring up to outright criminalizing free speech.

A balanced and accurate view of history DOES matter. Yet, when the facts don’t fit, the media gatekeepers can purposefully misinterpret, obfuscate or simply overlook them. This may explain why, for instance, there is so little media interest in the annihilation of 20 million anti-Bolshevik Russians preceding WWII.

Duke Rusov Militia — Sviatoslav Brave kind of Rurik On this day 3 July 964 AD, now and forever, we — Russia, will celebrate the Day of Victory over the Jewish Khazars. Who are now better known as secular zionists. This victory made it possible for the physical survival of the Russian people.

After all, 20 million Russians KILLED BY THEIR OWN GOVERNMENT is the all-time tsunami of war crimes. But who were the perpetrators? Where are they now? The average American simply knows nothing about the dominant Jewish role in Communism’s pernicious rise. Of course, this oversight is no accident.

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Anti-Semitism was made illegal and punishable by death, and the only time Lenin’s voice was ever recorded was to make a widely distributed record denouncing anti-Semitism as “counter-revolutionary.”

Timeline 1900

Congress voted on the Rothschild’s Federal Reserve Act on December 22nd, 1913 between the hours of 1:30 AM and 4:30 AM.

In 1913 Jacob Schiff sets up the Anti Defamation League (ADL) in the United States. This organisation is formed to slander anyone who questions or challenges the Rothschild global conspiracy as, “anti-semitic.”

In 1913 Sun Yat Sen was beginning Socialism In China Which culminated into its ugly brother Communism Under Mao Tse Tung. Remember Sun Yat Sen escaped China With A Price On His Head And Received A COLB Just Like Barry Soetoro aka; Obama.

In 1917 Vladimir Lenin With Rothschild over throws The Russian Monarchy starting socialism/communism’s USSR.

Jews will never understand anti Semitism until they realize that it is not always based on irrational prejudice.

In 1920, Winston Churchill made a distinction between national and “International Jews.” He said the latter are behind “a worldwide conspiracy for the overthrow of civilization and the reconstitution of society on the basis of arrested development, of envious malevolence, and impossible equality…

Considering that over 275 million humans have perished in wars during the past century, America’s nurtured obsession with, and elevation of, Jewish suffering in Europe during WWII might be seen as a peculiar idiosyncrasy.

Indeed, many surmise that the American Mind is indeed under Zionist management. The irony of our nation’s preoccupation with Jewish war causalities during WWII 55 years after the fact becomes even more repellent when we consider the horrendous, ONGOING persecution of gentiles in Palestine-Israel under Jewish occupation.

Protocols Of Zion ~ Easy Word Search

Henry Ford on the “Protocols of Zion”

Handbook Of International Bankers Protocols Of Zion

Vladimir Putin Speech: 85% Of The 1917 Soviet Government Was Made Up By Rothschild Zionist Khazars!

As for American cinema, there has been a sea of changes in the past generation. There’s now a multicultural array of celebrities, including many Jewish ones. On the downside, Christianity doesn’t get the kind of coverage it enjoyed when Frank Capra was directing. Thus, we are treated to seeing an array of stock Christian con artists, whores and criminals.

Roman Catholic Corpus Crucifix Immersed In Cow Blood & Human Urine At Bloomberg’s New York Museum Of Art.

Deep State New York City’s Museum Of Hate Art: Easter Celebration ~ The Pope’s Toilet & Piss Christ, Tax Payer’s Money Working For Hate

As for Arabs, they’re still welcome to play terrorist schemers, religious fanatics, or just plain unsavory characters. This is the mean-spirited side to American film that goes unacknowledged and unchallenged.

Recently, after reading several glowing reviews, we succumbed to seeing the aforementioned over-praised, over-hyped, action-revenge movie, Sin City. Directed by Frank Miller and Robert Rodriguez, with special ‘guest director’ Quentin Tarantino, Sin City is a gritty, sexy, violent and surrealistic foray into a stylized, comic-book version of post-modern urban mayhem.

By contemporary standards of blood-letting, this film delivers far more than its share, but there is probably worse in circulation. Sin City’s denigration of Christian icons, however, approaches new excesses, something that was also very evident in Tarantino’s previous Kill Bill movies.

Not only do many of the villains in this hyper-violent yarn wear gaudy necklaces and earrings hung with Christian crosses, even multiple layers of them, “Sin City” manages to associate blue eyes with depravity…although for Hollywood, that’s nothing new.

The two heroic characters (and they were not wearing any Christian crosses, or swastikas, of course) where portrayed by Mickey Rourke and Bruce Willis. It’s Willis’ character who finally manages to kill the the evil Catholic priest.

At any rate, we can rest assured that Hollywood shall likely refrain from depicting Jews in such a negative fashion. As for the rest of us, we are not supposed to complain. In fact, we’re not even supposed to NOTICE, since it might indicate a racial loyalty which for anyone else except for Jews, is a modern sin.

This very real double standard speaks volumes about who holds real power in contemporary American film and entertainment.

In a true democracy, EVERYONE has a voice. We advise that you use it. Or you may lose it.

Rense

A Complete List of Sexual Assault and Harassment Allegations Against Harvey Weinstein

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Malia Obama: Internship with Harvey Weinstein

An egregious pattern of sexual allegations against Hollywood producer Harvey Weinstein has emerged through a series of bombshell investigations published by the New York Times and the New Yorker, as well as a variety of other outlets.

Compiled below is a timeline of all the specific sexual assault and harassment accusations against Weinstein that have surfaced so far, currently totaling more than 50 accusations of varying degrees of harassment (including at least 14 allegations he exposed himself) and 13 accusations of sexual assault. Reporting by Jodi Kantor, Megan Twohey, and Rachel Abrams in the New York Times and by Ronan Farrow in the New Yorker suggests there have been other incidents for which the reporters could not disclose details.

Weinstein’s office has issued blanket denials about potential crimes committed by Weinstein, saying, “Any allegations of non-consensual sex are unequivocally denied by Mr. Weinstein. Mr. Weinstein has further confirmed that there were never any acts of retaliation against any women for refusing his advances. He will not be available for further comments, as he is taking the time to focus on his family, on getting counseling and rebuilding his life.”

Weinstein himself has acknowledged inappropriate conduct without offering any details, saying to Page Six’sEmily Smith, “I admit to a whole way of behavior that is not good. I can’t talk specifics, but I put myself in positions that were stupid.”

Horned Drag Queen Reads to Kids at ‘Drag Queen Story Hour’ in Long Beach 10/17/2017

Horned Drag Queen Reads to Kids at ‘Drag Queen Story Hour’ in Long Beach

We will continue updating this list as new information becomes available.

1980: While working on his first movie, The Burning, Weinstein allegedly discarded his clothes and asked intern Paula Wachowiak for a massage when she dropped by his hotel room to deliver checks. Later, he said to Wachowiak, “So, was seeing me naked the highlight of your internship?”

1984: Weinstein invited college junior Tomi-Ann Roberts to his hotel in New York for a meeting ostensibly about a role in an upcoming film, and allegedly he summoned her to the bathtub, where he was nude, and pressured her to take off her clothes.

1984: Weinstein allegedly kissed a female crew member of Playing for Keeps. She resisted, but he forced her onto a bed and tried to perform oral sex on her. She told lead producer Alan Brewer what had happened but declined to file a police report, saying she didn’t want to lose her job.

Late 1980s: After allegedly grabbing actress Lysette Anthony at his rented home in Chelsea, Weinstein later appeared at Anthony’s home and raped her, the actress says. Afterward, she felt obligated by her career to continue meeting with the producer. Anthony reported the crime to the London Metropolitan Police on Oct. 11, 2017.

Late 1980s: While at the Savoy Hotel, Weinstein asked former office assistant and aspiring actress Lisa Rose for a massage. Rose had been warned of his behavior, so she rejected him and moved to a different room.

Late 1980s-early 1990s: Weinstein showed up naked to a female Miramax executive’s bedroom in London. The woman told a producer, Elizabeth Karlsen, about the encounter and later reached an out-of-court settlement and departed from the company.

Around 1990: Weinstein summoned actress Kate Beckinsale, then 17, to his room at the Savoy Hotel, allegedly meeting with her while wearing only a bathrobe and offering her alcohol. Uncomfortable, she gave an excuse for leaving. “A few years later he asked me if he had tried anything with me in that first meeting. I realized he couldn’t remember if he had assaulted me or not,” she recalled this week. Beckinsale says her subsequent rejections of his advances over the years “undoubtably harmed my career.”

1990: Weinstein allegedly pushed actress Sophie Dix onto a bed at the Savoy Hotel and pulled at her clothes. Dix then locked herself in the bathroom, and when she opened the door, she found Weinstein facing her and masturbating. Dix spoke to colleagues about the “damaging” incident, and months later, Weinstein called her to demand she “stop talking.”

1990: Weinstein allegedly behaved inappropriately toward and then reached a settlement with an unnamed assistant in New York.

Early1990s: Weinstein allegedly asked actress Rosanna Arquette for a massage and tried to put her hand on his penis. When she rejected him, he said, “You’re making a big mistake.” Subsequently, Arquette faced career struggles; Weinstein “made things very difficult to me for years,” she told the New Yorker.

Early 1990s: Following an interaction with Weinstein, a young woman unexpectedly left the company, later getting a settlement.

1990s: After artist and director Tara Subkoff was informally offered a role in a Weinstein movie, the producer allegedly pulled her onto his lap at a premiere party. Noticing his erection, Subkoff moved away, and Weinstein propositioned her. Subkoff immediately left the gathering and found herself blacklisted by rumors and removed from the new role.

1990s: During a tour of his Tribeca office, Weinstein placed aspiring actress Louise Godbold’s hand on his crotch, she wrote in a blog post. At a later meeting in Los Angeles, he allegedly pressured her into giving him a massage in his hotel bed.

1991: Weinstein allegedly badgered former employee Laura Madden for massages at various hotels in Dublin and London.

1992: Weinstein allegedly assaulted a woman in London, according to a report received by the London Metropolitan Police.

1993: Weinstein allegedly exposed himself and chased Swingers actress Katherine Kendall around a room in his apartment. Kendall says the traumatic encounter diminished the allure of working in the entertainment industry.

Around 1994: Weinstein allegedly made a sexual advance toward Gwyneth Paltrow, then in her 20s, in his hotel suite. After Brad Pitt, Paltrow’s boyfriend at the time, confronted Weinstein, the producer allegedly warned her to stay silent about the encounter.

Mid-1990s: Weinstein allegedly propositioned actress Claire Forlani repeatedly at dinners and asked her to massage him during meetings at the Peninsula Hotel. “All I remember was I ducked, dived and ultimately got out of there without getting slobbered over, well just a bit,” she recalled this week.

Mid-to-late 1990s: After Weinstein helped British writer Liza Campbell get a job as a freelance script reader, he met with her in his London hotel room and allegedly asked her to bathe with him.

1995: At the Toronto International Film Festival, Weinstein allegedly harassed actress Mira Sorvino. Later, Weinstein allegedly arrived at her apartment late one night for a marketing meeting he’d suggested, only to leave once she lied that her new boyfriend was heading over.

1995: After repeated invitations from Weinstein and pressure from her agent to meet with the producer, French actress Florence Darel visited Weinstein’s room at the Ritz Hotel in Paris. Despite’s his then-wife’s presence in the room next door, the Miramax mogul allegedly asked Darel to become his occasional mistress so she could continue to work with him.

Around 1996: Weinstein allegedly propositioned actress Ashley Judd in his hotel suite, and she rejected him. She has since appeared in Miramax movies but only years after the incident.

1996: Weinstein allegedly harassed French actress Judith Godrèche while in Cannes. When she called the female executive who’d been present at an earlier meeting, the woman told her not to speak out, as it might hurt the success of a soon-to-be-released film in which she’d starred.

1997: Weinstein reached a $100,000 settlement with actress Rose McGowan after she alleged an incident in a hotel room at the Sundance Film Festival. While she wasn’t quoted in the New Yorker and New York Times exposés, in a tweet Thursday aimed at Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos, McGowan wrote, “I told the head of your studio that HW raped me. Over & over I said it.”

1997: After a Cannes party, Weinstein and his entourage brought model Zoë Brock to the Hotel Du Cap. When Weinstein’s hotel room emptied, he allegedly removed his clothes and asked for a massage and then chased Brock when she fled for the bathroom. After Brock demanded to go home, Weinstein’s assistant told her, “Of all the girls he does this to you are the one I really felt bad about [sic].”

1997: Italian actress Asia Argento says Weinstein forcibly performed oral sex on her after she arrived at Weinstein’s hotel thinking she was attending a Miramax party. Argento later had a relationship with Weinstein, during which she agreed to have sex with him because she felt “obliged,” but says she was always haunted by the initial rape.

1998: Weinstein allegedly harassed actress Angelina Jolie in a hotel room.

1998: At a meeting with filmmaker Sarah Polley, her publicist, and one of Weinstein’s employees, the Guinevere actress, then 19, says Weinstein encouraged her to form a “close relationship” with him to further her career.

1998: Weinstein settled with London assistant Zelda Perkins after she threatened to pursue legal recourse or publicly share Weinstein’s inappropriate interactions with her and other female colleagues.

Late 1990s: Weinstein allegedly used the bathroom and took a shower while talking business with actress Lauren Holly at his hotel, then approached her naked and suggested they give each other massages. Holly says he warned her it would be a “bad decision” to leave the room. When she shared her experience with fellow industry insiders at a dinner later that day, Holly says they told her that since it hadn’t been assault, she should keep quiet.

1999: Allegedly Weinstein repeatedly propositioned actress and writer Marisa Coughlan, then 25, during meetings at the Peninsula and a L.A. restaurant, trying to “barter sex for movie roles,” she says. Coughlan rejected him multiple times and ultimately didn’t get the part she and Weinstein had discussed.

2000: During the filming of Get Over It, Weinstein allegedly blocked the door of his hotel room and refused to let actress Melissa Sagemiller, then 24, leave until she’d kissed him. Later, she says, he “kidnapped” her bags from her airport flight so she’d be forced to join him and others on his private plane. While Sagemiller talked with the cast, Weinstein’s producing partner told her, “Don’t say anything … it will definitely hurt your career. This is Harvey.”

Early 2000s: Weinstein offered Heather Graham her choice of a movie role, then talked about an open-relationship agreement he had with his wife, implying, Graham thought, that he would give her work in exchange for sex. Later Weinstein lied to try to get Graham into a one-on-one meeting that she cancelled.

Early 2000s: Weinstein allegedly groped Australian actress Natalie Mendoza during the filming of The Great Raid, and she threatened to punch him.

2000s: While on a yacht at Cannes, model Angie Everhart awoke from a nap to see Weinstein allegedly masturbating and blocking a door. He warned her to stay quiet about it, but when Everhart told friends, they replied, “Oh that’s just Harvey.”

Around 2001: Weinstein wore only a bathrobe for a meeting at the Savoy Hotel in London with actress Romola Garai about a role in Dirty Dancing: Havana Nights. While she went on to appear in the film, the episode left the actress feeling “violated.”

2002: Actress Alice Evans says Weinstein asked her to go with him to a bathroom at a Cannes Film Festival party. “I want to touch your tits. Kiss you a little,” Weinstein allegedly said, and when she rejected his advances, implied that her refusal would cost her then-boyfriend, fellow actor Ioan Gruffudd, a part for which he’d recently auditioned. Gruffudd did not get the part.

2003: Weinstein allegedly offered aspiring actress Dawn Dunning roles in upcoming films in exchange for a threesome. She says that when she refused, he told her, “You’ll never make it in this business.”

2003: After making sexual comments over dinner about model Samantha Panagrosso on a yacht at Cannes, Weinstein allegedly went to her room, pushed her onto the bed, and groped her. When Panagrosso told friends in the industry, they wrote off the producer’s behavior as typical.

Early-to-mid 2000s: After making eye contact with Weinstein at a party hosted by Vogue editor Anna Wintour, model Trish Goff was invited to have lunch with Weinstein at the Tribeca Grill. While dining in a private room, he allegedly groped and attempted to kiss her, not relenting until Goff escaped into the public dining area.

Summer 2004: Aspiring actress Lucia Stoller (now Lucia Evans), then a rising senior at Middlebury College, was allegedly made to perform oral sex on Weinstein during a daytime meeting at Miramax’s Tribeca office. After the incident, Weinstein continued to call her late at night.

2004: Weinstein allegedly moved a public meeting with Katya Mtsitouridze, a prominent figure in the Russian film industry, to his Venice hotel room, greeted her in a bathrobe, and suggested a massage. A decade later, she ran into the producer, who she says told her, “Don’t even think about saying anything.”

2005: After meeting Lena Headey at the Cannes Film Festival, Weinstein allegedly propositioned the English actress. She refused him and has not appeared in another Miramax film since. Years later, the Game of Thrones actress says the producer invited her to his hotel room in L.A. When she made clear to him in the elevator that the meeting was to be strictly professional, Weinstein became enraged and warned her to tell no one.

Mid-2000s: Weinstein allegedly grabbed Canadian actress Erika Rosenbaum by the back of her neck in a Toronto hotel room and masturbated behind her. She said he’d made aggressive advances toward her with her in earlier meetings.

2007: When New York journalist Lauren Sivan dodged an unwanted kiss, Weinstein allegedly masturbated in front of her at the Cafe Socialista restaurant.

2008: During at pitch meeting in his hotel room at Sundance Film Festival in Park City, Utah, Weinstein allegedly exposed himself to screenwriter and actress Louisette Geiss and entreated her to watch him masturbate in the nearby hot tub.

2008: Weinstein interviewed a potential babysitter, actress and writer Sarah Ann Masse, while in his boxers and undershirt at his Connecticut home. He allegedly ended the meeting—during which he made his children leave the room—with an uncomfortably long hug and told Masse, “I love you.” She ultimately didn’t get the job.

Around 2010: After Vietnamese actress and model Vu Thu Phuong’s scenes were cut from one of his films, Weinstein, wearing only a towel, allegedly offered to teach actress how to perform sex scenes, as his upcoming movies required them. Phuong turned him down, and the episode discouraged her from further pursuing acting.

2010: Weinstein allegedly revealed himself and demanded sex from French actress Emma de Caunes after a lunch meeting. Later that day, he called repeatedly and offered her gifts.

2010: At a dinner in the Peninsula Hotel with director Lina Esco, Weinstein allegedly pressured Esco for a kiss; she refused repeatedly. Later, he helped her secure an editor for her film Free the Nipple.

Around 2010: Weinstein allegedly propositioned actress Eva Green in his hotel room, and she had to push him off. Green’s mother says he then intimidated her daughter with talk of retaliation.

2010, 2011, and 2015: Weinstein allegedly assaulted a woman in London, according to a report she filed to London police on Oct. 14, 2017.

2010s: After meeting actress Léa Seydoux, Weinstein insisted they get drinks. That night, sitting on a couch in his hotel room, he allegedly climbed onto her to force a kiss, prompting Seydoux to push him off. During subsequent encounters, Weinstein made comments about her that Seydoux describes as “misogynistic,” and he bragged openly about his sexual conquests.

January 2011: Weinstein allegedly pressured actress Jessica Barth to give him a naked massage at the Peninsula Hotel. She rejected his advances. As Barth left, he gave her the contact information of a female executive to appease her.

Around 2011: Weinstein allegedly asked to massage actress Lupita Nyong’o, then a student at the Yale School of Drama, while hosting a screening at his Connecticut home. The actress offered to massage him instead, then made a quick exit when he moved to remove his pants. Weinstein and Nyong’o met professionally again, and in an op-ed in the New York Times, the actress writes that he tried to move a lunch at the Tribeca Grill to a private room and noted how he’d helped other actress’ careers. Nyong’o refuted his advances and vowed never to act in a Weinstein movie.

Early-to-mid-2010s: After a meeting with a director about a potential upcoming role, Weinstein allegedly asked actress Cara Delevingne, who is bisexual, to kiss a woman in his hotel room and, as Delevingne left, attempted to kiss the actress himself. Delevingne ultimately got the part.

February 2013: An anonymous Italian model-actress says that Weinstein unexpectedly showed up to her hotel, the Mr. C Beverly Hills, grabbed her hair, and allegedly raped her. The anonymous woman, now 38, reported the incident to the Los Angeles Police Department on October 19, 2017.

2013: Weinstein allegedly propositioned actress Amber Anderson and tried to move her hand to touch him inappropriately. He also warned her that telling others of the private meeting would affect her “opportunities.”

2013: After a tea with Weinstein at the Peninsula Hotel, actress and comic Chelsea Skidmore alleges Weinstein requested a massage and, when she turned him down, masturbated in front of her. At three meetings over the next three years, Weinstein exposed himself or pushed Skidmore to “get physical,” in the words of a Washington Post article, with other women.

December 2014: Weinstein allegedly propositioned temporary front-desk assistant Emily Nestor repeatedly in a breakfast meeting her second day of work. A friend alerted human resources, but Nestor didn’t push the complaint further and ultimately decided not to go into the entertainment industry.

2015: At the same hotel, Weinstein allegedly pressured a different assistant into giving him a naked massage.

March2015: Weinstein allegedly groped Italian model Ambra Battilana Gutierrez at what was supposed to be a business meeting at his office. Battilana Gutierrez reported the assault to the New York Police Department and extracted a taped admission of Weinstein’s behavior, but the Manhattan district attorney’s office ultimately decided not to file charges. Weinstein later reached a settlement with the model.

2015: Lauren O’Connor, then 28, wrote a memo to company executives about Weinstein’s actions creating a “toxic environment for women” and her experience of feeling “sexualized and diminished.” Weinstein made a settlement with her before the board could hire a lawyer to investigate.

Date unknown: Weinstein allegedly offered Friday Night Lights actress Minka Kelly a lavish life as his girlfriend during a business lunch at his hotel, an offer she refused.

Date unknown: Actress Mia Kirshner wrote in an op-ed that Weinstein “attempted to treat me like chattel” during a hotel meeting. Afterwards, she warned other actors of his behavior.

Date unknown: In an incident the New Yorker describes as an alleged rape, an unnamed woman who worked with Weinstein says he summoned her to his hotel room and, while wearing only a bathrobe, forced himself onto her. She declined to be identified because she feared retaliation from Weinstein through his vast influence.

Slate

The Laudato Si: Exorcism Of The New World Order

Weinstein’s Part Of The Zionist Protocols: Henry Ford “The Protocols Of Zion Is What Is Going On Now” "The only statement I care to make about the PROTOCOLS is that they fit in with what is going on.

#1FP #alexander solzhenitsyn #Henry Ford #lenin #malia obama #moore #piss christ #protocols of zion #Russia #weinstein

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intergalactic-zoo · 7 years ago

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My experience with "It" has been a bit of a roller coaster. My dad's a big Stephen King fan, and I know the book was around the house when I was a kid, but I didn't see the TV miniseries until sometime in the last couple of years (and perhaps consequently, never had a fear of clowns). I only started digging into King's novels with 'Salem's Lot a year or two ago, so my knowledge of the story was limited to that miniseries and a lot of jokes about a child orgy scene. So I went into the audiobook expecting that I wouldn't really like it, and I was pleasantly surprised. Meanwhile, I went into the new film with high hopes and high expectations—a far cry from where I was a week or two before. I mentioned on Twitter that I thought the new version of Pennywise fell into the same trap that so much modern horror falls into, making every monster scary in and of itself, rather than having the horror come from placing this common thing in a scary context. In short, it looked a bit like Rob Zombie's Pennywise, and I thought that was an emblematic error. But reviews have been largely positive, and from people I generally respect with regard to horror movies, so I figured I was wrong. I went into "It" expecting to be wowed. I wasn't. Or, well, I guess I was, but only at the breadth and depth of wasted opportunities. Spoilers ahead for "It" (2017), and "It" (1990) and It (1986), I suppose, as well.

The most common critique I've heard since watching "It" is that it isn't actually all that scary, and I think that's accurate. The thing is, I don't know how much of a problem that really is. The story isn't all that scary, either. Not in the conventional horror movie sense, anyway. There's a lot of dread and cosmic horror in places, but surprisingly little death and gore and suspense for a movie about a killer clown monster—and what there is isn't central enough to the plot to be likely to make it through the cuts necessary to bring the story down to movie-length. The horror moments that made the cut relied mostly on jump scares and Bill Skarsgård's acting chops for their effectiveness. I'm usually kind of a soft touch when it comes to jump scares, and maybe they would have been more effective if I hadn't heard ahead of seeing it that the movie was non-stop jump scares (which isn't exactly accurate). Whatever the reason, I wasn't actually scared by anything in the movie, and I thought the only scene that was effectively scary was when the kids were watching the slide projector. There are several things about the movie that worked really well. For one thing, the production values are great, especially in contrast to the 1990 version, which looked every bit the TV miniseries that it was. I was worried that the story wouldn't work updated so that the flashback sections were in the 1980s, but that turned out to be a stroke of marketing genius, if nothing else. There is, perhaps, no better time to release a 1980s-nostalgic horror film about children fighting an otherworldly evil that stole one of their friends than in between seasons of "Stranger Things." The biggest change to the overall plot was shifting the focus from murdered children to missing ones, tying in with the stranger danger/kid on the milk carton concern of the time. The kids were great, particularly Sophia Lillis (Bev), who should, if there's any justice in Hollywood, have an amazing career ahead of her. I think the only misstep in casting for the children was Nicholas Hamilton, whose small size and weaselly looks never quite gave Henry Bowers the sense of real menace that he's supposed to have. I never quite bought Jaeden (Bill) Lieberher's stutter, but I attribute that less to his performance and more to how lightly it was used in the movie, and how natural Steven Weber's stutter sounded in the audiobook. I really don't want this to be just a list of things the movie did differently from the book; for one thing, that's inevitable, because the book is an enormous tome that builds the lore of Derry going back a hundred years, bounces back and forth between two main time periods, features a pretty large cast of characters, and has a climactic moment where a bunch of ten-year-olds have sex in a sewer (in a scene that, were it written today, would hopefully be less heteronormative if not less creepy). I understand departing from the book, but there are ways to do that well, and then there's the ways that "It" chose. And the first, most significant of those changes is in how it treats Beverly Marsh. Bev in the books is not a great character. She is almost entirely defined by her relationships to the boys and men in her life, from her abusive father to her abusive husband to the boy who has a crush on her to the boy she has a crush on to the five other boys she has sex with in a desperate attempt to rebuild a cosmic bond at a critical moment. She doesn't have a whole lot of agency to begin with, but what she does have is skill and perseverance. She's the one who knows yo-yo tricks. She's the one who's best with Bill's slingshot, who actually manages to wound It. She takes down her father when It pushes him over the edge. She keeps her cool when they're trapped in the sewers coming back from It's lair. And she sacrifices the most to make it back as an adult. She doesn't really get those moments in the movie. She gets to stand up to her father (whose abuse in the film is never as physical as it is in the book, but is much more heavily implied to be sexual), but the rest goes away, and even that feels less significant since there's so little buildup and no indication that her father isn't just acting on his own. The slingshot is gone, replaced instead by Mike Hanlon's slaughterhouse bolt pistol. So Bev doesn't get the moment of wounding It, a fact made more significant by the way the movie compresses that scene into the climax. She does get to go swimming in her underwear, so at least she still gets to be objectified by all her male friends and family. The novel gives Bev fairly little agency to begin with, but I suppose there's no amount of female characterization too small that Hollywood can't shrink it a little more. So, with the slingshot replaced by Mike's bolt pistol, you might expect that that would expand his role a bit. Indeed, Mike gets the biggest changes from book to film, and the clearest narrative arc. In the book, Mike is a farm kid from the other side of Derry, where the black families live, and he goes to a Christian school. His relationship with his father (and his father's relationship to the town) is one of only two really positive parent-child relationships in the book, and it informs a lot about Mike's character, including his interest in town history that leads him to be the researcher and the one who stays behind when they all grow up. It's his father's history with Henry Bowers' racist father that drives Henry's targeting of Mike. The book loses all of that, killing Mike's parents in a fire, and making him work the farm with his hard-nosed grandpa. Early on, Mike can't bring himself to kill sheep with the bolt pistol, and it's implied that he's a vegetarian. After the group experiences horrors and has an act-two falling-out, he's able to kill much more coldly. So the closure to that narrative arc is obvious: he gets to use the bolt pistol on It, striking the killing blow. But he doesn't. That moment goes to Bill. So, if you're following along at home, they gave Bill's slingshot to Mike, removed Bev from that aspect of the story entirely, changed the narrative so that Mike's character arc would end most naturally with using that weapon to kill It, and then gave that moment to Bill. They broke two characters with one change. And all the research and history that define Mike's character? Those go to Ben instead, who's now also the new kid in town (presumably to fuel the New Kids on the Block gags, which are genuinely funny). I'm not sure if all that is meant also to code Ben as queer, but it's easy to read that into the story as presented. Just as it was easy to read queer coding of Mike in the book. Again, it wasn't at all explicit or even clear (and was, at least in part, a result of me mishearing "vags," short for "vagrants," as something else), but I caught that Mike was gay before I caught that he was black. Speaking of which, racism is one of the more mundane horrors in the book, but one that was pretty omnipresent, especially in the 1950s sequences. Not so in the movie. When Henry and his cronies attack Mike, they tell him "get out of my town!" but we never get any indication why they say that (especially when it would make more sense to be shouted at Ben, the new kid in town), certainly not the explicit racism that's in the book. Neither do we get the personal connection of Henry killing Mike's dog. That moment shows up here, but it's Henry saying "I wish I'd killed your family!" Between this and the fact that they made Henry's father an abusive police officer rather than a washed-up farmer with serious psychoses, it seems like some earlier draft of the film might have leaned heavier on the racism angle, might have been trying to say something, probably had Henry starting the fire that killed Mike's parents, but none of that made it to the screen. What we got instead was entirely flattened. Everything that defines Mike's character in the book is stripped away and either sanitized or given to other characters, and so is a good portion of what would make sense to define his character in the movie. It's a mess. The only character who benefits at all from changes between the book and movie is Stan Uris, and that's arguable. Stanley's first act in the book is to commit suicide as an adult, so the book never really lingers on his character in the flashbacks. We get little bits of his personality and a decent amount on his interest in birds, but that's pretty much it. Here, his Jewish heritage is emphasized with a plotline about his Bar Mitzvah, and that could be really interesting. In particular, it'd make an interesting contrast with the plot about Bev's period, both stories about kids struggling with becoming adults. That contrast is never actually made, though, and Stan's encounter with It loses the moment of triumph. Again, what's distinct about Stan's character gets stripped away. Also, like Mike, we never see Stan encounter any bigotry. Derry has monsters, murderers, rapists, and hooligans, but no anti-Semites. That stripping of characters' unique qualities is almost universal, and weirdly consistent in that we never see the kids' weapons against It. In the book, the power of belief makes Bill's speech therapy mantra, Stan's bird book, Eddie's aspirator, Bev's silver slingshot slugs, and Richie's voices into potent weapons that hurt It at key moments, but none of those show up here. As a result, we never really get an idea why the kids are able to defeat Pennywise. For some reason, they're able to beat up the clown and then kill it with an empty bolt pistol, but there's nothing to contextualize those moments. And there's a lot of that out-of-context stuff, little bits left over from the book that don't work because the context was cut out. Why does a thirteen-year-old in 1989 shout "hi-yo Silver, away!" while riding his bike? What's with the references to the Turtle if we're not going to go cosmic with it? Why does Pennywise turn into a mummy at one point near the end, when we've never had mummies even mentioned in the film up to that point? Why do the kids say "beep beep" to Richie? Why does Eddie encounter a "leper" in 1989—especially after talking early on about his fears over AIDS (another moment where it seemed like maybe an earlier draft had something to say)? Why have the big Paul Bunyan statue if you're not going to bring it to life? They even removed Georgie's question about balloons, the line that contextualizes every comment about things floating in the rest of the movie. And then there's Pennywise, who just did nothing for me. I talked before about how I think it's less effective to make him outwardly creepy from jump, and nothing in the movie dissuaded me from that. When Skarsgård is meant to be a normal clown, he's too creepy, and when he's meant to be scary, he's not creepy enough. There's none of the juxtaposition that made Tim Curry's version of the character so effective, and while anyone's going to suffer in comparison to Curry, Skarsgård was hamstrung from the start by the bizarre choices they made in Pennywise's design and mannerisms. He frequently talked too fast, which swallowed up his dialogue on more than one occasion, and the film often gave him those herky-jerky movements that have been popular in monsters since "The Ring," but here they always just looked goofy. They further served to make Pennywise less distinct as a horror movie monster; here he's just another Samara or Annabelle, a creepy monster who talks and moves in a creepy way and never surprises you when it turns out he's creepy. A similar thing happens with the rest of the adult characters. We lose Richie and Mike's parents entirely. Bill's dad is hostile to Bill, having accepted Georgie's death in a way that Bill hasn't. Eddie's overbearing mother becomes even more cartoonish. Even Bev's passive-but-enabling mom is gone, leaving us only with sinister and hostile adults throughout the story. There's probably a lesson in there, but it means we don't get the creeping horror of the kids realizing they're alone in their fight, that It has isolated them by making the adults oblivious or by feeding their basest impulses. When Bev's dad gets slightly more physical in his abuse, it's the next logical step for his character, not a sudden disinhibition of what was kept slightly beneath the surface. By removing the juxtaposition and mingling of mundane and cosmic horrors, by removing the contrasts that make the horror function, the story—and the horror—is diminished. And that's my overall impression of the movie, really. It's diminished. Everything feels smaller. The stakes are smaller, the real-world horrors are smaller, the methods they use to fight the monster are smaller. Everything that made the story distinct has been stripped away for one reason or another, leaving a mess of a story that feels like it's coming out of half a dozen different script revisions and focus group decisions. Instead of a story about children caught in an ancient war against a Lovecraftian cosmic horror, it's The Goonies vs. Freddy Krueger. That's a fine pitch, but it's not It.

#IFTTT #Blogger #TheFortressOfSoliloquy

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