#Every nation had at least 2 other characters of the nation element aside from the Archon so ?? where are they?

[sds-mod]

Genshin opinion to get it off my chest but I saw the leaks on the next upcoming character and dude I truly hate Natlan what the hell......I liked the fantasy vibe of the world, but Natlan is just fucking around and being so modern and unserious and killing the vibe that I specifically enjoyed. I don't find the movement mechanics fun, the Nightsoul mechanic annoys me to death, I struggle to connect to the cast the way I could with the other nations...I'm clinging along for Snezhnaya but I'm very concerned where things will go, the sunk cost fallacy is deep but Natlan is making me consider looking for something else. Maybe Infinity Nikki.

[potteresque-ire]

More ask answer about Word of Honour (山河令, WoH) and the so-called “Dangai 101 phenomenon” under the cut ~ with all the M/M relationships shown on screen, does it mean improved acceptance / safety for the c-queer community?

Due to its length (sorry!), I’ve divided the answer into 3 parts: 1) Background 2) Excerpts from the op-eds 3) Thoughts This post is PART 1 ❤️. As usual, please consider the opinions expressed as your local friendly fandomer sharing what they’ve learned, and should, in no ways, be viewed as necessarily true. :)

(TW: homophobic, hateful speech quoted)

After WoH had started airing, I had waited for one of China’s state-controlled media to publish opinion pieces about the show. Specifically, I’d like to know ~ what is the administration’s current take on Dangai  (耽改), as a genre? How does it characterise the closeness of the same-sex leads—the closeness that is suppressed when the original IP, of the genre Danmei (耽美) was converted for visual media presentation?

This is important, as China is a country where the government’s attitude becomes the official public attitude. The state opinion pieces will be quoted and parroted, especially if they come from heavy-weight sources (state-controlled media also have their importance/influence hierarchy). Production of the upcoming Dangai dramas will adjust their scripts accordingly. Marketing tactics will also adjust, make sure it doesn’t spread “the wrong message”; Dangai and Danmei dramas have both been pulled off shelves during or immediately after its airing before (Addicted 上癮 and Guardian 鎮魂, respectively), despite having already passing the censorship board.

If a heavy-weight state opinion piece pans the one-lead-fawning-over-the-other scenes in WoH (there are a few of them), for example, scenes / lines of such suggestive nature will likely disappear from the upcoming Dangai dramas for at least a year or two. If the critique spills over to a harsh stance against the presence of queers in Chinese media, all future Dangai dramas can become strict “socialist-brotherhood” stories, their “no homo” message reinforced by, for example, by inserting a female lead (or changing one of the leads to female).

Whether the official public opinion equates the true public opinion or not, public behaviour in China is quickly driven by the official public opinion. Example: the Xi regime’s conservative stance on queer issues has already translated to a quick deterioration of queer tolerance in China; open expressions that were tolerated, even welcomed, just several years ago are now met with significant hostility in the public.

This is a reflection of the nature of their government. A quick thought experiment may explain this. Take … jaywalking. It’s probably fair to say we’ve all committed this “crime” before?

Will you still jaywalk if your government declares it immoral to do so? Where I am, in the United States, the answer is definitely a no. The public will probably laugh at (and make memes about) the poor official who made the declaration, kindly ask the government to do something useful for once (f*** off), and keep jaywalking.

Now, what if the declaration comes with a law that includes a one-year prison term + lifelong criminal record for jaywalking? Let’s say this law is fully executable and irreversible, given this being a thought experiment—nothing you, or the public, can say or do can contest it.

Will you still jaywalk, even if you disagree with government’s stance that the act is immoral? You’ve got a neighbour who continues to defy the law. Will you think twice before letting your young loved ones go out with them?

Very soon, jaywalking becomes “bad”—even though such “badness” had little moral basis at its origin. It is bad because the government has “characterised” it to be so—an authoritarian government that doesn’t allow challenge of the characterisation.

The retention of queer elements in Dangai is the jaywalking in the example. The Chinese government stepping in to characterise (定性) an event, a phenomenon etc is common, and the people know the drill well that they fall in line quickly.  

If a powerful state-controlled media publish a negative opinion piece on the queer elements in Dangai / Danmei, therefore, those elements can disappear overnight.

My question had been: will the state do it? The Xi regime has made its distaste for LGBT+ representation in visual media abundantly clear with its NRTA directives. However, while the Chinese government typically puts ideology (意識型態) as its Guiding Principle, exceptions have always been made for one reason. One word.

Money.

TU is a legendary financial success story every production company (Tencent itself included) wants to replicate. As a result, there are ~ 60 Danmei IPs (book canon) with their copyright sold for Dangai dramas; this long line of Danmei dramas in the horizon has been nicknamed “Dangai 101”, after the name of the show “Produce 101” Dd was dance instructor in. These dramas are all competing to be the next TU by profit.

Adoration from fans is nice, but money is what matters.

C-ent is currently in a financial bleak winter. The anti-corruption, anti-tax-fraud campaign started by the Xi regime in 2018, which cumulated to a sudden (and unofficial) collection of 3 years of back-taxes from studios and stars, has drained a significant amount of its capital; the number of new TV dramas being filmed fell 45% between 2018 and 2019, and production companies have been closing by the tens of thousands. The tightening of censorship rules also means production is associated with more risk. The commercial sector outside c-ent is also eager for replications of TU’s success—they need more “top traffic” (頂流) idols like Gg and Dd whose fans are sufficiently devoted to drive the sales of their products. Such “fan economy” would benefit the government, even if it doesn’t have direct stakes in the companies in and outside c-ent. People’s Daily, the Official State Newspaper, previously published a positive opinion piece on fan economy in 2019, estimating its worth at 90 billion RMB (~13.7 billion USD) per year.

But if the state allows the queer elements in Dangai’s to pass the censorship board (NRTA) for profit, how can it do so with the current “No homo” directive in place? From previous experience (scarce as it may be), the queerness has to be sufficiently obvious for the shows to make the profit everyone is wishing for. Dangai dramas in which the leads’ romantic relationship remains subtle have not sold the way TU does, even if they are well-reviewed and feature famous, skilled actors (as Winter Begonia 鬓边不是海棠红 last year.)

NRTA, and the government behind it, can’t just say I’m turning a blind eye to the flirting and touching for the money. What can it say then?

Here’s what I’d thought—what it can say, or do, is to “characterise” these Dangai dramas in a way that leave out its queerness. It did so for TU. TU’s review by the overseas version of People’s Daily devoted a grand total of two characters to describe WWX and LWJ’s relationship—摯友 (“close friend”). The rest of the article was devoted to the drama’s aesthetics, its cultural roots. (The title of the article: 《陳情令》：書寫國風之美 Chen Qing Ling: Writing the Beauty of National Customs).

How could it do that? The State’s power ensuring few questioning voices aside, I’ve been also thinking about the history and definition of Danmei (耽美)—Dangai’s parent genre as the causes. Based on the history and definition, I can think of 3 ways the queer elements in Danmei (耽美) can be characterised by the state, 2 of which provide it with the wiggle room, the movable goalposts it needs should it choose to want to overlook the queerness in Dangai.

The 3 characterisations I’ve thought of, based on the history and definition of Danmei (耽美) are:

1) The queer characterisation, which focuses on its homoerotic element. * Summary of the characterization: Danmei is gay.

2) The “traditional BL” characterisation, which focuses on BL’s historic origin as a “by women, for women” genre. The M/M setup is viewed as an escapist protest against the patriarchy, a rejection of traditional gender roles; displays of M/M closeness are often “candies” for the female gaze. * Summary of the characterization: Danmei is women’s fantasy.

3) The aesthetic characterisation, which focuses on beauty—from the beauty of the characters, the beauty of a world without harm to the romance. * Summary for the characterization: Danmei is pretty.

The queer characterisation (1) is well-understood, and likely the default characterisation if it is to be made by the fraction of i-fandom I’m familiar with. Most i-fans I’ve met, myself included, would likely and automatically associate the M/M relationships in The Untamed  (TU) and WoH with queerness.

The “traditional BL” characterisation (2), meanwhile, equates Danmei with BL as the genre of homoerotic works developed in 1970’s Japan for women comic readers, and has been widely interpreted from a feminist point of view.

Under such interpretation of “traditional BL” works, the double male lead setup wasn’t meant to be an accurate depiction of homosexuality. It wasn’t about homosexuality at all. Rather, it was about the removal of women and along with it, the rage, the eye-rolling, the unease women readers had often felt when attempting to interact with mainstream romance novels of the time, in which the female leads had mostly been confined to traditional women roles, and their virtue, their traditional feminine traits.

The M/M setup therefore acted as a “shell” for a het relationship that allowed removal of such social constraints placed on women. The lead with whom the woman audience identified was no longer bound to the traditional role of women, such as being the caregiver of the family. The lead could instead chase their dreams and roam the world, as many contemporary women already did or aspired to do; they were no longer limited to playing the passive party in life and in the relationship—and they enjoyed such freedom without risking the love, the respect the other male protagonist felt for them.

BL, in this traditional sense, has therefore been interpreted as an answer for, and a protest against the heteropatriarchal gender norm still dominant in societies deeply influenced by Confucianism, including Japan, Korea, Taiwan, Hong Kong, China. The M/M setup is, at heart, (het) women’s fantasy. The inclusion of two young-and-beautiful male leads also satisfy “the female gaze” ~ the popularity of BL among het women has therefore been compared to the popularity of lesbian porn among het men. In both cases, the audience is drawn not for the homosexual element but by the presence of double doses of sexual attraction.

(Please forgive me if any of my wording comes as disrespectful! I’m not used to talking about these topics.)

The availability of the “traditional BL” characterisation (2) is key to bypassing queerness as a topic in the discussions of Danmei (耽美).

The aesthetic characterisation (3) is very closely related to 2) in origin, but deserves its own point as a characterisation that can stand on its own, and may be more obscure to the English-speaking fandom given the common English translation of Danmei (耽美) as Boy’s Love.

Boy’s Love, as a name, amplifies the queer characterisation (1) and de-emphasises the aesthetic characterisation (3); Danmei (耽美), meanwhile, does the reverse.

Where does the name Danmei come from?

When BL was first developed in Japan, it used to have a now out-of-fashion genre name: Tanbi. Tanbi was borrowed from same name describing a late 19th century / early 20th century Japanese literary movement, known as Tanbi-ha and was inspired by Aestheticism in England. Aestheticism “centered around the doctrine that art exists for the sake of its beauty alone, and that it need serve no political, didactic, or other purpose”. Along the same line, the core belief of authors of Tanbi-ha was that art should celebrate beauty and reject the portrayal of ugliness in human nature, the darkness of reality:

…Tanbi writers argued that the ideas of naturalism writers such as “objectivism,” “truth is more important than beauty” and so on would “oppress human beings’ desire” so as to “lose beauty and human nature.” Accordingly, they insisted on “acute mental and emotional sensibility” [Ye, 2009].

(Source, with more details on Tanbi.)

Neither romance nor homosexuality were requirements for works in the original Tanbi-ha genre. BL borrowed the name Tanbi because its early authors saw their work created under the same principles: the emphasis on the beauty of their characters, their love (romantic and platonic), in a world that was also beautiful and untouched by ugliness such as sexism and homophobia.

The stubborn persistence on keeping one’s eyes trained on the beautiful, the willingness to turn a blind eye to reality for the sake of the beauty is built-in in the genre’s name. Tanbi  meant more than beauty, aesthetics; its kanji form was written as 耽美;  耽 = to sink, drown in, to  over-indulge in; 美 =  beauty.

Tanbi, therefore, literally means to drown in, to over-indulge in beauty.

Over time, as the genre expanded its writing style, Tanbi eventually fell out of favour as BL’s genre name in Japan. However, as it gained popularity in the Sinosphere in the 1990s, starting with Taiwan and Hong Kong, the kanji of Tanbi was retained as the Chinese name of the genre.

In Mandarin Chinese, 耽美 is pronounced Danmei. A hyperfocus on the aesthetics, the utopian aspects of traditional BL is therefore retained in Danmei by its name. People’s Daily could therefore devote its review of TU on its aesthetics. Realism, including politics and all discussions of social issues, can therefore be swept aside in the name of respecting the genre’s tradition.

I’ve mostly been reading about and observing c-fandom, and I believe these 3 characterisations have all attracted its own kind of fans. Fans who care and talk about queer issues even when it isn’t encouraged by their sociopolitical environment, who shine a light upon these issues in their fan works. Fans who treat the M/M leads as if they were a traditional cishet couple, such as calling one of the leads 老婆 (wife) and assigning him biologically female functions when needed (via, for example, the ABO trope). Fans who insist the works must meet their beauty standards, rejecting those that fail (for example, if the leads are not good looking enough) by claiming they’re there for Danmei, not Danchou (耽醜, “over-indulgence on ugliness”). Fans who are drawn to the genre by a combination of these characterisations.

By the history and definition of the genre, all the above reasons for fanning Danmei are as valid, as legitimate as one another.

I thought about this related question then: are c-fans of the second (traditional BL characterisation) and third (aesthetic characterisation) groups homophobic? When I first asked this question, I—a fan whose fandom experience had been entirely in English-speaking communities—assume the answer was yes. I thought, in particular, the insistence of treating Danmei’s M/M couples as cishet couples in a homosexual shell had to be conscious queer erasure. How can anyone ignore the same-sexness of the leads? How can anyone talk about Danmei without associating it with homosexuality?

However, as I read more—again, specifically about c-fandom, and in Chinese—I realised the answer may be a little more complex.

Previously, I had largely thought about homophobia in terms of individual attitudes. This has to do with my current environment (liberal parts of the United States), in which the choice to accept or reject the queer community has become a close to personal choice. Pride flags fly all over the city, including the city hall, every summer, and most churches welcome the LGBT+ community. I hadn’t considered how an environment in which queers have never enjoyed full social exposure, in which education of related topics is sorely lacking, would affect Danmei’s development as a genre.

In such an environment, it is difficult for Danmei to evolve and incorporate up-to-date understanding of RL queerness.

The consequence I can see is this: Danmei is more likely to be “stuck” in its historical characterisation as (het) women’s fantasy inside than outside the Great Firewall, with its queerness de-emphasised if not erased—and it draws fans who are attracted to this kind of characterisation accordingly. This is, perhaps, reflected by the fact that the (het) women-to-queer ratio of Danmei / BL fans is significantly higher in China than in the West (Table 1 in this article summarises how Danmei / BL fans have split between different genders and sexual orientation in the Sinosphere vs the West in different research studies).

Another driving force I can see for Danmei to retain BL’s traditional feminist and aesthetic characterisations: women in China are not free from the social pressure that led to the birth of BL in 1970’s Japan. While many of them have achieved financial freedom through work and have high education, the young and educated have been subjected to immense pressure to get married and have children especially in the past decade.

In 2007, the China’s state feminist agency, the All-China Women’s Federation (中華全國婦女聯合會), coined the term 剩女 (literally, “leftover women”) for unmarried, urban women over 27 years old. The government started a campaign that, among other things, associated women’s education level with ugliness, and their unmarried status with pickiness, moral degeneracy. The reason behind the campaign: birth rates are plummeting and the state wants educated women, in particular, to nurture a high quality, next generation workforce. More importantly, the government sees a threat in the M/F sex imbalance (high M, low F) that has commonly been attributed to the country’s “one child policy” between 1979-2015, which encouraged female infanticide / abortion of female foetuses in a culture that favours surname-carrying boys. The state fears the unmarried men will become violent and/or gay, leading to “social instability and insecurity”. Therefore, it wants all women, in particular those who are educated, to enter the “wife pool” for these unmarried men. (Source 1, Source 2: Source 2 is a short, recommended read).

For Chinese women, therefore, patriarchy and sexism is far from over. Escapist fantasies where sexism is removed—by removing women from the picture—are therefore here to stay.

Danmei is therefore not queer literature (同志文學). The difference between Danmei and queer literature is highlighted by this reportedly popular saying (and its similar variations) in some Danmei communities:

異性戀只是傳宗接代，同性戀才是真愛 Heterosexuality is only for reproduction. Only homosexuality is true love.

The attitude towards heterosexuality is one of distaste, viewed as a means to an end the speaker has no interest in. On the contrary, homosexuality is idealised, reflecting the disregard / lack of understanding of some Danmei fans have towards the RL hardships of c-queers. The ignorance may be further propagated by gate-keeping by some Danmei fans for safety reasons, keeping queer discussions away from their communities for fear that their favourite hangouts would meet the same uncertain fate of other communities that previously held open queer discussions, such as the Weibo gay and lesbian supertopics. Such gatekeeping can, again, be easily enforced using tradition as argument: the beauty 美 is Tanbi and Danmei (耽美), remember, includes the beauty of utopia, where ugly truths such as discrimination do not enter the picture. A Danmei that explores, for example, the difficulty of coming out of the closet is no longer Danmei, by its historical, aesthetic definition.

[I’ve therefore read about c-queers viewing Danmei with suspicion, if not downright hostility; they believe the genre, by ignoring their RL challenges and casting them as beautiful, even perfect individuals, and in some cases, by fetishising them and their relationships, only leads to more misconceptions about the queer community. Dangai, meanwhile, has been viewed with even more distaste as potential weapons by the state to keep gays in the closet; if the government can shove the Danmei characters into the “socialist brotherhood” closet, it can shove them as well.

I haven’t yet, however, been able to tease out the approximate fraction of c-queers whose views of Danmei and Dangai is negative. The opposing, positive view of the genres is this: they still provide LGBT+ visibility, which is better than none and it would’ve been close to none without Danmei and Dangai; while Danmei may skim over the hardships of being queer, fan works of Danmei are free to explore them—and they have.

This article provides insights on this issue. @peekbackstage’s conversation with a Chinese film/TV director in Clubhouse is also well worth a read.]

That said, Danmei can only be dissociated from the queer characterisation if there’s a way to talk about the genre without evoking words and phrases that suggest homosexuality—something that is difficult to do with English. Is there?

In Chinese, I’d venture to say … almost. There’s almost a way. Close enough to pass.

The fact that M/M in traditional BL has been developed and viewed not as queer but as a removal of F also means this: queerness isn’t “built-in” into the language of Danmei. The name Danmei itself already bypasses a major “queer checkpoint”: it’s impossible to refer to a genre called Boy’s Love and not think about homosexuality.

Here’s one more important example of such bypass. Please let me, as an excuse to put these beautiful smiles in my blog, show this classic moment from TU; this can be any gif in which the leads are performing such suggestive romantic gestures:

How can I describe this succinctly? In English?

Two men acting in love? Er. That’s… the definition of gay, almost.

Two men acting gay? Well. GAY.

Right. Fine. Let’s go negative. Queerbaiting? … Still gay, because the word “queer” is in there.

[Pie note: for the record, I don’t think TU or WoH is queer-baiting.]

Personally, I find it impossible to describe the GIF above in English that I do not automatically associate with RL romantic love between two men, with homosexuality. But can I do it in Chinese?

… Yes.

There’s a term, 賣腐 (pronounced “maifu”), literally, “selling 賣 the rot 腐”, derived from the term known among i-fans as fujoshi and written, in kanji, as 腐女. Fujoshi, or 腐 (“rot”) 女 (“women”), describes the largely (het) female audience of the Japanese BL genre (>80%, according to Wikipedia). Originated as a misogynistic insult towards female Japanese BL fans in the 2000s, fujoshi was later reclaimed by the same female BL fans who now use the self-depreciative term as acknowledgement of their interest being “rotten”, for BL’s disregard of the society’s traditional expectations on women.

賣腐 is therefore to “sell the rot” to the rotten women; ie. the suggestive romantic gestures, exemplified by the GIF above, between the M/M leads are catering, performing fan service to their target audience.

[賣腐 is also a term one will see in the state opinion pieces.]

There’s nothing gay about this term.

I’ve therefore found it possible to talk and think in Chinese about Danmei while giving little thought to queerness. The history and definition of Danmei allow that.

Again, I’m not saying any of this to excuse homophobia among in Danmei and Dangai fandoms. The point I’m trying to make is this — given that Danmei has three potential characterisations, two of which can be discussed without abundantly evoking queer concepts and vocabularies, given that history of Danmei, as a genre, already favoured characterisation 2 (traditional BL), the government addressing homosexuality in its opinions on Danmei and Dangai is far from a given.

By extension, the popularity of Dangai may mean a lot or little to c-queers; by extension, the state can approve / disapprove of Danmei and Dangai in a manner independent of its stance on homosexuality, which is itself inconsistent and at times, logic-deying (example to come…).

This is both good and bad, from the perspective of both the government and the c-queer community.

For the government: as discussed, the “triality” of Danmei allows the state to “move the goalpost” depending on what it tries to achieve. It has characterisations 2 (the traditional BL characterisation) and 3 (the aesthetic characterisation) as excuses to let Dangai dramas pass the censorship board should it want their profit and also, their promise of expanding the country’s soft power overseas by drawing an international audience. These characterisations also allow the state to throw cold water on the popularity of Danmei / Dangai should it desire, for reasons other than its queer suggestions—despite the Xi regime’s push against open expressions of queerness (including by activism, in media), it has also been careful about not demonising c-queers in words, and has countered other people’s attempts to do so.

Why may the government want to throw cold water on Danmei and Dangai? They are still subculture, which the state has also viewed with suspicion. In 2018, a NRTA directive explicitly requested that “c-ent programmes should not use entertainers with tattoos; (those associated with) hip-hop culture, sub-cultures (non-mainstream cultures), decadent cultures.” (”另外，总局明确要求节目中纹身艺人、嘻哈文化、亚文化（非主流文化）、丧文化（颓废文化）不用。”).

Subculture isn’t “core socialist values”. More importantly, it’s difficult to keep up with and control subculture. 環球網, the website co-owned by People’s Daily and Global Times (環球時報), ie, The State Newspaper and The State Tabloid, famously said this on its Weibo, on 2020/03/04, re: 227:

老了，没看懂为什么战。晚安。 Getting old. Can’t figure out what the war is about. Good night.

The State also cannot stop subculture from happening. It doesn’t have the resources to quell every single thing that become popular among its population of 1.4 billion. What it can do to make sure these subcultures stay subcultures, kept out of sight and mind of the general public.

Characterisation 1 (the queer characterisation), meanwhile, remains available to the state should it wish to drop the axe on Dangai for its queer elements. I’m including, as “queer elements”, presentation of men as too “feminine” for the state—which has remained a sore point for the government. This axe have a reason to drop in the upcoming months: July 23rd, 2021 will be the 100th birthday of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), and the state may desire to have only uniformed forces and muscled, gun-toting “masculine” men gracing the screens.

What about for c-queers and their supporters (including group I fans)? What good and bad can the multiple characterisations of the genres do for them?

For c-queers and their supporters (including group I fans), their acceptance and safety are helped by the Dangai genre, by the Dangai 101 phenomenon, if and only if the state both characterises the queer elements in these dramas as queer (characterisation 1) AND their opinions of them are positive.

Personally, I had viewed this to be unlikely from the start, because a queer characterisation would mean the censorship board has failed to do its job, which is embarrassing for the Chinese government.

Characterisations 2) and 3) are not bad for c-queers and their supporters, however, and definitely not “enemies” of Characterisation 1);  they can not only serve as covers for the queer elements in Dangai to reach their audience, but also, they can act as protective padding for the LGBT+ community if the content or (very aggressive) marketing of the Dangai dramas displease the government — with the understanding, again, that the “traditional BL” arm of the Danmei community is itself also highly vulnerable by being a subculture, and so its padding effect is limited and it also deserves protection.

The downside to achieving LGBT+ visibility through Dangai is, of course and as mentioned, that these dramas are, ultimately, deeply unrealistic depictions of the c-queers. The promotion of these dramas, which has focused on physical interactions between the male leads for “candies”, can encourage even more fetishising of queers and queer relationships. The associated (character) CP culture that makes and breaks CPs based on the dramas’ airing cycle may also fuel negative perception of queer relationships as attention-seeking behaviour, something that can be initiated and terminated at will and for the right price.

Finally, with all this said, which characterisation(s) have the government taken re: Dangai and/or WOH? And what opinions has it given to its characterisations?

PART 1 <-- YOU ARE HERE PART 2 PART 3

[salamangreatsunlightwolf]

Masked Singer Season 5 Review

I haven’t gotten to talk about The Masked Singer here in awhile, but season 5 left me with a lot to talk about after seeing how it nosedived this show into being DEAD television by the end of it.

I’m going to put it all past a read more for you here, because I have over 18000 characters in me to talk about how bad of a season this was apparently. There are also some thoughts about Season 3, and Season 4 (which I skipped reviewing because of how uninteresting it was, but boy did it’s bad qualities have a huge impact on Season 5).

So before I get to dissecting season 5 of the Masked Singer, I have to go back to moments of season 3, and a whole lot of season 4. Season 3 is where we start to see the first inkling of bad tropes occur that persist through season 5 to make it worse. It introduces really obviously weak performances that get the performer to skate by when they shouldn't, leading to the biggest upset I have with the season. Kandi Burruss really shouldn't have won season 3 in my honest opinion. within her first 5 performances, she had two clear duds; her cover of Shout!, and her cover of Man, I Feel Like A Woman. Both were covers that had questionable energy (Shout! less so, but Woman was absolutely unenergetic compared to Twain's original vocal performance), and the latter had a key change to the accompaniment that didn't lend any favors to the energy or vibrancy of the cover. I also need to put into context that what I think is Night Angel's worst performance (Woman) somehow won her a face-off round in season 3 (a forgotten show element from the last two seasons? wowie). Obviously I can say that Jesse McCartney should have won season 3 (I just think he had more consistent performances and output throughout the season), but that's a bit off course. What I really want to get to with Burruss cover of Woman is that it's for all intents and purposes just a middling cover. We'll see these happen more in seasons 4 and 5, but they pan out to usually axing off the contestant. Barring the element of Burruss actually getting eliminated, this is pretty much the first notable Punt Song in terms of performance quality. I want to establish the concept of the Punt Song because it plays a larger role in season 4, and season 5. I also need to establish another trope that season 4 introduced which also cursed season 5, which is excusing bad performances. It panned out so much worse in 4 than in 5, but for 4's sake, Chloe Kim should have been out from her first week. Her performance of Big Girls Don't Cry was weak and mildly sobby, but to the panel it's "emotional", and "it's okay, I'm sure you'll do better next week :)". This performance beat out Wendy Williams cover of Native New Yorker. Was that a great cover by Wendy? No, not really. However, whereas Chloe was a weak, sobbing mess on her first swing at bat, Wendy was bringing the comedy and entertainment factor and should have been safe on that alone. This show failure here is especially notable because having comedic factor in an otherwise bad performance actually pans out successfully in season 5, which makes me question the judges consistency in evaluation from season to season (to be fair though, the judges are Robin Thicke, Ken Jeong, Jenny McCarthy Whalberg, and Nicole Scherzinger. They're already a collective 3/4 of a middling joke). The last part of Season 4 I want to bring up is the usage of the term "taking us to church" in regards to it not only being a cursed term by the end of season 5, but also being a poor reflection on the judges evaluation skills. Look, I get it, this is a Fox competition at the end of the day, so it's obviously hokey pseudo sentimental faux entertainment tailored for white audiences, but don't say someone "took you to church" and then immediately axe them off after that. Yeah, I'm gonna say it; LeAnn Rimes shouldn't have won season 4. Was she bad? No! I just think Taylor Dane was better than her during the week where they axed off Taylor, especially after the panel said that she "took them to church". What did Dane lose to you ask? a somehow more intimate cover of a Billie Eilish song. Is that a bad thing? No, in fact it was pretty good, but I don't think it was good enough to beat what was probably the best performance of season 4. ------------------------------------- Anyways, all of those ramblings from seasons 3 and 4 aside, I'm finally getting to season 5. Yes, I know it took me almost 4000 characters to get here, but I really wanted to go off for a minute and preface the bubbling layers of garbage from the previous seasons that contribute to season 5's flatlining quality out of the gate. If you think a bevy of Punt Songs and poor evaluation amped up another level are all that season 5 has wrong with it, then prepare yourself, because it only gets so much more gimmicky. --- So I'm going to go about this week by week because this show basically was committing sins weekly by this point. So week 1, I'm sorry, but yes, I know seeing Kermit the Frog come out of a snail costume was very : 0 worthy, but Kermit shouldn't have lost that week! His performance wasn't even bad! So what did Kermit lose to anyway? Danny Trejo doing a bad, borderline comedic cover of Wild Thing. You couldn't ask for a more "go home uncle Frank! You're drunk!" performance, but we got it. The judges saw more of a comedy factor in the performance than they needed to see, and let that slip by while they just left Kermit to take the fall. Already not off to a great start (especially since Trejo's character is part funny and part cringey for basically pining after Jenny all season). --- Week 2 is where we get to the first big problem I have with this season, which is letting problematic celebrities be contestants. I'm just going to skirt by Caitlyn Jenner's performance and say that it was maybe a punt song, but to be fair, I don't have high hopes for Jenner having any real vocal prowess. I mean, her cover of Tik Tok sounded like your unamused uncle singing it during karaoke at a family party you barely remember when you were 12. That aside, I just want to point out that Caitlyn Jenner was on this show, immediately lost her first round, then went off to do Caitlyn Jenner things this year like try to become governor of California, and whatever else I forgot she got into the headlines for this week. I don't know the worst representation of a trans woman as a public figure (speaking from a trans woman's perspective) getting this big of a "haha, hehe, hi chum : )" spotlight on national television after everything she's done. Barf me out. --- Week 3 didn't matter too much. Trejo finally got booted after a second performance with bad vocals. However, I want to bring up week 3 for the structural change that it brought to the season that ultimately robbed it of some value. Prior to this season, we had 3 groups in seasons 3 and 4, groups A B and C. Starting in 5, we only have a group A and a group B, but now we have "wild cards". These are performers that get to slot into a groups set of performances for the week and stack against them to make even a "just-safe" performer look cannable. I know what you're probably thinking. "In a show where we're trying to see the gradual performance growth of a performer in order to gauge their consistency and quality, doesn't allowing a performer to come in weeks into the show give them the opportunity to progress further along in the competition with little to the no evaluation?" Yes. It does give them the opportunity, but we'll get to that problem when we get to Omarion's character of The Yeti. For right now though, I'm just going to say this. The wild card group really didn't have any reason to exist if they show could get literally 1 more performer this season (which they technically did). A and B were 5 members each. There are 4 wild cards. All you needed was literally one more regular performer, and the wild cards could have just been group C. This feels like the kind of resource scalping covered up as a fun gimmick that only a large corporation could do for why we have wild cards instead of a group C, but that's where we stand. --- Week 4 is notable for the same reason as week 2. Ugh, do I really have to say it? Yes, Logan Paul was also on this season of the Masked Singer. Yes, one of the problematic Paul brothers. Yes, especially my least favorite one because he's a big reason as to why my hobby of trading cards has had a huge boom for the worse. Yes, I'm going to blame the rise in scalper culture on Logan Paul. Yes, I'm going to blame eBay getting more anal about how every TCG single should be PSA/CCG/etc. graded on a listing on Logan Paul. I just don't like the guy. Why is he here? --- Week 5 is where this show starts to cement itself as dead television. So for those unaware, Nick Cannon, who usually hosts the Masked Singer, was absent for the first third of this season. Filling in for him was Niecy Nash. So where was Nick you ask? Why as a wildcard of course! Nick's wildcard performance was pretty meh all things considered (the only other thing that was meh that week was Nick Lachey's cover of 7 Years, but that's less on him and more on how 7 years is just a bad song for the pop music lexicon). However, Nick's unmasking is where the show really starts to be dead television this season. Before I even get to that, I just want to point out that the costume for Nick Cannon's character just looks absolutely atrocious by season 5 standards. The costume for the Bulldog barely looks like it holds to the standards of season 1 of this show! Anyways, back on track. Nick Cannon decides to pull a "trick" from season 4. Back in season 4, Mickey Rourke forcibly unmasked himself instead of getting voted off. Here, Nick Cannon pops in as a wildcard contestant after being MIA for 4 weeks, just to give a meh performance and then forcibly unmask himself for "shock value", and then be like "hey guys! :D" and resume hosting the show the following week. Eat me. --- Week 6 isn't too notable besides the fact that somehow one of the previous wildcards (Mark McGrath as Orca) somehow go integrated into group A as a member during the same week of them introducing another wildcard, Omarion's "The Yeti". I only bring this up because if they're going to integrate two wildcards into a week and already remove the specialty factor from one of them, then what was even the point of the gimmick? The show would have been better off mix and matching members from groups A and B each week for the performance lineup instead of muddying the group lineups with wildcard characters like this. --- Week 7 is upsetting to me. Two hour special. 8 Performances. Two people out. And who you may ask? Why, wildcard from previous weeks Bobby Brown who was given a super obvious punt song (that he did pretty well on salvaging on the back half of the performance), and Tamera Mowry, who gave a solid pop performance that week. I only bring up Mowry's performance because during that same week, Nick Lachey gave us all a very underwhelming, overly clean performance of Foo Fighters "The Pretender". This is really upsetting because the judge evaluation is extremely suspect here, as they were giving Mowry plenty of legitimate praise, while all they gave Lachey was "wow that was solid. haha ur such a rocker :^)". It's just really upsetting to see how the judges evaluation pans out, because for the record, Lachey won this season, and I honestly think he should have been punted this week. This is also coming from a week where Omarion gave us a cover of Justin Bieber's "Lonely", which is another song I hope desperately leaves the pop music lexicon, because like 7 years, it's a sentimental white boy ballad that just doesn't authentically resonate. --- Week 8 isn't super notable besides the show giving Tyrese Gibson a super obvious punt song, and wow, who would have guessed it, Tyrese Gibson was eliminated that week after being given a super obvious punt song. Zzz. --- Week 9 isn't super notable besides another upset to me. So this week, Hanson (who got eliminated) gave a pretty solid performance of "I'm Still Standing". So what did they lose to you ask? How about Jojo giving us a cover of Ed Sheeran's "Thinking Out Loud" with extremely questionable instrumental accompaniment. I can't remember exactly how I articulated it when I first watched it, but to put it in perspective, when LeAnn Rimes aimed for art, she succeeded. When Jojo aimed for art, it just left me confused. I honestly though Jojo should have gotten the boot here, but c'est la vie. --- Week 10 is where Omarion gets eliminated after being given a punt song (surprise). A middle energy performance of "Celebration" by Kool & The Gang isn't much to write home about, but I sometimes get suspicious of the behind the curtain politics of the show. The same week they give Omarion a super obvious punt song is also the second week in a row where Jojo gives us an artsy take on a song that nobody really knows. I'm not saying that Omarion's repertoire coordinator forced him into taking a punt song that week in order to let Jojo get to the finale, but. Wait, no, nevermind, that is what I'm saying. I feel bad for Omarion here. I do think it's pretty bollocks that Omarion basically got to come into the top 8 playoffs off of only one performance (which is a severe abuse of the wild card mechanic from the show producers), but they actually were trying to go for this neat character arc with the character of the "The Yeti" in the song choice. Like, the writers actually put some care into it, and then they give him a punt song on both a writing and performance level, and it just leaves a sour taste in my mouth. I also just remembered that week 10 is where Donnie Whalberg's character of Cluedle-Doo both performs and unmasks. Cluedle-Doo was another dead television gimmick for the season. See, all the characters get clue packages, but Cluedle-Doo will come in and block certain clues from being revealed to the judges, instead replacing them with clues provided by Doo himself. If that sounds annoying, that's because it is. More so when done by a character pompous attitude that does nothing but interfere. I do want to point out however that when I say that Donne performed, Donnie PERFORMED. There are no two ways about it, Donnie's cover of Return of the Mack was the best performance of this week. The only thing that even came close was the Chameleon. I don't need middling Kool & The Gang covers, I don't need art performances of songs I've never heard, and I don't need a Lewis Capaldi cover done by Nick Lachey (so much emotional white boy music this season. Gag me). I really think that Donnie should have been a regular contest, and I think that Nick Cannon should have been Cluedle-Doo as a gimmick character. It's more obvious, and it makes more sense. Obviously this leaves characters to create and fill slots for, but damnit, don't tease me with one of the best performances of the season just to let it whittle out like that. --- Alright, Week 11...the finale. There really isn't much to say, so I'm just going to cut right to it. I don't know what that cover of "Faithfully" Nick Lachey gave us was. There's an obvious problem with the Masked Singer where the short performance time makes slow burn ballads like faithfully translate poorly. As a result, the emotional arc of the performance feels stunted, and it's capped off with a declaration fest ending in one sustained note for "wow, I don't know anything about a good performance, but I'm easily impressed : 0" bait. This is clearly the weakest performance from the three tonight. Jojo's cover of "How Am I Supposed To Live Without You?" by Michael Bolton is...better than what Nick Lachey gave us, but it has its own problems. The Bolton original earworms on you because of the anguish in Bolton's vocal tone. Jojo is too clean to give us even a smidge of anguish until after she's unmasked. That more forgivable though. I'm not going to forgive Jojo for littering an emotional ballad for multiple unnecessary pop diva vocal runs. They're not appropriate here for emotional flavor. They don't add anything musically. They just feel like a forced device from the executives perspective. They stand out in poor musical taste, and they really take away from what Jojo was trying to do in the chorus. Speaking of, the short form nature of the performances makes doing a double chorus with a key change from one chorus to the next feel like another arc stunt. Just bad direction right there. And finally, Wiz Khalifa as the Chameleon doing Gangsta's Paradise. I'm just gonna say it. Wiz Khalifa got robbed. Hip Hop performers tend to be pretty middling on the Masked Singer, with Bow Wow just beefing it at the end of season 3, and Busta Rhymes being unceremoniously eliminated week 1 of season 4. Wiz was different though. Wiz knew what he wanted to do with not only the character, but also with his performances. Chameleon was by far the most consistent and quality character of the season, with only one marginally middling performance during his run. Wiz's cover of Gangsta's Paradise isn't a masterclass in voice personality, but contextually for the show, it pushed more for what the character was trying to do right at the end where it counts, and the judges failed to evaluate that correctly. Wiz was actually doing sung parts that week. Wiz was engaging with the crowd and judges far more than Jojo and Nick were. Wiz even gave stage presence and his musical presence a real arc in this performance. On top of his already present cool swagger that he had on stage, this was easily the best performance of not only the finale, but also for the Chameleon. It's even up there for the best performances of the season. Giving Wiz third place for two C tier pop ballad performances shows a super evident lack of evaluation skills in the judges, and really reinforces the super obvious ballad bias the show has. --- So anyways, this has been a long one, but I think I got it all out there. Masked Singer season 5 really took the uninteresting quality level of Season 4 and just elevated it to being obvious and gimmicky on top of that. I've seen shows become dead television in my time, but this is a staggering nose dive into the realm of dead television. I "hope" Season 6 is "better" than this (if we even get one. This season might have been so gimmicky because the ratings could have sucked hard), but I'm certain it will be if this is the direction they opted for within just one season. Sorry to talk your ear off, but as someone who likes to think they know what good musical performance is in a context like this after being in many concerts in popular music contexts, this show has really not sustained itself as being "it", chief.

[yurimother]

Top Yuri Anime Poll Results

Whether it is subtext or explicit, cute or sexy, school love or gay action thrillers I love yuri anime. These series either focus on or contain elements of female same-sex relationships. Pride month is the perfect time to look back and reflect on the best of this genre. I teamed up with OG Man of The Yuri Nation (yurination[dot] wordpress[dot] com/) and together we put out a poll asking what you thought the top yuri anime series were and over 1000 of you responded submitting almost 5000 different entries. We spent hours combing through the data, analyzing and commenting on the results and we would like to share our thoughts with all of you. Enjoy the reflections of me the yuri critic and OG the dedicated yuri fan!

These are the Top 20 Yuri Anime as voted by you

1. Bloom Into You - 692 Votes

OG: Be it East or West the YagaKimi took the world by storm. Citrus and BiY once again taking the top two spots remains unsurprising.There is something undeniably fascinating about our leading ladies consisting of an asexual slowly coming to love her senpai back but restraining herself for various reasons. The biggest one being said senpai having a deep case of self-loathing and a fear of romantic reciprocation, also for various reasons. She is like “I love you but please do not love me back”. Then there is one of the most popular “cursed” lesbians of all time in Sayaka, the fantastic adult side-couple (The world needs an anime starring lesbian adults/mothers) and the various other characters who have their own interesting tales to tell. The series absolutely deserves a spot in the Top 10 though it would not be in my personal Top 3. Oh and as Yurimother said the presentation was fantastic.Visually stunning from start to finish in my opinion. Special mention goes to the criminally underused first-person “camera”. So cool.

YuriMother: I agree with this series deserving a spot in the top ten even if not the number one slot. For me, it was good but not great. Moments such as the aforementioned adult couple as well as stellar art and a phenomenal score made this series enjoyable but they were not enough to overshine the problems of the narrative. For the love of the Yuri Goddess, this series is crying out for asexual representation but insists on carrying on with its confused romance. Enough complaining though, many people love Bloom Into You despite its faults and I agree. The characters are interesting and lovable and it manages to tell a yuri story more real and complex than the typical fluffy girl meets girl narratives.

2. Citrus - 452 Votes

YuriMother: The presence of Citrus and Bloom Into You prove two things to me, the importance of recency, as both anime aired only last year, and the sheer popularity of these series. Both had established and extremely successful manga runs which were adapted into English by the publishing masters of yuri, Seven Seas. Citrus is a contentious series, to say the least, as it includes elements of (non-blood related) incest and non-consensual actions as part of Mei and Yuzu’s “relationship.” However, if you possess the magical power to turn off the part of your brain screaming at you that those aspects are deeply problematic or if you seek a different interpretation then Citrus can be downright WONDERFUL. I actually loved this anime series for its characters, amazing animation, and salaciousness. As OG said, it is an operatic concussion of emotion (seriously everyone in the series needs therapy) but my is it fun to watch. The Citrus anime also holds a special place in my heart, as the first serious piece I ever wrote was a review for it over on Okazu (nice plug)! Citrus is certainly not for everyone but those that stuck with it and overlooked some of the problems ended up loving it.

OG: Here we are again with Citrus at #2. My thoughts on the series remains the same as in the previous two lists I discussed (the Akiba Research and goo Ranking Japan lists), overrated. Good soap opera/telenovela-esque series but my feelings on the cast are mixed (which I imagine was the writer’s intent). My main issue has always been the obstacles repeatedly challenging Yuzu and Mei’s feelings for each other instead of it focusing on “Hey. We like each other but our parents got married. What do we do? Can we keep our desires for each other in check?”. Instead it is one newcomer after another who want to eat either Yuzu or Mei and Yuzu repeatedly asking herself if she really wants robo-stepsister patties? I will give the anime adaptation credit. The story was easier to enjoy animated than drawn. It also helped that I grew up in a telenovela loving family. The characters’ actions, reactions and emotions were depicted better in the anime. I still consider the show’s greatest accomplishment being the humanization of Mei-Tron. In the manga it took a post-epilogue continuation to show readers “Hey everyone. Mei-Tron was human all along.” whereas in the anime I sensed the small bit of humanity quicker than in the manga where I continued seeing her as a block of wood with a brain up to the point where I dropped it. Harumin though is the greatest regardless of anime or manga adaptation. Bless her. Regardless of how I feel about the series I get its massive popularity. After all, were the rest of the story to get an animated continuation I would gladly pick it up...Not the manga though.

3. Sakura Trick - 342 Votes

OG: There are fans who understandably would disagree with Sakura Trick’s praise but I will always defend it and the anime as one of the very best in the genre. First off it aired at a time where animated on-screen close up kisses (specifically consensual ones) between ladies were rare. Haruka X Yuu’s relationship was believable for the most part. Even their season finale resolution, them not getting what being “in love” meant at the time, made sense though I get why it left some scratching their heads. Probably not the best “manga lure/bait” end I suppose. On the bright side Kotone X Shizuku’s story definitely did not have the two doubting their true feelings for each other. I do hope Kaede X Yuzu eventually hooked up in the manga as they too had potential to be a lovely couple.

YuriMother: Sakura Trick has no real narrative, no great insight, and offers little intellectually. As a teacher, it makes me furious, as a fan of yuri, elated. The anime is beloved for its plentiful soft service, presenting a plethora of kisses, cuddles, and awkward thigh shots (ew). However, it was one of the first anime to include this much explicit yuri service without being pornographic. All the characters were cute and fun, even if there was little in the way of development or complexity, it worked for the series. If you want something to make you think or to learn about yuri, pass over this one. But, if you want a cute and meaningless anime definitely watch it.

4. Yuru Yuri - 337 Votes

YuriMother: OG may not be a fan of Yuru Yuri but I certainly am, which is fairly obvious to anyone who observes that a solid 20% of my communications occur in the form of gifs from this series. It is hilarious, cute, and playful. Just like Sakura Trick, this anime is an easy watch with ultimately little substance. However, the part of me that is not rolling of the floor laughing every time I watch Yuru Yuri lives in a state of pained existence with the knowledge that this work of all things ended up being so popular when people are telling interesting stories about queer women and people in actual relationship that manage to still be funny and adorable while having something to say.

OG: The undisputed most mainstream friendly yuri series there is. It is also one of the funniest. My one gripe is that excluding a select few the main draw of the show besides the comedy and yuri is the ship wars, meaning (almost any girl can be shipped with each other). Not a fan of that but hey, it brought Namori the big bucks so who am I to judge? In any case not much else to add. It deserves all the adulation it gets but the free for all shipping irks me. Reminds me of how they botched Chika X Riko in the Love Live! Sunshine!! Anime. If you were going down the Riko X Yohane route from the start then why give us Chika X Riko in the first half? Ship wars yo. Tch. Hopefully I properly explained myself..

5. Kase-san and Morning Glories (Asagao to Kase-san) - 289 Votes

OG: Still wish this got a 12-13 episode anime. The glorious movie showed how much it deserves one. Whether it will happen or not remains to be seen. In any case the beauty of Kase-san X Yamada is how simple their romance is. No strings attached whatsoever. It is as straightforward as a self-proclaimed “ordinary” cutie, Yamada, having a crush on the super cool school beauty Kase-san. Said beauty is revealed to be just as “adorkable” as Yamada. The other highlight is their story not ending once they officially started dating (as is the case with many romance stories) but that being only the beginning, like real life. From then on, side-stories aside, the two biggest challenges for the two is Yamada accepting that it is okay for someone as “ordinary” as her to be the “cool babe”s girlfriend and Kase-san finding different ways to express her love/hunger for the cutie. As for the OVA, cramming the second part of the first series in an hour definitely had the downside of excluding some important moments, yes, but it at least covered some of the best moments in the manga. The first half of the story was summarized in a five-minute music video. One last thing. The animation, though a bit too brought for some, was glorious. It also had some long pauses which were effective (The bus stop scene being the most infamous) but while I did not mind them at all even I will admit some pauses went a bit too long. A small nitpick all things considered. Fingers crossed one day we either get that 12-13 episode anime for the first series, the sequel or both. That is one of my dreams.

YuriMother: At last, an anime that I do not have to react cynically to! Kase-san is one of the single greatest works of yuri animation to ever to be created and its glory is rivaled only by the manga from which it originated. Despite being only a one hour long OVA this adaption told such an engaging and realistic (finally) story of romance and personal growth. We get to skip the meatless girl meets girls arcs and get into the depth and complexity as Yamada and Kase work to further their relationship. They struggle with the fact that they are two different people who want different things out of life and love and have to actually work on their partnership. Kase-san also includes signs of physical affection and love that are never lewd, immature, or gross, I do not even think I could refer to them as “service”. However, for me, Kase-san’s greatest victory (both the anime and manga) is in its escape from school romance, which in this genre is often a shelter from reality, allowing for women to be in relationships without actually being queer. Kase and Yamada instead make an effort to continue their romance and build a life that includes their relationship once they graduate in a triumphant final act. This anime is a slap in the face to the class S stories and sloppily sexualized works which proliferate the yuri genre. Asagao to Kase-san shines as a holy beacon for the greatness that this genre can achieve.

6. Puella Magi Madoka Magica - 286 Votes

YuriMother: Hurray!! For two entries in a row, I get to talk about series that I wholeheartedly adore without having to constantly attach caveats. Puella Magi Madoka Magica is not considered by all to be yuri, and that is certainly not what it is best known for. PMMM is however famous for twisting the tropes of the magical girl genre and creating one of the most cohesive and thoughtful narratives ever put to screen. This series summoned a new era for the magical girl genre (what OG humorously referred to as the “Moepocalypse”) but no other title managed to top Madoka Magica’s runaway success. Every aspect of this work is highly polished including character designs, a phenomenal soundtrack, and superb writing. This is not only the definitive work of its genre but of all postmodern anime. Whether or not one is a fan of yuri every anime fan should give Madoka Magica a watch.

OG: Meduka Meguca. Its impact in the “Moepocalypse” (Shows where cute and sexy girls consistently suffering physically and emotionally. These are usually dark magical girl shows.) genre and legacy are undeniable. It deserves all the praise it gets. It scarred many unfortunate souls, Homura is a legend in yuridom, Kyouko X Sayaka are glorious (Especially in Rebellion), Meduka’s Mom Junko is a Top Tier Sexy Mama, Charlotte the Witch is a very strange girlfriend and of course Hitomi is a walking anti-fun meme. The animation, especially the creepy doodle like monsters known as Witches are memorable. However, it is not my favorite Moepocalypse show. That honor goes to Yuki Yuna is a Hero.

7. Strawberry Panic - 224 Votes

OG: Like it or not Strawberry Panic is a yuri classic. I have a strong feeling that like many readers around my age (31 during this writing) this was their first 100% yuri anime. The cheese is real but it is the yummy kind of cheese and I loved almost every minute of it, except Amane X Hikari. That was the weakest of the love stories going on. Poor Yaya trying too hard (Not saying this in condescending way. She literally tried too hard). It is like a young adult lesbian novel but more fun. I mean Nagisa X Shizuma might as well be “Lesbian Twilight but not crappy”. Let us be honest, Shizuma is a vampire. Chikaru is an undisputed goddess and Kagome is the cutest.

Oh and I will repeat this statement till my last breath…

#TamaoWasRobbed.

YuriMother: I may be almost a decade younger than OG but even for me Strawberry Panic was my first yuri and it more than earns its nickname as the “gateway yuri,” although last year’s Citrus and Bloom Into You may be presenting serious contenders for this title. If for no other reason than nostalgia, Strawberry Panic remains my favorite yuri works but this ridiculous soap-opera of an anime does deserve a fair amount of recognition. I see Strawberry Panic as the culmination of the S subgenre revived by Maria Watches Over Us. However, this work succeeds at both parodying many of the tropes of S and yuri while breaking a few. However, its greatest accomplishment is introducing many of the young western fans of yuri to the genre. Strawberry Panic, you are an overly dramatic mess but thank you for all you have done.

8. Revolutionary Girl Utena - 176 Votes

YuriMother: Another gem of the yuri genre, actually scratch that, if works like Kase-san are gems then Utena is the minerals from which gems form. I think that is how it works, I am not a geologist. My poor analogies and subtle nods to Steven Universe aside, Revolutionary Girl Utena is one of the single most important works of yuri anime, possibly even more so than Sailor Moon. These two works were the dawn of the current age of yuri, an era spurn on by social progress and the internet into a place where more yuri works featuring honest depictions of homosexuality are flourishing. Utena laid the groundwork for queer representation in anime and for that I remain forever grateful to this masterpiece.

OG: I must confess. While I saw the movie long ago and thought it was cool I have yet to sit down and finish watching the main series. I cannot say much about this show other than it is another yuri classic. Possibly one of the biggest. I think I will leave this to Her Holiness because even if I had seen it I do not consider myself someone who possesses the sufficient intellect to properly explain why this is a legendary show.

9. Flip Flappers - 132 Votes

OG: I would need an essay to explain why this show is legendary. Let me see. It is a story of a girl who discovered her gayness thanks to her growing attraction to a lovable idiot/genki. There are references to Western media, dimension hopping (including Class S Hell), self-discovery, a sexual orientation journey, a tree, armored wedding gowns, crazy third wheels, Ku Klux Klan stand-ins…You know what? Just watch Flip Flappers. It is a hot mess of random, crazy, creative and thought provoking awesomeness with a wonderful dose of gayness. Glory be to PapiCoco. However, as Her Holiness mentioned this is essentially Ikuhara-san levels of weirdness (though not as complicated I feel) but as the plot thickens it all (sort of) starts making sense...eventually. That tree yo.

YuriMother: Flip Flappers was almost too strange and abstract even for me, and that is saying something. However, upon further examination, one of the most interesting works of yuri is revealed. This heavily stylized anime delves deep into the sexual maturation of its protagonist while examining the yuri genre and representation in media. Flip Flappers is the perfect marriage of heavy visual style and intellectual substance. Definitely give them one a.. err better make that three watches, as you will want to be sure to get everything out of this beautiful series as possible.

10. Miss Kobayashi’s Dragon Maid - 131 Votes

YuriMother: This series is the closest anime fans have to a lesbian couple having a family that we have, and that is a shame. I LOVE family narratives, outside of the yuri genre Usagi Drop is my favorite anime. To me, seeing women balance life, a relationship, and children is some of the best queer representation there is. However, for every point in Kobayashi’s favor, there is also a glaring fault. Kobayashi is a modern woman in the workforce providing for herself and her “family,” but is borderline abusive to Tohru. Kanna is an inquisitive child being raising by two women, but there are weirdly sexual scenes featuring her. As previously mentioned on this list, if one can silence the reasonable part of the brain this work becomes enjoyable, hilarious, and adorable. Unfortunately, its faults prevent it from being more than an amusement and I seriously doubt that they will fade in the second season. But hey, it sells a ton of figures so… YAY!

OG: This series is one of the closest yuri fans have to a series starring a lesbian couple with a daughter and it is wonderful. Is the tale of an eternally grateful dragon who wanted to repay the human who saved her life, albeit drunk, by becoming her live-in maid. Tohru being a dragon girl had incredible power and could easily crush everyone in sight but preferred to try and understand humanity so she could live in peace with the woman she loved. It of course was hard at times but thanks to Miss Kobayashi slowly growing to accept her back (romantically she had a ways to go) and the two raising the adorable bundle of mighty puff known as Kanna they became a happy family. How long this relationship will last and whether Miss Kobayashi would come to fully love Tohru back romantically remains to be seen. I have high hopes it can and will happen. Kanna X Riko is precious (Yes. Even that scene). We even have a potential BL couple, which is nice. Not a fan of Lucoa X Shouta the shota. Not because of the age gap but it not being my kind of romantic comedy. It is the same reason I have a hard time buying Tsubame X Misha from UzaMaid. Mya-Nee X Hana from Wataten...maybe. At least Mya-Nee showed she is patient. Back to Dragon Maid. Great series. Naughty of course but great.

11. Sweet Blue Flowers (Aoi Hana) - 119 Votes

OG: Megane girl falls for a cutie but has a hard time confessing to her to the point she gives a relationship with another girl a try. Said other girl has troubles of her own courtesy of her own views on what love. Do not get me started on the OTHER girl who likes megane’s girlfriend. I did not even mention megane girl’s first love interest who she herself eventually begins questioning her feelings for the glasses wearing maiden. While this is well known throughout the history of yuri anime Aoi Hana made it clearer than ever that Yuri + Classical Music go hand in hand. Plus the show is quite pretty. Ultimately enjoyment of this series depends heavily on viewers’ patience.

YuriMother: Aoi Hana was ahead of its time in many regards. Most yuri during the early twenty-first century was unrealistic and melodramatic, especially with the revival of S stories. Aoi Hana instead presents a calm and realistic story that we still rarely see in yuri anime today. Instead of relying on tricks like service or comedy Aoi Hana presents a serene and character-driven story which is matched by equally calming scenery. It is certainly not the most thrilling watch, but a slow and beautiful slice of real life that remains one of the all-time strongest yuri works.

12. Yurikuma Arashi - 99 Votes

YuriMother: Yurikuma Arashi is strange, to say the least, but this is not out of the ordinary for legendary director Ikuhara, who also directed Utena. Parallels are easily drawn between this work and Flip Flappers, as they are both complex and encoded with enough symbolism to drown a bear. Yurikuma is one of my favorite works in the yuri genre and I have had more than a few heated discussions about interpretations of the work, including one memorable occasion when I was visiting a college professor and we ended up in a shouting match in the middle of the hall. However, while Flip Flappers holds a high degree of polish the same can, unfortunately, not be said here. Yurikuma Arashi has more than a few scenes of fanservice many of which overly fetishize the characters and relationship and some of the symbols, particularly lily flowers and the word “yuri” are practically beaten to death with an object I refuse to come up with because I am starting to have my fill of symbolism. However, despite some of its sloppiness, Yurikuma is one of the single most interesting and well-formed anime out there and analyzing it is practically a right of passage for seasoned yuri fans.

OG: Yurikuma Arashi is my favorite of Ikuhara-san’s series. To me it was the least complicated of his works but even so I needed help to understand the show. Luckily I had plenty of assistance. The meat of the story is more complicated but put simply it is about a war between a group of bear girls (and some human girls) who want to freely express their love and/or desire/hunger for each other and another group that amounts to Right to Censor from WWF. Like I said it is far more complex than that but that is the gist. The anime is quite ecchi and it has good reason for it. Again the gay bears are the more liberated of the groups and them getting more sexy scenes is meant to showcase that. Our heroine has good reason to be grumpy and a divine entity was introduced alongside a certain someone from a certain dark anime we already discussed.

In the end it is a show starring lesbian bear girls. I love love stories between women and i love bears. It was obvious I would end up enjoying this one. Like other complex stories it is not for everyone. Shows like Flip Flappers, Utena and Yurikuma have something of a learning people will have to get accustomed to in order to enjoy them.

13. Whispered Words (Sasameki Koto) - 88 Votes

OG: To me Aoi Hana and Sasameki Koto were always connected despite the former being a drama and the latter a comedy. Both star a female protagonist struggling with how to best tell the girl she likes her true feelings whereas their love interest for one reason or another makes it all the more challenging to get their feelings across. Both shows aired during a time yuri was not as popular of a genre as it would become over time. Perhaps if they had come out a little later when yuri was becoming more popular in the mainstream they would have fared better…Then again they may have helped set the groundwork for future yuri shows so it’s just as well they came out when they did. In any case both good shows worthy of “best of yuri” lists. SK has the dynamic of the megane in love and her somewhat airheaded love interest who specifically likes “cute girls”. Poor megane has a hard time figuring out what the airhead defines as “cute”. The show also features an amusing side-couple of an ojou-sama and her tsundere girlfriend. Not to mention the somewhat controversial side-girl who plays a more prominent role in the 2nd half of the anime. Heck, even Mr Crossdresser himself is cool. Let us not forget Miss “Ha Ha Ha!” Another really good show that I would love to see the rest of the manga get animated someday but considering most anime are essentially manga commercials and the SK manga ended the odds of a 2nd season are close to 0.

YuriMother: 2009 was a great year for yuri anime, with both Sasameki Koto and Aoi Hana, among other works, airing. But while Aoi Hana sought to resist many of the common tropes of the genre and tell a simple grounded story Sasameki Koto appears to have looked a the list of every convention possible and say “yeah I can do that.” It has melodrama, comedy, one-sided love, friend love stories, I worship this genre but even I think there is a limit. However, Sasameki Koto is one of the most competent yuri anime works of the current era. While all the tropes are present most of the problematic aspects of the genre are not. The story is well written, characters enjoyable, and art that is really well done for the time. I enjoy every watch and if I ever want to quickly download the genre’s tropes into another person's head I need only duct tape them to a chair and throw on Sasameki Koto.

14. Riddle Story of Devil (Akuma no Riddle) - 77 Votes

YuriMother: Akuma no Riddle was highly anticipated back in 2014, sporting a premise of student assassins that, while certainly not unique, was outside the norms for the yuri genre. It promised a dark and thrilling take on the yuri genre that would not become popular until the yuri horror trend a few years later. At first, it looked like this would be successful with an excellent setup and some pretty compelling characters but ultimately Akuma no Riddle fell flat and became more derailed as it continued. The monster of the week style of episodes left little room for complex plots and plans or proper character development, which is a shame because of how engaging so many of the assassins were upon original presentation. However, this show still has some of the best action in the yuri genre, placing it alongside series like Cannan and Utena despite its flawed storytelling. If nothing else, the anime may compel one to read the manga, which expands the story and characters more than the show was given time to.

OG: Professional assassins secretly gathered at an academy in an attempt to take the life of a seemingly innocent cutie to win the ultimate prize, one of whom wishes to protect the adorable redhead. Yes the manga, which is pretty much a Director’s Cut, is better and the anime would have benefited from having 20+ episodes instead of 12 and a delightful beach OVA but the show did a good job of showing viewers what each assassin was like, their motivations (though many of their origin stories were summarized in written biographies during commercial breaks viewers needed to pause to read) were clear enough and the duels, as brief as some of them were, had enough spicy goodness in them to be memorable, especially the ones in the latter half of the show. Oh, and although the manga wrapped up after the anime it had a very similar ending.

15. Revue Starlight - 72 Votes

OG: Gay theater girls who strive to become the top star, meaning the best actress or lead actor of the cast. How do they do it? By working hard and overcoming their personal hardships? Yes. That. What makes this show so wonderful despite being almost a year old as of this writing is not only do the ladies all have interesting stories to tell but so does the stage. Every song, prop, movement, dance, gesture etc. It is like the performers and performances are united. It is like in Spongebob where not only does the person in the boots tell a story but the boots as well.

Oh yes. I almost forgot to mention the mysterious underground theater and talking giraffe. Never forget the talking giraffe from Hell. #Wakarimasu.

Super cool and super gay.

YuriMother: Bushiroad continuously gets better at what they do, creating media franchises of cute girls filled with music and making mountains of cash from smartphone games. Inspired by the likes of Love Live, they created BanG Dream and last year Revue Starlight. However, where these franchises fell short Revue Starlight success. It never twists its characters to tell a story but rather creates compelling arcs around them. I thoroughly enjoyed and agree with its place on this list.

16. Konohana Kitan - 68 Votes

YuriMother: I know of Konohana Kitan for its constant presence at yuri events more so than the anime or even the manga. It is adorable, relaxing, simple, and fun. While it does not add anything super substantial to the genre it does not take anything either or present any objectionable material. The “plot” is nonexistent but that does not matter, as it is not trying to tell a story or make commentary, just be fluffy and simple.

OG: Konohana Kitan to me is a Girls Club (Cute girls doing cute things) and iyashikei hybrid anime. It is visually stunning as it is relaxing with Yuzu pretty much one of the cutest demigoddesses in existence. She of course is a chick magnet but her heart will forever belong to Satsuki.

17. Destiny of the Shrine Maiden (Kannazuki no Miko) - 65 Votes

OG: The other stuff on the show is still not that great but ChiMeko will forever stand the test of time as far as I’m concerned. Top 10 for their love story alone. Yes. I know THAT ONE SCENE continues being controversial and talked about every time curious new yuri fans witness greatness…but I will forever defend Chikane because I get where she was coming from. Would I have done something different? Yes. The thing is you need to put yourself in her shoes and understand what she wanted to accomplish and how far she would go to get it done. Kotoha is best side-character and Souma Ogami is real man’s man who does not deserve the hate. He was an honorable warrior to the end. He fought well and accepted defeat like a man. Plus his yell is inspirational.

YuriMother: My feelings on Kannazuki no Miko are incredibly mixed. It has many of the worst facets of early current era yuri anime, tropes include S, rape and… am I reading this correctly, demon mechs? Worst of all it presents a cycle, a never-ending loop that haunts the characters in the overarching plot and it does not resolve it. If a work ever presents such an element, like Puella Magi did, it must be overcome or confronted at least. Its presence makes the already cringy story feels cheap and lazy. However, I love the two female leads and their difficult relationship. I love the music, especially the hauntingly beautiful ending theme, and the final moments of episode 11 are some of the greatest seconds I have ever seen in an anime. I cannot wrap my mind around my view of this series but at the end of the day, I understand it. I do not believe that work like it would ever be warmly accepted today but for its time it does stand as a breakout piece of yuri anime.

18. Princess Principal - 61 Votes

YuriMother: Princess Principal is one of the best anime of the past few years. It had everything, an interesting premise, great characters, an incredible soundtrack. Alongside all this is the sharp writing and thrilling story. Princess Principal did everything Akuma no Riddle wanted to with an intriguing and action-packed story featuring strong characters. On top of all this, the animation is top notch. A six-part movie sequel is planned which has me somewhat concerned, but I am glad to see that it is being continued as the ending to the series was one of its weakest aspects. Now if you will excuse me, I need to listen to some jazz.

OG: Cute and sexy gay spies in a dramatic British Steampunk setting. What more do readers need? Allow Her Holiness to elaborate a bit further. Currently waiting for the multi-part cinematic continuation.

19. Izetta: The Last Witch - 60 Votes

OG: I am known for loving shows people do not think as highly of. Izetta: The Last Witch is no different. I love this show so much. Besides how certain events transpired some complained about the depiction of WW2. Basically think about people ranting about storylines and content featured in certain Call of Duty and Battlefield games. Here however, it is clearly a fictional great war inspired by WW2. I was invested in the following:

-The cute and sexy ladies.

-Seeing two badass lesbians lead an army against an evil empire.

-FiZetta’s romance. This of course being the major highlight. I love FiZetta so much. My sexy lesbian babies and Anne X Grea’s mentors. They taught them everything they know after all.

It is similar to how I felt watching Kannazuki no Miko where my focus was primarily on the leading ladies’ developing romance. The difference is that unlike Kannazuki I was also somewhat entertained by our heroines’ enemies along with their allies. Basically viewers’ enjoyment of the show depends on how seriously they take their history and are willing to overlook the liberties this story takes with its depictions of the weapons, military and the familiar evil empire. FiZetta are one of my favorite lesbian couples of all time.

By the way, in that famous scene, yes they did. Viewers just have to squint their eyes to see “it”.

YuriMother: Another show that I consider to have squandered its potential. I know that lots of people enjoyed this one, including OG but I could not bring myself to finish this constantly mediocre series. Perhaps I am tired of alternative light-fantasy European-war inspired plots. Trying to stand out in this bloated genre is difficult and Izetta fails. Izetta started strong and hooked many viewers with its amazing visual and auditory polish but this was quickly lost in the plot which, while set up well, struggle to gain any ground of pay off what had been established. On the yuri side, it did not really do anything interesting or satisfying, with plenty of scenes feature the character’s standing next to each other looking cute and one or two moments of actual yuri. I am glad that some of you were able to enjoy this one more than me at least.

20. Maria Watches Over Us (Maria-sama ga Miteru) - 57 Votes

OG: Like Strawberry Panic this is a “Like it or not” classic. Despite being a Class S show it did its own thing and became a pioneer for . It’s also responsible for the many yuri jokes related to all-girl schools in anime.Shimako X Noriko best Grande and Petite Souer! Yumiko X Sachiko were great too as the two grew to better understand each other. Most memorable scene for me was the panda costume. Even Sei is a sleeper icon in all yuridom. Yoshino X Rei had a very interesting dynamic. I actually think they are the real pioneers of relationships between cousins. Thank you YoshiRei. HaruKana, Kaede X Sara and several others owe you two much appreciation.

YuriMother: Another great and significant series, Maria Watches Over Us, took the tropes of early yuri works, Catholic schools, a lack of men, piano scenes, and emotional relationship rather than physical ones and turned the dial up to 11. For better or worse, it single-handedly revived the Class S genre and was copied (and parodied) endlessly for over a decade. However much I complain about S I actually do not think that we would have the current age of yuri without its popularity and proliferation at the beginning of the century so I owe a big thank you to Maria Watches Over Us for that. Ignoring its historical importance and literary significance the anime still presents an engaging plot with wonderful characters and more butchered French than my last trip to Europe. It is certainly worth a watch and worthy of a place on this list.

What do you think should be on this list?:

YuriMother: As I previously said, this is a pretty perfect list. As far as missing titles I can think of the following.

Simoun - not the greatest in terms of plot or animation but it had cute service and a fun action-packed plot.

Kashimashi: Girl Meets Girl - This series may be strange and present the dreaded love triangle but it did its best to tell a transgender narrative in 2006, naturally this involved aliens, and I applaud it for its attempts.

Cannan - This series is light on the yuri but heavy on the suspense, action, and amazing character designs. The terrorist plot is exciting and the final train fight featured in the series is one of the greatest action spectacles in anime that somehow manages to remain grounded.

OG:

-Harukana Receive: Best all-female sports anime ever made. Plus the gayness is not subtle at all.

-Mikagura Gakuen Kumikyoku: Eruna Ichinomiya is an underrated yuri icon. While not the first of her kind (That honor, I think, goes to Galaxy Fraulein Yuna) she set the standard of cool and inspirational badass lesbian protagonists who are proud of who they are and...also happen to be super perverts. Eruna made it cool to be such a protagonist. It is nice seeing a lesbian lead who does not care what anyone else thinks. She is hungry for cute girl booties. While she often loses her control in the presence of pure beauty she, as an inspiration for others like her, has enough self-control to not go overboard (most of the time).

-Symphogear: Symphogear is love, Symphogear is life. Hopefully Season 5 will keep up the good work.

-Rinne no Lagrange: My favorite mecha anime and the reason I embrace OT3s when the signs are there. Not the greatest but man was it fun. Plus Madoka Kyouno is still sexy.

-Yuki Yuna wa Yuusha de Aru: My favorite Moepocalypse anime of all time. Yuna X Togo taught me to love and trust some people outside my closest family again.

-Mouretsu Pirates: If someone were to ask me “Hey OG. What to you is the perfect anime?”. I would tell them Mouretsu/Bodacious Space Pirates.

-Kashimashi: Girl Meets Girl. Thanks to the first fan commenting and reminding me of it. Definitely worthy of a spot. #HazumuWasAlwaysFemale

Final Thoughts:

OG: Pretty good list and close to what mine would look like were I to make one. Reason I have yet to do so is because I do not feel confident enough to pick a favorite yuri anime of all time. Favorite yuri manga and couples? That I can do, but anime always seems to give me a hard time choosing my absolute favorites. Like I said though, a potential yuri list of mine would look something like this. I also found it interesting how similar the Top 10 are among both our respective fanbases and visitors to the poll conducted by the Akiba Research Institute.

YuriMother: I may have done most the complaining and left the praise to OG but I actually and really happy with this list. I think that every title presented is a worthy addition and while I would certainly move some higher or lower than their current placing I do not believe that these are too far off from my own opinions, which is surprising for a popularity poll. More than anything I am thrilled to see that works I dislike that I thought to be popular did not make this list. Perhaps I should have more faith in people and their opinions. Everyone did such a wonderful job voting and I am so grateful!

Thank you so much everyone for reading and for voting in the top yuri anime poll. To see the full results of the poll and to support yuri news, reviews, and content, check out the YuriMother Patreon. Happy Pride Month

[queenraiden]

Eurovision Song Contest: The Story of Fire Saga (Film Review)

While the 2020 edition of the contest was cancelled, it still went on in this movie, sorta

Also, don’t count on me to not spoil anything. You have been warned.

So my impressions will come from having seen the movie in whole once, and possibly looking over certain segments of movie (it’s two hours, so if I have to analyze every bit of it, it’s gonna take more than two hours).

So from the trailer I initially thought it might be a spoof of the contest, and it does spoof it a bit, but the overall story and movie plot is your average musical rom-com underdog story. Will Ferrell stars as Lars Ericksong, a character who feels underappreciated and wants to win the Eurovision Song Contest to prove something. Rachel McAdams stars as Lars’ partner in crime/band mate/childhood friend Sigrit Ericksdottir, a character who is very loyal to Lars but at the same time is struggling to find her voice. Lars is a character who wants to win at any cost, even if it makes him lose vision of what’s important to others, and this alienates and Sigrit (if you’ve seen movies or stories or maybe it’s real life where a band makes it big or wants to go big but throws others under a bus, you’d probably predict something like this happening)

And it wouldn’t be a rom-com if there weren’t someone or something to test the couple. Aside from band dynamics enter in Dan Stevens who stars as Russian entrant Alexander Lemtov. He has the looks, he has the voice, hell, he has the palace too, but he also has his sights on Sigrit (mainly her hidden talent). I guess I can throw in Mita who has her sights somewhat set on Lars. There is of course strain between Lars and Sigrit, but if you’ve seen one too many rom-coms you can probably guess whether their relationship is resolved.

As for the underdog part, while it’s usually the underdog winning the competition in the end, it’s not 100% true here. One thing about Eurovision is sometimes the winner of one year’s contest isn’t the most memorable act of the grand final, and may fade out of existence, or not gain enough traction to become international superstars. It’s not often that I hear of Eurovision songs outside of Eurovision apart from a retro station playing “Waterloo” or the English version of “Volare”. Can’t forget about Celine Dion but I believe few know she participated. Then again, I don’t listen to the radio much and often go with Spotify algorithm suggestions. Anyway, instead of underdogs Fire Saga winning the competition, they won the hearts of many across Europe, and their home country of Iceland (except for Olaf maybe). So in the end, the message here, while done many times before, is winning isn’t everything.

But I’m not done yet!

It’s a musical, so can’t forget about the songs and musical numbers. The best number in the entire movie, apart from the actual spoof of the contest, is the song-along.

There’s something about seeing Eurovision winners and contestants of past and present (albeit they’re all from the past 10 years) come together for a musical number. As for the songs used in this medley, only 2 were actual Eurovision songs (Abba’s “Waterloo” and Celine Dion’s “Ne Partez Pas Sans Moi”). It’s possible the song choice could be to appeal to a wider audience with recognizable songs amidst what may be unrecognizable faces (but recognizable to those who have seen the Contest). Maybe there’s a licensing issue that could be factored too. Anyway, I’d like to see something like this happen in the actual contest. Maybe the 26 competitors of the grand final coming together singing a host country’s famous entries?

And as for the contest segment itself, it was more referential to actual contestants and their performances rather than spoofing them. Ones that stick out me are Belarus’ entry more reminiscent of Finland’s Lordi

While Belarus did have a rock act in Eurovision 2009, in 2016 the country had an entry that ran with the wolves, sort of.

Another element that stood out for me was the hamster wheel used in Fire Saga’s semi-final performance, which was a crazy element in Ukraine’s 2014 entry.

The songs for sure are definitely what you’d hear in Eurovision as well. There have been rap songs featured so “Coolin’ With Da Homies” would be a possible entry you’d hear. Operatic love ballads like “Lion of Love”? Tons of them, or by themselves as operatic, love ballads, and flamenco elements.

Last but not least, Husavik - My Hometown.

There are plenty of songs that combine English’s with the singer’s native language or another language they sing in. There are also songs that are odes to their hometown, home country (namely “I Love Belarus”), or even just a region of their home country (“Horehronie” should have made the final in 2010). What makes this one of the most Eurovision songs in a movie that’s set to Eurovision is: - it’s universal with the parts sung in English but also in the singer’s/country’s native language which counts a showing off their country’s culture - it’s an emotional power ballad which is typical to Eurovision. You hear these every year as there’s usually at least one if not two or three.

Of course there are discrepancies that aren’t actually part of the contest. The scoreboard is one as points are usually counted in the grand final, and the countries of Spain, UK, France, Germany, and Italy only compete in the grand final. The other is the lack of security. I doubt Lars would be able to freely run around and nearly miss his performance at the national final, or fly back to Iceland unless it was a family emergency (I’d assume). Only reason for it to be this lax is for story tension and plot.

Overall, while it’s not a horrible movie, I wouldn’t say it’s that great of a movie as well. It is watchable and has great songs, but the plot is just average.

[enthusiasticclouds-sally]

Archetype — The Creator Birthday — September 22nd, 1993 Zodiac Sign — Virgo  MBTI — INFJ Enneagram — 2; The Helper Temperament — Phlegmatic Hogwarts House — Slytherpuff Moral Alignment — Lawful Neutral Primary Vice — Anger Primary Virtue — Humility Element — Earth

Overview:

Mother — Elizabeth Finkelstein nee Addair (dead) Father — Arran Finkelstein Mother’s Occupation — Teacher Father’s Occupation — Neurosurgeon currently retired because he got into a car accident that left him paralyzed from the waist below  Family Finances — They got monneeeyyyyy forgot the formal word for that, but yeah they very well off Birth Order — Only child because Elizabeth died during child birth Brothers — None Sisters — None Other Close Family — Nope. Arran was very possessive with his daughter so they didn’t go around visiting family, so Sally does have aunts and uncles but she knows none of them. Best Friend — Daniel!!! lmao I laugh bc sadly he is deaad :(( but he was the ONE friend she had in her childhood and they grew so close that no one has yet to take that spot for her :(( Other Friends — Ummm Sally was really like the pariah of her hometown. No one wanted to be her friend because of her magic, so she really didn’t have much of any growing up like except Daniel. On top of that, Arran was very possessive of Sally and kept her locked up as much as possible, so that made socializing rather hard.  Enemies — Her hometown, no one liked her again except Daniel. Her father, it is a very BAD relationship between the both of them and it is something that Sally has yet to be able to forgivee. Pets — Salene!!!! She’s a Dalmation Sally adopted at the plantation in Swynlake. Her full name is Salene Morticia Finkelstein!!! :DD Home Life During Childhood — Oh gawwd, yeah Sally did not have a good childhood at all!!!! Her father kept her locked up for most of it. At first it wasn’t too bad, Arran had been an exceptional single father, but as Sally grew older and started to look more and more like a mirror image of her mother.... that was when the unhealthy obsession inside of Arran began to manifest and there started the lock up because he wanted his daughter all to himself basically.Then later on in life like when she became thirteen, Arran got into a car accident that left him paralyzed leaving Sally now as his sole caretaker. Her only moments of freedom were when she had to go to school. Those became ruined, however, when her visions started appearing, and she became the pariah of the town so yeah.... It was a very isolating and rough childhood for Sally :(( Town or City Name(s) — Larkhall, Scotland. Glasgow Scotland What Did His or Her Bedroom Look Like — Very decorative!!!! Sally went all out since ya know she was pretty locked up so, this was an escape for her, especially for all her restless energy. Very Halloweenish and Autumnish because those are her things. Dark colors, a lot of black. Any Sports or Clubs — Not really. Sally was never much of a very sports person, doesn’t even watch much of any. Plus, she a klutz so yeah, it never mixes well. Favorite Toy or Game — Ouija board lmao tbh she only played it to piss her father off because HE DOES NOT like that stuff xD He’s convinced her visions came about because of it.  Schooling — Sally has gone through Primary and Seconday in Larkhall and then commuted to Glascow for Uni majoring in Design (due to her LOVE of sewing). Was very heavy with online classes because of her father’s behest. However, she was never able to finish Uni because Daniel died in the middle of it, then she found out about her father’s incestuous obsession with her and so... she ran away to Swynlake. Favorite Subject — Art Popular or Loner — Loner for sure. Popularity was never in the cards for Sally  Important Experiences or Events — Daniel’s death was an important event because she had foreseen it happen and wasn’t able to stop it. At the same time, it took a huge part away from her. He was the ONLY friend she had, her best most dearest friend, so it was a lot. A painful experience (aside from seeing Daniel’s tragic death) was the exorcism. Her father took her to church once and they actually performed an exorcism on the poor girl due to her visions. :( Nationality — Scottish Culture — Scottish Religion and beliefs — Raised Catholic and her father were very devoted to the Catholic religion. Sally attended mass every Sunday when she was younger because of her dad, but had stopped all together when she got older. The church was very judgmental of her, believed she was possessed by demons because of her magic (especially since she often saw death).

Physical Appearance:

Face Claim —  Karen Gillian Complexion — Fair skin with freckles on her nose and cheeks!! Hair Colour — Ginger!!! But a little more on the reddish side.   Eye Colour — A hazelish to very light brown mix. It’s very pretty!!! Height — 5’10″ she has to be my tallest girl <3 Build — Tall pretty average to slim build.  Tattoos — Nope, but she’ll definitely get one if someone suggested it haha Piercings — Yes, just the standard two ear piercings. Common Hairstyle — Sally mostly wears her hair down. For so many things my baby can do, hair isn’t exactly her strongest.  Clothing Style — More on the punk-ish side when it came to Sally’s style. Lover of dark colors. Nothing crazy, your typical jeans and t-shirt type of gal. Boots and sneakers are what she prefers. Use to wear like skirts and dresses but not so often anymore, not since the scarring on her legs, so when she does wears them she normally wears tights that covers. She does loves sweat-shirts and hoodies.   Mannerisms — Sally often wrings her fingers togethers, hides her hands within pockets and tugs at the fabric, doesn’t maintain the best eye-contact, rakes her hands through her hair when nervous, stutters when speaking with pauses as well, 

Health:

Overall (do they get sick easily)? — Nope. Sally is very good at keeping up with her health. Physical Ailments — Sally does have scars on both of her legs. They look like patch work but are burned scars from one of the crazy events that has happened in Swynlake. She has electrical burns.  Neurological Conditions — Headaches and migraines that are often cause from emotional overload she receives being an empath. Sometimes her vision leave her with a terrible migraine as well.  Allergies — None Grooming Habits — Good. She has clean hygiene habits. Makes sure she looks well kept.  Sleeping Habits — Sally doesn’t have the best sleeping habit at all. Ghosts don’t really stop talking just because it’s night time. The voices often keep her up and steal away her ability to remain asleep. Sometimes as well, she’ll get a vision in her sleep and welp there goes sleeping for the night. Eating Habits — Healthy. Sally is organic with her food choice and often grows as much as she can from her garden, but she’s not strict with this. She’ll break it whenever she wants. If she wants sweets, she’ll get her sweets.  Exercise Habits — Sally does yoga has been doing it for years now and is very, very, very good at it!!! But, aside from that she doesn’t really exercise, except for like when she takes Salene for a walk.  Emotional Stability — Umm.... when it comes to her own personal emotions I guess she’s somewhat stable? But she often carries the emotions of others over her shoulder, being an empath and all, and that at times can make things unstable.   Body Temperature — Sally tends to lean more on the colder side. She has a cold touch to her, and her skin feels more on the frigid lines of things. It comes with the fact that she has been in death’s clutches far too many times, and now also with the fact that she can talk/see the dead.  Sociability — Sally is super, super, SUPER shy!!!!! It’s a struggle for her to talk to new people and she often stutters because of it. She does, however, open up completely with people she has grown to know because she feels more comfortable with them.  Addictions — None. Drug Use — Nope.  Alcohol Use — Not really.

Your Character’s Character:

Bad Habits — Klutzy, restless, impatient, sassy, can hold a grudge, shy, soft-spoken, blunt (but never means for it in a bad way or to cause harm), uncontrollably curious, awkward, socially unaware  Good Habits — Kind, creative, gentle, clever, honest, resourceful, loyal, sweet, loving, down-to-earth, humble, optimistic, understanding  Best Characteristic — Loving and kind Worst Characteristic — The fact that she has the ability to hold a grudge Worst Memory — The exorcism she was forced into, and Daniel’s death. There is also the vision that brought to light her father’s obsession. Yeah.... Sally has a lot of bad memories.  Best Memory — There was a Christmas where Sally’s dad had to stay in the hospital for his job. Daniel came over for that Christmas and they spent the night decorating a Christmas tree, Halloween style!!!!!! It’s the prime reason for why Sally decorates her Christmas trees in that fashion now in the present.   Proud of — How she has been able to semi-control her visions, or at least control them in the best way they can be controlled. Also, that she has been able to control her empathic abilities as well. These were both very over-powering abilities and she has been able to live through them both and control them over time!!!! Embarrassed by — All her klutzy, clumsy moments. The fact that she stutters and pauses in her speech because of her shyness. Her scars over her legs.   Driving Style — Sally has learned how to drive and drives pretty decently, but she really doesn’t drive much presently. Strong Points — Her kindness and positive outlook when things look rough  Temperament — Phlegmatic Attitude — Determined, restless Weakness — Shyness   Fears — The lost of her loved ones and not being able to do anything about it. Already has happened with Daniel.  Phobias — Isolation. She has lived a life of isolation through both her father and because of her magic, she doesn’t want to live through isolation again.  Secrets — Her father’s obsession with her, and the fact that she stole a good chunk of her father’s fortune when she ran away lmao  Regrets — Not being able to prevent Daniel’s death, especially when she saw it happened ahead of time. Not being able to prevent a lot of foreseen deaths. Not allowing Daniel to love her.   Feels Vulnerable When — She comes back from a vision. Right after a vision happens, it takes a moment for Sally to get her gatherings together so she is at her most vulnerable physically then. When she’s isolated she also feels very vulnerable.   Pet Peeves — Doesn’t really have many.  Conflicts — Her magic has caused a lot of conflicts for Sally. There is also the conflict of death when it comes to her visions whether she should try to do her best to prevent them, or simply allow them to be.  Motivation — Belongingness. It’s really sad but like Sally has been isolated for a grand portion of her life she just wants to feel like she can belong somewhere :(( Short Term Goals and Hopes — Do something professionally with her exceptional and awesome sewing skills!!!!! (I’m going to start working on this for herrr) Sleep better. She definitely needs more sleep in her life. Long Term Goals and Hopes — To be able to have full control of all of her magical abilities.  Sexuality — Bi-sexual, Demiromantic Exercise Routine  — Yoga in the morning, sometimes at night too Day or Night Person — Night owl Introvert or Extrovert — Introvert Optimist or Pessimist — Optimist

Likes and Styles:

Music — Rock, punk rock, indie, soft rock that whole general area of music is Sally’s favorite. She’s a huge fan of Evanescence.  Books — Edgar Allen Poe is her favorite author. She does enjoy some of Emily Dickinson’s work as well.  Her favorite story is Ligiea by Edgar Allen Poe.  Magazines — Nope. Foods — Sally isn’t really picky, she’ll eat just about anything. She prefers organically made and loves to cook off of her grown garden.   Drinks — Hot chocolate and any drink with added pumpkin spice!!!!!  Animals — Dogs, solely because of her precious Salene.  Sports — Not really that into sports tbh if you’d ask her about any game she wouldn’t know what to tell you unless like she had a vision and knew the winning team ahead of time but other than that nope Social Issues — Magic v. Anti-Magic since she’s a magick herself.  Favorite Saying — “Curiosity killed the cat, but satisfaction brought it back” Color — Blackkk she does love orange as well!!!! Jewelry — None. She’s not a huge jewelry person, does puts on studs for her ears from time to time  Games — Meh...   Websites — Not a website person. Sally doesn’t have any form of social media not even an instagram. She doesn’t want her father knowing where she ran off to.  TV Shows — Sally does love the Adam’s Family!!! Both the original tv show and the movies!!! They’re her favorite :DD Movies — Scary/Horror movies. The Chucky series are her favorite.  Greatest Want — To be in full control of her magic.  Greatest Need — I’m not sure to be honest... I’ll have to come back to this one hahaha

Where and How Does Your Character Live Now:

Home — Sally lives in a two bedroom house in the Southern Isles. She could definitely afford something a lot nicer, but she’s happy where she’s at. She’s not the show off-y type of gal.  Household furnishings — Her house is fully furnished with all the furniture one would expect in a house. Dark furniture of course blacks and dark cherry wood stuff like that. Decorative because Sally loves to decorateeee.  Neighborhood — Southern Isle Neighborhood on the South end of Swynlake Town or City Name — Larkhall, Scotland in her childhood. Presently, Swynlake, England Details of Town or City — For Larkhall whatever wikipedia saysss and Swynlake you all know how Swynlake issss Married Before — Nope. Significant Other Before — Also, nope. Would have loved a chance with Daniel though :(( Children — Nope. Relationship with Family — Estranged Car — Nope. Could afford one though, but just doesn’t want one Career — No career at the moment (I gotta stop being lazy) Dream Career — Dressmaker, Sewist, Seamstress (She could lean towards being a Designer but she what she loves the most is the sewing aspect of it all)  Dream Life — One where Daniel is alive and all the horrors of her past hadn’t happened. A life where her mother didn’t die giving birth to her and she was a part of a happy family. She would love a family even if it isn’t one with kids but like her and a loved one.... but she just... doesn’t believe that’s out there for her. Love Life — None, but wanted one with Daniel  Talents or Skills — Sewing (she’s very very VERY FREAKING GOOD AT IT), baking, cooking, decorating, designing, gardening Intelligence Level — Very intelligent, but she’s so quiet and soft-spoken that it’s often times not noticed Finances — She got monnnneeeyyyy stolen money, but moneeyyyy nonetheless xDD

Your Character’s Life Before Your Story:

Past Careers — Hasn’t gone around to having a career yetttt Past Lovers — None :(((  Biggest Mistakes — Not being able to prevent Daniel’s deaathhhh  Biggest Achievements — Gaining the control that she does have presently over her magic.

[im-999]

Video Game Meme

Tagged by the wonderful @atarostarling.  Full disclosure, I’m terrible at these question memes.  In fact, I’m still pondering over the other one you sent me for the 10 fandoms one. T_T

Favorite Game from the last 5 years. Legend of Zelda: Breath of Wild, the Witcher 3 or Horizon Zero Dawn. It’s really hard for me to decide between the three of them...they’ve all left such a lasting impression for me in terms of game play, design and the top class art direction.

Most nostalgic game. Ocarina of Time or Final Fantasy Tactics

Game that deserves a sequel. Well the Last of Us is getting one so… :D

Game that deserves a remaster. As of now, I can think of many things I want to remake but none of which I want to remaster.  There’s quite a few Vita games I want ported to the PS4 though like the older Metal Gear games...but those don’t classify as remasters correct?

Favorite game series. The Legend of Zelda. Every time I play the latest game in the series, I think to myself: ‘this is it, there’s no future Zelda title that can top this one” but time and again, I'm proven wrong.  Except maybe Skyward Sword.  But even that one had its moments!

Favorite Genre. Tactical and/or open world RPGs, FPS, Melee, Fighting games…I’ll play anything with decent lore + world building or fun game play mechanics. The modern Zelda games always manage to combine a little bit of everything extremely well, which is why I continue to play them despite the similar objectives and basic plots.

Least Favorite. Otome/Dating-Sims, Visual novels.  Games that heavily involve clicking and reading through walls of exposition text are not engaging and the cartoony art styles don’t help in the slightest.  BUT, if Hideo Kojima directed one, I’d definitely play the shit out of that! Probably ‘cause he’d make it weird...but at least it would be an interesting experience!

Favorite Song for a Game. I really loved the all the music of FFXV, both the main game and the bros’ DLCs.  Its a shame the core game doesn’t live up to the epicness of the soundtrack.

Favorite Character from a game. Ugh, there’s so many I could list, but for brevity’s sake: Beatrix (FFIX) or Emily Caldwell (Dishonored 2).  I love a good kickass lady that exudes class.  My favorite character to draw of course is Ignis (FFXV).

Favorite ship from a game. I usually gloss over romance/romantic subplots in games.  But I do like Leon and Ada.

Favorite voice actor from a game. Matthew Mercer as Leon Kennedy.  I'm really sad to hear he's not going to voice Leon in the RE2 remake. T_T

Favorite Cutscene. Balthier and Fran’s banter during the ending of FFXII always makes me laugh. Noctis’s bowling mishap in the recent Tekken is also amazing to behold.

Favorite Boss. In recent memory, Noctis.

First console. N64.

Current console. PS4, Switch.

Console you want. None at the moment.

Place from a video game that you’d like to visit? Meridian from Horizon Zero Dawn.  Really anywhere in HZD.  Guess I could always take a trip to Colorado, Wyoming, or Utah again to frolic around in the National Parks!

Place from a game that you’d like to live in? I’ll build myself a tree house somewhere in the HZD landscape. :D

Ridiculous crossover that would never happen but would be super fun?  I’d like to see the Chocobros in Soul Calibur since they’re already decked out in flashy fighting game outfits as it is.  Or I'd love to place Balthier (FFXII), Mustadio (FFT), and Prompto (FFXV) in the same room.  I guess it would cool if Balthier and Ignis met as well.

Book that would make a great game?  Oh boy, the last dozen books I’ve read were non-fiction.  How about Dune?  Is there a Dune video game?  If there was, I wouldn’t be surprised, but that still gets my vote!

Movie/Show that would make a great game?  Kubo and the Two Strings has a lot of aspects that I can picture translating into fun mechanics (origami weapons yo!).  The art style is also pretty fantastic and is definite mood.  The Kingsman movies also feel quite video game-like in tone too.  I would so love to play as Gazelle, even if she is a baddie. :D

Game you want to play? God of War (still waiting for my sister to finish the post game stuff) and Bloodborne (thanks to Ataro's streams).  I usually set aside $200 a year for games, game subscriptions but since I've already hit that limit earlier this year, guess I’ll have to wait, or just borrow games

Have you gotten 100% completion in a game? In terms of trophies/achievements?  No clue.  I always sell off my older consoles before I purchase new ones, to recup costs.  I'm fairly certain I finished Ocarina of Time and Majora's Mask to 100%.  Maybe FFVIII as well.

Have you cried over a game? The Last of Us for sure, but I did feel a few tears well up here and there during Brothers: a Tale of Two Sons, and Episode Ignis.

What power-up or ability would you want in real life? It’s a toss up between the ability to cast elemental magic or the winged hats from Super Mario...the latter would do wonders for my commute. :)

Tagging: @chenria and @geekgoddess813!

[jezfletcher]

Oscars 2018

Can you believe that this year I managed to see every single Oscar-nominated film? I'm actually kind of impressed with myself. It's no small undertaking, especially because due to schedules of a toddler-related nature, in 2017 I had much less opportunity to watch films regularly. I did get out every now and again, and I took time off work to attend the Sydney Film Festival, which was a helpful event, in the end, with regards to my Oscars viewing. But mostly, these 44 feature films and 15 shorts were watched in the past month or so. Anyway, for the first time ever, here's my writeup of all the Oscar-nominated films of the past year, in order from my favourite to least favourite:

1. On Body & Soul (A Teströl és Lélekröl)

Directed by Ildikó Enyedi

Leading the pack this Oscars year is perhaps something of an unexpected entry. This is Hungary's submission for the Best Foreign Language Oscar, which I happened to see at the Sydney Film Festival earlier in the year. At that festival, it both took out my own personal Film Of The Festival, and was awarded the top competition award, the Sydney Film Prize. And there's a strong reason for that, because this is a wonderful, haunting film. It tells the story of two emotionally lost, and perhaps incomplete individuals, who connect when they discover that they've been sharing dreams at night. It's an odd premise, made odder by the unconventional nature of the characters, but it's utterly endearing and compelling at the same time. A lot of this is to do with director Ildikó Enyedi's style. She manages to make the film seem both ephemeral and engaging—I was drawn into the world with a kind of unforgiving compulsion, and yet when I was there it was alien, pushing me away. And so I revelled in it. The cinematography helps here too, with DP Máté Herbai finding beauty in both the dreamscape of the snowy forests where the two protagonists meet, and in the industrial brutalism of the slaughterhouse where they work. Overall, I found it a truly quite brilliant film, and it holds a very worth place at the top of this list. It might be a bit outside the tastes of the Academy voters, but for me I think it would be an excellent winner of the Foreign Language Oscar.

2. Lady Bird

Directed by Greta Gerwig

This had so many promising elements to me, and it was with something of a sigh of relief that I finally saw it and enjoyed it as much as I did. This is indeed a great film made of great parts, and there's much to be said about how good it is in its depth. The eponymous Lady Bird (Saoirse Ronan, an actress I always love on screen), is a high school senior, looking to escape from Sacramento when she goes to college next year. But she faces the fact that this is a less financially viable option than going to nearby UC Davis, and incredible pressure from her borderline abusive mother (Laurie Metcalf). There's so much to unpack in what could easily be a mediocre coming-of-age story. The layers in the family dynamics are rich, as is the development of the school world around Lady Bird. Her on-screen relationships, with first Danny (Lucas Hedges) and then Kyle (Timothée Chalamet) are achingly real, and touched with nostalgic regret. It feels like Greta Gerwig has put something really personal up on screen. Whether or not that's true is beside the point—she has managed to craft something that feels so real anyway. Nothing is out of place, and the characterisation is so believable that you feel following any one of these people would result in a fine film. That's honestly such a sign of quality for me. So yeah: I loved it. I'm aware it's the kind of film (black comic family drama, anyone?) that I'm kind of destined to love. But the fact that it ended up so good is wonderful—it really beat my expectations.

3. Get Out

Directed by Jordan Peele

I was so pleased when this got a nod for Best Picture at the Oscars this year. It's the kind of cult hit that could very easily be overlooked. Perhaps not without some consternation from fans; but it's the kind of thing that could happen and it would fit neatly into the Academy's narrative. If you don't know the story, I won't say much except that it starts off with a young black man (Daniel Kaluuya) travelling to meet his girlfriend's parents for the first time (played brilliantly by Bradley Whitford and Catherine Keener). It's a satire of race relations in a really quite astoundingly way, unpredictable to some extent because, oh yes, it's a horror movie too. This is the kind of film that you feel breaks down some kind of invisible barrier in filmmaking—something that's been there and has stopped films like this being made before, just because you didn't realise there could be a film like this. Now to be fair, what I probably call an "invisible" barrier is probably very apparent to someone with a different cultural background. Which is why we need films from diverse directors, and Jordan Peele's first effort here is genuinely, genuinely brilliant. (Just as an aside, I notice that my top three films this year are from two women and a person of colour—so it's not just that I feel like diversity should be improved for its own sake, although it should, it's just that I really, really like films like these. What else are we missing out on for the sake of another reboot of King Kong?) Anyway, long story short: this is a fabulous film, and one that you really just need to see to experience. It was probably one of the most clever things I've seen on screen this year, or in several years, and it's well worth your time.

4. Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri

Directed by Martin McDonagh

I feel like the top four films have each been brilliant in their own inimitable way—like they're very much the top contender each in a different category. The way that they've ended up sorted is more about the intrinsic value in each category than comparing like-for-like films. Three Billboards probably falls into something like the "fun" category, which to anyone who's seen the film might consider an odd choice, since it deals with the aftermath of a murder, and explores themes of racism, grief and anger. But there's so much to enjoy here in Martin McDonagh's brilliant screenplay, which I feel is easily the equal to his previous hit In Bruges, a film that was one of my very favourite films the year it came out. It not only establishes a complex interaction of characters in this small town, but it provides a brilliant vessel for his stars to shine. Frances McDormand is rightly considered the frontrunner for Best Actress this year, and she gives an uncompromising performance as a woman driven by grief-fuelled vengeance. Sam Rockwell is also extremely good, oozing into his character with a charm that's compelling and disturbing. It feels like he's having a really good time with this character, which is equally enjoyable and worrying. This is not to mention amusing digressions from the likes of Peter Dinklage, John Hawkes and Caleb Landry Jones. Most importantly though, there's an arc to the tale here which manages to swing around the attitudes and motivations of these characters, while never letting them be anything other than anti-heroes. The character development is undeniable, but even as you empathise with them onscreen, you're constantly aware that they are still at heart horrible people. Compelling, undoubtedly, which is what makes the film so enjoyable, but morally corrupt in some way or another. This is true almost up until the very end of the film, when just a sliver of something human is tantalised. Yeah, I really, loved this film. Apparently, it's seen a fair bit of backlash since its release—I've read some of the critiques of it, and I just have to say I disagree. But that's the good thing about movies right? I'm going to love some, you're going to love others. For me, Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri was a treat.

5. The Insult (L'insulte)

Directed by Ziad Doueiri

It was a good year for the Foreign Language oscar this year, and in another iteration, a film like this could well be on top. It tells the tale of two men, one a Lebanese Christian, deeply into fundamentalist and nationalistic politics, and the other a Palestinian refugee living in Beirut. After a minor incident involving one of them splashing water on the other, a series of escalating encounters pushes them into the courts, and finally onto the national stage. It's almost a comic film. It's certainly some kind of dark satire at least, which allows you to forgive the almost ridiculous ways in which it progresses, eventually becoming a lightning rod for simmering racial tensions in Lebanon. It's almost requisite of films coming out of the Middle East that they deal with tensions such as these, but often they are not done nearly as well as in Doueiri's work here. Moreover, for a film that's mostly set in a courtroom, it manages to plumb great emotional and narrative depths. It launches into politics, history and racism. It feels like an educational as well as an entertaining experience. This is only possible because it's always grounded in a kind of empathetic portrayal. While one of our players is clearly the Good Guy, and the other the Bad Guy—there's always enough light let in to the performances such that you can at least see the Bad Guy's point of view, which makes the redemption of sorts towards the end seem like a possibility. Overall, this was a really well crafted and very engaging film. As I said, it's up against some stiff competition this year, but overall, it was a thoroughly worthwhile experience, even if it's not going to get my nod in its category.

6. The Big Sick

Directed by Michael Showalter

A fine film, with a really sparkling script taken right out of the lives of the two screenwriters, Emily Gordon and Kumail Nanjiani (who stars, effectively, as himself in the film). Kumail is a stand-up comedian who meets Emily (Zoe Kazan) after a set, and the two embark on a torrid relationship. But when Emily is forced into a medically-induced coma, Kumail has to deal with his emotions regarding what could have just been a fling. Add to the mix Kumail's efforts in avoiding his traditional Pakistani family's attempt to find him an arranged bride, and his wavering relationship with Emily's parents and you have a fine film. Emily's parents, by the way, who he meets for the first time at Emily's hospital bedside while she's comatose, are genuinely wonderfully portrayed on screen by Holly Hunter and Ray Romano. It's an unusual kind of romantic comedy, which is stronger for the fact that it's based in such a true and fertile emotional place. They can layer on the comedy as much as they like, because there's such a perfect tragic core at its heart. It's never going to be seen as flippant. And this allows for those wonderful moments where scenes turn on a dime—one minute you're laughing uproariously, the next you're wincing in pain. It's a fine film to be able to do all of this, and I very much appreciate the skill with which this is executed. This is one of the films that I'd be very happy to get a surprise nod for screenplay, notwithstanding I probably have other films above it that I liked more overall.

7. Blade Runner 2049

Directed by Denis Villeneuve

I was extremely impressed with this film. It's a fine film in its own right, but more impressively, it was a film that managed to survive the weight of expectations from being the sequel to a science fiction classic. This is undoubtedly due, at least in part, to the work of the always fine Denis Villeneuve, who is a director I will follow into battle nowadays. He's doing such interesting work, and conducting an ensemble like this is no mean feat. He has excellent assistance, of course, and there's a reason why this is nominated in categories like Production Design and Cinematography. It manages to be both a coherent part of the original film's ethos, but also a bolkd new step. In many ways, I actually found this to be a more enjoyable film than the original. And this is despite the fact that close to three hours in length, this film is undoubtedly slow in places. But you forgive it. You wallow in this world. You wallow in the characters and the andante-paced story. This is a better filmn for its world-building than for its plot (much, I might add, like the Phillip K. Dick source material). I enjoyed it a great deal in any case, and I was perhaps a little awed at how they managed to so pull off something like this. I feel like I'm deeply skeptical of the recent Hollywood tradition of launching remakes, reboots, sequels and spin-offs. But a film like this shows that occasionally, maybe it works. I just hope that they see that as a testament to the crew involved in this film, and not the intrinsic quality of just reheating the old.

8. Coco

Directed by Lee Unkrich and Adrian Molina

I think this is the best Pixar film in some time, and as always when a Pixar film is good, it's due to its emotional depth. This tells the story of a young boy who wants to be a musician, and is accidentally sent to the land of the dead right before Diá de los Muertos. He has to find a way to return to the land of the living before the celebration. It's a fine film, and one that feels like it respects and embraces the Mexican traditions of the festival. Indeed, it has a depth that, to me as an outsider, felt like it was honouring these traditions, in a way that allowed me to understand them better. It manages to do this with a family-friendly story, and plenty of style, drawing on the skeletal folk traditions of the festival. It's also an emotional film, and by the end, you feel as though it's been building up everything for the emotional sucker punch. This is something that Pixar can do extremely well when the elements are right. A fine return to form after a few films that I don't think I even saw, and by all accounts were not very good. Pixar is a long way from the time when everything they produced was a hit, but with films like Coco, they show that they've still got it in them when they want it.

9. I, Tonya

Directed by Craig Gillespie

The story of Tonya Harding and Nancy Kerrigan is one that I vaguely remember from my childhood. It was a big news story at the time, but one that just got morphed and twisted over time. I, Tonya is the film that plays very much on the mythology of the attack on Nancy Kerrigan, providing a fractured but painfully sympathetic portrayal of its title character. I honestly found this film quite distressing in a bunch of ways. This is the second film on this list with an abusive mother-daughter relationship, but this is significantly more challenging, especially thanks to the powerhouse performance of Allison Janney as Harding's mother. This relationship is brutal, but so is Harding's co-dependent relationship on her violent husband Jeff (played by an unrecognisable Sebastian Stan). Margot Robbie too is extremely good in the lead role, although she makes the (perfectly valid) choice to make Harding less than ideally sympathetic. It's the right choice for the film, but it does add more of a grind to watching it. But it's a better portrayal, you feel, for who Harding was. When I first came out of this film, I wasn't actually sure if I'd liked it or hated it. But it's stuck with me to such a degree that I can't help but elevate it to a position like this in the list. I think, in the end, it's a very clever film, and manages to portray Tonya Harding in a way that might be very difficult to do in a more traditional milieu.

10. A Fantastic Woman

Directed by Sebastián Lelio

A really quite wonderful film, A Fantastic Woman tells the story of an aspiring singer (Daniela Vega), who struggles with the death of her partner, 30 years her senior, and the suspicion with which she is viewed by her partner's family after his death. In many ways, it's a fairly straight down the line drama. It uses the conflict between Marina and her partner's family as the backdrop to explore some issues, especially around transgender identity, but it's not shoving messages down your throat. Instead, it takes Vega's performance as Daniela in a very staid and understated way. This is all very intentional of course. It emphasises the fact that all Marina wants to do is to live her life. To be able to grieve over the death of her partner. To be not treated with suspicion, or subjected to brutality and degradation. She's just normal, but that makes her fantastic. Overall, I very much enjoyed this film. It was extremely well made, and fills out the field in an already packed and genuinely very good Foreign Language category this year. Again, this could have done well in another year.

11. The Florida Project

Directed by Sean Baker

I quite enjoyed Sean Baker's debut film Tangerine, but this film is a broadening of his artistic style, and ends up being a much better film for it. It once again focuses on a group on the edges of society, this time a community of people who live in gaudy motels on a highway strip just outside of Disneyworld in Florida. It's largely told through the eyes of the children who live here, in particular Moonee (Brooklynn Prince), who are left to explore their surroundings without much in the way of supervision—providing a surprisingly raw look at where a child's imagination will take them without boundaries. Supporting are the characters of Moonee's mother (Bria Vinai) and the manager of the motel in which they live (Willem Dafoe, who rightly earned his Oscar nomination for this film). It's in turns depressing and uplifting, as we see the struggle of the parents (who are by no means the sugar-coated ideal of noble poverty), and the ways in which the children learn to survive and to flourish. It does have the same kind of jerky cinematography that characterised Tangerine, although that was filmed on iPhones, but here there's still a sense of weird, garish beauty to the uber-kitsch motels and strip-malls of Florida. Somehow it works. It's a really interesting film, and certainly one that I feel as though I can recommend wholeheartedly—something I couldn't necessarily do with Tangerine. Sean Baker has certainly shown with this film at least that he's a director to watch in the future, and I'll certainly be doing that.

12. Loveless

Directed by Andrey Zvyagintsev

This was the very last film I saw for the Oscars this year, so had the honour if wrapping up all the feature films. Like Zvyagintsev's other films, it's a chilly, minimalist affair, but like all of his previous ones it has an emotional impact that you'd not expect from its spare production. In this film, a family is undergoing a divorce. Both husband and wife have new partners waiting for them—one pregnant, one rich, aloof and used to their life as it is right now. Custody of their son would be a burden on either of them, and neither of them wants to accept him. Then, the son disappears. What follows is a typically emotionally bare and brutal undertaking from the director. It's almost merciless in its depiction of characters without warmth of spirit, and the consequences this eventually brings upon them. It's eerily beautiful too, set in the starkness of Moscow highrises and long snowy banks. Like the emotions it conjures, there's a bleakness to it, ably assisted by a minimalist soundtrack. I think this is maybe not as good as Zvyagintsev's pervious film Leviathan, because I enjoyed the more overt political overtones there. This is still a political film, without a doubt, but its politics are more cached in the environment that creates characters like this. That is, it's one level removed from an explicit exploration of societal corruption. But it's still an excellent film, and a film which shows the Foreign Language award this year as an extremely strong category. Whichever film ends up winning, it's had to take on some impressive competition.

13. The Post

Directed by Steven Spielberg

I won't spend a lot of time on this film, but suffice it to say that I found it an enjoyable, by-the-numbers outing from Spielberg, helped by the always competent performances from Meryl Streep and Tom Hanks. I feel like Meryl Streep has a common thread running through her performances, and yet in every one I've seen she seems unlike all the others. Here, her performance as the insecure publisher of a major newspaper manages to tap into that sense of inner strength she always has, but layers it with a timorous quality which is surprisingly engaging on screen. It helps as well that there's a good story to tell here—it's not the story of the breaking news of the Pentagon papers, but more how it was specifically dealt with within the Washington Post. This is more entertaining than it would have been to see how the story was originally broken open (the Post was not the paper to originally get the story). But yeah, it's a fine film, very enjoyable and very by the numbers. With a cast of such established actors, and an old-hand director like Spielberg at the reins, it was unlikely to be anything else.

14. Call Me By Your Name

Directed by Luca Guadagnino

This was a fine, very stylistic film, which used its setting to great effect, and tells a tentative love story in an oblique way. Timothée Chalamet is Elio, the son of a classics professor (Michael Stuhlbarg). Over the summer, a student of his (Armie Hammer) comes to work at their Italian villa, and a romance ensues between Elio and the much older student. It's set as a love story, and it mostly manages to avoid the questionable nature of the relationship by showing it in a very sympathetic and delicate light. Elio pursues Oliver, not the other way around. Oliver and Elio embrace consent at every step of the way. And they have the tacit approval of Elio's parents. Indeed, the absolute highlight of the film is Stuhlbarg's speech to his son towards the end of the film, where he shows wisdom and compassion that made me hope that I could one day be as good a father as he is. The fact that Stuhlbarg is not nominated for an Oscar for supporting actor, for that speech alone, is a travesty. Overall, it's a fine film, if not one that rocketed to the top of my list, which I feel a very similar film in style, tone and content could have. But a very worthy film nonetheless.

15. Mudbound

Directed by Dee Rees

This was a quite beautiful film, surrounding two families, one white, one black, in rural Mississippi after World War II. It's a well-crafted portrayal of racial segragation, but also of surprising friendship in the younger generation. This is, of course, contrasted with the older tensions, especially the savage portrayal of the elderly patriarch of the McAllan family from Jonathan Banks. The film doesn't shy away from the harsh truths of this world. It's also exquisitely shot, with broad vistas of the rural landscape, and claustrophobic interiors, used to great thematic purpose. It's no wonder that this managed a nomination for Best Cinematography. Overall, I enjoyed it a great deal. It was a very skillfully crafted piece of cinema that is very much worth your time.

16. Star Wars: The Last Jedi

Directed by Rian Johnson

Undoubtedly more divisive that the film that came before it, The Last Jedi is also a film that I found myself embracing less wholeheartedly than I did The Force Awakens. But it's one of those films that you most likely have to let percolate. A film that you should probably watch a second time and appreciate more than the first. Like its predecessor, it does follow a lot of the same storyline as the original trilogy. Rey, separated from her friends, and seeking the ways of the Jedi with an old master. But also like The Empire Strikes Back, this seeks to break new ground, and it certainly manages to do that. Much has been said about the humour in this film, especially about whether it detracts from the mood of the franchise. But this is just one of the ways in which this film succeeds. More than anything, it needed to break from The Force Awakens. TFA was the film it needed to be. It needed to soothe nerves after the prequels. It needed to get back to the traditional lore. And it did this in a very safe way—too safe in some ways, in that it almost copied the exact storyline of A New Hope. The Last Jedi manages to avoid that. It is at least the first steps into doing something different, and that is what was needed from this film. Rian Johnson may be facing some backlash now, but I think in the course of history, this will be seen as a necessary and pivotal film in the franchise.

17. Marshall

Directed by Reginald Hudlin

This was just good old-fashioned filmmaking, and I genuinely enjoyed it a good deal. A courtroom drama, set in the civil rights era, it focuses on one of the early cases of Thurgood Marshall, who goes on to become the first African-American Supreme Court Judge. It's a serviceable but predictable kind of plot, but it's told with style and charm, and pulled off with good performances from Chadwick Boseman and Josh Gad. The production design is also quite lush—it pulls together a sense of period in a kind of effortless way, more like the films released in the 90s and 00s than the fussier style of today. I enjoyed it a good deal. It's not a truly great film, but it's certainly one which entertained me for its length. And honestly, there are a great number of films, like many of these below, which fail to do that.

18. The Shape Of Water

Directed by Guillermo del Toro

This is a very odd film to be getting the kind of reception it has. Let me say straight off the bad that it's an exceptionally well-crafted film. It has an amazing ensemble cast. del Toro has an excellent sense of style, and an undeniable eye for the unusual. But I did find myself equivocal about the film overall. To some extent, this comes down to the plot, which is a little like a cross between a 50's sci-fi B-movie and Oh No, Willy Didn't Make It And He Crushed Our Boy. But this is hidden behind layers and layers of production design, and of del Toro's sense of fantastical whimsy. Disappointingly, I like all of the actors who are up for Oscar nominations for this film, but I didn't particularly like them all that much in this particular film. Sally Hawkins is perhaps more of the exception, as she manages to put together a remarkable performance without speaking a word. Still, I think that if this film does take out Best Picture, I'll be scratching my head a bit. It's not only that it's not the pick that I would have chosen, I feel as though it's really not the pick that the Academy would have chosen. So, who knows, maybe that's a good thing.

19. Roman J. Israel, Esq.

Directed by Dan Gilroy

OK, speaking of odd films, here's a corker. Directed by Dan Gilroy as a follow to his excellent debut Nightcrawler, this is something of a vessel for Denzel Washington to show his range. He plays the titular Israel, a socially awkward man, but a brilliant lawyer, who struggles to find a place for himself after the death of his legal partner. It's a weird film, but one that I found myself enjoying in spite of myself. Partially, this is due to watching Denzel Washington. He's a fine actor in any role, but in one with such neuroses to play with, it's something of a master class. But the film surrounding this performance is in some senses not worthy of it. You get the feeling that without Denzel Washington, this film would have just been a stinker. Plot-wise it's somewhat pedestrian, and it kind of meanders only as much as it needs to to create new situations for this character to react to. It's nowhere near as plot driven or engaging as Gilroy's previous outing. But that's what it's here at the Oscars for, right? For Denzel Washington, as always. And here, at least, I'm very happy to see him. This is indeed a fine performance from him—indeed, despite everything, it might be one of his better performances. And he does carry this film enough to get it this high in my list. Despite its flaws, I did like it.

20. Strong Island

Directed by Yance Ford

So here, finally, we have the first documentary feature. And it's a fine film, and a deeply personal one, surrounding the investigation of the murder of a young black man, who, it turns out, was the filmmaker's brother. Usually, I'm less likely to enjoy documentaries that don't have a sense of journalistic detachment to them. But here, the pain and the intimacy with which we are told this story through Ford's eyes, and the eyes of his family, more than makes up for the lack of perspective. This is an emotional journey, but it's one that's told with a firm hand on the tiller. Ford never relinquishes that sense of objective filmmaking in order to editorialise. He's well aware that the story itself is evocative enough. In the end, it's a good documentary. It's not one of the best documentaries I've seen in recent years, but it's certainly the best of this year's bunch.

21. Victoria & Abdul

Directed by Stephen Frears

I enjoyed this film a great deal. It's a surprisingly charming film about the relationship between an elderly Queen Victoria and a young Indian Muslim whom she takes on to teach her Urdu and about Islam. It's a sweet film in many ways, and lavishly produced, with good performances from Judi Dench and Ali Fazal in the title roles. It paints a rather sympathetic portrayal of Victoria as well—as someone who is fascinated by the Indian subcontinent, which she is Empress of, but of which she is largely ignorant. In this, there's a touch of cultural imperialism though. We see the favour with which Victoria treats her Indian friend without seeing the implications of the British Raj on the people of India. It's very much a film for a white audience, that chooses not to engage very much with the more difficult topic. But as a piece of fluff disconnected with these things, it's quite enjoyable. It was a film I saw on a plane, and it's just the right kind of film for me in that situation. It doesn't require a lot of attention, and it's somewhere between light-hearted and truly emotional. In the end, it is what it is, and that was fine.

22. Dunkirk

Directed by Christopher Nolan

It's undeniable that this was a fairly impressive outing from Nolan. But to me this was a technical achievement more than it was a great film. Telling a sequence of only peripherally related tales surrounding the British evacuation of Dunkirk, it very much manages to illustrate the epic scope of the operation. But that's pretty much all it is. I really didn't much at all get the sense of compelling narrative in this. I mean, it's there, in each of the individual threads, and to some extent you do care about these characters. But it's all done with such an eye for the broader scope that none of the individual stories seem to matter all that much. To some extent, that's probably the idea, or at least the inevitable end result of such a film. It is about the larger picture much more than it is about the individual stories, even though the tapestry is woven from those stories. Sadly, it failed a little as an engaging picture for me, even though the visuals and the technical expertise required to put a film like this on the screen is quite extraordinary. So I'll continue to respect Nolan as a director. He definitely has the skills to pull off difficult things. But I'm kind of hopeful that this trend of his to the wider and wider epic won't mean that he's given up on the more engaging, intimate and plot-driven films of his early career. We'll wait and see.

23. The Square

Directed by Ruben Östlund

An interesting but ultimately overly precious film, about the curator of a major Swedish art museum as he prepares for a new installation, while also trying to track down his stolen wallet and phone. It has a number of different threads, and there's a bunch of rather bombastic pretention thrown into the mix, including an extended scene at an art fundraiser where a man acting like a Bonobo ape is let loose on the crowd as a piece of performance art. These are all stylistic choices that Östland makes which imbue the film with a sense of added pretense. All of this makes the film less immediately engaging than it might be. It deliberately obfuscates at times, becoming more like the art you feel it's satirising than it does a coherent picture itself. But there's still things to enjoy in it. Overall, I found it relatively engaging. I feel some of the choices were made for the wrong reasons though, and it ended up being a worse film than it might have been.

24. Loving Vincent (animated)

Directed by Dorota Kobiela & Hugh Welchman

Another impressive technical achievement, this is a gorgeous film, with every frame of animation a separate oil painting, painted by one of a massive team of artists. It tells the aftermath of Vincent Van Gogh's death, as investigated by the son of one of Van Gogh's friends. The narrative is pretty much not the point of the film—they do manage to craft something that is enough to keep things plodding along, but really you can enjoy this film just by looking at it. Interestingly, the film had to be produced pretty much twice, because the action is performed first by live actors (the likes of Douglas Booth, Saoirse Ronan, Aidan Turner and Chris O'Dowd), was then printed on canvas, and overpainted with oils, all in the style of Van Gogh. It's a mind-boggling effort. In some respects it's not a film that should ever have been made—the fact that it has been, no matter what the half-baked plot was, is the really interesting story here.

25. The Breadwinner

Directed by Nora Twomey

This was another quite beautiful film, traditionally animated in beautiful form from the same studio that did The Secret of Kells and Song of the Sea, both of which were also nominated in the Best Animated Feature category. This film is set in Afghanistan, between the war with Russia and the US invasion, when the country is under Taliban control. Parvana is a young girl who has a gift for telling stories, one of which runs through the film in pieces. When her father is arrested by the Taliban, she disguises herself as a boy so as to be able to perform work and support her family. It's a sad film in many ways, but it shows a great deal of what's good in life as well, even in pretty dark circumstances. Parvana's gift of story is an illustration of the way such tales can invigorate, and sooth. The animation is good, as it has been in all this studios films, traditionally animated, or at least animated in a 2D style. And the story here is both more mature and engaging than in their previous efforts that I've seen. Overall a good film. My limited engagement with animated films drops this as low as it is, but honestly, there are many animated films that would not do nearly as well as this has.

26. Phantom Thread

Directed by Paul Thomas Anderson

I was quite disappointed with how low this has ended up, but it's a position that it warrants, despite the fact that it has much of Paul Thomas Anderson's charm and craft all over it. Daniel Day-Lewis plays Reynolds Woodcock, a prominent but eccentric fashion designer who lives in a difficult co-dependent relationship with his sister (Lesley Manville). When he begins a relationship with a waitress, Alma (Vicky Krieps), she has to adapt to his eccentricies, the rancour of his sister, and life in the tortured world of fashion. It's an elaborately crafted film, and to some extent feels like an academic exercise that PTA has given himself. It's fussy in its production, in a way that matches well the personality of its leading man. The music is a highlight from Johnny Greenwood, and stands apart as one of the films greatest strengths. The other strength of course is the presence of Daniel Day-Lewis. He's a chameleonic actor, to the extent that I honestly don't at all know what a base-level Daniel Day-Lewis performance is like. He completely reinvents himself for every role, and this one—a difficult one, no doubt—is performed with that same complexity and grace. It's disappointing in some ways that it so failed to connect with me. There were lots of good elements, but they did not combine into something holistically interesting. It was, altogether, too particular, too pleased with itself, or too exacting of its audience for me to embrace.

27. Wonder

Directed by Stephen Chbosky

Wonder tells the tale of a young boy with facial deformities (Jacob Tremblay) as he makes the transition from home schooling to being integrated into a traditional middle school. It looked like absolute shchmaltz. But in fact, there was a surprising amount of depth and heart to the film, and a sophistication of thought that made it rise above its shonky premise. There's something surprisingly human about the whole thing, not due to the pathos, but due to the combination of pathos and humour. It is rather optimistic throughout, but it steers away from melodrama and sentimentality. In some senses it rides above its premise, to provide more of a straight family drama. This is accentuated by good performances from Julia Roberts and Owen Wilson, and in particular from Jacob Tremblay and Izabela Vidovic as his sister. The focus on other members of the family, and the wider ensemble helps to promote this. Indeed, the film ends up bearing some resemblance to Chbosky's previous film, the excellent The Perks of Being A Wallflower. It doesn't have the same depth, or the same fluency of character, but Chbosky obviously knows what he's doing in this domain. So it's a surprising effort for a film I expected to dislike a great deal. It's a better outing than it sounds, and ends up, while still not an excellent film, quite good at delivering on its premise.

28. Icarus

Directed by Bryan Fogel

This is a very, very odd film. It's a documentary that starts out with the filmmaker, Bryan Fogel, trying a social experiment to see if he can get away with using performance enhancing drugs for an amateur road cycling race. In pursuit of this, he meets Grigory Rodchenkov, a Russian scientist in charge of his country's anti-doping agency, and the two devise a doping schedule for the director. But the director doesn't know what he's found, because in the middle of filming, Russia's anti-doping scheme is revealed, and Rodchenkov is unveiled as the mastermind behind it. From that point, the documentary pivots and becomes the first-hand story of Rodchenkov turning whistle-blower against his former colleagues, and the revelations of the conspiracy which seem to go to the very top of the Russian government. Fogel is thrown in the deep end to this one. This is not the documentary he was going to make, and neither is he the right director for it—he's hanging on for dear life as the story unravels in front of him. To his credit, he manages to ride it out, and we get a credible and quite engaging story out of it. But there are places where it's quite dicey. He does have the unfortunate habit of trying to put himself too squarely into the middle of the action, a fault that seems common in mediocre documentarians, but given the initial premise of the film, we can at least see why he does it. In the end, there's a really very compelling story in this documentary. The fact that it's told the way it is is the result of luck more than skill on the part of the filmmakers. But it's also luck for us—we get to see the story unfold in a way that we would have missed otherwise. And that's worth something.

29. The Disaster Artist

Directed by James Franco

I'd seen The Room several years ago, and if you haven't it's worth the hype. It is truly a masterpiece of appallingly bad cinema. So I was quite intrigued to see the story behind it, however it was filtered by James Franco. And it is a rather interesting, if quite silly story. The main event here is the characterisation of the star of The Room, Tommy Wiseau. He's a man steeped in mystery—somehow exceptionally wealthy, destined to be an actor, but with very little talent, and zero sense of self-awareness. Somehow though, Franco manages to make him a sympathetic character—the central figure in a tragedy perhaps. It's a soft touch, and easily the best thing about the film. The rest, however, is serviceable but never inspired. The script is only mediocre as far as I'm concerned, despite its nomination for Best Adapted Screenplay, and only manages to provide the main beats of the plot without a great deal of humour or panache. In the end, it's an okay film. I certainly had some fun with it, but it's hard to recognise it as much of a sterling piece of cinematic history. That honour remains solely with The Room.

30. The Boss Baby

Directed by Tom McGrath

By any account, this should have been the worst film of the Oscars. This is surely one of the most awful premises for a movie ever, right? Secretly, our protagonist Tim's new baby brother is a business executive, sent on a secret mission to infiltrate his family, and steal secret plans on a new kind of puppy. Can you hear me gagging already? So how does this manages to twist itself into a heartwarming parable about family, and in particular brotherly love? I suspect this is because it draws on the source material, a picture book by Marla Frazee, a medium not suited to convoluted backstory of the kind that sickened me in this film. But the emotions it evokes are relatable. A new child is brought into the family, which disrupts the status quo in a way that the existing child resists and resents. But over time, almost without realising it, they grow to love one another. The way this tale is framed within the film is almost inconsequential. Yeah, there's some silly plot involving stealing secret plans from PuppyCo. And there are a number of set pieces surrounding the chase and execution of this plot. But that's certainly not what got me. In the end, admittedly, this is still something of a silly film, and its position here isn't great. But for a film that should have been a Giant Novelty Shoe-in for worst film of the Oscars, it endeared itself to me in a way I really wasn't prepared for.

31. Faces Places (Visages, Villages)

Directed by Agnès Varda & JR

A fairly interesting but also perplexing documentary about the surprising friendship that arises between veteran French director Agnès Varda and young photographer JR, whose shtick is pasting massive versions of his photography on forgotten architecture. Together, the two of them travel around France, finding unusual places to exhibit JRs next piece of artwork, which Varda muses on her life, and reflects on her many triumphs and regrets. Largely the film revolves around the friendship that blooms between the two co-directors. But it's a very understated piece, with little in the way of conflict, or even much that's revelatory. The only real human emotion which sneaks in is saved until near the end of the piece, when Varda takes JR to meet her old friend Jean-Luc Godard. The rest is staid, and a little perplexing, but never unbeautiful. It's more a pictorial of JR's art though than anything really resembling a story. And that makes it a harder film to swallow than it really should be. As a result, this is languishing towards the back end of the list, and honestly, that's a bit of a shame.

32. Logan

Directed by James Mangold

People kind of raved about this film, calling it an impressive departure from the regular superhero storyline. While it's true that it is a departure from the regular superhero fare, it doesn't necessarily follow that it hence deserves a rave. The world has changed from the X-Men universe we know. The mutations which caused superhero powers have seemingly stopped, Professor Xavier is now crippled by his mental powers, and is cared for in a bunker by a bitter, resentful Wolverine. But of course, their life is not destined to just peter out without a sound, and they get dragged into a conspiracy that requires their intervention once again. Don't get me wrong: this is significantly more interesting than most of the superhero films that are trotted out year after year. But after the unusual set-up, and some bleaker than normal cinematography, this really does become a lot like another superhero film. At its core, it can't escape that, and when it devolves into long tracts of choreographed fight sequences, I'm much less interested. So yeah, I can perhaps see why this was regarded with critical interest. But at the same time, it didn't do much for me.

33. Beauty and the Beast

Directed by

Not a great film, admittedly, and to some extent warranted some of the criticism thrown at it. It is, after all, not far from a shot-for-shot live-action remake of Disney's classic animated version—a version which is rightfully regarded as a triumph. But because it's based on such solid material, there is a good deal of charm to it. Emma Watson's Belle is engaging in her role, although as people have said, she's not an incredible singer, meaning that her songs are only so good. The rest of the cast (which is surprisingly good), do a serviceable job, but at every moment you're comparing them to the animated versions of themselves, and the comparison is rarely favorable. Perhaps the exception is Luke Evans as Gaston, who manages to be suitably and consistently smarmy, and Josh Gad as LeFou, who manages to elicit some sympathy from the audience. In the end, it was better than it might have been. And it's not as good as the original. While you might look at it and say "it didn't fail in its attempt", you might equally ask "why was the attempt made in the first place?".

34. Darkest Hour

Directed by Joe Wright

I had a bunch of problems with this film. Telling the days of the early turbulent reign of Winston Churchill's prime-ministership, it focuses on the difficult future facing Britain in WWII, when victory was so far from assured that a Nazi invasion seemed inevitable. Notwithstanding Gary Oldman's believable mimickry of Churchill, the film concerned me in a bunch of different ways. It sought to give insight into the difficult decisions of government—which in this case involved outright lying to the people of the country, and nationalist propaganda designed to help the war effort at the cost of transparency. But in so doing, the film seemed to canonise such efforts. This is the cost of winning a war, it stated, and the ends justify the means. Worse is the fact that the seeming pivotal moment when Churchill seeks the approval of the common man (a sappy sequence set on the London Underground) is played off as the moral basis of the film. Everyone, it seems, approves of the job Churchill is doing. They support the war effort. They support the need for austerity. They are optimistic about Britain's chances, because Britons have the backbone to win a fight, jolly what. The film portrays Churchill as buoyed by this, despite the fact that in the narrative of the film these people only think this due to the propaganda Churchil himself is spouting. The whole sequence made me very cynical, and it underlined all of the thematic issues with the film elsewhere. If it were a better made film overall, I'd perhaps even consider it dangerous to some extent. But I think that it might only be remembered as a vessel for Gary Oldman, who's apparently one of the favourites to take out the Best Actor nod. And maybe that's fine as its legacy.

35. Abacus: Small Enough to Jail

Directed by Steve James

This wasn't a terrible documentary, but it was one that was drawn out for too long. It tells the story of the Abacus bank, a small American operation set up to appeal to the Chinese community in that country. Unlike any of the other banks which were caught up in the aftermath of the global financial crisis, Abacus was the only bank whose directors and management were charged with crimes. The documentary follows the trials, and tells the story of the how they ended up in the situation they did. It focuses less on the impact of the GFC on all the other banks, and I think misses an opportunity to take more of a swing at the big players. Instead, it focuses on how unfair it is that Abacus was targeted, rather than how unfair it is that Abacus was the only bank targeted. The other issue I have with the film is that the middle section is severely over-extended. To be fair, if it were not, the film itself would be much shorter—and it's not an overly long film as it is, so it may have not even been classified as a feature film if it were not extended in this way. But there's a great deal of time spent focusing on the family's and directors musing on what's going to happen in the trial, without much in the way of narrative thrust. In the end, it's only so good. I liked the concept behind it, but the delivery and execution meant that this fell a long way down the list.

36. Baby Driver

Directed by Edgar Wright

A rather silly film, directed with panache and a sense of style, but ultimately one which really just had me giving a bunch of sideeye. Let's talk about the good bits. The music, which provides almost the rhythmic thrust of the film, is universally excellent. It's an eclectic mix of any number of pieces, usually drawn from the lesser-known back catalogues. And there's a kind of anti-establishment style to the film, especially the driving sequences, which are, in turn aided by the pumping soundtrack. But the story is weak, and the characterisation is even more so. These folks are comic-book cutouts—which, you feel, would fit the style of the movie—but instead it just creates a sense of detachment which means that I personally never felt involved in the world. I just didn't care about anyone. It's also not aided by the performances of the leads. Kevin Spacey phones in a "look, I'm Kevin Spacey" doddle, and Ansel Elgort is just numbingly bland in the title role. Some pleasingly uncharacteristic menace comes from John Hamm and Jamie Foxx, but they're not the main focus of the film, so their presence is only sporadically helpful. I ended up just feeling alienated from the film. It didn't do anything to really draw me in at all, and as a result, I ended up not caring. Worse, the stylistic embellishments ended up feeling a bit like an ego trip for Edgar Wright—the film hadn't earnt them, and given it had fundamental problems, it came across as wank.

37. Last Men in Aleppo (doc)

Directed by Feras Fayyad

This film suffered a lot from the fact that I'd seen The White Helmets the year before, which covered the same group of Syrian volunteers whose job is to rescue survivors from bombed buildings. The two films were produced by different people, so there's not necessarily the sense that one is just a richer adaptation of the other. This one, however, does have the advantage of being able to delve more deeply into the lives of the people around the White Helmets. In particular, there's a fair amount of time spent looking at the children who are rescued, often finding themselves orphaned, and their ongoing relationship with the people who rescued them. But I'll admit my attention was wavering at points through the film, largely because I felt like I'd heard about this before. This probably means that I was missing out on a deeper experience than I got from The White Helmets. That's probably a shame.

38. War for the Planet of the Apes

Directed by Matt Reeves

I've really enjoyed this film series. I particularly liked the original, which had a really wonderful exploration of the worldbuilding in the first Planet of the Apes film. And I was then very pleasantly surprised by the follow up Dawn of the Planet of the Apes, for adding an interesting moral ambiguity into the inevitable conflict between the apes and the humans. But this film I found to be easily the weakest of the lot. In some ways, that's not unsurprising. The trilogy needed a cap at the end of it, and it was trying to wrap things up in a way that was meaningful. But that, to some extent, came at the expense of this particular film—it may have helped the series as a whole, but not this specific episode in it. It's also much less a film that's interested in exploring the ethos of the world, or even necessarily the development of the relationship between the humans and the apes. It's a war film, by necessity, and that has a limited appeal to me. There are good parts, as there have been throughout the series, including the visual effects, and Serkis's performance as Caesar. But there's only so much that can help. This is not one of the big picks for me.

39. The Greatest Showman

Directed by Michael Gracey

This is this year's La La Land, the high concept musical (with songs from the La La Land team, no less), that ends up being very silly at times. And while it would be very easy to eviscerate this for all that's wrong with it, there were enough good parts to it that I'm infiriatingly feeling the need to defend it. Really, in broad strokes, this is not good. The concept and script are very poor, and so obvious in places that I thought I was going to do damage to my optic nerve by rolling my eyes so much. Hugh Jackman is predictable, and Michelle Williams is actively bad in this. But whereas La La Land rode or fell (it definitely fell) on the performances of its two leads, this is much more of an ensemble piece, and parts of the ensemble save it. In particular in this film, the subplot surrounding the romance between Zac Efron and Zendaya is told with an emotion and subtlety that has no place in a film like this. These two actors are easily the best thing about the film, and they really provide some heart to a film that's otherwise lacking it. It's also true that the set pieces and the musical numbers are put on the screen with a style that other recent musicals have severely lacked. That's not to say it survives its overall crumminess, but there are a lot of people (not including the leads) who are working very hard to make this film a success. And apparently, it is indeed a success. This has been a surprising hit at the box office, despite the panning it's got critically. And that's not necessarily a bad thing. There's definitely a place for films like this, and musicals in general. And who knows, perhaps if they keep making them, eventually we'll get one that's actually good.

40. Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2

Directed by James Gunn

I really don't much see the appeal of this film franchise. I think partially it's due to missing the appeal of the now blandly handsome Chris Pratt. He used to have a kind of schlubby charm in the days of Parks & Recreation and Her. But now he's just conformed to the mould of vague action-hero leading man. This is particularly true in this volume of Guardians of the Galaxy, which I found much more lacking in the humour that at least set the first episode apart. It's possible that this is just due to the fact that the first episode was different from the other standard comic-book films being churned out, and this is not significantly different from Vol. 1. But still, it matters because our expectations were somewhere for this film, and the end result is something that's just not that innovative any more. I still think that the best part of both of these films is Dave Bautista's Drax, who this time has an amusing relationship with an empathic alien. The dynamics between the rest of the group is less interesting this time—there's manufactured tension, but very little of the natural friction you got when this rag tag bunch were thrown together. And the story? Was there much of a story? Yes and no. Yes, there was a story. No, I didn't care about it, and to be honest, the story is not what this film franchise's strength is. The fact that they tried to ratchet up the plot to impossible levels with excessively high stakes is testament to the fact that they kind of know it too. So yeah, I didn't much like this, and to be honest, I'm actually going to groan if I have to watch the third instalment. There's definitely going to be a third instalment, but if possible, I'm going to give it a miss.

41. Ferdinand

Directed by Carlos Saldanha

You know what was bad? Ferdinand was bad. It's also the kind of film that I'm really skeptical about. Despite the fact that it's built on an apparently beloved children's book, it has all the hallmarks of a film that was designed by a committee. It tells the tale of a bull who decides he doesn't want to fight in the arena, despite the fact that that's what he's been bred to do. Yeah. And it kind of does that. I guess. But it's really quite bad in everything perhaps that kind of idea. There are just so many parts that stand out as the handiwork of some producer who said "we haven't had anything funny in a while, could we maybe add a dance competition for no reason at all?". The animation is also halfway between the beautiful and the comic, but it's neither one nor the other. As a result, it feels as though it's just half-baked. I understand the desire to have a slightly less realistic vibe to a cartoon, but it gels poorly with the backgrounds, for instance. The best part of the film is the characterisation and performance from Kate McKinnon's neurotic goat Lupe, who is genuinely quite amusing and endearing in equal measures. But having a bright spot like this just kind of makes things like the trio of stereotyped Swedish horses stick out as awkward all the more. Yeah, not a big film. This is the kind of animated film that for quite a while made the entire category my least anticipated section to sit through. But films like Coco, Loving Vincent and even god-forbid The Boss Baby have shown that the kind of film like Ferdinand really shouldn't cut it any more.

42. All the Money in the World

Directed by Ridley Scott

What a disappointing film. It's a disappointing film because it's so unconscionably dull. Telling the story of the kidnapping of the grandson of J.P. Getty (Christopher Plummer, taking over the role that had been completed by Kevin Spacey), and Getty's refusal to pay the ransom, I'm kind of bored just thinking back on it, to be honest. Once again, we have Michelle Williams in a role that's just yawningly pedestrian. She fails to breathe any life into it at all aside from doing her vague stony-faced monologuing. And across from her is Mark Wahlberg who at least inhabits his role—but it's a role he's done so many times before that we don't really care about seeing him do it again. But mostly, I just found this film chilly, cold and overly boring. It's unpleasant in other ways too—it has that feeling of ennui that envelops me when watching the excessively wealthy. I just don't care. Moreover, it's the kind of indulgent thing that people like Ridley Scott probably thinks people like me want to watch. Which I think just means the producers of films like this are out of touch. Mostly, this feels like it only even got a nod for an Oscar as a giant Fuck You to Kevin Spacy. Plummer is fine in the role that earns him his Best Supporting Actor nomination, but not better than a bunch of other people that could have taken his place (Michael Stuhlbarg in Call Me By Your Name should be kicking some walls watching this performance). And had it not been for that I probably never would have watched this. I suspect I would have been the better for it.

43. Kong: Skull Island

Directed by Jordan Vogt-Roberts

Now we're into the serious garbage. Second bottom film of this year's Oscars is this mess from director Jordan Vogt-Roberts. You know him, right? He's exhibit 12 on Hollywood's parade of let's give a major Hollywood franchise to some white male director who's had one successful indie film, while women with illustrious careers are still seen as too much of a risk. He's the next version of Colin Trevorrow in other words, which should strike fear into your heart. Also stacked against this is the fact that it's a(nother) reboot of King Kong, just focusing on the attempts to investigate his home of Skull Island. Like many reboots of classic action films, it misses all of the moral questions of the original, and instead puts on screen a story which is a loosely connected selection of Things Blowing Up Sampler Pack, Vol. 12. The plot? It almost doesn't matter. A bunch of shit happens on Skull Island. Kong is an enemy, but then not an enemy. John C. Reilly pulls out an inappropriate Dewey Cox impersonation, while the story devolves into worse than B-movie territory. OK, to be fair, this is only nominated for visual effects. And these are indeed good. But that's like saying that this is a beautifully decorated cake made of dogshit. All of the pretty piping work in the world doesn't make you want to consume it. Worst is that this was apparently both a commercial and critical success, and is feted to launch yet another shared-universe franchise. That's kind of awful, because I don't want to have to watch another film like Kong: Skull Island.

44. Molly's Game

Directed by Aaron Sorkin

Bottom of the pile this year is a film that's probably not technically the worst film I've seen (Kong: Skull Island owns that), but the one that just pissed me off the most. And it was Aaron Sorkin's directorial debut Molly's Game. It was awful. In fact, it got more awful the more I thought about it. It is almost completely, 100%, unrelatable in any way shape or form. Telling the true story of a young woman (Molly Bloom, played by a lacklustre Jessica Chastain), who starts a high-stakes poker game for the rich and famous, and is subsequently indicted for it. I mean, are we meant to have sympathy for this character? Are we meant to identify with the group of soulless people she surrounds herself with, in particular the callous movie star played by Michael Cera, who's supposedly based on Tobey Maguire. They're all completely unpleasant in one way or another. But the worst part of this train wreck of a film is the fact that you can sense Sorkin's fawning admiration for Molly Bloom. Sorkin has shown himself to be kind of a nasty character in real life, and the fact that he picked this as his directorial debut is telling. And the way he puts in on screen just emphasises all of the ways in which I found the story deeply unpleasant. I wouldn't be surprised in the slightest if in real life, a slimed-up Sorkin found himself a regular at Molly's table. It would then make this whole films something of an ego-trip (or moreso than it is already), and that very much fits in with my impression of Sorkin nowadays. Yeah: I hated this film. It's the kind of hatred that can only really mature and develop over time. It's a rich and full-bodied kind of hatred, that has had the benefit of reflection and deep thought. It's the kind of hatred that easily beats out the kind of knee-jerk hate I have for films like Kong: Skull Island. It's kind of beautiful in a way. Well, there you have it. A full rundown of all the feature films at the Oscars. But we're not done yet. We also have the truly wonderful short films to look at. I'm not going to write these up individually, but here they are in order from my favourite to least favourite:

DeKalb Elementary (live action)

The Silent Child (live action)

Heaven is a Traffic Jam on the 405 (documentary)

Watu Wote (live action)

The 11 O'Clock (live action)

Garden Party (animated)

Traffic Stop (documentary)

Revolting Rhymes (animated)

Lou (animated)

Heroin(e) (documentary)

My Nephew Emmett (live action)

Negative Space (animated)

Knife Skills (documentary)

Edith & Eddie (documentary)

Dear Basketball (animated)

As always, these were excellent, and a set of films which are honestly worthy of as much time as the Best Picture nominees. I highly recommend watching the Short Film categories at the Oscars every year, but this year's were particularly good. The top film, DeKalb Elementary, is honestly the most affecting piece of cinema I've seen at this year's Oscars, in either the short or long form. And of course, it wouldn't be my write-up without me giving my hot tips for the winners. I say hot tips, but don't rely on these for predictions. These are how I would vote if the Academy would answer my damn phonecalls and give me a ballot for the awards. As always, I've limited my votes to just the nominees in each category, so while I would like to vote for Ferdinand for Best Foreign Language Film, I can't. Best Picture: Lady Bird Best Director: Greta Gerwig (Lady Bird) Best Actress: Frances McDormand (Three Billboards) Best Actor: Daniel Kaluuya (Get Out) Best Supporting Actress: Allison Janney (I, Tonya) Best Supporting Actor: Sam Rockwell (Three Billboards) Best Original Screenplay: Lady Bird Best Adapted Screenplay: Mudbound Best Animated Feature: Coco Best Foreign Language Film: On Body and Soul Best Documentary Feature: Strong Island Best Documentary Short: Heaven Is A Traffic Jam on the 405 Best Live Action Short: Best Animated Short: Garden Party Best Original Score: Phantom Thread Best Original Song: "Mystery of Love" (Call Me By Your Name) Best Sound Editing: Blade Runner 2049 Best Sound Mixing: Dunkirk Best Production Design: The Shape of Water Best Cinematography: Blade Runner 2049 Best Makeup and Hairstyling: Wonder Best Costume Design: Phantom Thread Best Film Editing: Dunkirk Best Visual Effects: Blade Runner 2049

[jackkel-dragon]

Gearing Systems in RPGs and MMOs

So, after seeing some annoying complaints about a system I liked, I've decided to write a bit about how I feel about gearing systems in RPGs and MMOs. This might get a bit rambly.

To start with, I'm going to give an apparently unpopular opinion: I don't really like the way a lot of RPGs seem to handle player equipment. So many games try very hard to give the player a sense of progression through having their gear replaced every few levels. As many RPGs can trace their lineage back to Dungeons and Dragons, this sort of makes sense. D+D expects the player characters to start with hand-me-down mundane gear, upgrade to badass gear, then start to acquire magical items, and eventually find legendary equipment. It's not inherently a bad system, since you really can feel how powerful you're getting when you end up with a flaming magic sword after starting with a kitchen fork. But it's so exaggerated and overused in so many games that it's starting to grate on me quite a bit.

Here's the problem with how the system is used: in Dungeons and Dragons, a good DM will make you wait for your upgrades. Each boost to your power level will be felt. You don't go from a rusty sword to a magical flaming sword without noticing the effect. A mithril shirt will make previously challenging fights a breeze. But in so many RPGs, and particularly a lot of MMOs, there are so many mini-tiers that it's often not worth upgrading unless you get the items for free.

To give an example, let's use a game I actually like: Final Fantasy XIV. There's often at least one new piece of gear for a slot every 2-3 levels. Early on, you'll want every upgrade you can get, at least until your slots are filled. But after you hit about lv15 or lv20, it stops being cost-effective to keep yourself upgraded. Even gear from NPC vendors (usually the cheapest option) starts to cost thousands of gil per item. Earlier this week, I did a few dungeon runs with my lv62 class and ended up with 25k gil. I then bought half of a full set of gear for my lv30 crafting class and was left with under 500 gil. After selling the old gear, I had about a thousand on hand. Because of this huge money sink for gear, I usually allow my average gear level to sink as I level up, only using dungeon gear to upgrade until a class hits lv50 (when the base game's endgame gear becomes available, which uses a different currency that I have too much of).

This sort of over-complexity is even in single-player games, which I assume is based on the Diablo model. I have never played the Diablo games, but from what I understand the Borderlands series tends to do a similar thing with its loot. You'll get these named, special weapons from quests at one level, but within 3-5 levels those guns are utterly useless as anything other than vendor trash. Meanwhile, even the white/common guns that enemies drop will be better in that they at least hurt the enemies you fight.

This is all really frustrating to someone like me, who isn't interested in busting out a spreadsheet every thirty minutes to see which piece of gear will get me that +2% boost that I need. I understand the desire to use progression as a way to hook the player, but I don't want to be frustrated at needing to sell gear given to me by a character I like because "Rusty Mithril Axe" is five times better. (It doesn't help that, especially in MMOs, pre-endgame gear so often has really lame-sounding adjectives in the titles. It's not an Iron Sword, it's a "Mud-stained" Iron Sword.)

I could go more into what I dislike about this kind of progression, but I may have already lingered on that for too long. Instead, I'll give some examples of better progression ideas. Ones that I feel are less annoying to play and far more satisfying than the systems I mentioned above.

To start with, the system that made me start thinking of this topic: the gear upgrade system in Secret World Legends. While both versions of the game have flaws (and still haven't finished the Tokyo storyline that we were promised years ago...), the gear system of the reboot does not deserve the disdain I've seen for it. The original game, The Secret World, had a very standard MMO gear progression: you got random drops sometimes, dungeons had slightly better gear for their level, and you always had to be swapping out gear because nothing remained useful for long. SWL, on the other hand, keeps the random drops while adding a great twist: you use the otherwise vendor trash-y gear to upgrade your equipped gear. For instance, I have a Blood Magic Tome and a few spare weapons I don't use. I spend some anima shards (earned from quests and enemy kills) to consume those spare weapons to make my Tome more powerful. When a piece of gear hits max level, you can combine it with another item of the same type (also max level) to increase its rarity. You can do this until you hit max rarity. So unless you come across an item with a bonus effect you want to swap out for, you never have to hunt down new gear. You power up your weapon and talismans as you go. It's still a grind, like any MMO, but one that doesn't require luck and spreadsheets.

Going off that, there are a few other MMOs that dabbled with this idea, but either dropped it or didn't go far enough for my tastes. Lord of the Rings Online has a "Legendary Item" system, but it's a massive grind and time sink that is far more complex than it needs to be. Maybe it has improved since I last played, but the "Imbuing" system I read about in patch notes once only applied to the current expansion or later. It doesn't help that your legendary weapons really didn't feel that... legendary. You could carry 6-10 legendary items at a time (based on cash shop purchases), and you could only get the materials to upgrade legendary weapons from breaking down other legendaries. Which meant that every other monster you fought had a legendary weapon lodged in them. It'd be like if Bilbo or Frodo had Sting... and Sting 2. And Sting 3. And Sting Mk4. But not 5, because he broke that down for legendary fragments to make String Prime glow in the dark better. It was a cool idea that really fit with the setting, but fell apart under the weight of MMO gear mechanics. It felt like more of the same, only pretending not to be.

Another one that feels like a misstep to me is Final Fantasy XIV's relic system. Basically, each class can get a "Relic Weapon", an item that has a story behind it and must be reforged in a long quest chain. Except, because of the gear treadmill and power creep, it's actually pretty damn weak even for its own content. You have to do 4-5 very long quest chains to make it worth using, and it still becomes underpowered the moment a new patch comes out. Due to the obscene amount of effort to do each phase of the quest, a lot of players just ignore the whole system. Now, if the relic weapon were the only weapon after a certain part of the game, maybe that idea could work. But as things are, no one wants to do hours of questing to upgrade a single item when they could just pay some gil to a crafter or do a raid. And it's really too late to make the relic a mandatory system, because it would just piss off the people who skipped the relic at first.

Since the last two were more about systems that could have been cool, I'll mention a subsystem that I feel works well: gear modifcations. Whether it's Materia (FF7/FF14), Essence Gems (Jade Empire), or weapon mods (a lot of shooters), it always allows for a sense of progression and modifcation that doesn't cheapen the gear you're using from a story standpoint or (usually) get too complex and number-crunchy. It's easy to tell whether a +1 or +2 materia is better, and if you want to shuffle around which slots get which materia, you can. Given the choice between a game that gives me dozens of guns or dozens of scopes as loot, I'd probably go with the latter even if the overall system works the same way. In general, such a system gives more value to each piece of main gear (in story and gameplay terms) due to the multitude of mods you can add. For instance, Horizon: Zero Dawn mostly has 3 tiers of each weapon (aside from a few uniques), but you're constantly getting modifications you can slot into them.

Overall, here's my big point: It's fine to want to have gear progression as part of your RPG/MMO. It serves as a useful motivation to keep playing the game, to try to get the best setup possible. But when you flood the player with gear upgrades, after a certain point they will get overwhelmed or stop caring. In some types of games, this could easily be a death sentence. So, as a general rule, I'd strongly suggest RPG creators to space out the progression better, allowing the player to enjoy each tier before they move on to the next. This could even help with game longevity, as players feel more compelled to improve their equipment when they have a solid goal. (This is why most MMOs' endgame gearing is so addictive to some people: the goals are much more clear.)

Personally, I'd go a bit further. I want to see a true legendary item system in a game someday. It can be a single player game, if that makes it easier. I want to have a game where, instead of looting gradually better swords from each new enemy, I get something like Glamdring in the first third of the game. Maybe it's a new weapon that needs to be powered up, or an old weapon that has "gone to sleep" from disuse. But, as the item is used, it becomes more powerful and I can add new powers to it. (The closest I've seen to a system like this, aside from the ones I mentioned above, is the Neverwinter Nights module "Kingmaker". In that mod, your talking sword will get a new ability that you choose whenever you level up.) A lot of RPGs have a sort of power fantasy element, like how Dragon Age Inquisition lets you build a pseudo-nation from scratch. For me, my power fantasy would be the creation of this sort of legendary item. It would become a legacy of sorts, and in a game focused on this sort of system you could even have an epilogue where the legendary item is passed on to a new hero. (Like how Gandalf and Thorin found the elven blades in the troll den, and how Bilbo gave Sting to Frodo.)

At any rate, that's my personal opinion on RPG/MMO gearing. I doubt games will change much anytime soon, but I wanted to get some of it down while I was thinking about it. After seeing people complain that the gearing system in The Secret World was "so much better" than Secret World Legends, despite the former being so bland and annoying... I had to get down some of the issues I have with how people seem to think RPGs should look. But, going off what I've seen, I'm fairly certain I'm in the minority. So I'll probably continue my descent into focusing on story-based games and playing games I mostly dislike in order to get to the story.

Anyway, I hope anyone who got this far found something interesting in my ramblings. I didn't expect to write so much, so hopefully it's not as boring as some of the systems I decided to call out.

[so-bad-its-good]

Fateful Findings (2007)

NEIL BREEN

      Watching a Neil Breen movie is like helplessly watching a train crash and then burst into flames, and then hearing a bunch of people unconvincingly scream in agony. Neil Breen is a former real-estate agent and architect, who is now a filmmaker. He is known for editing, writing, directing and starring in his self-produced films, notable ones being I am Here …. Now, Double Down and the film in question: Fateful Findings. Fateful Findings is considered a cult film and, like all of Neil Breen’s films, is infamous for being completely terrible. I don’t mean just plain bad, I mean so spectacularly and hilariously bad that people are reluctant to believe that he is serious. Bad movies gain mass followings because they are both amusing and extremely sincere. It is somehow charming when a film tries so hard, yet still fails in every way, and Neil Breen’s third movie Fateful Findings is a perfect example of this.

BRIEF SUMMARY

      Potential viewer be warned: 7 people commit suicide and 2 are murdered in this film. It all begins when Dylan and Leah, two nine year olds who are best friends, discover a magical mushroom that turns into a magical box containing a magical black stone. When Leah’s family moves away, Dylan vows to always carry the stone as a reminder of their “magical day”. Flash forward and Dylan (Neil Breen) is in his 40s, a successful author, and unhappily married to Emily (Klara Landrat). When Dylan is hit by a car and comatose, he is mysteriously saved by his magic stone - which he seriously still carries after 32 years. Dylan’s recovery from his coma is miraculously quick, but he begins experiencing pain and strange dreams as a result of his head injury. This prompts his decision to no longer work on his second book, but to instead hack the government in an attempt to expose their secrets and lies to the public - because that’s the obvious thing for a man with no apparent computer knowledge to do. Throughout the film, Dylan talks to therapists, throws some get togethers and ceaselessly abuses his five laptops during fits of pain and rage. And then there are Dylan and Emily’s friends: another unhappily married couple consisting of Amy (Victoria Viveiros) and Jim (David Silva). Jim is an alcoholic who loves his sports car, and Amy is a banker with fake breasts who no longer wants to be intimate with her husband. Jim’s teenage daughter Aly (Danielle Andrade) just won’t stop propositioning Dylan, despite his being more than twice her age and distinctly unattractive. Later, Aly witnesses Amy accidentally shooting Jim directly in the chest, though she was only trying to shoot his car, which was at least a meter away from him, but this doesn’t really matter since Jim’s death in no way affects the following events in the film. The story moves somewhere completely different when Dylan reconnects with his childhood love, Leah (Jennifer Autry). They both admit to thinking about each other every day since they were nine - which is quite odd - and fall back in love. This would be a problem seeing as Dylan is married and Leah is engaged, but no need to worry, Emily promptly overdoses on painkillers and Leah leaves her fiance. Dylan and Leah reminisce about their childhood - something they are clearly unhealthily longing for -  and revisit the magical box. Next, because clearly there isn’t enough happening, Leah gets kidnapped and Dylan saves her by using his magical ability of dematerializing. The film comes to a close with Dylan exposing the government and corporations, and all of the people he exposes subsequently killing themselves in a variety of brutal ways. The audience is left with a feeling of what-the-hell-did-I-just-watch and the command to: “Act now. It’s our only hope for the future.”

PLOT

      It would be a stretch to say that this movie has one clear plot. It is half scenes from a  low-budget 90s porno and half scenes from a twelve year old’s sci-fi fan fiction. The beginning leads us to expect that this will be some children’s film about a magical box. Once we flash forward to present day, we realize that this is a sci-fi disaster that we are about to observe. Honestly, the running plot of Dylan’s magical stone and powers is unnecessary and confusing. Other than being a feeble attempt to make this film interesting, this plot line might serve the purpose of making Dylan super-human, or perhaps it exists to ensure that Dylan and Leah shared something unique that would help them reconnect later in the film. No matter the reasoning, this plot has absolutely nothing to do with the message of the film. As the movie progresses there are aspects of this plotline that we expect to be explained later on, but of course they never are.

      Also, there’s the seemingly unnecessary plot line involving family friends Jim and Amy. It is emphasized that Jim is an alcoholic and his way-too-attractive-for-him wife is fed up with him, resulting in her throwing various things at him throughout the film (a pillow, a roll of paper towel, a drink, and a glass). Oh yeah, and she eventually shoots him. When Jim dies, it seems like the audience is supposed to feel sad, but none of Dylan and Jim’s supposed meaningful friendship has been shown to us and Neil Breen’s acting certainly doesn’t help to evoke sadness. I don’t think this plot contributes to the overall message of the film, unless of course I’m overthinking this and the central theme is death - there is a plethora of that.

      Dylan and Emily also have a failing marriage, and she is addicted to drugs. She eventually kills herself while Dylan is off reminiscing with Leah and awkwardly closed-mouth kissing her. When Dylan discovers his wife has committed suicide, he is only briefly fazed, then replaces her with Leah. This begs the question of whether Emily’s character was necessary to the plot whatsoever since she’s just thrown aside in a matter of minutes. This part also made the protagonist come off as a pretty terrible person, which is odd since he’s otherwise portrayed as very heroic and in-the-right. Perhaps this was done intentionally to highlight that the protagonist has flaws, or maybe it was because Neil Breen wanted to be naked with and/or closed mouth kissing as many women as possible - who can know?

      The plot line that is highlighted the least is the only one relevant to the message. I’m referring to the plot following Dylan’s hacking into the government. This plot is mentioned maybe five times throughout the entire film, yet it is the only thing imperative to the climax and the message. Dylan mentions periodically that he is hacking the government, despite having no explanation for his hacking abilities, to expose “national and international corruption”. This plot leads to the climax of the film, when corporate and government officials kill themselves after Dylan exposes their “lying”, “corruption” and “greed”. This part of the film seemed gruesome and had absolutely nothing to do with the rest of the film, but it is made extremely clear what the message of the film is because Dylan flat out tells us in this scene. This plot line seemed meaningful and the message seemed very important to Neil Breen, but it really stuck out among the sea of irrelevant and unnecessary storylines. Having four plots definitely ensures that you never get bored because there’s so much happening, but when a story is this all over the place nothing is really happening.

ACTING

      This is a film that not only tests your ability to suspend disbelief because of a convoluted sci-fi plot, but because it seems like the actors are actually actively trying to make you not believe them. This is best demonstrated by Neil Breen, who plays the protagonist, Dylan. At the beginning of the film, you may notice that the actor playing young Dylan is decidedly unimpressive, but to the audience’s dismay, the man playing him all grown up makes that child actor look like an Oscar winner. Neil Breen is so incapable of conveying any emotion, that it’s lucky the script has characters clearly state how they are feeling so they don’t have to be inconvenienced with actually having to act. The only thing that is harder to believe than his terrible acting is that it’s not intentional. Neil Breen showed me that there is something hilarious and disheartening about an actor eating a salad unconvincingly.

      As for the supporting cast, I can only think that Neil Breen must cast friends or friends of friends. While I know the script was in no way conducive to good performances, the supporting cast only fed the fire of this trainwreck. Jennifer Autry, who plays Dylan’s love interest Leah gave an underwhelming performance, with unsure deliveries and ill-fitting facial expressions. Not to mention her being cast makes no sense, as she is supposed to be in her mid-40’s and looks like she’s 30. The arguments between Victoria Viveiros and David Silva as Amy and Jim were entirely overacted. Meanwhile, Klara Landrat performed every scene like she was a bored Urban Outfitters employee. Additionally, as Jim and Amy’s daughter, Danielle Andrade’s attempts at being a flirtatious and distressed teen were forced and, quite frankly, embarrassing. The storyline is extremely dramatic, but these actors performances managed to evoke nothing but amusement and disbelief on every level.

CREATIVE ELEMENTS

     There were many choices made during the production of this movie that contributed to making this film so ridiculously awful. The music and most of the sets were adequate - that’s the only positive thing I have to say on the subject. The editing was completely disorienting. The cuts at the dinner party, and literally every other time there were multiple people in a scene, made me physically uncomfortable and entirely unable to follow the scene. Then there were the camera angles. We saw everything from shots from the chest down - at least we were spared the actors’ facial expressions - to unironic crash zooms. It all seemed without reason.

      Another notable element was the special effects. The sound effects were either too loud or made no sense with the scene, for example when the background noise made it sound like there were twice as many people at Dylan and Emily’s barbecue. The visual effects were even worse. I laughed out loud every time I saw that cartoonish smoke effect blow across the screen, telling us that something magical was about to happen. Another appallingly hilarious moment was when objects were supposed to be mysteriously moving, but we could see the string!

      The attempts at symbolism throughout this film are either above the audience’s head or very unclear - I expect the majority of viewers side with the latter. There are the dramatic dream cutaways to Neil Breen naked with Aly, Jim’s teenage daughter,  in front of a wall covered in garbage bags, which in no way relates to the plot, but is extremely off-putting to watch. And the most obvious symbolism of Dylan’s two therapists, one of whom he sits across a long table from and one of whom he sits in a small broom closet with. I understand that the first therapist offered him medication and was distant, while the second one knew his secrets and offered him encouragement, but then the second therapist disappears into thin air at the end of the film, and I don’t see the relevance of any of this to the plot. I will give dishonourable mentions to the outdated props and costumes that really reinforced that 90s porno vibe. I don’t know why these decisions were made, but they sure were awful and they sure were funny.

CONCLUSION

      I must say that I have the utmost respect for anyone who pursues a creative project. I think that what makes this film almost lovable is that you can feel Neil Breen’s passion throughout the whole thing. While I admire him for his passion, I also blame him for this absolute trainwreck of a film - he is the one to blame because he did almost everything: from casting to special effects makeup, to craft services. I do think that the writing was the downfall of the film, but it was more than bad lines and a lack of clear plot. It was the atrocious acting, the confusing symbolism, and the ineffective editing and directing. Everything from the first second to the six thousandth added up to a truly horrendous film. Fateful Findings failed on almost every level and in no way achieved its purpose of motivating audiences to act against governments and corporations. It was so bad I almost couldn’t believe it: I was cringing and cry laughing at the absurdity of every aspect of this film. Fateful Findings possesses every attribute of a film so laughable that it’s laughable. Is it the poorest excuse for a film I’ve ever seen? Yes, it is. Have I watched it four times in the past month? Yes, I have. To quote the film, “I feel like something’s inside me” and it’s the bad movie bug.

[lucyreviewcy]

Made in Chelsea - S1 E01

Oh that’s right, this is happening. I can’t remember what prompted this, but a couple of days ago I decided to check how much Made in Chelsea is still available on All4. Guess what, great news guys -  all of it. Seventeen delicious seasons. I’m making it my weekly challenge to deep-dive into each episode hoping to find some enlightenment in this absolute masterpiece of constructed reality. 

As a disclaimer: I don’t just want to underline that there are elements of this show that are pure trash. Yes, Spencer Matthews’ hair makes him look like the bad guy from an episode of Columbo. Yes, Millie Mackintosh’s inability to open her mouth enough to enunciate a word drives me nuts. Yes, the storylines ache with forced twists and endless shock hookups. All of the above are true, but you don’t need me to tell you that any more than you need me to tell you the sky is blue. 

Made in Chelsea is fantastically interesting for a lot of reasons. For one, it has managed to run for seventeen seasons across the last eight years. Why? Some of the greatest British TV shows of all time have had chronically short runs, so what makes MIC so enduring?

Secondly, as it chronicles the lives of the super-rich, the show is 100% built on aspiration and jealousy. Something I often like to mention to MIC haters is that the show borrows most of its conventions and characters from Jane Austen, or for a more recent example, Richard Curtis. The characters are all financially comfortable enough that all they have to focus on in life is who they want to marry. Coupling and uncoupling is central to the society of the show. Imagine a world where all that mattered was who you were putting your lips on (a lyric stricken from the John Lennon song because it just didn’t scan properly.)

To push the envelope even further, I have to point out that these characters operate outside of the boundaries of the real world. They’re not restricted by anything - money can open any door to them, meaning they can travel anywhere, do anything and never worry about staying afloat. If you want to get fancy, Made in Chelsea is a peek at the peak of mount Olympus, and it turns out all the gods are doing is shagging and drinking G&Ts. So... pretty much what they’re doing in the Greek myths but with fur coats instead of Golden Fleeces.

My third reason I love MIC is that this show is a gosh-darned time-capsule. In the first episode, everybody’s favourite posh-boy-cum-human-shark Hugo makes a few passing references to Facebook. Made in Chelsea was born at a time when social media was in its infancy. Nobody is talking about Instagram followers or influencers yet, and Cheska’s Girl About Town blog is treated as some strange glamorous novelty. As if blogging is this amazing cool thing. It’s not cool now Cheska. Everyone has a blog. I have three blogs. Shut up about your blog. 

My point is that the media landscape over the last ten years has changed, and with it our concept of what is a desirable lifestyle. A show built on aspiration is a brilliant chronicle of what we thought was cool when it was made.

Having said all of the above, I should probably mention that I also bloody love Made in Chelsea and at the very least my Mum will probably enjoy this blog. Here’s what I thought of episode one.

Episode One - “I’m just hot and I feel like shit.”

A classic Spencer Matthews quote to get the ball rolling. 

After an excruciating Blade Runner-esque voice-over from Caggie Dunlop episode one starts at a party in a bar, thrown by nineteen year old (shock horror she is so young to me now) socialite Amber Atherton to promote her jewelry line. Noteworthy moment number one is that most of the characters in the show have jobs, because we no-longer aspire to somehow be so rich we don’t need to work. These are people who really are so rich they don’t need to work, but they all have jobs based on their “passions” or “creativity,” except for Spencer who is a stock-broker because he was born that way and it isn’t his fault. 

Amber is the epitome of cool, even eight years on. She’s wearing barely a lick of makeup and dressed like a trendy off-duty archaeologist. Tensions develop between her and big-haired, fake-tanned Cheska, whose blog is considered “offensive” by Amber and hat-princess Rosie. Made in Chelsea is definitely a show which pits women against each other, but that is OK  because I don’t get my lessons on gender equality from anything broadcast on E4. (Oh, wait... Gilmore Girls... Never mind.) Both Amber’s pared-down minimalism and Cheska’s full-blown fakery are popular aesthetic choices nearly a decade on. If anything, these style choices are demonstrated in ever more extreme ways by beauty vloggers going all-out on heavy contouring while Pinterest pushes endless “no-makeup makeup” looks at me. Amber, Cheska - there is no need to fight! You are both valid in your style choices. 

There are several incredible moments in this episode, but to list them would take more words than anyone is willing to read on the subject - so I’ll be brief. 

1) The moment when Spencer’s (in a relationship with Funda) asserts that he and Caggie will “probably hook up at some point” is followed by the lyrics “and the love kick-starts again...” because, you know, what is more romantic than a man suggesting that even though he’s in a relationship he’ll probs bang you some time. Thanks Spenny, you classy. 

The whole exchange between Hugo and Spencer is actually brilliant because it establishes, from the off, that Spencer is a walking satire of bro-culture. Later, we even see him cut between sensitive, nerdy Francis as he tries to woo the Cagster after her “gig” (as an aside: we don’t see her sing a note but that somehow adds to the magic.) This moment is literally the uber-masculine Gaston-type kicking every character Hugh Grant played in the 90s in the balls. Perfect, it’s good to know where we stand. 

2) The Charles Dickens/Jane Austen/A. A. Milne debate. This moment, a discussion between Binky (brilliant, loveable Binky) Cheska and Ollie, is iconic. Binky can’t remember who wrote Winnie the Pooh, asks if that was Charles Dickens, then says “Oh, no, that was Pride and Prejudice.”

Look its funny to watch rich people get confused by literature, OK?

3) This is my final point but it’s a biggie. The show uses one of my favourite absolutely nutso sexist tropes: “Woman refuses to have sex with her significant other while he is all gross and sweaty ERGO she is a stick in the mud and no fun at all.” 

For another prime example of this trope, see Julia Louis-Dreyfus in National Lampoons’ Christmas Vacation. 

This trope is utterly mad, but again - at least the show is spelling out where Spencer stands. He’s an asshole. The show is telling us that he’s an asshole. And yet for some reason our protagonist whose full name I presume is Cagoule Elizabeth Dunlop, is pursuing him. 

What? 

Why would anyone pursue a guy who makes it clear from his first entrance into the narrative that he’s a walking catastrophe of stereotypical masculinity and misogynist values???

And here we come back to Jane Austen, and the basic fact that Mr Darcy is a GARBAGE PERSON. He’s straight up rude to Elizabeth and we know he’s sexist because it’s the past, and yet for some reason...we root for them. I’m genuinely interested to re-watch this narrative unfold, because surely the show doesn’t expect me to want Caggie to get with Spencer? Right? 

There we have it, the first episode of Made in Chelsea unpacked for you like a backpack at the end of term, full of hidden treasures, trash and merits you had forgotten about. Tune in next time for more lukewarm takes on telly.

[danguy96]

i agree with that voltron statement like volton the characters grow alot while in kora they grow but not well and what i mean is in voltron it shows them slowly learning and being better paladins, while in kora it was ya shes trying but failing to learn air except for at the end when she suddenly becomes a master of it right after achieving bending because it was a dire situation, also it starts out here she is as kid a master of everything while ang never started as a master he had to learn

I can see what you’re trying to say (I apologize, but the grammar here isn’t the best, and I had some trouble making it out, and I understand if it’s because English isn’t your first language), and yeah, that is one of the many, many problems I have with The Legend of Korra, at least when comparing it to what we currently have with Voltron. I know I’m probably going to rephrase or reiterate a lot of stuff that’s been said before, including what’s been said by this guy I occasionally check up on at DeviantART here and here (they’re actually good summaries of what I think of LoK), but I still think they contain some bit of truth as to why I think Voltron is a better successor to Avatar than LoK was. 

In fact, I think I can separate the reasons as to why Voltron works where LoK didn’t into four main categories (yes, there’s several reasons, but I feel like these are the main four which are the most important to me): 1. The Main Character (or Main Characters, in Voltron’s case), 2. The Villains/Antagonists, 3. The Characters and Their Relationships, and 4. The Story Itself

Firstly, as you said, I get what they were going for with Korra when they made her a bending prodigy who needed to learn that was more to being Avatar than just being the chosen one, rather than learning how to control all four elements but it just isn’t pulled off very well, at least to me, anyway. I get that she’s supposed to be a flawed character, but her development felt rushed and sloppily handled most of the time to me, some of her arcs either go on for too long or just end up going nowhere and being abandoned (Dark Avatar Korra, anyone?), she becomes more than a bit too grating and arrogant at times, and she kind of keeps learning the same lessons over and over again. Not to mention, it feels like we spend less and less time on her own personal character with each passing season, and instead focus more on either what new, big central threat we get (which takes away the personal time we get with the characters, which was made Avatar so great) or which character Korra is gonna end up banging in the end (I’ll get to that part later, and why it felt detrimental to the show, including the end result). 

With the Paladins, we have to see them grow and develop as a team, and learn the clear goal of mastering how to control Voltron during the series, much like how Aang learned how to control the four elements throughout Avatar. And each of them have their own straightforward goals and characters, which do develop as the show goes, and will hopefully continue to develop as the show goes on.

Secondly, although it’s pretty early in Voltron’s case, so we still have to wait until other villains and characters appear, the villains in Voltron so far feel a bit better than we mostly got in The Legend of Korra. The villains in LoK try to present a more grey morality approach with the ongoing archetype of “person with good intentions that went too far”, but they get weaker and more predictable after Amon, and they fail at grey morality by having the villains end up acting so obviously evil near the end to the point of it being ridiculous. Some people may think that revealing that he was a bloodbender may have spoiled Amon, but at least he was intimidating, charismatic, and the fact that we didn’t see his face most of the time added to his intimidation level. Same could be said with Ozai, because even though he was mostly power-hungry and selfish, he was still intimidating enough to leave an impact, and Azula was charismatic and manipulative to make up for that as well. With antagonists like Unalaq, he was just a bad Ozai wannabe who claimed that he wanted to bring balance between the spirits, yet he was going to merge with what was the Avatar equivalent of the freakin’ devil, and that he would become the “Dark Avatar”, so any grey morality is thrown out the window. Vaatu kind of gets a pass since he’s basically evil incarnate, so I’d expect just that. Zaheer may have been better, but I still think there was room for improvement, and I would’ve liked more personal time with him and his companions, so that we could better understand him and his motives. Finally, with Kuvira, it seems that they were running low on ideas for villains, so they used a minor character from season 3 and turned her into a villain without showing us how she came to that point or why she wanted to conquer the world other than power and “order”, but even then the latter may have just been a lie she told in order to gain support. And like many have said before, she feels like combination of Ozai and Azula, the way she ended up basically being rule 63, metalbender Hitler is just silly (the concentration camps for non-native Benders didn’t mesh well with was established about her earlier, I feel that she borders on being a boring, invincible, villain sue, and, in my personal opinion, she’s kind of a poor choice to have as your final villain when comparing what we previously had. In fact, I think that Vaatu should’ve been the final villain, due to him being end-all, be-all evil of their universe. 

With Voltron, we have more of a straightforward set of bad guys with Emperor Zarkon and the Galra Empire, but like Ozai and the Fire Nation, they work because we have a clear singular enemy which the heroes will face throughout the series. And like the Fire Nation, since we have a single main threat to deal with over the course of an entire series (instead of having to deal with one new main threat per season, squeezed in over the course of 12 to 13 episodes), it allows for a bit more time for personal character interaction and development, which actually is rather good place to segue into my next point.

The third thing I would like talk about is the characters and their relationships. Avatar is very well-known for it’s excellent character development, and the relationships built between the characters, both platonic and romantic. LoK, to me at least, felt rather lacking in that department. While they started off well in that department (and, to it’s credit, they did carry on with it for some characters, since I liked most of Tenzin’s interactions with his family), a lot the character subplots and interactions kind of felt rushed at times (you can see that there’s theme with things being rushed), and some characters were even pushed aside or forgotten about. For example, while I don’t he’s as bad as people say, and that could’ve been more well-received if his character was written better, Mako sort of almost became a non-entity by the end of the series, and while I didn’t mind it at first, I look back and think that it would’ve been better if they just went and redeemed his character by writing him better, and not just shoving him to the side (in fact, I heard they were originally going to kill him off in Book 4, but they figured that would to some unfortunate implications for Korrasami, and I don’t know about some people, but even I think that’s just plain bad writing, no matter how poorly handled Mako was). And poor Bolin, even after getting some spotlight in Books 3 and 4, I think he’s been forgotten about for the most part. And that’s not getting into the side characters, which I think there eventually became too many of, and there were just not enough episodes per season to flesh them out, so they just ended up disappearing aside from the occasional cameo, or showing up for the final season (General Iroh II, Hobo Man, Mr. Sato, Eska & Desna, Spirit Iroh, Kya, Ginger, Zaheer, Kai, etc.). Finally, I believe many of us can agree that one of the most annoying parts of LoK was that stupid love triangle/square/dodecahedron/whatever, which plagued the series until the vey end (and possibly even after that, depending on who you ask), and also reduced all the characters involved into merely being love interests for one another, by both the staff and the fandom. 

Speaking of reducing characters and their personalities into being nothing but being an item by the staff and the fandom (and I hope you don’t think I’m going off on a tangent a little), another thing which I felt was detrimental to the rest of the characters was making Korrasami canon. Now, I have nothing against the rational people who ship Korrasami, but I personally feel it’s done harm than good for the show. Ever since it became canon, the Korrasami fandom became a haven of obnoxiousness and toxic-ness, only surpassed by the Steven Universe fandom and, ironically, extremist Voltron yaoi shippers. As seen here and here, not only did the Korrasami fandom harass and cyberbully people who didn’t like or ship Korrasami (with two internet memes, “Feudal Lord and Handmaiden” and “Poppin’ Bottles”, being the direct result of harassing people), but the show to the fandom (and, to some extent, the show’s staff and creators) became less and less about the adventures of the new Team Avatar and the ongoing fight between good and evil, and more about constantly yammering on about a single same-sex pairing and how “look how gay Korra and Asami are!!” (seriously, tell me the last piece of fan content you remember which doesn’t bring up Korrasmi or imply it), obnoxiously bragging about said pairing to every single person, and eventually forgetting and shoving aside almost everything about the show that’s not Korrasami. And if you didn’t like it, the fandom would just say that you’re homophobe/”lesbophobe” (never mind that that’s erasing bisexuality) for not shipping it or not liking the way things turned out, and even one of the staff (I believe it was Bryan) more or less said that if you didn’t think their relationship was really that developed, you were just a homophobe and “looking through a ‘hetero-lens’”. All the show seems to be now is just a singular pairing, with so many characters stories tossed aside in the name of leaving some sort of legacy behind and being “progressive”, and to me, it just all ends up feeling hollow. Also, on a unrelated note, I think short hair doesn’t suit Korra at all.

Going back at last to Voltron, the cast of characters is (as of this writing) much smaller, allowing for more focus on individual characters and their relationships in a way similar to that of the original Avatar, and with the more straightforward plotline (that’s another theme going on with Voltron being more “straightforward”), they can spend as much time developing the characters as they can focus on the main threat. Also, as far as canon goes (and in spite of the previously mentioned extremist shippers and the Social Justice Warriors), there’s hardly any romance in the show, aside from the occasional ship tease and any moment of Lance flirting. And, in all honesty, I’m kind of with @celticpyro that there probably shouldn’t any too major canon pairings, because not only do I think that Voltron just isn’t the type of show to do anything too romantic (don’t get me wrong, shipping can be fun, and I do have a few Voltron pairings myself, but I don’t think Voltron’s the type of show for anything too major, unless it’s done well), I also think that, again, while shipping can be fun, it can also easily corrupt a fandom, and making certain ships canon can unleash a whole new can of worms. Basically, I want Voltron’s legacy to be based around a great show about a battle between the forces of good and evil, and not solely based on a same-sex pairing made solely to please the fans.

But the biggest and most important area which I consider Voltron to have done better is this: the story itself and how it was planned out. You see, while Voltron is clearly being planned out ahead with certain twists and an ending in mind, LoK was basically written by the seat of Bryke and company’s collective pants, mostly because they originally planned and wanted it to be a mini-series, but Nickelodeon ordered at the last minute for it to be a full series. And honestly, I think it would’ve been better as a mini-series. But as is, it’s more than a little apparent that a lot of behind the scenes difficulties went on (hell, they had to create clipshow just to save on the budget near the end). I can handle having a storyline that’s not overarching across the seasons, but with the amount of stuff that was going on in each season, I think that most of the series would’ve benefitted from at least having more episodes per season (18 to 20 at the most), that way they could spend more time on the rest of the characters’ story arcs, as well as the main threat. Also, they seemed to have sort of a case of “tell, don’t show” with stuff like the time skips explaining things at the beginning of each new season.

With Voltron, even though the storyline is more straightforward and overarching, it works in a similar way the original Avatar’s overarching story did; they had an end goal in mind, but the journey to that end was filled with twists and turns, and the characters felt fully developed for the most part by the end. I just didn’t get that feeling of being satisfied that I did with Avatar as I did with Korra.

And I know that there are those saying I’m being unfair, and that I should judge LoK on it’s own merits and not compare or contrast it with AtLA so much. My response to that is that I hold LoK, AtLA, and Voltron: LD on the same level of standards I set for nearly every piece of media I partake in, no matter what it is, and comparisons to both AtLA and Voltron: LD are most likely going to happen, since LoK is literally a sequel to the former (and keeps reminding us about that with nearly every other episode), and the latter at least has a couple of people who’ve worked on both AtLA and LoK. To put it more clearly, I judge LoK both on it’s own merits as well as on it’s merits as being a sequel to Avatar, and the merits of both, I think it’s a show that ranges from above average at best to slightly irritating at worst, and while I sadly think it got screwed over by the powers that be, I also felt it was too overhyped, especially the ending, and I just don’t see myself coming to it as much as I do with Avatar and probably will with Voltron. 

And I am aware that there may be some people out there who may rudely tell me that I’m apparently an unwashed idiot who “doesn’t get” LoK and what it tried to do, and tell that I’m a moron if I don’t agree with them and think it’s some sort of revolutionary series which “broke boundaries”. And to those people (and no, in case anyone is wondering for this case or the previous case, I’m not vague-posting about anyone), I say, congratulations, you’ve missed the point of a little something called “subjectivity”, and you automatically assume that I’m one of those people who mindlessly bash the show, when I’m just saying that it’s not my own personal cup of tea, and that I don’t think it’s as great as other people think it is.

Now, that is to say that didn’t want The Legend of Korra to be a complete clone of Avatar, and that I get what they going for in many instances, but I just personally don’t think they pulled it off that well, and calling me stupid or insinuating that I am stupid and saying that I “can’t see it” isn’t going to change my mind.

TL;DR: I personally don’t really think The Legend of Korra is that great of a series either on it’s own merits or on the merits of it being a sequel to Avatar, as well feel that it was overhyped, and I much more enjoy Voltron: Legendary Defender to LoK, as well as feel that Voltron better captures some of the spirit of Avatar. That’s just my personal opinion, and you disagree with me on some or even most of it, but just don’t tell me or insinuate that I’m idiot who doesn’t “get it” because I dislike something you like.

I really didn’t mean for this to become an essay. I apologize for that.

[theliberaltony]

via Politics – FiveThirtyEight

My editors are forever asking me to take the long Twitter threads I write and turn them into articles here at FiveThirtyEight. So I’m actually going to give that a try!

What follows are some follow-up thoughts on our election model, which was originally composed in the form of a V E R Y L O N G tweetstorm that I never published. (See if you can guess where the 240-character breaks would have been.)

In this thread … err, article … I’ll try to walk you through my thought process on a few elements of our model and respond to a few thoughtful critiques I’ve seen elsewhere. Before you dive in, it may help to read our summary of the state of the race, or at least skim our very detailed methodology guide.

But the basic starting point for a probabilistic, poll-driven model ought to be this: Is polling in August a highly reliable way to predict the outcome in November?

The short answer is “no.”

Polling in August is somewhat predictive. You’d much rather be ahead than behind. But there can still be some very wild swings.

You can see that in the daily threads that Nathaniel Rakich, one of our elections analysts, puts together. Here is what a national polling average would have looked like in elections dating back to 1976:

The @FiveThirtyEight nat'l polling average with 84 days until E-Day:

2020: Biden+8.3 2016: Clinton+6.6 2012: Obama+0.5 2008: Obama+2.6 2004: Kerry+2.5 2000: Bush+10.0 1996: Clinton+11.3 1992: Clinton+20.1 1988: Dukakis+5.6 1984: Reagan+16.0 1980: Reagan+22.1 1976: Carter+26.6

— Nathaniel Rakich (@baseballot) August 11, 2020

OK, I cheated a bit. I’m using a version that Nathaniel published last week, partly because this was the exact moment in the campaign when Michael Dukakis, the 1988 Democratic nominee, started to blow his large lead, which he never regained. Still, there’s some wild stuff there! John Kerry led at this point in 2004. George W. Bush had a 10-point lead at this point in the 2000 race, but, as we know, he didn’t win the popular vote that year. In other cases, the leading candidate won, but the margin was off by as much as 20 points (Jimmy Carter in 1976).

Now, as I wrote last week, there are some caveats here. Several of these polling averages were taken while one or both candidates were experiencing convention bonuses, and although there are ways to correct for those, every time you correct for something so your model fits the past data better, you raise the possibility that you’re overfitting the data and that your model won’t be as accurate as claimed when applied to situations where you don’t already know the outcome.

There are also decent arguments that polling averages have become more stable in recent years. In that case, the wild fluctuations in the polls from, say, 1976 or 1988 might not be as relevant.

Our model actually agrees with these theories, up to a point! The fact that voters are more polarized now (more polarization means fewer swing voters, which means less volatility) is encoded into our model as part of our “uncertainty index,” for instance.

But we think it’s pretty dangerous to go all in on these theories and assume that poll volatility is necessarily much lower than it was before. For one thing, the theory is not based on a ton of data. Take the five most recent elections, for instance. The 20041 and 2012 elections featured highly stable polling — 2012 especially so. But 2000 and 2016 (!) did not, and 2008 election polling was not especially stable, either. Small sample sizes are already an issue in election forecasting, so it seems risky to come to too many firm conclusions about polling volatility based on what amounts to two or three examples.

Meanwhile, other people have pointed out that the most recent two presidents, Trump and Barack Obama, have had highly stable approval ratings. But the president just before them, George W. Bush, did not. His approval rating went through some of the wildest fluctuations ever, in fact, even though polarization was also fairly high from 2000 to 2008.

That said, polls have been stable so far this year. Indeed, that’s another factor that our uncertainty index accounts for. But don’t get too carried away extrapolating from this stability. Case in point: Polls were extremely stable throughout most of the Democratic primaries … but when the voting started, we saw huge swings from the Iowa caucuses through Super Tuesday. Poll volatility tends to predict future volatility, but only up to a point.

Remember, too, that voters haven’t yet been exposed to the traditional set pieces of the campaign, namely the conventions and the debates, which are often associated with higher volatility.

Now, suppose that despite all the weirdness to come in the general election campaign, Biden just plows through, leads by 6 to 9 points the whole way … and then wins by that amount on Nov. 3? If that happens, then we’ve got more evidence for the hypothesis that elections have become more stable, even when voters are confronted with a lot of surprising news.

But, crucially, we don’t have that evidence yet. So some of the models that are more confident in Biden’s chances seem to be begging the question, presuming that polls will remain stable when I’m not sure we can say that yet.

Then there’s the issue of COVID-19. Sometimes — though people may not say this outright — you’ll get a sense that critics think it’s sort of cheating for a model to account for COVID-19 because it’s never happened before, so it’s too ad hoc to adjust for it now.

I don’t really agree. Models should reflect the real world, and COVID-19 is a big part of the real world in 2020. Given the choice between mild ad-hockery and ignoring COVID-19 entirely, I think mild ad-hockery is better.

However, I also think there are good ways to account for COVID-19 without being particularly ad hoc about it. If you’re designing a model, whenever you encounter an outlier or an edge case or a new complication, the question you ask yourself should be, “What lessons can I draw from this that generalize well?” That is: Are there things you can do to handle the edge case well that will also make your model more robust overall?

As an aside, when testing models on historical data I think people should pay a lot of attention to edge cases and outliers. For instance, I pay a lot of attention to how our model is handling Washington, D.C. Why Washington? Well, if you take certain shortcuts — don’t account for the fact that vote shares are constainted between 0 and 100 percent of the vote — you might wind up with impossible results, like Biden winning 105 percent of the vote there. Or when designing an NBA model, I may pay a lot of attention to a player like Russell Westbrook, who has long caused issues for statistical systems. I don’t like taking shortcuts in models; I think they come back to bite you later in ways you don’t necessarily anticipate. But if you can handle the outliers well, you’ve probably built a mathematically elegant model that works well under ordinary circumstances, too.

But back to COVID-19: What this pandemic encouraged us to do was to think even more deeply about the sources of uncertainty in our forecast. That led to the development of the aforementioned uncertainty index, which has eight components (described in more depth in our methodology post):

The number of undecided voters in national polls. More undecided voters means more uncertainty.

The number of undecided plus third-party voters in national polls. More third-party voters means more uncertainty.

Polarization, as measured elsewhere in the model, which is based on how far apart the parties are in roll call votes cast in the U.S. House. More polarization means less uncertainty since there are fewer swing voters.

The volatility of the national polling average. Volatility tends to predict itself, so a stable polling average tends to remain stable.

The overall volume of national polling. More polling means less uncertainty.

The magnitude of the difference between the polling-based national snapshot and the fundamentals forecast. A wider gap means more uncertainty.

The standard deviation of the component variables used in the FiveThirtyEight economic index. More economic volatility means more overall uncertainty in the forecast.

The volume of major news, as measured by the number of full-width New York Times headlines in the past 500 days, with more recent days weighted more heavily. More news means more uncertainty.

Previous versions of our model had basically just accounted for factors 1 and 2 (undecided and third-party voters), so there are quite a few new factors here. And indeed, factors 7 and 8 are very high thanks to COVID-19 and, therefore, boost our uncertainty measure. However, we’re also considering several factors for the first time (like polarization and poll volatility) that reduce uncertainty.

In the end, though, our model isn’t even saying that the uncertainty is especially high this year. The uncertainty index would have been considerably higher in 1980, for instance. Rather, this year’s uncertainty is about average, which means that the historical accuracy of polls in past campaigns is a reasonably good guide to how accurate they are this year. That seems to me like a pretty good gut check.

It might seem counterintuitive that uncertainty would be about average in such a weird year, but accounting for multiple types of uncertainty means that some can work to balance each other out. We don’t have a large sample of elections to begin with; depending on how you count, somewhere between 10 and 15 past presidential races had reasonably frequent polling. So your default position might be that you should use all of that data to calibrate your estimates of uncertainty, rather than to try to predict under which conditions polls might be more or less reliable. If you are going to try to fine-tune your margin of error, though, then we think you need to be pretty exhaustive about thinking through sources of uncertainty. Accounting for greater polarization but not the additional disruptions brought about by the pandemic would be a mistake, we think; likewise, so would be considering the pandemic but not accounting for polarization.

I’ve also seen some objections to the particular variables we’ve included in the uncertainty index. For instance, not everybody likes that our way of specifying “the volume of major news” is based on New York Times headlines. I agree that this isn’t ideal. The New York Times takes its headlining choices very seriously, but as we learned from thumbing through years of its headlines, it also makes some idiosyncratic choices.

However, I don’t think anybody would say there hasn’t been a ton of important news this year, much of which could continue to reverberate later in the race. Nor should people doubt that poll volatility is often news-driven. Polls generally don’t move on their own, but rather in response to major political events (such as debates) and news events (such as wars starting or ending). Even before COVID-19, we were trying to incorporate some of this logic into our polling averages by, for instance, having them move more aggressively after debates.

Other people have suggested that we ought to have accounted for incumbency in the uncertainty index, on the theory that when incumbents are running for reelection, they are known commodities, which should reduce volatility. That’s a smart suggestion, and something I wish I’d thought to look at, although after taking a very brief glance at it now, I’m not sure how much it would have mattered. The 1980 and 1992 elections, which featured incumbents, were notably volatile, for instance.

So if it’s too soon to be all that confident that Biden will win based on the polls — not that a 71 percent of winning the Electoral College (and an 82 percent chance of winning the popular vote) are anything to sneeze at — is there anything else that might justify that confidence?

In our view, not really.

I’ll be briefer on these points, since we covered them at length in our introductory feature. But forecasts based on economic “fundamentals” — which have never been as accurate as claimed — are a mess this year. Depending on which variables you look at (gross domestic product or disposable income?) and over what time period (third quarter or second quarter?) you could predict anything from the most epic Biden landslide in the history of elections to a big Trump win.

Furthermore, FiveThirtyEight’s version of a fundamentals model actually shows the race as a tie — it expects the race to tighten given the high polarization and projected economic improvement between now and November. So although we don’t weigh the fundamentals all that much, they aren’t exactly a reason to be more confident in Biden.

What about Trump’s approval rating? It’s been poor for a long time, obviously. And some other models do use it as part of their fundamentals calculation. But I have trouble with that for two reasons. First, the idea behind the fundamentals is that they’re … well, fundamental, meaning they’re the underlying factors (like economic conditions and political polarization) that drive political outcomes. An approval rating, on the other hand, should really be the result of those conditions.

Second, especially against a well-known opponent like Biden, approval ratings are largely redundant with the polls. That is to say, if Trump’s net approval rating (favorable rating minus unfavorable rating) is -12 or -13 in polls of registered and likely voters, then his being down 8 or 9 points in head-to-head polls against Biden is pretty much exactly what you’d expect. (Empirically, though, the spread in approval ratings are a bit wider than the spreads in head-to-head polls. A candidate with a -20 approval rating, like Carter had at the end of the 1980 campaign, wouldn’t expect to lose the election by 20 points.)

Also, models that include a lot of highly correlated variables can have serious problems, and approval ratings and head-to-head polls are very highly correlated. I’m not saying you couldn’t work your way around these issues, but unless you were very careful, they could lead to underestimates of out-of-sample errors and other problems.

One last topic: the role of intuition when building an election model. To the largest extent possible, when I build election models, I try to do it “blindfolded,” by which I mean I make as many decisions as possible about the structure of the model before seeing what the model would say about the current year’s election. That’s not to say we don’t kick the tires on a few things at the end, but it’s pretty minimal, and it’s mostly to look at bugs and edge cases rather than to change our underlying assumptions. The process is designed to limit the role my priors play when building a model.

Sometimes, though, when we do our first real model run, the results come close to my intuition anyway. But this year they didn’t. I was pretty sure we’d have Biden with at least a 75 percent chance of winning and perhaps as high as a 90 percent chance. Instead, our initial tests had Biden with about a 70 percent chance, and he stayed there until we launched the model.

Why was my intuition wrong? I suspect because it was conditioned on recent elections where polls were fairly stable — and where the races were also mostly close, making Biden’s 8-point lead look humongous by comparison. If I had vividly remembered Dukakis blowing his big lead in 1988, when I was 10 years old, maybe my priors would have been different.

But as I said earlier, I’m not necessarily sure we can expect the polls to be quite so stable this time around. And when you actually check how accurate summer polling has been historically, it yields some pretty wide margins of error.

[beyondthetemples]

{{ Longest Dove profile ever

Long story short, I filled out the first half of that in-depth character sheet back in 2011. I was in the process of filling out the rest when I lost the link, and then the site originally hosting the sheet stopped working. But I just found a copy today! So I’m posting what I have (from 2011, so don’t mind the stylistic regression)... and I’ll be gradually filling out the rest.

[fitnesswomenshealth-blog]

Men’s mental health: How dad’s suicide helped me become a ‘real man’

New Post has been published on https://cialiscom.org/mens-mental-health-how-dads-suicide-helped-me-become-a-real-man.html

Men’s mental health: How dad’s suicide helped me become a ‘real man’

IT WAS Saturday, March 28, 1998, when I received the news that would cast a shadow above the relaxation of my lifetime.

I was 16 decades outdated, and nothing would ever be ‘normal’ as I understood it, yet again. My father had killed himself and now, 20 decades on, I nevertheless have a father-formed hole in my coronary heart that won’t at any time be stuffed.

My dad and mom experienced break up up five many years before. Additional in truth, my father experienced walked out on us — my mum, my two young brothers and me — the day before my 11th birthday. It would be the initial of a lot of I would expend with out him.

We saw father on university holiday seasons. Most periods we invested a week with him, and most summers it was two months.

But in the summertime of 1997/98, I’d turned 16 and my brothers and I put in 3 total months with our dad — it was the longest extend of time given that he moved absent.

That summer season, dad and I connected as two individuals: it felt at the time like we were starting to be much more than just father and son — we were being getting buddies.

Dad promised to get me an old automobile for my 16th/17th/18th birthday offers and said we’d do it up together for the duration of faculty vacations. He was a auto guy and said I could have any kind of older automobile I wanted. The selection was mine … so lengthy as it was a V8 Holden Leading. What a option! I was content regardless, as it would type-of be ‘our’ motor vehicle.

My dad and I had our first beer together and our second cigarette … our very first shared smoke was when I was seven and requested for one particular out of curiosity and father obliged (1988 was a quite diverse time!).

I talked with father about my idea of shifting in with him following I concluded significant college, and my approach to go to uni in Warrnambool and enable with his fourth son, my substantially-young brother, who’d be school age by then. Father-and-son taking on the planet with our restored automobile. I could not wait around!

All my lifetime my father was my idol, my hero, even with him currently being moody and absent a ton, even in advance of he moved absent. Father was large and powerful at 6 foot 3, and as reliable as a brick s***household. He was a tough footy player and usually kicked luggage of objectives, obtained into a fight on the industry (he normally gained), and even took a grand remaining-saving speccy 1 calendar year, which I had on video clip and watched a ton.

Information.com.au is highlighting men’s psychological wellness troubles as element of its campaign The Silent Killer: Let’s Make Some Noise in support of Gotcha4Daily life and the Movember Basis.

In distinction with the hard male some others generally noticed him as, my normally-tender father overtly instructed me he liked me and hugged me no matter how old I was. His good stories at bed time experienced manufactured me huge-eyed with marvel. That really like of tales and open up expression of appreciate are also large components of my have character as a man or woman, specially now as a father, with three kids of my own.

So in 1998, to be connecting with my father as a mate and arranging a potential with him, was a particular dream that was beginning to occur genuine.

But … none of the issues my father and I prepared basically happened. Not 1 of them. Due to the fact 8 months soon after that summer time jointly, just as we’d started out to come to be the friends that I experienced extensive wished for us to be, my father wrote a be aware of goodbye, walked into his garage, and took his have life.

My father still left me. Yet again. And permanently. Why would a father pick out to leave his children permanently? My love for him turned clouded by hatred for what he’d completed.

I’ve puzzled given that on so numerous instances, why he didn’t just pack up and take off to the center of nowhere for on the other hand lengthy he essential a break for. Why not just disappear right up until he felt good again?

But he didn’t. He opted out of my existence in the most permanent and irreversible way.

In the 20 a long time considering the fact that father killed himself, I too have faced some major difficulties. Whether or not it’s from genetics or trauma from elements of my childhood, I’m not certain, but psychological ill-health has come really savagely for me, too.

My first key dim interval climaxed when I was 22. I was ingesting a whole lot at that time and not dealing with issues well. Following a single also a lot of setbacks (and significantly much too several drinks on this individual evening), I was in more pain than I felt I could tackle.

I walked out of the pub and jumped off a bridge. I landed on the road about seven metres below, and mostly due to the fact of how drunk and limp I was, I survived with only a broken pelvis and wrist.

3 months of bed rest, actual physical treatment and psychological rehabilitation followed. Through people prolonged and pretty bleak months I arrived to see just how pained my father must have been at the finish, and how helpless he should have felt. I experienced just about joined him, but a tiny flicker inside me hadn’t gone out, and I soldiered on.

‘I FELL Apart COMPLETELY’

I turned a father 10 many years ago and it was the most wonderful sensation to say the really the very least. Father’s Working day would be a joyful working day for me once again, just after a decade of crying on the initial Sunday of September every single year — on the lookout at the sky and cursing my dad.

My son Leo was afterwards joined by his brother Gus and sister Ada. I have a few great little ones who are all delighted, healthful, and good, and I’m so happy of them.

But as it so often happens for people who have battled the Black Canine, I’ve again been visited by mental unwell-wellbeing, even however my existence — on paper — was rather excellent. This final dark time period for me culminated in possessing a total breakdown just as my marriage to my kids’ mom ended a few of a long time back.

Just before my marriage ended, the producing was on the wall for a few yrs. My then-spouse and I had grown as well far aside and weren’t ready to bridge that considerable divide.

A couple of weeks just after my now ex-spouse and I both agreed we must separate, my GP forced me to choose a month off function so I could aim solely on surviving — it truly was that fraught.

I discovered a spot to are living, moved out, and fell aside fully. I was informed to just take one more month off perform, then one more, and at some point I resigned from my promising company vocation and uncovered my complete life altering all at the moment. And every working day due to the fact, without having exception, the risk of suicide has popped into my intellect as a feasible way to wipe away the damage and sadness and tears and despair that have virtually drowned me.

But the upside of losing my father to suicide signifies I know what it’s like to be the child left driving. And it’s definitely, truly, terrible.

THE SILENCE THAT KILLED MY Dad

My father did not talk to for any support. He did not speak to everyone about how bleak things seemed, enable alone see a experienced for healthcare help. And that silence intended he died.

I want the opposite final result for my little ones, and for me as a father. So in buy to achieve the reverse end result to my dad, I also choose the reverse techniques to him: I speak to folks, I search for and settle for clinical support, and I really do not considerably care what other persons imagine of me remaining so candid.

I am incredibly open up about my troubles with my psychological wellbeing. I am now pretty open up about my suicide try 15 a long time in the past.

It’s my love of storytelling that led to me sharing the tale of my father as a 1-man or woman ‘compassionate comedy’ exhibit, Humpty Dumpty Daddy. At fringe and comedy festivals all-around the nation, I have stood on phase and poured my heart out to audiences for an hour at a time, sharing every thing I have in this short article, plus additional.

The reaction from audiences has mostly been pretty heart-warming. Soon after I wander off phase, I wait around at the exit and thank men and women for coming together. And each solitary time, I have viewed one particular or extra burly males with quivering faces, or open up arms for a significant person-hug, or a pair of eyes that bore into mine with a declaration of camaraderie and shared trials.

Girls are much more verbally open up about what they believe and the raw heat and honesty they say they feel from observing one of my reveals. My audiences seem to be to be 2:1 women of all ages to males, but it’s the adult males who have more powerful and additional impactful psychological responses. Really a couple of have contacted me later on on and shared their personal story, and some have come to be people I still correspond with. It is amazingly exclusive, and I’m so grateful that by staying vulnerable and open, I feel related to far more individuals than I at any time have.

I know now it is not my fault, but I was not more than enough to hold my dad alive. He missing all hope wholly, and of training course I desire I could have completed some thing to end him. But I could not. I have the reward of dwelling in a more being familiar with time than my father, although there is a long, very long way to go, as the 10 for each cent maximize of suicides from 2016 to 2017 attests.

And even though it is taken me almost 20 several years to recognise, I can now see that the finest lesson my father at any time taught me was what NOT to do.

My father felt a failure at daily life and succeeded in dying. I failed at dying but am starting to come to feel a achievements at lifetime. Not a poor improve in 1 generation.

JC Clapham utilized to dress in a match to work each individual working day. He is now retraining as a mental health and fitness worker, does storytelling exhibits and writes about psychological well being and masculinity.

If you or someone you know requires guidance with their psychological health, remember to call just one of these support organisations:

• Lifeline 24/7: 13 11 14 or www.lifeline.org.au

• Suicide Get in touch with Back Provider: 1300 659 467 or www.suicidecallbackservice.org.au

• MensLine Australia: 1300 78 99 78 or www.mensline.org.au

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[stopsnoring000]

Stop Husband From Snoring

My husband is a wise, hilarious, thoughtful guy...whom I used to detest as soon as he fell asleep every night time. Why? He’s susceptible to snoring—the tectonic kind of snoring that would make the walls rattle if we had been caricature characters. 

As we’re all too actual, it made us miserable alternatively: I misplaced sleep, he’d grow to be sore from the little kicks I’d supply as I tried to get him to roll over, and we both woke up feeling wronged and resentful.

It doesn’t take a scientist to tell you that snoring can wreak havoc on relationships, however studies entirely backs it up:

In a national Sleep basis poll, a whopping 50 percent of people who had been a threat for sleep apnea (this is, they scored excessive on a questionnaire about snoring and daytime drowsiness) or who had an associate at hazard for sleep apnea suggested that it brought about issues in their relationship.

And 28 percent said that their intimate or sexual courting had been affected due to the fact they have been too sleepy. Dangers of sleep apnea aside, how does a pair keep their bond robust inside the face of snoring?

Some humans would argue that sound asleep in separate beds has saved many a relationship; according to a 2014 poll through the statistical evaluation site FiveThirtyEight, thirteen.9 percentage of cohabiting couples sleep apart every night time (and snoring is the offender for almost half of those people).

My husband attempted evicting himself from the bedroom and getting shuteye on our residing room sofa on more than one in particular sleepless nights, however that changed into hardly a solution for us; he was uncomfortable, and my guilt approximately using him out stored me conscious anyway. So what in case you’re now not ready to surrender your bedmate?

Shelby Harris, Psy.D, director of behavioral sleep medicine at the Sleep-Wake disorders middle at Montefiore medical center in NY town, works with patients who complain approximately their snoring companions. Here are the steps she says you have to take in case your man's retaining you up at night.

In case your accomplice isn’t choking or gasping of their sleep, they'll snore due to the fact they’re lying on their again. “placed a tennis ball in a pocket tee worn backward, that could assist educate them to sleep on their side,” says Harris. That may sound a bit stupid, but no extra so than acting small, indignant karate chops on your accomplice so that he turns over without knowing it’s because you whacked him.

How to Stop Your Partner Snoring .

Do you snore at night time? You in all likelihood won’t understand as you’re sound asleep! If you have an accomplice who sleeps, but, then you know how worrying it can be. Nudging them, covering your ears or even napping in the spare room, can only paintings for goodbye.

If it’s something which you don’t cope with, then it may result in sleep deprivation – or even courting problems – within the destiny. It’s countrywide forestall snoring Week from 25-twenty-ninth April, so we teamed up with the British Snoring & Sleep Apnoea affiliation to deliver you a few hints on how you may help prevent you.

This infographic explains why you or your partner may snore and how you can go about coping with the problem, so you can both get a better night’s sleep.

Scroll down for the full transcript, sources, and options to embed this infographic

How to stop your partner snoring

Are you kept awake at night through your partner’s nocturnal noises? It’s not unusual: forty-five % of adults snore at the least sometimes. In place of sleeping on the sofa or stuffing tissues for your ears, observe this simple manual to prevent your partner snoring. What kind of snorer are they?

There are five main sorts:

Nostril

the reason of snoring: Blocked nasal passages or collapsing nostrils that cause mouth respiratory.

Mouth breather

The motive of snoring: An open mouth and comfy jaw.

Tongue

The reason for snoring: Tongue dropping to the lower back of the mouth and obstructing airways.thats why people use Anti snoring mouth guard which help them to stop snoring.

Palatal flutterer

Purpose of snoring: gentle palate and uvula vibrating.

Multifactorial

Use of snoring: A aggregate of some or all the above the answer to your companion’s snoring usually depends on the type of snorer they're.

The nostril test

Element 1: appearance in a mirror. Press the side of one nose to close it. With your mouth shut, breathe in through the other nostril. Does the snout crumble?

Part 2: with your mouth closed, try breathing in via your nose. Can you breathe effortlessly?

The mouth take a look at Open your mouth and make a snoring noise. Now, can you're making the same noise together with your mouth closed?

The mouth test