#Dead Spade Remake | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

godtier · 1 year ago

Text

i saw this come across my dash and i have Things to add (very tl;dr sorry everyone)

"the first time we see wesker" in the remakes is RE1 remake, which was released on the gamecube in 2002 and subsequently was rereleased on ps4/xbox one. RE1 remake is part of the remake canon/timeline/continuity whatever you want to call it. it should always be considered when it comes to remake characterization.

the wii titles (darkside chronicles and umbrella chronicles) are no less canon to the OG timeline than any other entry. the fact that they're rail shooters is an odd reason to exclude them from consideration when it comes to OG. the only thing i would say is iffy is whenever there's a rehash/revisit of an OG event in a game. anything else shouldn't be brushed off just because it's a rail shooter. example from another series: dead space extraction is a rail shooter on the wii. it's part of the canon for dead space, the events are referenced in subsequent titles and many of the characters are present, and just because it's a rail shooter that nobody but me and one other person played doesn't mean it's not canon. game enjoyment or game genre doesn't determine whether something is canon or not.

"literally no one that Umbrella sent into [Raccoon City] succeeded." huh??? "literally no one?" are we forgetting about HUNK? HUNK was one of the best examples of an umbrella employee that DID succeed in that entire fiasco, and in spades. HUNK was the sole survivor of his squad, he successfully retrieved valuable data and a goddamn sample of the G virus. to say that ada is exempt from scrutiny or given a pass from wesker or umbrella because "no one else succeeded in raccoon city" is an odd way of interpreting those events. especially given that it's factually incorrect to say that "no one else succeeded" in the first place. i would even argue that the fact that HUNK succeeded lends credence to the fact that wesker and ada clearly have an elevated relationship of some kind in remake for that very reason. if HUNK succeeded in the mission (which he did), and a supposed major reason for ada being given a pass is "no one succeeded," your argument no longer holds water.

"wesker doesn't fuck" is just. i don't understand. whether people like it or not, there's no evidence to suggest that he doesn't fuck. just because he doesn't like excella doesn't mean he's averse to sex. excella is a personality. she has a presence that absolutely does not mesh with wesker's vibe. but she was a necessary annoyance. she headed tricell. wesker needed her to get shit done. he had to tolerate and endure her crap until she melted into goo. and bizarrely, to imply that jake's mother basically just... stole wesker's sperm to have a kid??? lmao what???? but implying that wesker just... doesn't do The Sex because excella is annoying and he hated being around her or dealing with her is flabbergasting. did the possibility of preferences cease to exist with wesker just because it's wesker? i get that he's a weird freakazoid of a man but that's what makes him all the more likely imo to fuck people at random. he has an ego.

i have to rant about this in its own point: why would the first thing anyone would jump to about a non-character like jake's mother is that she's a creepazoid obsessive stalker that steals sperm??? from what jake tells us, she seemed like a normal woman who happened to fall in love with the wrong man. if she was that obsessive to steal the man's sperm to have his child, why the hell would she emigrate back to her home country while pregnant and not even tell wesker she was pregnant? to me, given that his mother spoke fondly of wesker and still loved him, it's likely that wesker either lead her on, hit it and quit it, or made up some kind of excuse about his job making it impossible for them to have a relationship. at most, jake's mother has a fault of perhaps falling too quickly for someone, but that doesn't equate to ... stealing sperm. wesker can be charismatic, after all, and it's kinda fucked to assume that a woman would only continue to love him and think fondly of him due to the fact that she must be crazy or have been a stalker. i think jake's mom was just a "victim" of the person wesker never was, much like chris and the rest of STARS were. they thought wesker was someone that he wasn't, they grew close to this person that didn't exist. the difference was that some of them lived to see who wesker really was. jake's mom never knew. that doesn't make her nuts or wesker any less likely to be her baby daddy. i understand that people don't like jake as a character, but speaking about "talking objectively" and then saying some wild-ass shit like that... nani tf and just to reiterate, jake's mother is a non-character. why construct this bizarre assumption when previously, it was stated "wesker doesn't fuck except for [jake's mom]?" very confusing.

also, sidenote: why are we hinging OG wesker's shenanigans to make inferences upon what remake wesker does? they're two separate characters. whatever happened in OG doesn't matter until it happens in remake if we're talking solely about remake.

the rebecca picture is not merely a little cute easter egg for the players. it was put where it was, in wesker's desk, for a very obvious and deliberate reason. i'll explain. back when this game was new, we didn't have the luxury of guides that were released simultaneously with the game. printed "strategy guides" were a thing, but even they weren't always accurate and sometimes didn't release at the same time as the games. in fact, several guides that i own from the ps1 era have incorrect information in them because they weren't written by the development company. they were written by (effectively) fans who just so happened to work for a game guide company. they had to play and discover the games the same way we did. that's why strategy guides from the era of RE2 should almost never be used to point out a possible thing in canon. a lot of them are just fanboys using the space to hawk their own theories or interpretations of the game. anyway, the reason why i bring that up is because when we got a new game, we had to find shit on our own. devs knew this; this was the norm at the time. devs also knew that when players first reached the STARS office, the first thing they were gonna do would be scour EVERYTHING for clues and hints on the story. when you knew that seasoned players were coming off of wesker's betrayal, the assumption would be that said players would be feasibly motivated to smash the "examine" button all over wesker's desk to figure out what else he was hiding. 50 times. you had to do it 50 times before you found the roll of film. again, the motivation at that time (with no way to look it up, remember!) was that he HAD to be hiding SOMETHING there! and he was. he was hiding a picture of rebecca. sure, it's a sort of fake-out joke, but it also makes you wonder why wesker had that roll of film so deeply hidden in his desk. i'll tell you why. it's because he was jerkin it to rebecca. wesker fucks.

"The only time we see Wesker closely interact with a woman is in RE5 where he’s extremely disgusted and visibly uncomfortable." did we miss jill in her skintight catsuit in RE5 here or...? like i must reiterate: wesker put her in that shit. marinate on that. why? because he gets boners from their suffering. that's why.

there are just so many odd takes in this discussion that i had to go over because frankly, some of the information isn't correct. other takes are just weirdly offensive and baffling. i couldn't keep my mouth shut. gomen.

Here’s some RE Separate Ways analysis that isn’t about shipping because I like Ada. I’m happy her DLC actually focuses on her, but some of the takes I’m seeing are Insufferable. Main statements in bold for ease of reading and skipping purposes.

-Wesker and Ada haven’t been working together consistently for the past 6 years. This dripless bitch is calling Ada every five minutes to babysit her. I don’t think that’s the relationship dynamic of someone you’re regularly employed under, and when it is, Ada is not the type of character to tolerate that behavior for 6 years. We know Ada is a contract worker. We can understand she’s worked for Wesker on and off, but she’s a freelance agent period. She must’ve done enough jobs for Wesker that he feels the need to check on her and have this constant reporting in to make sure she stays on task since he’s clearly used to her not always following his orders. He 100% hired her for this assignment because he knew the situation and compared to the other options, she had the highest survival chances. Which, he was right. High risk, high reward.

Sometimes Wesker’s babysitting works: Ada holding Luis at gunpoint when he tries to negotiate saving Leon and Ashley. Sometimes he knows when to step away: “Keep your dog.” All of it is in the effort to get what he wants. Look, he let her live. He worked with S.T.A.R.S for years and wanted them all dead. If he worked with Ada regularly and she pulled this shit with the amber, he would’ve had that helicopter blown out of the sky. There’s always some restraint with personal distance, especially with a guy who thinks so highly of himself.

-Luis is a drama queen. In the regular game, Luis acts cool and under control to the best of his abilities around Leon and Ashley. It’s a part of his newly found hero-complex even though he does still know when to ask for help: “save me prince charming!” In the DLC, we see the real side of Luis. The one who’s scared, and dramatic, and knows when he’s not shooting with a loaded gun so to speak. When Ada tells him to leave her to fight, he does. He wants to help, but his respect for her abilities sends him fleeing like she orders him to. Also, like every scientist, he has zero self-preservation! He ran into a fire that clearly would kill him to get medicine. And the exchange afterwards? “No! Now you’ll all die!” “Make some more medicine.” “Oh..yeah…I can do that. I do have that ability.”

The flamenco dance. “Are you mad at me???🥺 You’re mad at me!😭” This man understands Ada can kill him without blinking, but still can’t keep his composure around her. This is such a fun dynamic to explore in fic for expansion stories and “Luis lives” au’s. The DLC gives him breaks to freak out and panic, whereas the main game holds the “cool persona” moments after Leon saves him. Even his dying words to Ada. This man is bleeding to death and still can’t shut up. I love him.

Okay, that’s all I gotta say about the loser men. Now for the star of the DLC. Ada. :)

-Ada “Sans Undertale go into my eyes” Wong. The methods Ada uses in the DLC are fun and appropriate. It’s not invasive and in your face unlike another agent, but more subtle. She can track footprints, fingerprints, gauge the safe distance required for her grappling hook, and she knows when she needs to fight and whens he needs to run. Her practicality has always been the cleanest of the entire cast due to her being a spy, but this time we actually get to see this trait utilized through her tools.

-Ada is silly and quips her own jokes to get through it. Something I’m not seeing anyone talk about including the aeon people who are claiming anything they can get, is this specific humor parallel between Leon and Ada in the remake. Both of them have gone through the horrors of Raccoon City. Both of them went right back into very difficult military in function style work which always has a body count. I talked about Leon’s humor coping mechanism here [X], but to hear Ada do the same thing? I feel like they went under the radar because they don’t sound as stupid as Leon’s quips, but they are still so stupid. “Nighty night.” “Lights out.” “Bring me a real challenge next time.” “Now look at the mess you’ve made.” “You think that gun will be enough?” She and Leon even share the same “Next,” line!

If I had 80GB to spare on the game, I’d see just how many more I could get out of her. Like, these are dumb as hell. She’s found a method to cope with the horrors she’s witnessing that just so happens to coincide with Leon’s. I’m not saying this as a marker of whatever romance you’ve tossed them in or even to diss any other romances. What I am saying is that they have a similar type of mental illness resulting from trauma, and they ended up using the exact same coping method despite never seeing each other.

Ada fans who hate Leon! This opens a door for you when it comes to character analysis and how Ada deals with her PTSD and/or depression! Run through it RIGHT NOW!

-Ada’s infection pulls a lot more weight than it seems. I’ve seen some people say Ada’s parasite should’ve been removed the same as Leon’s and Ashley’s. (Which is an extremely unsubtle argument to get them all in the same room for your shipping nonsense.) However, something I noticed with the DLC were the parallels to the troubles in RE2. The Black Robe/U-3/Pesenta monster is the first time where we get to see Ada dealing with a stalking enemy. Due to RE4 being so much more plot-lined streamed to maintain the flow of gameplay, these events were not allowed to be random, but the narrative purpose remains. Ada gets to have a stalking enemy in her DLC like Claire and Leon did in RE2 with the addition of a hubris check.

The hubris check? Well, Ada has never been infected until this DLC. In the original games, she can step back and watch people die because she doesn’t know what it feels like. Now she knows what it feels like. The lack of control. The pain. The slow turning. Her job has had her flirting with death for years, but not in a way she can’t fiddle with the odds. A parasite is not something a person can distract with words. The action to steal the amber is backed up via personal experience not just a morality code slapped on. The addition of Wesker’s correction to “billions of causalities” means she’s included in that number and just cements her incentive to flee. She’s not doing this for Leon. She’s not doing this for Luis. She’s doing this for herself, and if it so happens to help other people then it is what it is. After being on both sides of the coin when it comes to viruses, she can no longer function as entirely impartial to the work she’s doing.

-Ada doesn’t ask for permission but asks for forgiveness. Don’t take this phrasing literally. She doesn’t ask Wesker to forgive her. What this means is that she’ll do something before asking, and if it upsets people then she’ll course correct. Her job is not the kind of job where she needs to take orders for every action she implements which is why Wesker calling every five minutes was annoying as hell. In the OG RE4 she kind of argues with Wesker for Leon to live for “his usefulness”, but it’s swiftly shut down until it’s convenient to Wesker for Leon to live. This forces her to sneak around and betray Wesker multiple times to save Leon secretly, and the concept rightfully gets thrown into the garbage for the remake DLC.

The scene in the bedroom where Wesker tells Ada not to become a liability after taking her blood? Ada doesn’t fight to get her shit back. Some people said this was flirting. Wrong. This is Ada seeking forgiveness after the fuck up of passing out in the middle of an active field by letting Wesker walk off with an infection sample. She then makes sure not to fuck up a second time in the same way, and she doesn’t. She learns the signs of her parasite so in case she does pass out again, she’ll be somewhere much less conspicuous. She listens for the changes in her environment and the feelings in her body and prepares herself for what’s next.

-Ada saves Leon and Ashley for Luis’ sake. I stated earlier that Ada’s action to take the amber was for her own sake but ends up helping others. This is the exact situation going on when Luis talks about getting the suppressant. She needs the suppressant in order to do her job and kill the black robe so she can heal. It just so happens that Leon and Ashley need the suppressant for survival reasons too. They are an afterthought until Luis dies.

We watch Ada question Wesker and his plans all throughout this DLC, and she comes to her own conclusions after her experience working with him. She could’ve gotten the amber back and let the whole place blow into smithereens like Wesker intended. Who cares about the president’s daughter? Who cares about another dead federal agent? Luis did. He cared so much he died for it, and just like that other clown in Raccoon City (aka her), she got emotionally attached. If there was anything she could’ve done for Luis to make his death mean something, it was this act.

-Ada sells Leon’s jacket. This isn’t analysis, but I thought this was funny as hell. ACAB! No exceptions! Freeze your tiddies off, Leon! I don’t give a shit!

-Ada’s new outfit is still better than her old one. It’s still not the best they could’ve given her. I’m also not speaking from a fashion point of view when I say this. In the OG RE4 we see Leon in a jacket which is forcibly removed to show off his pecs to the ladies, but it clearly marks a colder time of year. OG RE4 Ada has arms out, legs out, and tits out because a hoe never gets cold. The sweater dress for the remake re-establishes that it’s colder here because even Luis doesn’t lose his jacket. Ashley doesn’t lose her jacket either until they yoink it off her for ritual reasons. I still hate that the thigh high boots have that heel and would prefer the flats, but that’s going to be in the complaint paragraph below.

-Capcom sexism at play once again. I don’t give a shit about rigs and motion capture or whatever, her walk cycle was 2 adjustments from being full Bayonetta, and I hate it. The ass shots? Disrespectful. Her heels didn’t have to be that high. Never heard of a kitten heel? They exist. The people who worked on RE3 Remake and worked on this DLC sure love to make a woman vomit don’t they? Why the fuck was she so clean the entire game? She was being thrown around and tossed in the dirt a lot, but this woman’s skin is shinier than a waxed apple. Either she has some wet wipes on hand, or god forbid women get filthy. Absolutely zero reason she shouldn’t have been looking as rough as Leon by the time she gets on the helicopter! No reason at all!

That’s all they wrote! I love Ada. I loved this DLC, and I loved the dynamics going on here even though I hated every time Wesker was on screen or opened his mouth at all.

As much as I would love to expand this post and go further into the changed Ada and Leon relationship, I frankly hate all the takes I’ve been seeing so much on either side of the Aeon debate. I hate the ongoing conversation around it so much that I don’t know if I want to discuss this at all. The Aeon should’ve gotten this if not for Luis and Ashley side and the Aeon is dead side going back and forth with each other? All of you put on your clown noses! None of you are looking at this situation objectively to see where the lines cross and where they run alongside each other, and frankly I’m tired! I could clear this whole table off so both of you can get exactly what you want based on what you’re not actually interpreting from this media, but I won’t! Kill each other!

#resident evil #text post #still flabbergasted about that bit about jake's mom #tl;dr: wesker fucks #it's okay to not ship smth but like #twisting canon to confirm your theories is certainly a choice #and omitting canon events in your reasoning doesn't liken me to the theories either #rip to my followers and their screens #i put it under a read more but #it's still a lot #also ftr because i ran out of text space lmao #i wouldn't call myself a “shipper” of wesker/ada #it's a thing that exists and i'm fine with it existing bc idgaf about what ppl ship #but what bothers me is just #the inaccuracies #that's all #like i said #i couldn't keep my mouth shut

149 notes · View notes

kalims · 3 years ago

Text

‎˃ ᵕ ˂ . . "it's high-school and it feels like i have a freaking harem."

high school otome au,

parts. one , two , three , remake

characters. epel, ace, deuce, jamil, leona, riddle, malleus, jade, floyd, silver, neige, ???.

cw. set in another universe, some things are canon to the original twst timeline but not all, gender neutral reader, pretend we are smart.

note. usually I don't go past 8 characters for twst but this will be an exception. anyways what the fuck am I doing in my life LOL

✦ you — the new transfer student whose on a scholarship personally assigned by crowley himself. your presence alone strikes great curiosity to students. but when you're clearly surrounded by many guys full of different, colorful reputations they don't suppose they have a chance to become your freind. or another?

✦ riddle rosehearts — the student council president who seems to terrify every other student. he's strict, he's an honor student, he has authority, he's riddle rosehearts. the one student that gets classrooms running to fix themselves and since you were new you weren't spared the mercy when he caught you snacking on a pair of tarts in the middle of a class, promptly demanding you come with him as the class sends you mental prayers. you learn he's quite lonely when you see him sit by himself in lunch, his other friend named trey seemed to be absent. he looks suprised when you sit next to him and offer him a tart. the conversation goes smoothly, people stare when he butters up. and now you're given more passes to some rule breaches compared to other students.

✦ epel felmier — your childhood sweetheart. you've known epel ever since you were in diapers, both your mothers are great friends and teases you both about marriage to each other. it became more clear and embarrassing the more you grow up. it's a nice thought really but with all your studies going on, you don't suppose you have the time to date. one day epel starts complaining about how his new upperclassmen moaned about beauty and his 'soft face' you merely laugh and tell him that you'd always be glad to see him as 'your man' (did you miss his red face, or his hopeful eyes?)

✦ jamil viper — a junior whose a regular on the basketball team. you officially meet jamil when trein had him volunteer into tutoring you, you die a little on the inside when you see the look on his face. it's stoic, and relaxes but you can't can't but see that there's a rageful storm behind his eyes. he doesn't talk much, but when he does his voice was so beautiful that you can't help but blurt out that it is. he looks scandalized, and shocked. as if no one ever told him so. he closes his eyes and hopes you don't hear his heart beating loudly. for once he hopes that the gods will give him a chance to have this one thing. (if you ask he'll never introduce you to kalim)

✦ ace trapolla — your roommate, he's apart of the basketball team. crowley had graciously given you an apartment to stay in. it's rather old, definitely dusty compared to the other dorms but it definitely works. you're only slightly upset when he tells you that you're to dorm with two other people. it's dead in the night when the door abruptly slams open, you grab a broom to defend yourself in case it's am intruder and shove it forward when you hear a creak. it hits a boy with a sweaty forehead and the familiar basketball uniform. you apologize profusely when he mumbles about you being the new roommate.

✦ deuce spade — your other roommate. other than ace he's apparently striving to be an honor student like the council president. you learn that he has a mother than he so dearly loves that he'd be easily labeled as 'mommy's boy' and his aggressive, delinquent side comes out when a bunch of jocks bumps into the both of you coming from a trip to the local store for some eggs. the collision makes them fall and break, when the jocks laugh deuce starts clenching his fist so hard that you can see me veins behind it... aaand he socks one of them in the face. (too bad he looks even more upset when he learns they weren't fertilized.)

✦ leona kingscholar — a player who ever rarely appears in class, you only actually see him whenever there's soccer tournaments held. he's unsurprisingly arrogant, a trait you knew to expect when it comes to athletes. he told you he'd take your teeth if you didn't apologize after accidentally trampling his sandwich. for the next following weeks he makes you run around as his errand runner and you've no choice but to comply lest he actually takes a tooth. now you're basically a few months after meeting him he just starts approaching you in the middle of a game and asks "well? did I do good?" the crowd watches in amazement when he doesn't leave immediately (to probably go nap back at his dormitory as he usually does.)

✦ malleus draconia — a mysterious man you meet in the park you tend to relax in. it's abandoned, rather eery but all the well comforting. apparently you're not the only one who found it. malleus is a tall guy, he's easy to spot in broad daylight, and hard to discern when it's in the middle of the night. he blends in with the shadows easily but it's like he's meant to thrive in the sunlight. you both eventually end up sitting on a bench together, not saying anything. the silence is enough to comfort both of you. you're pleasantly suprised when you see him in school the very next day, confused when everyone scatters when you walk in the hallways. half aware of the tall guy following closely behind you with a happy smile.

✦ jade leech — the guy whom you believed to be your one true love, you never really approached him. only casting aside fleeting looks. he's tall, a gentleman, knows how to cook, and a beautiful face. well you've only come to know that he's apparently sadistic when he's led you on many times before treating you horribly. you witnessed him dump you without any regard and leave you heartbroken. you're not happy when he displays a sudden interest in you once again. does he really think a bunch of flowers (your favorite) is gonna make you all good again?

✦ floyd leech — the brother of your ex-boyfriend. he knows of your feelings and uses it for his own entertainment, usually like threatening to expose your feelings whenever he feels like it. he's hands down one of the most terrifying guys on the campus, his tendency to have moods makes him greatly feared. there's more and more menacing rumors about him but it's strange because you never really see him angry anymore. (the students itch to tell you that floyd responds positively to your presence and any trces leading to his angry mood completely disappears.)

✦ silver — a junior whose on the horse riding club. you muse that he resembles somewhat a disney princess, he's beautiful, the animals come scurrying to him whenever he sleeps, and everything he does is like the forces of nature itself shift to make himself look more ethereal than he already is. he's quiet, a little intimidating on the front since he looks quite strong. but you realize it's not really true when you see him shyly present you a flower as you both laid on the grass side by side. the moment is interrupted by a green haired boy who starts screaming about club activities.

✦ neige leblanche — a flowery boy from the rivaling school full of honorary, righteous students. neige is a celebrity, you never really expected to meet him not befreind him at all. true to the rumors, he really is a good natured, pure hearted boy who wishes nothing but the best for others. including you, but you're once again. still unkownst to the fact that he believes that there is nothing that might ever reach your greatness. he thinks that no one could ever be good enough to have you.. but alas, he can't really say that when he hasn't met everyone. the least he can think of is himself..

✦ ??? — he witnesses. he was always the second choice, you already have a best freind, epel. so he can't assume the position of yours when you already have one. he's witnessed and witnessed, boys falling for you left and right when you're so oblivious to some of their feelings. you're so lovely, so charming, so beautiful. you're so perfect that he wants to make sure that you're nothing less. he wonders when you'll finally notice him when everyone else never intentionally, or unintentionally ignored his presence. they're full of envy, admiration and lots of else but you have no idea who he is, and he will make sure you do, he will make sure you know what he is capable of, what lengths he's going to do for you, and what he will do with you.

2K notes · View notes

watusichris · 4 years ago

Text

You Oughta “Get Carter”

Another old Night Flight piece, tied to a Turner Classic Movies airing, about a movie I never tire of watching. (Unfortunately, the Krays film “Legend” turned out to be not so good.) ********** The English gangster movie has proven an enduring genre to this day. The 1971 picture that jumpstarted the long-lived cycle, Get Carter, Mike Hodges’ bracing, brutal tale of a mobster’s revenge, screens late Thursday on TCM as part of a day-long tribute to Michael Caine, who stars as the film’s titular anti-hero.

We won’t have to wait long for the next high-profile Brit-mob saga: October will see the premiere of Brian Helgeland’s Legend, a new feature starring Tom Hardy (Mad Max: Fury Road, The Dark Knight Rises, Locke) in a tour de force dual role as Ronnie and Reggie Kray, the legendarily murderous identical twin gangleaders who terrorized London in the ‘60s. The violent exploits of the Krays mesmerized Fleet Street’s journalists and the British populace until the brothers and most of the top members of their “firm” were arrested in 1968.

The siblings both died in prison after receiving life sentences. They’ve been the subjects of several English TV documentaries and a 1990 feature starring Martin and Gary Kemp of Spandau Ballet. However, the Krays and their seamy milieu may have had their greatest impact in fictional form, via the durable figure of Jack Carter, the creation of a shy, alcoholic graphic artist, animator, and fiction writer named Ted Lewis, the man now recognized by many as “the father of British noir.”

Born in 1940 in a Manchester suburb, Lewis was raised in the small town of Barton-upon-Humber in the dank English midlands. A sickly child, he became engrossed with art, the movies, and writing. The product of an English art school in nearby Hull, he wrote his first, unsuccessful novel, a semi-autobiographical piece of “kitchen sink” realism called All the Way Home and All the Night Through, in 1965.

He soon moved sideways into movie animation, serving as clean-up supervisor on George Dunning’s Beatles feature Yellow Submarine (1968). However, now married with a couple of children, he decided to return to writing with an eye to crafting a commercial hit, and in 1970 he published a startling, ultra-hardboiled novel titled Jack’s Return Home.

British fiction had never produced anything quite like the book’s protagonist Jack Carter. He is the enforcer for a pair of London gangsters, Gerald and Les Fletcher, who bear more than a passing resemblance to the Krays. At the outset of the book, recounted in the first person, Carter travels by train to an unnamed city in the British midlands (modeled after the city of Scunthorpe near Lewis’ hometown) to bury his brother Frank, who has died in an alleged drunk driving accident.

Carter instantly susses that his brother was murdered, and he sets about sorting out a hierarchy of low-end midlands criminals (all of whom he knew in his early days as a budding hoodlum) responsible for the crime, investigating the act with a gun in his hand and a heart filled with hate. He’s no Sam Spade or Phillip Marlowe bound by a moral code – in fact, he once bedded Frank’s wife, and is now sleeping with his boss Gerald’s spouse. He’s a sociopathic career criminal and professional killer – a “villain,” in the English term -- who will use any means at his disposal to secure his revenge.

Carter’s pursuit of rough justice for his brother, and for a despoiled niece, attracts the attention of the Fletchers, whose business relationships with the Northern mob are being disrupted by their lieutenant’s campaign of vengeance. As Carter leaves behind a trail of corpses and homes in on the last of his quarry, the hunter has become the hunted, and Jack’s Return Home climaxes with scenes of bloodletting worthy of a Jacobean tragedy, or of Grand Guignol.

Before its publication, Lewis’ grimy, violent book attracted the attention of Michael Klinger, who had produced Roman Polanski’s stunning ‘60s features Repulsion and Cul-de-Sac. Klinger acquired film rights to the novel before its publication in 1970, and sent a galley copy to Mike Hodges, then a U.K. TV director with no feature credits.

Hodges, who immediately signed on as director and screenwriter of Klinger’s feature – which was retitled Get Carter -- was not only drawn to the taut, fierce action, but also by the opportunity to peel away the veneer of propriety that still lingered in British society and culture. As he noted in his 2000 commentary for the U.S. DVD release of the film, “You cannot deny that [in England], like anywhere else, corruption is endemic.”

Casting was key to the potential box office prospects of the feature, and Klinger and Hodges’ masterstroke was securing Michael Caine to play Jack Carter. By 1970, Caine had become an international star, portraying spy novelist Len Deighton’s agent Harry Palmer in three pictures and garnering raves as the eponymous philanderer in Alfie.

Caine had himself known some hard cases in his London neighborhood; in his own DVD commentary, he says that his dead-eyed, terrifyingly reserved Carter was “an amalgam of people I grew up with – I’d known them all my life.” Hodges notes of Caine’s Carter, “There’s a ruthlessness about him, and I would have been foolish not to use it to the advantage of the film.”

Playing what he knew, Caine gave the performance of a lifetime – a study in steely cool, punctuated by sudden outbursts of unfettered fury. The actor summarizes his character on the DVD: “Here was a dastardly man coming as the savior of a lady’s honor. It’s the knight saving the damsel in distress, except this knight is not a very noble or gallant one. It’s the villain as hero.”

The supporting players were cast with equal skill. Ian Hendry, who was originally considered for the role of Carter, ultimately portrayed the hit man’s principal nemesis and target Eric Paice. Caine and Hendry’s first faceoff in the film, an economical conversation at a local racetrack, seethes with unfeigned tension and unease – Caine was wary of Hendry, whose deep alcoholism made the production a difficult one, while Hendry was jealous of the leading man’s greater success.

For Northern mob kingpin Cyril Kinnear, Hodges recruited John Osborne, then best known in Great Britain as the writer of the hugely successfully 1956 play Look Back in Anger, Laurence Olivier’s screen and stage triumph The Entertainer, and Tony Richardson’s period comedy Tom Jones, for which he won an Oscar for best adapted screenplay. Osborne, a skilled actor before he found fame as a writer, brings subdued, purring menace to the part.

Though her part was far smaller than those of such other supporting actresses as Geraldine Moffat, Rosemarie Dunham, and Dorothy White, Brit sex bomb Britt Ekland received third billing as Anna, Gerald Fletcher’s wife and Carter’s mistress. Her marquee prominence is somewhat justified by an eye-popping sequence in which she engages in a few minutes of steamy phone sex with Caine.

Some small roles were populated by real British villains. George Sewell, who plays the Fletchers’ minion Con McCarty, was a familiar of the Krays’ older brother Charlie, and introduced the elder mobster to Carry On comedy series actress Barbara Windsor, who subsequently married another member of the Kray firm. John Bindon, who appears briefly as the younger Fletcher sibling, was a hood and racketeer who later stood trial for murder; a notorious womanizer, he romanced Princess Margaret, whose clandestine relationship with Bindon later became a key plot turn in the 2008 Jason Strathan gangster vehicle The Bank Job.

Verisimilitude was everything for Hodges, who shot nearly all of the film on grimly realistic locations in Newcastle, the down-at-the-heel coal-mining town on England’s northeastern coast. The director vibrantly employs interiors of the city’s seedy pubs, rooming houses, nightclubs and betting parlors. In one inspired bit of local color, he uses an appearance by a local girl’s marching band, the Pelaw Hussars, to drolly enliven a scene in which a nude, shotgun-toting Carter backs down the Fletchers’ gunmen.

The film’s relentless action was perfectly framed by director of photography Wolfgang Suchitzky, whose experience as a cameraman for documentarian Paul Rotha is put to excellent use. Some sequences are masterfully shot with available light; the movie’s most brutal murder plays out at night by a car’s headlights. The breathtakingly staged final showdown between Carter and Paice is shot under lowering skies against the grey backdrop of a North Sea coal slag dump.

Tough, uncompromising, and utterly unprecedented in English cinema, Get Carter was a hit in the U.K. It fared poorly in the U.S., where its distributor Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer dumped it on the market as the lower half of a double bill with the Frank Sinatra Western spoof Dirty Dingus Magee. In his DVD commentary, Caine notes that it was only after Ted Turner acquired MGM’s catalog and broadcast the film on his cable networks that the movie developed a cult audience in the States.

Get Carter has received two American remakes. The first, George Armitage’s oft-risible 1972 blaxploitation adaptation Hit Man, starred Bernie Casey as Carter’s African-American counterpart Tyrone Tackett. It is notable for a spectacularly undraped appearance by Pam Grier, whose character meets a hilarious demise that is somewhat spoiled by the picture’s amusing trailer. (Casey and Keenan Ivory Wayans later lampooned the film in the 1988 blaxploitation parody I’m Gonna Git You Sucka.)

Hodges’ film was drearily Americanized and relocated to Seattle in Stephen Kay’s like-titled 2000 Sylvester Stallone vehicle. It’s a sluggish, misbegotten venture, about which the less that is said the better. Michael Caine’s presence in the cast as villain Cliff Brumby (played in the original by Brian Mosley) only serves to remind viewers that they are watching a vastly inferior rendering of a classic.

Ted Lewis wrote seven more novels after Jack’s Return Home, and returned to Jack Carter for two prequels. The first of them, Jack Carter’s Law (1970), an almost equally intense installment in which Carter ferrets out a “grass” – an informer – in the Fletchers’ organization, is a deep passage through the London underworld of the ‘60s, full of warring gangsters and venal, dishonest coppers.

The final episode in the trilogy, Jack Carter and the Mafia Pigeon (1977), was a sad swan song for British noir’s most memorable bad man. In it, Carter travels to the Mediterranean island of Majorca on a Fletchers-funded “holiday,” only to discover that he has actually been dispatched to guard a jittery American mobster hiding out at the gang’s villa. It’s a flabby, obvious, and needlessly discursive book; Lewis’ exhaustion is apparent in his desperate re-use of a plot point central to the action of the first Carter novel.

Curiously, the locale and setup of Mafia Pigeon appear to be derived from Pulp, the 1975 film that reunited director Hodges and actor Caine. In it, the actor plays a writer of sleazy paperback thrillers who travels to the Mediterranean isle of Malta to pen the memoirs of Preston Gilbert (Mickey Rooney), a Hollywood actor with gangland connections. Hilarity and mayhem ensue.

All of Lewis’ characters consume enough alcohol to put down an elephant, and Lewis himself succumbed to alcoholism in 1982, at the age of 42. Virtually unemployable, he had moved back home to Barton-upon-Humber, where lived with his parents.

He went out with a bang, however: In 1980, he published his final and finest book, the truly explosive mob thriller GBH (the British abbreviation for “grievous bodily harm”). The novel focuses on the last days of vice lord George Fowler, a sadist in the grand Krays manner, whose empire is being toppled by internal treachery. Using a unique time-shifting structure that darts back and forth between “the smoke” (London) and “the sea” (Fowler’s oceanside hideout), it reaches a finale of infernal, hallucinatory intensity.

After Lewis’ death, his work fell into obscurity, and his novels were unavailable in America for decades. Happily, Soho Press reissued the Carter trilogy in paperback in 2014 and republished GBH in hardback earlier this year. Now U.S. readers have the opportunity to read the books that influenced an entire school of English noir writers, including such Lewis disciples and venerators as Derek Raymond, David Peace, and Jake Arnott.

Echoes of GBH can be heard in The Long Good Friday, another esteemed English gangster film starring Bob Hoskins as the arrogant and impetuous chief of a collapsing London firm. Released the same year as Lewis’ last novel, the John Mackenzie-directed feature is only one of a succession of outstanding movies – The Limey, The Hit, Layer Cake, Sexy Beast, and Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels among them – that owe a debt to Get Carter, the daddy of them all.

5 notes · View notes

dxc-95 · 4 years ago

Text

Fear Didn't Enter His Thinking

Fandom: True Grit (2010)

Characters: Rooster Cogburn; Mattie Ross; Tom Chaney; LaBoeuf; Ned Pepper

Warnings: Gun shootings; threats against a child

Summary: Rooster Cogburn was the meanest marshal around. He was pitiless, double tough, and loved to pull a cork; fear didn't enter his thinking. Except when, one day, it did. And all because of one stubborn young girl that somehow wormed her way into his hard heart.

I recently watched the 2010 version of True Grit (as well as the original 1969 version) and I almost forgot how good the story was. I like both versions, but I think I like the remake just a little more. It doesn't seem as dragged out, some of the settings look a little more drawn from the 1860s-70s; plus, you can't go wrong with Jeff Bridges. Speaking of, this movie has one scene that wasn't in the original: when Mattie is being kidnapped by Chaney, Cogburn calls her by her real name, rather than his nickname for her.

Partially-drawing from that, I thought of how that scene might have gone in his POV, from when he woke up to find Mattie gone, hearing her shot, and to after he's forced by Ned Pepper to leave. I don't think he's too OOC here, seeing as he sounded legitimately worried for her when he found her being actually dragged away by Chaney.

It took Rooster a while after waking up to remember where he was and what he had been doing. All the whiskey he drank the previous day resulted in a headache and dry mouth the following morning. Past experience told him not to sit up until he had most of his wits about him; otherwise, his head would be spinning, and he risked whatever he ate and drank coming back up and onto the ground.

He curled his lip with a soft growl when he finally remembered what he had been doing for the past several days: wandering through Indian Territory, on the hunt for Tom Chaney and Ned Pepper. The former was for that stubborn sourpuss of a girl, Mattie Ross, on account of her father being killed by the man. Part of the reason he even agreed to the job was because Chaney had apparently been working for Pepper. Kill two birds with one stone, collect more than one reward.

Except he probably wouldn't get any reward now. They had missed their chance of ambushing on Pepper and his gang, thanks in no small part to LaBoeuf, and the trail had gone cold. Though he had been blasted drunk to the point of challenging LaBoeuf to a shooting contest and drunkenly singing as they rode onward, he knew when he had been licked. But it seemed the girl didn't, as she had continued to insist they were getting somewhere. Just before he passed out the previous night, he heard her declaring she wouldn't be going home without Chaney, dead or alive.

He sighed as he finally sat up, slow as he could, and gently shook his head. As much as she was a pain at times, he couldn't help but admire her, even if it was just a little bit. True to her word, she hadn't complained much, if it all, on this trip. And she had already proven herself to be smart and stubborn, to a fault. She was like the daughter he never had.

No, it was more like she reminded him of him.

Speaking of, he didn't see her at their meager camp. He wondered if she had made off with LaBoeuf, or if she set off on her own to find Chaney. No, her horse was still tied up next to his. And a wooden bucket was missing. He wagered she had gone off to fetch water while he was still asleep. How long would it take though? She couldn't have been gone that long. Unless she got stuck somewhere.

He sat where he was, trying to think of how to explain further to her that he was not continuing on this wild goose chase when he heard a shot. His eye widened as he looked off in the direction of the shot, headache forgotten about. It sounded like it came from the river.

His stomach sank as he stood to his feet, but he somehow knew it wasn't beginning to churn because of his hangover.

He walked in the direction of the river, still keeping a lookout for the girl. But as he continued on, without any sight of her, he began to feel... worry. Which was very unusual for his character. He had a reputation for not fearing much of anything, if it all, and he stuck by it. But not today.

“Mattie?!” he yelled out. It barely registered in his mind that this had been the first time he referred to her by her real name, rather than 'Baby Sister' as he had been calling her previously. His heart began to race as he wondered what sort of danger she would be in to warrant shooting her pistol. Especially when he had warned her, the first time they met, that she was liable to fall back upon shooting said pistol.

“I'm down here!” he finally heard her shout back. And she sounded excited. He just barely heard a man groaning something about being shot. “Chaney is taken into custody!”

Chaney? She found him? Seeing as she was so gun-ho about getting him, and knew him down to the black powder mark on his face, there was no doubt in his mind that she had indeed found him. And apparently shot him, seeing as she didn't sound like she was the one in pain.

She had found him... and was all alone with him! And he would bet that Chaney was armed himself, and wouldn't oppose to hurting a child; he did shoot her father in cold blood, after all. This made him run faster through the trees until he could finally see the river.

In said river, he saw two individuals, one smaller than the other. He had seen them just in time to see the larger one hit the smaller across the head and begin to drag them away. “Help me!” a voice cried out.

“Mattie!” Rooster screamed as his heart seemed to freeze in his chest. But he managed to not stop in his tracks. He ran through the brush and light snow, and between the trees, as fast as he could. He thought about drawing his own gun, but realized it would be a foolish and dangerous decision. He ran the risk of hitting Mattie; or winging Chaney, who may proceed to use Mattie as a human shield.

Just past Chaney, who continued to drag Mattie to the other side of the river, two men emerged from the trees and began shooting his way. “Marshal!” she pleaded as he returned their fire. But he was forced to jump back when one of their balls hit the tree right next to him. By the time he looked again across the river, it was pretty much too late.

As he continued to shoot at them, Chaney succeeded in getting Mattie across the water. One of the two men came out and grabbed her. His eyebrows furrowed as he recognized the woolly chaps he had pointed out to Mattie the night they were ambushing the dugout: Ned Pepper.

But before he had time to aim at him, another shot whizzed past his head. And within minutes, the third man was creeping back into the trees. And they were gone.

Rooster stood still by the river, still holding his piece in case any of them had recognized them and returned to finish him off. “God dammit,” he grumbled under his breath, brushing his long hair out of his eye. “Dammit, Baby Sister.”

As much as he wanted to chew her out, whether or not she was with him, he knew it wasn't her fault. All she had been doing was fetching water, as evident by the wooden bucket now floating down the river. Chaney just so happened to be right there.

She had been right, they were close.

When he heard footsteps hurrying his way, he whipped his pistol around again. But the only person he saw was LaBoeuf, holding his hands up with a bewildered expression. Rooster rolled his eye as he dropped his arm. “Wha' happe'?” the other man asked, still slurring around his half-bitten off tongue. “I hear' a sho'!”

“Rooster!” a different voice yelled out. Though it wasn't Mattie this time, he still recognized it. “Cogburn! You hear me?!” After a few silent seconds, he called out again, “You answer me, Rooster! I will kill this girl! You know I will do it!”

Thinking quickly on his feet, Rooster yelled back, “The girl's nothing to me, she's a runaway from Arkansas!” Even as he claimed that, he felt downright dirty saying that. Even if he denied it until his deathbed, his heart knew the truth: Mattie meant something to him. She had, somehow, wormed her way into his cold, hard heart during this journey.

She claimed he had true grit, but he wondered if she knew she had it as well, and in spades.

LaBoeuf nearly charged at him, enraged, but froze when Rooster held his hand up. He fixed him with a stern expression, clearly telling him to wait and be quiet; he held up one finger for good measure.

“That is all very well! Do you advice that I kill her?!”

A lesser man would have told him no, or even urged him not to. But Rooster was not only tough, but smart. “Well, do what you think is best, Ned!” he answered as he slowly walked back in the direction of camp, already thinking of how to get both himself and Mattie out of this mess. LaBoeuf followed, still looking confused, but luckily still quiet. “She's nothing to me but a lost child! Think it over, first!” he advised.

Ned Pepper wasn't stupid either, he knew this very well.

“I have already thought it over! You get mounted, double-fast! If I see you riding over that bald ridge, in the north-west, I will spare the girl! You have five minutes!”

“There will be a party of marshals here soon, Ned! Let me have the girl and Chaney, and I will mislead them for six hours!”

“Too thin, Rooster! Too thin! Your five minutes is running! No more talk!”

“Five minutes,” Rooster scoffed, turning back around and running back to camp. “I'll need more than five minutes, damn bastard.”

“Wha's goi' o', Cogbur'?” LaBoeuf asked again.

“Baby Sister went down to the creek, and apparently ran into Chaney,” he explained as he saddled up Beau as fast as he could.

“Cha'ey?!”

“She managed to shoot him, but he dragged her off before I could get down there. And he is with Pepper, for sure.”

“'ow wha', Cogbur'?”

“I'm gonna take her horse with me to that ridge,” he said, pointing in the direction Pepper had yelled for him to go, “and you are gonna find your way to their camp, secure Chaney if he's there.”

“Wha' bou' you?” He began to saddle Mattie's horse—Little Blackie, if he recalled correctly.

“After I see that they see me on that ridge, I will double-back, tie her horse in the woods, and handle the rest in the meadow. I reckon they'll be down there, headed off to avoid the party of marshals I said would be coming.”

LaBoeuf's eyes widened when he realized the full intentions of the older man. “Tha's suici'e!”

“I know what I am doing. You just keep an eye on B—“

“—Cogbur', I mus' sugges' a differe' course.”

“Well, if you have any brighter ideas, let me know!” Rooster shouted angrily as he mounted Beau. When the other man remained silent, he snorted as he snatched the reins of her horse out of his hand. “Just stay with Mattie! Understand?!”

LaBoeuf nodded numbly. “Good. They went across the creek. I reckon that's where their camp'll be. When you find her, stay there!” Without another word, he set off in the north-west, leading the black horse alongside him.

#true grit #rooster cogburn #mattie ross #true grit 2010 #tom chaney #laboeuf #ned pepper #reuben j. rooster cogburn #papa wolf tv trope #ooc is serious business tv trope

8 notes · View notes

a-man-for-hire-and-his-archives · 5 years ago

Text

AN INTERVIEW WITH LUKE ARNOLD

Many people know actor Luke Arnold from the Starz TV show Black Sails where he plays the character, John Silver. But, to add to his extensive acting credits is his debut novel, The Last Smile in Sunder City. The first novel of the Fetch Phillips Archives series. If you haven’t had a chance to check out Sunder City, you should fix that ASAP. (Our review can be found here.) Sunder City is a little bit of fantasy, a little bit Sam Spade, and a whole lot of good writing. GdM got the opportunity to sit down with Luke and talk to him a bit about his writing, and what is happening in the future for Fetch Phillips.

GDM: Hi Luke. Thank you for agreeing to chat with me a bit about your writing, life, and The Last Smile in Sunder City.

LA: My absolute pleasure. Thanks for having me.

GDM: For the uninitiated, could you tell me a little about yourself and how you got into writing Sunder City? Have you always been a writer?

LA: I’ve been working as an actor for most of my adult life. When I started out, all my creative paths were intertwined. I’d write things, act in them, direct them, and collaborate with anyone on anything. Then I was lucky enough to have some success in the acting world, most notably on a show called Black Sails, and gave that all of my focus for a few years. After that wrapped up, it felt like it was time to dig back into my own writing, so I put away some time and punched out the first draft.

GDM: I know with acting, you must pull character creation and visualization from a creative space. How does that differ from character creation when writing novels?

LA: In some ways, they couldn’t be more opposite. When you act on film, you really have to trust everyone around you and hope that you’re in safe hands. You work off someone else’s material on a set that someone else built, in a costume that someone else made, while you listen to direction and hand your performance over to an editor at the end of it. It’s about doing your homework, preparing properly, and then committing to this brief window of time when you try to be in the moment and deliver a performance worth capturing.

GDM: With a novel, you are the entire crew, and the window lasts as long as you need it to. For the most part, there is no collaboration, no outside input, nobody rocking up with a ready-made set or a beautiful coat to put on one of your characters. For better or worse, it’s all you.

LA: To be honest, being able to bounce back and forth between the two makes me enjoy each of them even more.

GDM: The Last Smile in Sunder City was a remarkable story. I loved how the story is told through a series of interactions, both now and in the past. It was a compelling narrative device in describing how a character can change once crossing a pivotal moment in their lives. In Fetch’s case, it was the before and after the Coda. Did you plan for the story to be told in this fashion, or did the story change organically as you wrote it?

LA: When I started writing this story, it was only the present-day part of the story: a man-for-hire searching for a Vampire in a broken fantasy world. I thought maybe I would do a bunch of these short cases, stick them together, and then do an origin story one day.

I shared the story with some friends in the publishing world and while they really liked it, they informed me that collections of short stories are nearly impossible to sell, and suggested that a novel would be a better path. Thankfully, I took their advice.

I think the scars of that process can still be seen on this story, but I kind of like that. It’s the same thing that happened to Raymond Chandler (my biggest influence when it comes to this book). Chandler wrote short stories for a magazine called Black Mask. Most of his novels were an amalgamation of those shorter stories, tied together and padded out.

My second book, Dead Man in a Ditch, is more tightly constructed, but for the first story about a hopeless, wandering gumshoe who only begins to find his way, I think the creative journey added to the tone.

GDM: How did you create the after Coda world? What was the inspiration?

LA: A lot of the pre-Coda world (the magical time) was planned out before I started. I tracked the beginning of magic and thought about how it would seep into the world and create versions of all the magical creatures we’re familiar with. But in the post-Coda, a lot of it comes to life as I take Fetch around the city and see who he stumbles across. Rather than being inspired by any particular time or place in history, it’s more about a feeling. A bit of guilt. A touch of depression. A regular spoonful of self-loathing. Sometimes it’s about growing up. Sometimes it’s about living in the aftermath of mistakes. It all depends on where Fetch’s mind is at. He’s always struggling with some internal dilemma, and I love to make him bump into the perfect creature that will make things even worse.

GDM: Are you a big fantasy and science fiction reader? Which books have you been inspired by?

LA: I’ve always been a big reader, but I only dabbled in fantasy before this. I’ve been doing my best to catch up over the last few years. Most of the fantasy worlds that influenced me would have come from video games, anime, and film. I’ve been going through Final Fantasy 7 recently (remake, and replaying the original), and realized that it probably influenced Sunder City more than any book.

There’s plenty of Pratchett in my world, and I’ve stolen fantasy creatures from everywhere, but you’ll find more elements of Humphry Bogart than Hobbits.

GDM: One of the take-aways I had From The Last Smile in Sunder City was even under all the dark, the ominous, the despair, under the constant struggle to live, there is always a small shiny kernel of hope. As a reader, I am drawn to stories that have this; it helps me connect and want more as a reader. Was this always the intention?

LA: Sure. I love playing with the expectations we have of fantasy characters versus what we expect of ourselves. In worlds with magic spells, evil villains, and ancient prophesies, we want our heroes to find the special sword, kill the baddie, and restore peace to the land. When you’re younger, our world seems so different to the ones in books that it feels like escapism. But as you get older, you realise that there are actually these looming threats coming to destroy the us and villains who cause suffering for their own gain, but the bit that we struggle with (at least I do) is what we can do about it. Could we be better? Does anything we do matter? Or could we wake up tomorrow and actually make a difference?

I don’t know how to fix the world (yet) but I do know that a shared moment with a close friend or a perfect cup of coffee will help me get up tomorrow and keep searching.

GDM: Can you tell me a bit about Dead Man in a Ditch?

LA: The first book hints that the magic might not be completely gone for good. Of course, Fetch isn’t ready to believe that, but word has gotten out. Folks start arriving at Fetch’s door, asking him to find a way to fix things. That includes the police department, who invites Fetch to a crime scene where a guy’s face has been blown apart by a fireball.

With the stage set by the first book, Dead Man in a Ditch makes some big moves forward, though the shadows from the past are still hanging around.

GDM: Finally, I always like to end on a light-hearted question. The Dinner Party question. If you could have dinner and conversation with three figures from real life, alive or dead, or fiction, who would they be and why?

LA: Jim Henson. I think Sesame Street is the most important television show ever made and everything Jim brought into the world has made it a better place. Maybe I’d get to learn a couple of things but maybe I’d just get to spend a couple of hours in his presence.

David Bowie (Similar reasons to Henson, really) and Nina Simone (because she seemed really disappointed at Montreux that Bowie wasn’t there, so I’d die to see them hanging out). And there would be a piano tucked in the corner, as if by accident, but I’d never ask anyone to play (until the second bottle of wine, when I absolutely would).

I know they’re all creative, but then I would at least have a chance of joining in the conversation. If it was Nelson Mandela, Marie Curie and Martin Luther King, I’d be outed as an imbecile immediately.

- Grimdark Magazine (x)

#luke arnold #interview #the last smile in sunder city

7 notes · View notes

gizkalord · 5 years ago

Text

Tagged by the amazing @bo-katan to list my top 7 comfort movies! (btw these aren’t in any particular order, and I also realized I have way more comfort shows than I do movies lol)

Lord of the Rings (Extended editions!—and Fellowship of the Ring if I had to pick one from the 3)

The Sound of Music

Kung-Fu Hustle (a hilarious and unhinged Hong Kong movie)

Beauty and the Beast (animated version ONLY—the live-action disney remakes are dead to me)

Finding Nemo

Star Wars: The Clones Wars movie (2008) (DON’T JUDGE ME, IT’S SO WHOLESOME AND DUMB, I JUST REALLY *clenches fist* LOVE WATCHING ANAKIN AND AHSOKA MEET FOR THE FIRST TIME)

Fantasia (1940) (i love classical music... i love the art of animation.... and this has both in spades.....)

tagging @lesbiandarthmaul @thechosen-wan @leiaslightsaber @stairset and anyone else who sees this!

#about me

10 notes · View notes

tanstar · 5 years ago

Text

Rambling about RE2R and RE3R’s cut content part 1

Part 1: RE2R

So the original re2 is my favourite RE title. It introduced me to the series (I watched my dad play it) and it was the debut of my favourite RE character, Claire Redfield. So I was overjoyed when I learned it was getting remade. Now all I really wanted from this remake was a melding of the original scenarios to create the true canon storyline of re2 and some fun interactions between our characters and I thought that would be a given... So you can imagine my disappointment at what we got. I also love the original re3 and was looking forward to RE3R for similar reasons though I also wanted to see how they’d update Nemesis. Now I’m not saying either are bad games at all, I think both are worth experiencing and purchasing. I just want to air my grievances with both remakes and their cut content but I will also share what I did enjoy.

Also want to say that I know these games are more like reimaginings or retellings but even from that perspective there’s still issues.

Spoilers ahead.

Just a quick list of RE2R’s cut content:

No proper B scenarios that offer a cohesive narrative. A severe lack of notes/files/diaries for lore and worldbuiling. No zapping system. No bowgun. No explosive rounds for the grenade launcher. Robert Kendo’s death isn’t shown. Leon and Claire’s interactions are severely trimmed down. Marvins transformation cutscene isn’t shown. Two playable segments as Ada and Sherry (Sherry’s second playable segment maybe has the darkest scene in the game, as she collapses after falling down the trash disposal chute her mutated father lurches towards her, stands above her and we cut to black and shortly after this we learn from Annette that William is trying to find Sherry to implant his embryos in her). Multiple unique boss fights depending on scenario. Irons’s death is far more gruesome in both scenarios in og 2. Ben has far less screentime. No super lickers. No giant moth and it’s larvae. No spiders. No crows. Barely any music. No classic iconic lines (“You lose, big guy” etc). Plant 43 has lost it’s iconic yonic design in favour of looking like a rainforest or something. The ivy’s are now human plant hybrids instead of mutated plants. No super ivys. The alligator is now a RE6 style chase sequence instead of a boss fight. No factory. No marshalling yard. Birkin’s transformation by injecting himself with the g virus and the cause of the T virus outbreak are far more clear in the original. No street section for the opening of the B scenario and no cutscene or explanation for the helicopter crash. Leon no longer saves an infected Sherry from the sick room and brings her to the train. The train no longer self destructs and Sherry no longer saves the day by stopping the train.

That’s a lot of cuts right? Now of course not all of these cuts were bad decisions. While I like the crows for atmospheric purposes, i can understand their removal. Same with Kendo’s death and Marvin turning into a zombie, they wanted a different approach with these characters and I can accept that. Even the zapping system’s exclusion I can understand because although it was a cool little gameplay element that added to the cohesion of the overlapping story, it’s really not that neccessary. And the exclusion of iconic lines is understandable as I believe narrative should always take precedence over fanservice.

I’m fine with content being cut as long as it’s in favour of the story or is replaced with something else. RE2R did neither of those things. RE3R gets a ton of shit for it’s cut content but RE2R not only did it first but also cut waaaaay more content than RE3R.

RE2R fucked up it's story bad. Og re2 has the strongest narrative of the ps1 trilogy imo with two separate scenarios per character that integrated into two strong narratives. The game throws you straight into the deep end as you navigate the city streets filled with zombies, you watch Kendo be eaten alive as the zombies break into his shop and finally you reach the RPD. And that’s only the A scenario, the B scenario has you witness the cause of the helicopter crash as you make it to the east side of the RPD. From the beginning the og re2 puts in the effort to tell the whole story of whatever scenario you choose. Like the remake there are certain story beats only one character will face, Claire is the only one to meet Irons and Sherry, Leon meets Ada and Ben( he does meet Sherry in the B scenario but we’ll get there). Also in the original due to Leon giving Claire a radio both characters are able to keep in contact and therefore keep each other up to date on their progress.

So let’s talk a bout the marshalling yard and factory. The marshalling yard is one of my favourite locations in the original. Its atmospheric music, its industrial design and the iconic shot of the train on the turntable with the moon in the background. It’s so foreboding and it leads to an iconic fight with Birkin as you descend to the lab, while protecting either Ada or Sherry (and depending on which scenario you are playing his form will be different). The factory is a small but crucial area to the worldbuilding of og 2 (It’s a cover were Umbrella employees access the underground lab) whereas RE2R has... a sinkhole in the middle of the city. And it’s important in keeping a cohesive overlapping narrative as the reason our protagonists don’t encounter each other in the lab is because the B scenario character has access to the factory. It also contains two iconic scenes for the B scenarios for each character (it should be noted that in the og 2 Mr X is exclusive to the B scenarios). Claire saves Sherry from Mr X, taunts him and then tricks him into falling over the railing into a vat of what looks like molten iron, it’s so badass and it cemented Claire as my favourite character. In Leon’s scenario B Ada arrives to fend off Mr X and protect Leon, she succeeds and Mr X falls over the railing but in the process he nearly kills her, this leads to the kiss between Leon and Ada. No manipulation, just genuine affection for each other. In either B scenario the self destruct sequence is set off by MrX instead of it being exclusively Leons fault like in RE2R. And the factory is important as it gives access to the elevator for the B scenario character to escape to the train. The A and B scenario characters have different methods of escape that make more sense in the original and that comes down to the factory’s inclusion.

So now let’s talk about cut character interactions. In the original Marvin relays to the player the events of re1, I’m fine with this omission as it’s not super important to the overall narrative of re2. Claire and Leon can either reunite in the STARS office or the hallway behind the spade door (Leon also encounters Sherry here but she runs away). Regardless Claire finds out her brother isn’t in the city by reading his diary, Leon gives her a radio so they can stay in contact (which they do, throughout the entire game) and they split up, with Leon looking for an escape route and Claire looking for survivors. Claire’s encounter with chief Irons is very different. The mayor’s daughter’s dead body is sprawled over Irons’s desk as he talks about dealing with the undead and then brings up his hobby of... Taxidermy. It’s just very unsettling and what makes it worse is that earlier before you could access the room, you very clearly hear a woman scream. Once you head into the adjacent room Claire encounters Sherry and radios Leon to tell him. Sherry warns Claire of a monster that is chasing her and runs off again. When Claire returns to Irons’s office he is gone and so is the body of the mayor’s daughter. In Leon’s scenario he meets Ada in the parking lot and she tells him she is looking for her boyfriend John. Now for players who had played re1 this was a neat little reference that tied both games together. With Ada’s assistance Leon gains access to the Cells and meets Ben. Ben willingly locked himself in his cell for safety and won’t leave until Leon finds a way out unfortunately Ben is attacked and either implanted with a G embryo or fatally slashed by Birkin, however he was able to hand over his investigative notes on chief Irons’s corruption and involvement with Umbrella. Likewise when Claire encounters a now crazed irons in his torture chamber, he explains the G virus, Umbrella’s involvement and that Sherry is the daughter of the man responsible for the outbreak. Irons is then either killed from being cut in half by Birkin or from the G embryo. There’s just a lot more build up, subtlety and payoff in the original game that just feels rushed in RE2R and I don’t know why.

Sherry and Claire’s relationship is portrayed pretty well in RE2R. Although their time spent together is severely cut short, like seriously they only know each other for a whole two minutes before Irons drags Sherry off to the orphanage. The original has Claire and Sherry interact way more, with Sherry travelling by your side through parts of the sewers and the entirety of the marshalling yard. Still a good portrayal overall though.

So we have to talk about Ada and Leon. In the original she is at first portrayed as aloof but eventually from her time spent with Leon, she shows her more vulnerable and genuinely caring side. She is a spy and secretly after the g virus but she also genuinely cares for Leon’s safety, almost dying in the B scenario as she protects him from Mr X. RE2R almost get’s this right. She is initially abrasive but warms up to Leon’s sincerity and kindness. The problem is she is far too manipulative. Their first kiss in og 2 only happens the B scenario and is 100% sincere, Ada might be dying from her wounds so it might be the only chance they get. The remake on the other hand comes across as really skeevy and manipulative. In og 2 when Ada confronts Leon on the bridge he doesn’t believe for a second that she’ll hurt him and he’s right, after she falls off the side of the bridge you can inspect her pistol and find out that it wasn’t even loaded! Also I find Leon to be just a bit too naive in RE2R, he acted like a police officer in the original but in the remake he feels more like a boyscout. I can see what they were going for with his arc for RE2R but is just misses the mark for me personally. Not to say he’s awful or anything, he’s still very likable just a bit of a let down in terms of how he’s used in the story. Namely that he really doesn’t get much to do. He saves Ada, sets off the self destruct sequence, kills Mr X with Ada’s help and gets forced to fight G3 by Annette. The most useful thing he does is willingly fight Birkin on the train in the 2nd run to protect Claire and Sherry. In the og 2 B scenario per Claire’s request via radio, Leon carries an infected Sherry to the train, activates the power and opens the gates, fights the super Tyrant and kills it with Ada’s help and then activates the train to finally escape the underground lab. Then he fights G5 Birkin, when they find out the train is going to self destruct he directs Sherry on how to stop the train and our trio are able to escape. The game then ends on Leon’s iconic line “ It’s up to us to take out umbrella.”

And that ending... Oh boy did it not land for me. It’s almost comical how chipper it is considering what’s to come for these characters. Our trio promises to stick together except canonically Claire heads off on her own like five minutes later because Leon knows if she gets taken in by the government it will hinder her quest to find her brother, so he tells her to leave while he looks after Sherry. So Claire leaves and we get the events for Code Veronica. And as for Leon and Sherry, we know from Darkside Chronicles that Leon was blackmailed into working for the government through threats of experimentation on Sherry. He agrees to work for them to protect her but guess what they still turn her into a test subject anyway! And re6 confirms that the experiments where more than Sherry could bare, as she herself tells Jake. Also the fact that Leon and Claire’s friendship never got any developement in RE2R really works against this ending imo.

So what did RE2R get right? Well it has enjoyable puzzles and the solution changes depending on what run you’re playing! While I do miss the soundtrack and think it could have been remixed to fit the tone of the game, the ambient sounds used are spooky and effective. The gore effects are phenomenal. Marvin's expanded role is great, he’s an actual character this time around and it’s sad that we can’t save him. Sherry is adorable and her voice actress does a great job, she’s just incredibly sweet and likable. While Claire can come across a little Moira-ish sometimes, she’s great for the most part. She still get’s to be incredibly caring towards Sherry while also being a total badass who willingly faces down G3. The G3 fight is great and the remixed boss theme is beautiful. William Birkin's transformations are great (though I do wish dog birkin was more like the original), just the detail of his mutated bones and tissue is amazing and grotesque. Speaking of Birkin, the scene where he uses the last of his willpower to kill Mr X and protect Sherry before being overtaken by the g virus completely is so fantastic and perfectly directed. Backtacking/exploration is enjoyable (except the fucking sewers). It has variety of unlockable costumes which is my favourite kind of unlockable. S+ is a fun challenge. The fourth survivor and Tofu modes are really challenging yet fun and have great music, like seriously Hunk’s theme “Looming dread” is fantastic and probably my favourite song in the game. It’s always a joy to see Hunk and he is portrayed perfectly. It’s still an enjoyable game and a good starting point for newcomers, I’d just recommend they play or at least watch a playthroough or the cutscenes of the original to get the full story. Also if you want a fun reimagined, abridged retelling of og re2 then you should look up Darkside Chronicles. The premise is what would happen if Leon and Claire never got separated.

This got waaay longer than I expected so in part 2 I’ll discuss my problems with RE3R and its cut content as well as what I liked.

#resident evil #resident evil 2 remake #resident evil 3 remake #resident evil 2 #rant

9 notes · View notes

madefate-a · 5 years ago

Photo

you don’t build a life in grand gestures and final battles; you build a life in every moment you collect until you have a seawall. / moments, in a lifetime.

o1. you are tiny, and your moms are large and warm, and you’re all sitting in the backyard looking up at the stars. the moons are bright and full tonight, and mama points out the way the lights in the sky make patterns with names while mom runs a brush methodically through your hair. you -- all three of you -- will frequent the overstuffed chairs outside your home, with blankets and brushes and stars many times. ( you will remember the last time, before you are set to leave for those stars. you will play it over and over again when you know that your days are numbered and this will all end in your death or theirs. )

( now, though, you are small, and mom is brushing your hair. )

constance, mama teaches you, tracing a cluster of stars. justice, another one. heartstone.

the sky is big and endless and for a moment you are part of it, safe and warm and surrounded.

o2. you’ve never thought to ask why research training involves sparring sessions like this -- captain agathe has explained planetary readiness and you never thought to question what that meant. --- though, for just a moment in your defense, there is quite a lot to take in. star charts ! flight technology ! the delicate tools that measure and catalogue the strange and distant magic of strange and distant planets !

the fact that you, you, have been chosen at all.

in your moment of dreamy awe, you are tipped backwards, the world spinning wildly away from you until you are on your back, looking up at ren’s face.

wow, mara, she says, leaning casually against her practice staff. you’re so planetary ready.

neatly and with little fanfare, you brace on your elbow and sweep ren’s legs from under her until you two are tangled together on the floor, breathing heavy. then you grin.

i like to think so.

captain agathe gives you two a look when she finds you, a tangle of limbs, laughing and trying to ruffle each other’s hair.

o3. grayskull ? ren asks, wrinkling her nose. mara has to stifle a laugh -- captain agathe could come back at any minute, and it’s one thing to be caught messing around during training. but this, now ? when they’re about to land planetside in the wilds of an undiscovered world?

but ren is sticking her tongue out now, doing her best imitation of someone long dead, and it’s a touch battle.

it’s historical, you whisper to her. important.

it’s morbid, she tells you.

maybe it is, but it’s yours. all of yours -- squadron grayskull.

o4. no one knows what to do when suddenly, your first day out, you fall to your knees in the thick, dark woods near the landing sight.

the world -- planet -- etheria -- is wild and free and inhabited by the most beautiful, most fantastic creatures any of you have ever seen. large quadrupeds with golden eyes, beasts that fly that outsize a bird ten times over and shriek or sing in turns. serene little lizard-like fellows that look at them curiously as they set up their first observation station. calls and noise that echo warningly in the thick tangle of the woods’ heart. ren had immediately gone after one of the little, perched, birdlike creatures, trying to whistle and imitation of its song.

you had tried to join her, and you had ended up drowning in sunlight.

that’s what it feels like; it feels like something golden and burning has poured itself like liquid fire down your throat, spilling out of your eyes, tangling in your hands, grabbing your hand -- tearing you apart. spinning you like a child with a toy, terrible in its joy, destructive in its ecstasy. you realize that you feel it like a living thing -- feel a wonder, a happiness, that will burn through everything you are. you will perish in its brilliance, the last thing you see with your frozen eyes ren -- just out of reach. watching you, not understanding what she is seeing.

and then you are floating. this is a world without pain; this is a world with only power blooming at your fingertips. you are bigger -- you are stronger. you know, instantly, that you can do anything with the thought alone -- that you are like these creatures: beautiful, strange, strong, free.

magic, you think desperately. this is magic.

this is she-ra, the sunlight tells you in an ancient voice.

then you are you again, and you promptly pass out.

o5. captain agathe gives you a sword. they have been making it for weeks, since ren ran and got her when you had been overwhelmed by a magical force calling itself she-ra. not that you left it at that; the moment you opened your eyes, you had gone to captain agathe -- to the members of squadron grayskull, to the records on the ship. they are incomplete; you have only just arrived, after all.

but you find out when the information starts compiling, taken from the written and spoken records of the etherians: the legend of etheria’s champion. a warrior of magic and heart, who has always served to protect etheria when etheria needs her. manifesting in etheria’s greatest time of need: she-ra, the princess of power.

she-ra, the sunlight had told her in its ancient voice.

we need to understand this magic, captain agathe had said, but we also must respect it. mara, we will help you wield this power.

so, for her seventeenth birthday, mara is given a sword.

this will unlock the mystery and power of she-ra, captain agathe says, handing you a great, golden-hilted marvel of tech. i trust you will learn to use it well. this is an honor you have been bestowed, junior officer.

ren isn’t far away; she’s watching at you with large, wonderstruck eyes. when you hesitate, she flashes you a furtive, familiar thumbs-up.

you take it -- for the respect of etheria. for the honor of her squadron, who stand silent and waiting and ready for you to do something that you are not sure you’re capable of.

( every time you use it, you remind yourself: it is for them. always, forever. for ren and the others. for the honor of team grayskull. )

o6. you must let go of your attachments, light hope tells you.

you laugh.

light hope, you tell her, fixing one of the hanging plants in the crystal castle. you’ve been saying that for a year, now. look ! watch this.

mara, this is --

-- highly irregular. but nothing about this is regular anyway! just -- watch and observe. record if it makes you happy, okay ?

light hope pauses as you step back and lift up the sword -- only to reflect some of the castle’s light to a focal point, aiming to the wall just behind the hanging plant. it’s a beautiful thing: lush, thick-leaved, deeply green. some of its leaves are stubby little buds, but some have unfurled to form broader spades. and when you aim the light, the leaves slowly, surely, stubbornly follow it.

oh, my -- light hope says haltingly. you grin.

see ? you go to elbow her, the way you might with ren, but you stop, remembering that you will pass through her. afraid to harm her programming. light hope turns to watch you, and you swear you see curiosity in her gaze.

you soften.

it is -- fascinating, she says, like a concession.

i won’t stop training, you tell her, also like a concession. warm and giving. but sometimes it helps us mere mortals to remember what we’re fighting for. can you trust me on that, at least ?

i --

you don’t know then, what is hidden deep in the heart of her coding. how she is fighting to rewrite it. you only wait, bouncing expectantly on your toes until she finishes her sentence:

i will try.

( you don’t know that you are both remaking yourselves, circuit and moment and memory at a time. )

( you just laugh in joy and say thanks hope ! and light hope blushes. )

o7. when madame razz kisses you in a flurry on the cheek, holding you by the chin as if you two are old friends, you are reminded of your mothers more viscerally than you have been in -- in years, now, right ? three, since you touched down on etheria. it catches you by surprise, how you’ve never realized how large and empty and cavernous the hole is where you are separated by lightyears of planetary distance from them.

but you don’t have much time to dwell in it; razz is bustling around the crystal castle like she owns the place, like she knows precisely where you keep everything -- from transmission crystals to sugar, even if she keeps calling you adora. you watch her in something like wonder, something a little like amusement, something almost like guilt when you remember pointing the end of your sword at her throat, ready to strike for the protection of -- for the protection of --

-- of the crystal castle. but that’s not -- that’s not what she-ra was meant to be, right? she exists... what was it captain agathe said years ago -- no, not her. the stories. it was in the data you’d collected; a warrior summoned by the force of etheria’s need.

this is not the last time you’ll realize you’ve forgotten something important; it’s the first.

razz calms both you and the quadruped the same way, weeks later -- nonsensical shushing, a calm confidence, it’s alright, nothing will hurt you. you hesitantly place your hand against its fur and, as you let go of she-ra’s form, a flicker of memory comes back: golden sunshine filling you up, pure and unfiltered. go, you say, overcome with the words. be at peace.

but you have not brought peace; you have torn up what captain agathe calls the darkwoods and razz calls the whispering woods. guilt burns up all the way through you, wrapping around your ribs clawing at your throat. i’m sorry, you tell her, because you are, even though it’s not enough. even though you have destroyed something beautiful and innocent, leaving deep scars in its soft ground.

she’d wanted to -- to protect razz. and that was supposed to be good, right?

you don’t have the sword; you can’t use magic to heal what you have hurt without it. except:

razz takes you by the hand and you feel it again, this time in force: sunlight, twining around your arm like vines growing joyously, seeking the light. it’s not like when you were younger and the sheer magnitude of it overwhelmed your body. this time the magic comes in its little, sparkling puffs -- greets you with gentle kisses on your wrist, your cheek, dancing around your hair like an old friend.

she-ra is not a sword, razz tells you. she-ra is you.

and you know this is true, because you can feel the heartbeat of etheria like a twin of your own.

o8. your people have sent their strongest troops to quell the rebellion.

your forces -- your grayskull teammates, your etherian allies, your friends, are being run ragged. if you only had to fight to win, maybe you would have stood a chance; she-ra’s strength isn’t something to be taken lightly, and ren and the rest have been training their whole lives for planetary readiness. you’ve been on etheria for ten years -- you have fought the forces of horde prime, you have protected the etherians, and they have given you their friendship, their trust.

but it’s not only the fight. it’s the research -- gathering every bit of classified information about how the heart of etheria works, following the whispers of a failsafe that always turn out to be insubstantial, inaccessible. you are all learning and investigating and fighting and you wonder how much more they will have to suffer: if you will all fight until the end, losing life and love and hope, only for this and every world to be razed by the corrupted, constrained magic at the planet’s core.

that your people have corrupted and constrained.

one night, when the sun has just sunk below the hills and there is a moment of peace, ren sits besides you. you are both silent. your ribs ache every time you breathe, and you cannot look at ren’s arm without wincing in sympathy. but for a moment, you exist beside each and breathe and feel each other’s warmth.

the stars are spread out across the vast canvas of the night sky. they are not the same stars from your childhood, but you’ve learned their names, their formations, too.

slowly, ren covers your hand with her own.

ren, you say, voice rough around the edges but quiet. serenia. her name is heavy in your mouth.

mara, she says. worried. because she knows you. you turn to her and smile and cut her off.

i’m glad we can have nights like this, you tell her. you don’t know if you have convinced her -- that you’re alright. that this is alright. that you’re not going to do something reckless.

but maybe she knows that your choices are dwindling and that the honor of grayskull comes with a responsibility that feels like a terrible price.

you will hurt her, probably.

yeah, she says, looking at you, then at the stars. me too.

just, not tonight.

o9. you’re out of time.

you can barely get the words out to razz -- she looks so startled and confused; she looks like she’s hurting. but you know that you will hurt everyone if it means that you can save their lives. there’s nothing left; you couldn’t reach the fabled failsafe. the last princess must have connected with her runestone, and you feel the sensation of something coming to life stirring in your veins.

tomorrow, you tell razz, knowing that it’s a lie but a small one: if you can do this and do it successfully, razz will have a tomorrow. we’ll bake a pie tomorrow.

i’m sorry, you want to say, even though it cannot make up for all the scars you will leave.

this is not like the first time with a sunlight. yes, etheria’s magic would have torn you apart -- with joy. with freedom. with great and beautiful power that had found a home for the protection of those it loved.

now, your jaw opens as wide as it will go but the scream is lost in your throat. you are paralyzed; you have your hand on the hilt of the sword and are driving it into the surface of etheria, wounding it with the sharpness of the blade and the code that it bleeds. and the magic -- changed, corrupted -- is like burning ice in your veins. it has a mission; it is searching for something in you, and you try to do anything to excise it ( scream, cry, vomit ) but your palms ache and your body is frozen as the code writes itself to life on your flesh. if you could break the sword, maybe -- except it’s all you can do to wrench your hands away, delaying the activation by only a minute or two.

when you reach your ship, light hope’s voice is not light hope’s, and you know immediately that it’s not because you wrecked her code. she wants the sword. that is what they all wanted -- that is what her life has culminated in. a hand to hold a sword, and with it, rend the magic from etheria and use it to lay waste to this and every world.

it is your destiny, light hope tells you.

maybe it was. but you will protect etheria, and you will protect she-ra too -- from the hands that would use her, point her to enemies as a weapon.

you will be a hero, light hope tells you. you are she-ra.

something inside of you that has been fracturing through this whole rebellion shatters.

1o. you never wanted to be a hero. you won’t be remembered as one.

you don’t think of the way agathe and your superiors turned on you -- the way they looked at you as if you were some unknowable thing the moment that you realized that they must be your enemy.

instead, you think of razz kissing your face and ren holding your hand, and hope telling you that despite what she has been programmed to do, she’ll try to change. you think of squadron grayskull: of the nights spend laughing under the stars, cataloguing the new birdcalls, training with the sword, growing plants with magic without it. you think of your mothers, lightyears away, who will be safe, now, because you will make sure that the only heart of etheria is the love that it bears and not the weapon in its core.

for their protection, love, and honor, you can finish this.

so, you steal the stars.

#( mara. )#( mara writing. )#( mara hc. )#( writing. )#spop spoilers #sometimes u just .... gotta.

3 notes · View notes

procrastinatingfeminist · 5 years ago

Text

Musing on Dune 2020 casting

Thinking back on the casting for the new remake of Dune (remake after remake after remake, really, you can’t find new material? but otoh Dune is one of those underrated book series that people shy away from and if it is getting a remake, I will gladly take the resurgence in interest) - it is actually pretty spot on.

While I am not happy with the beard - I think Duke Leto has more class than to wear a poodle on his face and any facial hair would be trimmed and sculpted into compliance -, Oscar Isaac himself actually makes a lot of sense. He radiates a quiet dignity and poise I remember from Prochnows interpretation and he has talent in spades.

Zendaya is actually how I always imagined Chani to be - maybe 5-8 years older and with a fuller figure, because the most prominent impression of her in my mind is from the time when Paul walks the desert, supposedly dead, and they had lived several years together already; when their son takes up the path his father abandoned - I believe, ca. somewhat before the events of Children of Dune.

Momoa has a certain appeal as Duncan Idaho, though personally I always saw him as more able to fade into the background, which Momoa will never be accused of; but he for sure is as pretty as Duncan was described and I can kinda-sorta see it.

For Gurney I actually prefer Sir PatStews casting above all - there probably never will be another Gurney good enough for me; but I also don’t dislike Brolin in that role. The choice for Jessica doesn’t ring a bell, so I will wait and see before forming an opinion on her.

The weakest casting choice is actually the babyface Chalamet. He might be outstanding. He might suck. At least he and Zendaya are close in age, so there won’t be any UncannyValley creepy age differences that were unintended. I just can’t really see him in this particular role. Hopefully his performance will convince me. (Yeah, I am somewhat hung up on Kyle McLachlan as Paul, even though he looks much older than Paul was supposed to be, if I remember correctly. But he delivered that impression of a steel-rod-spine that Muah’dib needed. I didn’t much care for the 2003 version of him either, though McAvoy first gained my attention in that particar remake).

Casting an asian actor as Dr. Yueh is infinitely preferable to the alternative, though his character is at best described as complicated. But it is a role with meat on it, a good actor has a lot to work with; and Dune is not exactly the material with black and white morals; so it actually doesn’t fall into the pitfalls of the casting logic of ATLA the movie whose existence I will deny to my grave.

I... am not really sure how Stellan Skarsgard as Vladimir and Dave Bautista as Rabban will work, esp. since I am somewhat flabbergasted with Bautistas choice, but I am certainly intrigued. As I am intrigued with the choice of Bardem for Stilgar and the choice for Liet-Kynes.

Really interested to see who they will cast as Feyd and Irulan - I loved 2003 Irulan and Sting had my adolescent self very confused for a long time because at the time I didn’t understand the concept of being attracted to a absolutely horrid person (by which I don’t mean that Sting is horrid, but that I couldn’t understand how I could simultaneously despise Feyd and be attracted to him because Sting played him - I was young, okay?).

And actually, when I look over the casting - there are a lot of POC-actors on the list, aren’t there? Actually, circling back to Duncan Idaho - I think someone like Godfrey Gao would make a stunning Idaho - the prettyness, the smooth operator navigating the court, the deadly sting when he literally charms the pants off of you, and the ability to fade into the background - I think I would have preferred someone less larger than life in that role and a lesser known Asian or Asian-American actor would fit that bill better and avoid the fringe casting that two decades before was reserved for black and latino actors. Ah, I will take what I can get and I am certainly glad that diversity casting means more nowadays than a sole black best friend or the sole black guy that gets killed first.

#dune 2020 #casting #musings

4 notes · View notes

smokeybrandreviews · 4 years ago

Text

Smokey brand Select: Biohazrd

With the advent of Peninsula’s release, the sequel of Train to Busan, i wanted to take some time and spotlight a few of my favorites Zombie films. My love for Zombie flicks stems more from the circumstances around the outbreak, rather than the monster effects and whatnot, themselves. Don’t get me wrong, the make-up in these things are almost always spectacular, but, for me, the existentialism is where the true horror of these films truly lie. I like the exploration of humanity and lack thereof in such dire situations. That whole man/monster motif. I am a sucker for those tropes and the study of human nature. For me, those make the best kinds films, that mirror to ourselves, and you get a ton of that in zombie flicks. Now, admittedly, i have seen a ton of these things and it was hard to whittle it down to just ten selections so this is another one of those wonky lists. Look, man, i like movies and this is my list so I'll do what i want!

10b. Overlord

Overlord is an interesting case. It started out as a spec script, then got made as part of the Cloverfield cinematic universe, but dropped that aspect after Cloverfield Paradox sh*t the bed. I think that was for the best because this movie is f*cking insane. It has nothing to do with Cloverfield and everything to do with Resident Evil and Wolfenstein. Indeed, this is everything a Wolfenstein adaption should be. Nazis and zombies and Nazi zombie super-soldiers - oh my! In all seriousness, this movie is one of the most violent, excessive, gory, cinematic pleasures i have ever experienced. Overlord knows exactly what it is and executes that vision with such fervent, bloody, sloppy, enthusiasm, you can’t help but have a great time.

10a. The Crazies

I saw the original version of this film when i was a kid on television. I thought it was an interesting take on the zombie formula and kept it’s existence in my back pocket. The Crazies was the first time i understood that a zombie didn’t need to be undead. This film predated my experiences with first Resident Evil game so infection was a brand new trope for me. Fast forward several years, and the remake drops. It’s so much better that the original. It is a low budget film, which means they need to focus on character and atmosphere to drive the tension home, both of which are absolutely excellent. The Crazies is harrowing, stressful, and brilliant. Both versions are good but the 2010 remake, in my humble opinion, is superior in every way.

9. The Night Eats the World

I stumbled upon this by accident while perusing amazon. I remember hearing about it and thought the premise was interesting. Imagine being locked in one of those dope ass, old timey, Paris apartments during a zombie apocalypse? That hook, alone, got me to bite but the performance given by Anders Danielsen Lie as the lead, Sam, was heart-wrenching. This is a very somber take on the isolation aspect of the zombie genre. This is I Am Legend but with a sobering reality infused in every scene. It was horrifying watching Sam’s mental degradation but a powerful watch overall.

8. Life After Beth

Life after Beth is probably the only light-hearted zombie film of this list and for good reason; It’s outstanding. I debated whether to put Zombieland or Burying the Ex on this list, both excellent in their own right, but i had way more fun watching this one, than either of those. That’s high praise because the first Zombieland is one of my absolute favorite films. Life After Beth is a unique take on the whole genre and Aubrey Plaza as the titular Beth was excellent. I would say it’s about as good as Zombieland, maybe a little better. Mostly because of Plaza. I really like Aubrey Plaza.

7. Deadgirl

This is actually Deadgirl’s second time making a Select list. I figured there would eventually be crossover as some flicks encapsulate so many different genres but it’s surprising that it would be this one. Actually, i think the first was Doctor Sleep with the Stephen King and Vampire lists, but Deadgirl is worth a double-dip, too. It’s super low budget and focuses on a rather interesting take on the Zombie genre. I don’t want to get into it too much because the film, itself, is worth a watch. So go do that. Go watch Deadgirl. Right now.

6. Maggie

This was a legitimate surprise for me to see. Maggie takes place several years after the actual outbreak. Zombies are a thing. They’ve been a thing. Humanity has already crossed that bridge and the virus is just the way of life. they’re the new normal and mankind is busy as much as usual after literally the dead rising from their graves. Precautions are taken to mitigate infection but they still occur with alarming frequency. Maggie is about a father who has to come to terms with his daughter’s infection. You slowly watch this man’s despair and desperation as the inevitable eventually befalls his one and only daughter. It’s stark, and bleak, and f*cking devastating. There isn’t a happy ending to this, it just ends. I loved this movie, man, and a lot of it has to do with Arnold Schwarzenegger’s performance. That sh*t was amazing and easily the best role I've ever seen in. I’m a huge Terminator fan but this performance as f*cking enthralling. Abigail Breslin is awful in it, though.

5. Cargo

Before i get into it’s merits as a zombie flick, i just need to say, Cargo is an excellent film in itself. Strong ass performances. A gripping and emotional narrative. Gorgeous cinematography. Deft direction. It’s an objectively beautiful film. Now, as a zombie outing, this motherf*cker is full of the despair. The whole f*cking thing is an exercise in constant, aggressive, tragedy. Don’t misunderstand, it’s excellent, but it will leave you exhausted by the end. It wraps up nicely and with a subtle tone of hope, but you will be emotionally exhausted, for sure, by the time those credit’s roll.

4. The Girl with All the Gifts

I love this movie if only because they took the cordycep route in regards to infection. The zombie story i wrote way back when i was in high school for my creative writing course, used that as the catalyst for my zombie shenanigans. I always found that sh*t interesting, like, what would happen if that parasitic relationship jumped species. Then The Last of Us came out and i was disillusioned because the story they told, turned out to be so much better than mine. I felt that same emotion when i first saw this movie. The Girl with All the Gifts is brilliant. It’s stunningly human while being objectively horrifying. The zombies play a part, sure, but it’s the inevitable extinction of humanity that drives this film, that haunts most of these characters. It’s X-Men but with zombies instead of mutants and executed in a way that feels disturbingly real. Plus, and i cannot stress this enough, Sennia Nanua is f*cking outstanding as Melanie. To be so young and to give such an emotional performance was a true joy to witness.

3. Night of the Living Dead

The classic that kicked off an entire genre and still, even after fifty-two years, one of the best examples of it to ever be made. Night was terrifying back in the day, mostly because of different sensibilities, but the horror of that film lied with the people trapped in the house. The true monsters were never the zombies, but humanity, itself. It was watching those survivors slowly turn on one another. It was the realization that people will eat each other when pressed with such harrowing events. I used to think that wasn’t true but then Covid happened and people were trampling each other for toilet paper. That was insane. People would absolutely act this way in real life so that ending, as f*cking abrupt and terrible as it was, rang true. That sh*t is what real horror is all about.

2. The Wailing

The Wailing is the first of two South Korean zombie flicks to make this list. Indeed, the other is so excellent, it had to share the top spot but this one, for me, was an easy pick at two. I’ve seen I’ve given The Wailing multiple viewings and every time, without fail, i am pulled into that world. It’s a very methodical film, not in the sense of pacing, but more in the sense of plotting. This thing has a story to tell and you have to commit to it being told. It is a lot to ask but, like so many other films that ask this of you, the experience is incredibly rewarding. Don’t let the fact this thing is Korean language stop you from taking in a true masterpiece. It’s gorgeous, performed adeptly, and shot wonderfully. The environment and atmosphere, alone, are worth the price of admission.

1b. Train to Busan

If 1a didn’t exist, Train to Busan would be the greatest zombie flick i have ever seen. It hits that sweet spot between the human and horror elements perfectly. Setting it on a train makes for some of the most tension filled scenes ever captured of film. For those of you that prefer a more action packed, zombie outing, Busan delivers that in spades, while giving you very real, very emotional, performances to boot. You feel for these characters and the bleakness of their plight. You feel the desperation as the world collapses around them. This movie, zombie elements remove, would still be f*cking fantastic. Add the horrors of an undead apocalypse, and you have one of the most devastating accusations of humanity ever captured on film.

1a. 28 Days Later

This is the greatest zombie film i have ever seen, hands down. It does everything Train to Busan does, AND sticks that feeling of isolation so well. In a lot of ways, this is more a study on the horrors humanity can commit in the face of oblivion, and i dig that. There are shades of that aspect permeating throughout all of these films but the first third of 28 Days Later nails that bleak loneliness with such aggressiveness, it’s borderline sadistic. This was my first experience with Cillian Murphy and i was thoroughly impressed. Dude was incredible in this role so imagine my complete lack of surprise when he popped up in Batman Begins. It’s said he got Scarecrow because of Days and i can totally see that. Watching this man’s career blossom has been a real pleasure but, for me, his Jim will always be the role i think off when people say his name. If you’ve never seen 28 Days Later, rectify that at once. It’s an incredible, gorgeous film that is definitely worth a watch.

Honorable Mentions: Burying the Ex, Zombieland, Shaun of the Dead, Dead Snow, Return of the Living Dead, Re-Animator, Day of the Dead, World War Z, Contracted, REC, Pride and Prejudice and Zombies, Gallowalkers, Pet Sematary, Resident Evil

#Smokey brand Select #Zombies #Zombie

1 note · View note

chicagoindiecritics · 5 years ago

Text

New from Jeff York on The Establishing Shot: APPRECIATING THE SUBLIME NASTINESS OF STUART GORDON’S “RE-ANIMATOR”

With the passing of filmmaker Stuart Gordon this past week, I was inspired to re-visit his darkly comic horror film RE-ANIMATOR. A loose adaptation of H. P. Lovecraft’s horror short Herbert West – Reanimator, Gordon made it his own by amping up the comedy and the grotesque in equal measures for a modern horror classic. When it came out in 1985, America was settling into a comfortable groove with a second term of the Reagan administration, a nationwide obsession with music videos on MTV, and a steadying economy. Gordon likely wanted to shake audiences out of its complacency, and he did just that with his hellzapoppin horror show.

The film was probably too controversial by half to be anything more than a qualified hit at the time, but nonetheless it still had quite an impact. Not only did it achieve instant cult status, and lead to a number of sequels, but it cemented Gordon’s artistic reputation as a provocateur and set his film career up to continue to shock and awe. (He’d already done a lot of similar things in Chicago with his Organic Theater Company where, among other things, he introduced the world to the equally edgy playwright David Mamet when he produced his first play entitled Sexual Perversity in Chicago.) 35 years later, the chills and laughs Gordon put out for the world to see in RE-ANIMATOR still stand tall, and if anything, the entire enterprise seems even more outrageous than it did when it opened during that comfy and conservative Reagan era.

The idea of reanimating corpses wasn’t exactly the edgiest subject for the horror genre. Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, which helped start the genre back in 1818, was about that very idea. Nor was excessive violence and gore new to films or even TV shows in the genre. The Hammer horror films dumped buckets of blood all over the screen in the ’60s. THE NIGHT STALKER made-for-TV movie in 1972 pushed the boundaries of violence transmitting into people’s homes with its tale of a vampire on the loose in Las Vegas. And God knows that John Carpenter was raked over the coals by critics for the spectacularly graphic deaths in his remake of THE THING in 1982. RE-ANIMATOR didn’t do anything all that new by being excessively violent. What was novel about it was how viciously it was employed, and how glibly. It was gross, sure, but mostly, it was served with a sense of humor.

In a word, RE-ANIMATOR was nasty.

Nasty in tone, look, and physicality, not to mention its treatment of death, the medical community, patriarchal society, ingenues, and yes, the classic hero’s journey. It was a sniggering and snide middle finger to propriety, daring audiences to watch, laugh, and stay till the end of a film wall-to-wall with outrage. Some did, some didn’t. I had to chase after my date who walked out during it due to being so offended. I returned the next day to see it on my own. It was a very polarizing movie.

The story concerned a brilliant but certifiably cuckoo medical student named Herbert West (Jeffrey Combs) who has invented a reagent that can re-animate deceased bodies. He pulls his classmate and roommate Dan Cain (Bruce Abbott) into his twisted world when cat Rufus ends up dead by accident and West brings it back to life with his DayGlo green goop. Unfortunately, the lovable personality of the frisky feline doesn’t return as easily as his body. Instead, the sweet kitty’s personality is replaced by a savage and mutated one, a zombie-cat driven by bloodlust. As the two roomies dig deeper into experimentation with reanimation, human bodies start to pile up all over campus, all becoming as vicious as poor Rufus. It’s a film with a pretty sizable body count, one that ends with most of the cast dead, or at least dead for the moment. Dr. West’s formula glows in the dark in the final fade to black.

Combs gave one of the greatest horror film performances ever, a snide sociopath somewhere between Tony Perkins’ boyishness and Christopher Lee’s silken menace. West was arrogant, tart-tongued, and incapable of even showing a speck of human empathy, By the end, he’s not become a better person one iota. Instead, he’s grown even more obsessed and dangerous. And he’s the lead. (Gordon was all but taunting Joseph Campbell, if not Robert McKee.)

Dan, while a cliched handsome hero in appearance, is little more than a feckless fool throughout. West all but leads him by the nose the entire time. Dan’s girlfriend Megan (Barbara Crampton) is introduced as a sweet, innocent girl and then promptly gets pulled into one humiliation after another. She’s bamboozled by Dan, has to watch her kind father, the dean of the school (Robert Samson), die and then turn into a vicious zombie. West treats her with derision, and the film’s villain Dr. Carl Hill (David Gale) will spend the entire hour and 45-minute running time trying to get into her pants. Today, they’d give her a Katniss Everdeen moment or two to counter such victimhood, but not in ’85.

RE-ANIMATOR is a film that at every beat of its story, exuded in its politically incorr ect attitude Gordon, and his fellow screenwriters Dennis Paoli and William J. Norris threw all the sacred cows out the window or against the wall. (Literally and figuratively, truly.) Rufus’ death is played for grisly laughs. So are all the human deaths. The story also ridicules people in mental institutions, padded cells, and morgues. The character of Megan’s father goes from a sweet, caring man to a drooling, lobotomized caricature in about 10 minutes. And to justify its adult rating, Megan ends up nude for a great deal of the third act. It should be noted too that the film has no problem lingering on Crampton’s comely figure either, including her pubic region. The film takes no prisoners and laughs all the way to the dank.

Most horror comedies tend to play more cute than cruel, like BEETLEJUICE, GHOSTBUSTERS, and ZOMBIELAND. RE-ANIMATOR, however, emphasizes humor that often plays as mean as the bloodletting. Nowhere is this more evident than in how Gordon treats the film’s villainous Dr. Hill. When West catches him trying to steal his reagent, he attacks him with a shovel, and then for good measure, decapitates him too. Still, Hill stays in the picture. The lascivious villain is reanimated and soon both his head in a pan, as well as his foot shorter body, are plotting more nastiness.

The film ends with a phantasm of violence and craziness, chock full of multiple corpses attacking and spraying blood and guts around like the top was left off of a Cuisinart. Yet, even that over-the-top ending cannot compete with the single most memorable set piece in the film. That is when Dr. Hill’s decapitated head tries to, ahem, give head to Megan as she’s strapped to the slab. (Thankfully, my girlfriend left before that scene!)

When the film was originally presented to the review board, it received an X rating because of such scenes, as well as its violence. Gordon trimmed some bits and pieces here and there to scale back such offenses, and thus ensured the video release of the film got an R rating that made it acceptable for Blockbuster and mom & pop stores nationwide. In rentals is where the film really took off and built its reputation that it enjoys today.

Gordon and his producer Brian Yuzna consciously went for the shock and delivered it in spades. They spent a considerable amount of their meager $900,000 budget on the gruesome makeup effects, ensuring that they were as disgusting and graphic as the photos they discovered in a forensics pathologist manual. John Naulin, the film’s effects supervisor, said it was the bloodiest film he had ever worked on. In past horror films, he never used more than two gallons of blood. For RE-ANIMATOR, he used 24.

And, dare one say, it was bloody effective. By not pulling its punches, RE-ANIMATOR was true to Gordon’s vision of splitting skulls and being side-splitting too. And for such a brazen film, it’s got dozens of quotable quips, particularly those uttered by West. When he discovers the headless Hill trying to get it on with Megan, West admonishes the bad doctor. “I must say, Dr. Hill, I’m very disappointed in you. You steal the secret of life and death, and here you are trysting with a bubble-headed coed.” Snark like that is comedy gold. And it’s in a horror film.

It’s not everyone’s cup of tea, but then Gordon wasn’t interested in the status quo.

from The Establishing Shot https://ift.tt/2Uq3CyL via IFTTT

from WordPress https://ift.tt/2Jzx4fH via IFTTT

#IFTTT #WordPress #CIFCC #film critics #movies #film #Chicago

3 notes · View notes

noccalula-writes · 5 years ago

Note

What are your favorite games and franchises? Top 5?

OH BOY have I got feelings on this subject.

Please keep in mind - I’m a storyteller and a writer. I fucking /love/ a good story. I DM a DnD game and my biggest weakness is that I don’t often include enough combat because I am so much more interested in telling a story. So for me, there’s got to be an emotional investment for a game to really land. I also hyperfixate like a motherfucker so I often refuse to pick up new things purely because there’s not enough space in my head for them at the time, so I’m slow getting to things as they come out.

So, I’m first and foremost a survival horror bitch. I cut my teeth on Parasite Eve before I played any others - my mother scrimped and saved and fought her way through Wal-mart back in like 1998 to get me the original Playstation gaming console and Tekken 2 (which was my first PS game, I played it in an arcade near her barber shop as a child - Tomb Raider 2 was my second). The old Playstation discs at that time came with demos for different games, including Metal Gear Solid, which I replayed until I could have done it in my sleep because poverty meant I wasn’t likely to get another game anytime soon. I mention this because the Parasite Eve trailer used to give me nightmares but I was super, super hooked.

I am a huge Silent Hill fan. Huge. That is a tragedy I could write a whole ‘nother post about, because as excited as I am to finally get my hands on Death Stranding (again, poverty, so it’ll be another minute before we can get a PS4), we’ll never get another SH game again unless some major reconciliation happens with Kojima and Konami, which is unlikely (and also hard to hope for - I’m happy Kojima now has the creative freedom to go as balls to the wall as he wants).

I am an equally huge Resident Evil fan. I’ve always maintained that my first fandom was The X Files, but my wife pointed out a few nights ago that my RE love started around the same time in the late 90′s, so now it’s a chicken and egg kind of thing. Point being, it’s either The or One Of my longest lasting fandoms/interests. RE and Silent Hill get compared to one another a lot - RE7 did nothing to help that - but they really are apples and oranges to me. Fruit, sure, but two totally different tones and experiences.

I’ve been a huge Tomb Raider fan for forever - my first high school boyfriend was loaded and bought me Angel of Darkness to come play at his house and while it was def critically panned, I do recall enjoying it - so that’s been fun to get those games remade with updated graphics. I’ve only played the one but the others are def on The List.

So now that I’ve talked for an hour, my Top 5 fave games ever -

#1 - Resident Evil 3 I am beyond jazzed for this remake, and a lot of people in the 90′s complained about RE3′s lack of clear cut boss battles, but I don’t know what they’re talking about. The entire fucking game is a boss battle - Jill vs. Raccoon City, and of course, Nemesis, who used to give my mother nightmares and caused me to sleep with a leaf-stabber by my bed for years. Jill is far and away my favorite protagonist in RE; she’s got a resilience of the spirit that somehow isn’t conflated with naivety, which is uncommon in ‘nice’ female protags. She’s savvy but she’s still kind, and she’s committed as fuck to survival - not to mention, as zealotous a Chris and Jill shipper as I am, she and Carlos had hella chemistry and I’m excited to see where that goes (JD Pardo would have made a fuck of a Carlos Oliviera, btw). It was An Experience and it’s forever at my #1.

#2 - The Last of Us

There is no comparison for emotional weight in video games, as far as I’m concerned. SPOILERS if you don’t already know the ending (this game came out in what, 2014?) but to me one of the biggest thing in the game’s favor is that the protagonist made the wrong choice. He had an option to potentially eradicate the cordyceps fungus and maybe save the world, turn the tides back for humanity, and with the weight of the world in the balance, he chose to save Ellie instead. It was, on a global scale, the wrong choice - but it was the human choice. It was the thing that a dad who never properly grieved his dead daughter would do for the surrogate daughter he inherited by accident. As for Ellie, there is no other character quite like her in games, and she’s fucking quality LGBT representation, especially considering how little we see queer children in media. I still cry every time, we play this game twice a year like clockwork and every single time, I still cry.

#3 - Silent Hill 3

All of SH’s games will have a special place in my heart - and if you wanna talk shit about Downpour, I’ll meet you in the Denny’s parking lot at 11, you better square the fuck up because I will defend Murphy with fists - but 3 is the best, hands down. I felt like it did the best job of streamlining the series’ ... uhm... somewhat complicated lore into something more understandable. SPOILERS: The villains are horrific - the Missionaries strike fear into my heart every time I play, and Claudia eating a miscarried god fetus to become god herself? Fucked up on a level you rarely see. I suppose if you didn’t catch it in the last sentence - your protag Heather vomits up a fetal god late in the game. Yes, you read that right. The best thing about this game though? Heather. I could climb up my feminist soapbox and talk about Heather as a subversion to video game tropes all fucking day - she’s a nonsexualized teenage girl whose father is killed for her character development. She’s self-sufficient, tough but still vulnerable, and hard as nails in a fight. As I might have mentioned a time or six, she also voluntarily aborts a god because Fuck Your Plans, She’s Got Her Own.

#4 - Final Fantasy X

Listen. I don’t know how much of this is because of actually enjoying playing the game and how much of it is emotional attachment. As most of you who follow me know, my mother died when I was sixteen. When I was about fourteen, I dated a rich kid who used to bring his PS2 to our very not-rich house and play games for us to watch - the sort of neophyte version of Watching Guys Play Videogames, if you will, which is another rant for another time. He got a Gamecube specifically so I could play RE Zero and Hunter The Reckoning. He was a neckbeard but he was also desperate to keep me from ditching so he did the smart thing and plied my very poor ass with money and food. The #1 game in the watching roster, though, was FFX - and if you know anything about the game, you know how heavily spirituality features into the story. My mother, very caught up in a very Eastern Philosphy Meets Quantum Physics internal seeking about the nature of things, was hooked from the word Go. She used to sit and watch Trey play for hours - we all did, but having her join us and love it that much? Wonderful. Half my memories of this game are both of us crying - crying when Yuna dances to send the souls, crying when Yuna reveals she’s on a suicide mission, crying when she and Tidus fall in love anyway, crying when she sends her Aeons to die in the final fight, crying over ‘the fayts are waking up’, crying when the big reveal about Auron comes up, crying crying crying. My wife bought it in 2011 and I watched her play through it again and while it suffers from the same issue as all FF games - too much filler and weird battle scenarios - it was cathartic. I miss my mom.

#5 - Resident Evil 6

Eat my entire ass. You already knew this was coming. I will defend this game to my grave for the fact that we have complex, interesting narratives surrounding female characters who have actual personalities. Was it perfect? No. Did it take RE out of horror territory and move it more into action? Woefully, yes. Is this series deeply problematic for where it chooses to set down your mostly-white protags and have them kill their way through? Big time. Don’t gloss those facts. But it’s got emotional punch in spades and a few weird character breaks that ended up being kind of brilliant - Chris has been so resiliently relentless in his fight against bioterrorism that a major PTSD break was inevitable. Leon would of course risk life and limb to help Helena, even though she implicated herself in something terrible. The icing on the cake to me was a grown up Sherry Birkin, wide eyed and believing like hell in the fight she thought she was on the right side of and getting knocked down only to get back up. Ada’s entire side campaign was brilliant. I hate some of the control choices they made in this game - the running from the Haos scenes near the end of Chris and Piers’ campaign makes me want to eat my own fist - but so it goes with most RE games (until RE4, moving your protag was like driving a tank). Jake and Sherry are My Unsinkable Ship. There are at least six scenes across this game that never get easier to watch - when the bomb hits the city and the cut scene of the mass infections begin, I still get sick to my stomach - and that, to me, is the mark that this game struck a hell of a chord in terms of storytelling.

This was long.

#noccalula answers #this was fucking long #ask and ye shall receive #vidja games

5 notes · View notes