#I feel like many people who criticized the movie did it out of spite

[potplant-at-dreamkeepers-cottage]

I am very very very very very late to the party but I finally watched Kalki 2898 AD. It's amazing.

Everyone made real good of what they were given, even the characters that are their for for 10 minutes or less leave an big impact.

Like Kyra and Divya and Luke.

Amitabh Bachchan ate that role. He deserves all the praise he go and more

I have to confess, Bhairava turned out to be a more layered and intresting character than I had expected. I got only the spoilers I couldn't help like the posts from the official Twitter account. I knew I would love him but he did prove to be more.

The scenes where prabhas is Karnafied are spectacular, his eyes, his expressions, his body language are soooooo good

[foxydivaxx]

Gossip Girl Prequel: Z After Dark

This is the full prequel of the Gossip Girl AU. As you can see, it is Zoro-centric. About time I placed the spotlight on him and show people how he turned out the way he did.

Trigger warning: mentions of suicide attempt, drugs, underage sex, abuse, depression, mental breakdown

How did his life get this way? One minute, he was onstage to present an award and the next, he immediately collapses.

He does not remember much other than feeling like shit a couple hours prior. Okay, he actually remembers now. This year has been a pretty turbulent year for him. His movies for the past two years have been flopping and his last single got trashed by critics and fans alike.

Who would have thought that the once mighty bankabke star Zoro Roronoa would have a mighty downfall like this? He spent all those years pretending whilst taking all that hate.

He is now suddenly reminded of his younger years where he would receive excessive beatings from the other kids in school growing up for his natural green hair and the fact that he was Japanese and his mother barely doing anything about it. As far as she was concerned, Zoro was a means to an end, a tool.

Speaking of his mother, that woman keeps lashing out at him and blames him whenever shit goes wrong, just like his now declining career. Ironic considering it was her poor decisions and micromanagement of her poor son’s life that caused all this. It has now began to manifest as the boy is overworked to death and is exhausted beyond measure. All that fame and money is worth what at the end of the day if this boy suddenly dies?

“Zoro!! Zoro!!” Mihawk calls out to his stepson who was unconscious. Perona, his daughter immediately calls for paramedics.

The boy could not respond as he was completely unconscious. There was mass pandemonium as fans and celebrities alike were horrified by what they had just witnessed.

At first, they all thought it was either a fake act or he tripped over something and fell and would always pull himself back up, something that seemed unlike Zoro since the Prince was almost always picture-perfect. This is a boy who debuted when he was just 3 years old, thrust into the spotlight prematurely by his mother from day one.

But after the boy refused to get up for close to an hour, this case became serious. Making matters worse is that his mother, his so-called manager, was not present. The paparazzi spotted her in Milan with a mysterious man, fueling cheating rumors and making many suspect that there was more to Zoro’s downward spiral.

There is also the story of her using Zoro to spite Sora her former rival because Sora was the former Queen of the Upper East Side and she always hated that woman and her kids.

There was also that infamous public argument Zoro had with his mother outside a restaurant a month prior to this. He was heard saying out loud in the video, “You shall know no peace!!”

“Is he sick?”

“Whatever happened to him?”

“His mother did something, didn’t she? That witch!!”

Questions began to mount as paramedics arrive on the scene, place an oxygen mask over his face and place him on a stretcher, taking him out of the building.

As expected, there were paparazzi outside, but thankfully, the bodyguards help to fend them off as Perona and Mihawk follow the paramedics and get into the ambulance. "Make sure that woman does not come near my son!!" Mihawk yells into the phone and then hangs up.

“Have you called Kuina and the others?” Perona nodded, trying to fight back tears. “I also called Zoro’s friends that were not in the building. They are on their way. Grimmjow and Sukuna are on their way.”

“And Sanji?” Perona nodded, trying hard to swallow the lump she felt in her throat. “T..That was the toughest call I had to make because of how much he means to him.” Mihawk sighs and places a hand over her shoulder. “You did very well.”

He was trying to be strong but even he himself felt like he was falling apart. Zoro may not be his birth son but the kid is the son he never had.

He had always been protective of the kid and often got into heated arguments with Terra over her maltreatment of her son.

Just because she did not achieve certain things when she was a kid does not give her the right to project her failures onto her son.

That was why Mihawk got Zoro his current friends. He needs other kids around his age around him who will be there for him and would guard that heart of his.

Mihawk has made a huge decision in regards to his own mental well-being and also Zoro’s safety and happiness in light of this incident and also the tabloid stories he has been seeing of Terra and that billionaire she met in Milan. He should have listened to Sora before hooking up with that woman.

Either way, he can sort that out this evening. Right now,his main concern is Zoro’s health.

*******************************************************

Grimmjow sighs as he gets into the taxi. Not too long ago, he saw Zoro’s fainting spell on live TV. He panicked because it is a well-known fact that his mother never had his best interests at heart and he and the others have tried to free him from that woman. It seems now it is going to become a reality.

Perona soon called and confirmed what had happened. He cannot believe that this was happening.

He told Zoro several times to stand up to his mother, but he did not know or understand the true extent of the abuse until he and Zoro started their secret recording sessions a couple months. Zoro approached him since he is a skilled music producer and entrusted this secret project to him. He also shot music videos for like 4 of those songs all without his mother knowing.

All those songs were pretty painful to listen to and were tearjerky. The worst part? He wrote all those songs himself.How long has the guy been pretending? Heck, he cried recording majority of these songs.

How nights did he spend alone crying himself to sleep? All that hard drinking and partying he had been doing is both a cry for help and also a possible way to slowly kill himself.

Not helping matters is Zoro telling him yesterday, “If anything happens, leak out the songs.” Why Zoro? Why did it have to come to this?!

He sighs and begins to upload the songs on every single digital platform. He also posted the songs and videos on his secret Twitter account and on Zoro's YouTube channel to help him promote the songs.

Almost immediately, the songs breaks the Internet as everyone mass downloads them and view them on YouTube to the point where Zoro gets the highest amount of views in his career. And the guy is only 15 years old now.

"Let us get him to number 1!!" a fan tweets online. Immediately the hashtag #FreeZoro starts trending online. All of Zoro's friends are happy to see this and they too join the movement. The rest of the industry joins in too.

*******************************************************

Hours later, Zoro finally wakes up in the hospital ward. “Ugh…” He still felt drowsy. “Zoro!!” Perona exclaims as she hugs her baby brother. His other siblings follow suit and hug him too.

The boy immediately breaks down in tears. “I….I’m so sorry…”

“No. This shit ain’t your fault. Mamma hurt you Zoro-kun, and we are gonna free you.” says Johnny, ruffling his brother’s hair. Kuina pats his head. “You will be fine.”

He nods, sniffing. “Dad filed a restraining order against your mother. He also filed for divorce.” His eyes widen in shock. “Really?!”

The others nodded. “Yeah he did. He also presented evidence to the court and asked for complete custody of you so as to protect you from that woman.” says Kuina.

Zoro was not surprised. His mother has been cheating on Mihawk for years and is a toxic person to be around. Now he understands why his father lost his sanity years ago and ended up in that asylum. That woman drove him mad and intends to do the same thing to her own son.

“What matters to me is Zoro’s safety and health. The doctor said that you passed out because you were extremely exhausted and malnourished” says Yosaku. “Which is why I brought food for you all!!” Zoro’s eyes light up once he sees his grandma and Mihawk. Yosaku gets up so that Mihawk can have his seat. Kuina and Perona help Grandma Roronoa dish out the food.

“You good kiddo?” he asks as he sits next to him. Zoro nods. “I have not been eating much and got zero sleep and zero social time.”

“That’s because your mother treated you like a damn slave and not the star that you truly are.” says Grandma. Zoro chuckles at this. He and his grandma were quite close when he was young.

“We are changing that. You are star yes but first and foremost, you are a kid.” says Mihawk. "And kids need a nice nourishing meal." says Grandma as he hands Zoro a bowl of rice balls. He grins. He used to eat these a lot when he was a kid.

"Thanks Grandma." He then begins to eat them. Happiness begins to fill him up as they are as tasty as he always remembered them. "Now I feel like a kid again." Everyone laughs.

It was at that moment that Zoro's friends arrive. "Marimo!!" Sanji yells as he rushes towards him and hugs him much to everyone's amusement. It is an open secret that Zoro and Sanji have a crush on each other.

"Hi Curly." Both of them knew each since they were kids. The fact that their nicknames are the very insults that they used to throw at each other as kids makes their relationship hilarious.

"You need to eat more and also rest." says the blonde. "He got a point dude because I warned you man." says Sukuna, shaking his head with a little smile on his face.

"Speaking of which, dude have a look." says Grimmjow who hands his phone over to him. Zoro looks at the activity of social media and his jaw drops. "OH MY GOD!!"

Everyone else takes a look and are shocked as well. "Let us capitalize on this." says Mihawk. "Thankfully, I asked the staff to pack up all of Zoro's stuff out of that damn house so that he moves in with me."

"Yes!!" says Perona. "We are also moving in with your guys too." says Kuina. Zoro grins. "Thanks Papa Hawk." Mihawk smiles and pats the boy on the head.

"See Zoro? You are sorted."

Meanwhile, Terra is in Milan chilling in her hotel room. She saw the hashtag but paid it no heed. She does not care about her son so long as she gets what she wants. Besides, the boy cannot access that money. Only she can. What do kids know anyway?

She scrolled and came across a song with Zoro's name attached to it called Are You Satisfied? She clicks on it and listens to it. He sang it in English and it was a pop rock track. She is horrified as that song is clearly referring to her.

Furious, she tries to call him. Regardless of how exhausted he is, he should pick up her calls. After all, she is his manager and mother. No response. "WHAT THE FUCK?!" She tries Mihawk and all of Zoro's step siblings. Also no response. She also tries the staff members and some of her friends. No response.

"THE FUCK IS THIS SHIT!!" She screams as she grabs a champagne bottle and throws it against the wall. "Okay. calm down. Calm down. Everything is gonna be okay. Must be pretty late right now. best try tomorrow.."

Both Zoro and Sanji qualify as the Britney for this verse, Zoro leans more towards the dark conservatorship aspect due to his mother's controlling and abusive nature and Sanji is more the looks department and both of them are amazing dancers and share similar styles. Though Zoro is a lot darker than Sanji.

[destinyc1020]

sorry destiny, i am huge tom fan believe me, but i agree with what the anon said, i understand that u can like a movie that others dont thats not what i am saying but out of the MCU and throw in uncharted, tom's acting skills aside because we both hes fantastic, his projects have been misses, in terms of overall quality, reviews & numbers, TDATT, CW, Cherry, TCR. yes u may have liked some of them but numbers were bad, in a sense they flopped. most of these projects he chose when he was still pretty young and green and the only project he chose post covid was i think TCR and it was amazing but people weren't patient and it was slow at first. and i think since then he has grown a lot more and u can tell, its obvious the way he views things and the way hes picking his projects are diff now so hopefully things go well for him in the future in terms of success outside popcorn movies.

I mean, we can all have different viewpoints on films or actors, and that's fine! 🤷🏾‍♀️ I don't think anyone doubts that Tom is talented.

I understand some fans haven't enjoyed his projects in the past several years. I know for me personally, I've enjoyed 90% of Tom's films....whether they were successes at the box office or NOT. Most of his work I didn't even see in theaters. I saw at home.

The only films of Tom that I've actually seen in theaters are The MCU films (of course), The Current War, The Impossible (before I even knew who Tom Holland was lol), Uncharted (of course lol), and Spies in Disguise! Everything else of his, I've seen at home.

RE: TCR....

I actually enjoyed TCR, but if I had one critique, I would say that Akiva took a little TOO long to get to the point and kind of treated us as viewers like we were too dumb to get the "twist". Most of us knew or got the twist w/in the first episode lol. He really could have spent more time focusing on other things imo. Don't get me wrong, I actually think Akiva had a very ingenious, sympathetic, and creative way of showing what's actually going on when someone suffers from DID (and why they may end up having it), and it was done in a way I'd personally never seen done onscreen before. But I just feel like he should have given us as the audience a little more credit. We could have known from the very beginning that he suffered from DID, but maybe not know who exactly his alters actually were. There were many things that could have been done differently. And I think some of the critics purposely gave TCR LOW reviews to spite Akiva, because apparently he didn't even want DID or "multiple personalities" to be written in any of the early reviews coming out for the series, in order to preserve the "twist". But umm.... Everyone saw it coming a mile away bro lol 😅

So...I really think his tactic of trying to keep the audience in the dark felt a bit laborious after a while, and it's like, "WE GET IT man... we've already figured it out!" We didn't need several episodes prolonging things. But hey, I still enjoyed TCR Summer last year lol, and it was very enjoyable to watch Tom in a series (for a change) every single week! 😊

[anhed-nia]

I finally watched ISHTAR because Criterion was perverse enough to put it on their Channel, and I suspected I might feel this way but now I really believe that both the people who claim it's The Worst Movie of All Time, and the people who say it's a treasure only geniuses understand, are both exaggerating just to mess with each other. It's surprisingly entertaining for about a half hour or something, then it runs out of gas just like many other things that hinge on the idea of being trapped in the desert forever. It's also racist in kind of a dull way, and speaking of racism it is affected by that principle...is there a name for this? that's like, "If you 'jokingly' make racist comments often enough, it stops being a joke and you're just being racist." In the case of ISHTAR the problem is that most of the jokes are about shitty entertainers, which is funny for a little while, but at a certain point you've just been subjected to so much shitty entertainment that it's no longer a joke, etc. Also I don't know whose idea it was to cast Isabelle Adjani in a comedy. It's like putting Klaus Kinski in AIRPLANE!...which maybe would be awesome, I dunno, but I would be scared to do a long unfunny gag where I'm constantly juggling Isabelle Adjani's tits, I'd be seriously afraid of what she might do to me. But anyway ISHTAR is not remarkable in the history of bad movies; it's really middling actually, and if it were made by unknowns you'd never have heard of it--it isn't like PLAN 9 FROM OUTER SPACE, which was perceived as so radically bad that it made unknowns into household names. The only obviously remarkable thing about ISHTAR is its proportion of star power to box office failure, and this is actually the entire point of the Golden Raspberry.

I think many of the people who don't like the Razzies just don't understand that they're not about punching down on underdogs who just wanted to make a nice movie, which is an extremely hard thing to do in any case. They're practically never about the ACTUAL worst movie made in a certain year, which will be something most people never even hear of; they're about movies that are startlingly bad in spite of the fact that you've heard of them anyway, due to the stars involved and the money machine behind them. The Razzies are about Hollywood and the Oscars. At best a Razzie award actually draws attention and controversy to movies that would otherwise be swept away by the sands of time. Razzies are also a helpful way to thumb our collective noses at movies that are made by people with way too much money and power, with way too little respect for the ticket-buying public. Sure, sometimes they're dead wrong, or even mean, like I don't know if *a child* should really be nominated for a Razzie...however, at the same time, I have to admit that I found that really funny. I mean I acknowledge the problem, that a child usually does not have a well-enough developed sense of irony to participate in its own roast the way Halle Berry did with her CATWOMAN "win". But the Razzies should be a playful attack on how precious the mainstream film industry is about itself, and the more precious something is, the more vulnerable it should be to criticism.

[Incidentally I just watched The Year of the Rabbit and while it's far from my favorite Matt Berry show, I think it might be the first thing to just mercilessly roast the Elephant Man--one of the few things most of humanity has been squeamish enough to lay off of. I'd like to think that Joseph Merrick is looking down from heaven or wherever thinking, Yes, FINALLY someone is doing jokes about me! It's about time for people to lighten the fuck up already, I wanna have fun too!]

Anyway, whatever side of history you're on re: ISHTAR, the best thing about it is probably this piece of trivia about Gary Larson, which bears repeating. Apparently there's a documentary about this movie from not too long ago, I should check it out.

[fruitsofhell]

I'd like to add to the "Why did Cinderella marry someone she just met" because it speaks to a lot for what I love about the film and dislike about Disney movie criticism.

Throughout the film Cinderella is established to be a very romantic character, which can be easy to take for granted with how ingrained in us that is for a Disney Princess, but in the context of the film, it is a properly established trait. (Along with her kindness as defiance, which is another aspect taken for granted).

The ball is this one night in nearly her whole life where she'll see anything but the dusty corners of her house, and you can tell just how much it means to her by how she reacts to it in the lead up. To her gladly accepting an obvious trick from her step-mother at the opportunity, to her failing to convince herself that she'll be fine missing it, her once again naive joy at the mice's dress, and her despair when it's destroyed.

When she arrives literally by magic she is utterly star-struck; she literally just wanders around the castle bright-eyed not even with any objective. Then, from out of the blue, this incredibly handsome figure appears and whisks her away to dance in the spotlight as a gentle waltz plays, they then walk through a lush moonlit garden under the stars, yadda yadda - it's that Disney magic.

But what I'm getting at here, is that that Disney magic is diegetic, Disney artists have written and drawn that charm into this films TO SERVE THE NARRATIVE, not just because they're Disney and there must be sparkles and music. Cinderella feels those sparkles and music after a life of nothing but hay, and laundry, and brooms, and it's instantly a life-changing experience to her that culminated in dancing with that beautiful man.

The day after when she's reacting to the news of the Prince's search with her step-sisters there's this great shot where they're scrambling to throw their laundry at her, and she is just standing their in an absolute dreamy daze, thinking about how she had danced with a Prince who was now doing anything to find her. So dazed, in fact, it becomes her downfall as she then neglects her duties to merrily hum and dance away to prepare for him, setting off Lady Tremaine.

The film very much does everything in its power to make the fairytale make sense in a feature length film context, and this includes rather strong characterization of Cinderella and why she would follow in fairytale logic. It's still because she is a fairytale character, but as a more grounded actor than a damsel in a 5 page story, she manages to bring that magic with her mixed with a fleshed out bittersweet naivete that the film wants you to understand the power of. How important it is to dream and imagine a better life for yourself in face of everything, the importance of not letting abuse turn you cruel and spiteful to others (specifically those she has power over such as the animals of the house, the film is fine with her anger towards those who abuse her), and how spreading kindness will be rewarded. Very basic nice things like that, but executed beautifully and magically.

I feel as though a reason why some of this characterization is lost on people - besides cynicism - is due to the animation of the film, and how heavily rotoscoped Cinderella is in body and face. Rotoscoping can help make a character feel realistic, but if it's too juxtaposed with cartoonier figures (like the step-sisters, the King, the Duke, even Tremaine a bit) that acting instead become stiff in comparison. I won't go into that theory, but it did take me 3 watches and hyper-awareness of that to notice many of the characterization details I did.

After watching Cinderella (the original animated movie, which was my favorite as a child), it strikes me how it solves many common problems people have with this fairy tale. Like:

Why did they try to identify the mystery girl using her shoe size? Because the bullheaded king's only clue to her identity was the shoe the Grand Duke picked up off the steps.

Why didn't the prince recognize her by her face? Because his father wouldn't involve him in the process at all, and wasn't the one going around trying to find her.

Why did the prince want to marry a lady he only met that night? Because his father was going to force him to marry someone, and he genuinely liked this woman.

Why did Cinderella want to marry a man she only met that night? Because marriage was her best and most secure way to freedom. Fucked up, but you can't say it's unrealistic for the setting of a fairy tale. She also genuinely liked him.

If they're using the slipper to find her, wouldn't it be more sensible to search for the person with the other slipper? Yes. The King is purposefully nonsensical and the Duke is purposefully terrified enough of him to carry out his orders to the letter. Furthermore, they end up doing that in the end anyway, because the Duke's glass slipper is shattered, and Cinderella brings out the one she has to prove her identity.

Why didn't the stepmother and stepsisters recognize Cinderella at the ball? Because they were dancing too far away, and then left the party to dance in private, which was possible because the King wanted very badly for his son to hit it off with someone and tried to arrange the best conditions for that to happen.

Why didn't Cinderella save herself? Because in real life, abuse victims should not have to shoulder that responsibility, and usually can't. In real life, you need and deserve an external support system. Asking for help, in this kind of situation, is very important. She is saved by others because she is loved. Because she is not alone. Because she has friends who love her, and want her to be happy and safe and free. Because in real life, people who want to help someone who is suffering are like the mice. We can't pull out miracle solutions, but we can provide companionship and if we're in the right place at the right time, we can help the person find a better life.

Why didn't the fairy godmother save Cinderella from her abusive household, or try to help her sooner? Because she's magic, and magic can't solve your problems. Quote: "Like all dreams, well, I'm afraid it can't last forever." This (and Cinderella's dream of going to the ball) is a metaphor for pleasurable things in bad circumstances. An ice cream won't get rid of your depression, but it will provide you with momentary happiness to bolster you, as well as the reminder that happiness in general is still possible for you. Cinderella doesn't want to go to the ball so she can get away from her stepmother and stepsisters, or so she can meet someone to marry and leave with. She wants to go to the ball to remind herself that she can still have things she wants. That her desires matter. This is important because the movie does a very good job of illustrating Lady Tremaine's subtle abuse tactics, all of which invisibly press the message that Cinderella doesn't matter. While going to the ball and fulfilling her dreams may not be a victory in the material sense, it is still a victory against Lady Tremaine's efforts.

Why is Cinderella's choice to be kind and obedient framed as a good thing, when you are not obligated to be kind to your abuser? This one walks a very fine line, but I think the movie still makes it make sense. Lady Tremaine never acknowledges her cruelty. She always frames her punishments of Cinderella as Cinderella's fault. Cinderella is interrupting, Cinderella is shirking her duties, Cinderella is playing vicious practical jokes. Cinderella is still a member of the family, of course she can go to the ball, provided she meet these impossible conditions. Lady Tremaine's tactics are designed to make Cinderella feel like she must always be in the wrong and her stepmother must always be in the right. If Cinderella calls her stepmother out on her cruelty, or attempts to fight back, Lady Tremaine can frame that as Cinderella being ungrateful, cruel, broken, evil, etc. If Cinderella responds to her stepmother's cruelty defiantly (in the way she's justified to), she's not taking control out of Lady Tremaine's hands. Disobedience can be spun back into her stepmother's control. She wants Cinderella to be angry and sad and show how much she's hurting. So since Cinderella is adapting to her situation, she chooses to be kind. Not only because she naturally wants to be and it's part of her personality, but because it is a form of defiance in its own way, and it allows her to keep a reminder of her agency and value. Her choice to be kind is her chance to keep her own narrative alive: she is not obeying because her stepmother wants her to and she has to do what her stepmother does, but because she wants to. It's a small distinction, but one that makes all the difference in terms of keeping her hope and identity. (Fuck, I wrote a whole paragraph about how this doesn't mean you can't be angry at people who hurt you or that you need to be kind to deserve help, and then deleted it by accident. Uh. Try again.) Expressing anger and pain is an important part of regaining autonomy and healing. Although it is commendable to be kind while you are suffering, it is NOT required for you to get help or be worthy of help. If Cinderella's recovery was explored beyond "happily ever after" she would need to let herself be angry and sad to heal. Cinderella is not only kind because it comes naturally to her, but because it's her defense against the abuse she's suffering. Everyone's story and experiences are different, and one does not invalidate the other.

Bonus round for answers that aren't part of the movie:

Why didn't Cinderella run away? Where would she go? Genuinely, in hundreds-of-years-ago France, where would she go if she snuck out of the window with a change of clothes? With her step-family, she's miserable and abused, but she's fed, clothed, and in no danger of dying or being taken advantage of by anyone other than her stepmother and stepsisters. Even if she escapes and manages to find financial security, her stepmother might be able to find her and get her back.

Why didn't Cinderella burn the house down with them inside it/slit their throats in the night/poison their food/etc.? Because that's a revenge fantasy, and this story is a fantasy about being saved. There's nothing wrong with making Cinderella into a revenge fantasy. That's perfectly fine, as long as you acknowledge that the other type of fantasy is also a valid interpretation. (I mean, the original fairy tale features the stepsisters getting their feet mutilated and all three of them getting their eyes pecked out, so go for it.)

Why isn't Cinderella more proactive in general? Because she's a child who has been abused for the back half of her life, who has had to be focused on survival because. you know. she's an abused kid.

How did she dance in glass slippers? Gotta agree with you there man, that's weird.

[demoreelrewound]

Donnie DuPré

I almost let something hurtful from my past consume me. I'm done doing that.

Canon traits: ambitious, demanding, passionate, charismatic, stubborn, workaholic, secretive, prone to sarcasm and snideness when annoyed. He wishes to bring Hollywood down for how it treated his mother and him, using his amateur films to do so.

A bisexual man with a strained and distant marriage.

Canon backstory:

Donnie was born as Jimmy Boyd. The son of Elissa Huffman, star of Blue Patches, he was a child actor infamous for his poor performances. During the filming of Jingle Sells, he lost his mother to suicide after years of mistreatment as an aging actress in Hollywood, as well as her declining mental health. During the remainder of the shoot he was looked after by Arnold Schwarzenegger but beyond that his caretakers are unknown.

He disappeared from the public eye and changed his name to Donnie DuPré, after which he married a woman who earned much more money than him. While he is able to live off of her and not work to fund his film-making passion, she is very distant from him in the present and even arranged a pre-nup stipulating that he wasn't to visit either his or her family for holidays.

At some point in his life, he was violently raped and similar depictions in film are intense for him. His coping mechanism with this, as with his other trauma, is to use dark/snide humour and minimisation of the events and emotions to keep his true feelings hidden from others. Only in vulnerable moments does the bubbling anger and frustration surface.

My ideas:

As mentioned in my post on little and big changes, Elissa Huffman -> Alice Harper. But also, to make the Jake Lloyd parallels less blatant and help do the same generalised parable, Jimmy Boyd -> Timmy Blair and the films will be slightly more generalised.

The sci-fi epic might be some sort of homage to Jules Verne, Weird Tales, and old silent films with elaborate cut-out sets á la Georges Mélies. It was a production tied together with string and a wish that Donnie was and still sort of is attached to due to its sheer ambition and ingenuity. It inspired his interest in the craft but its failure intimidated him from such an original project. He played the wise-beyond-his-years prince of an alien planet and was directed to remain perfectly calm with every line. As a six-year-old, this was understandably hard.

(I haven't thought nearly as much about the Christmas movie replacement, only that it not be nearly as close to Jingle All The Way as Jingle Sells is.)

After his mother's death, he was pushed into the arms of his bio father, fellow actor and producer Will Blair. This was mainly to avoid the scandal of "abandoning" Timmy and Will didn't care that much about him so long as he stayed out of the way and had good grades. This neglect left him to fend for himself emotionally and try his hardest to be seen and appreciated in the patchy minor roles and school. (I am somewhat influenced here by the HPD Donnie headcanon, though I'm not sure who was the first to come up with it.)

He began acting out in his teenage years, attracting bad press like many former child stars did. Reckless driving, risky situations with people who should have known better. (As it's never said when the Dragon Tattoo incident occurred, it could be placed here and act as a catalyst for self-destruction. In which case, poor young Donnie!)

This all culminated in an accident that left him in the hospital in critical condition. It was then that he was basically disowned by Will, and Donnie DuPré was born. He used his trust fund to finance a false death verdict and made it out of the state with the help of his future father-in-law, Hank Simmons.

He starts out with more positive intentions, wishing to make them better in his eyes. But as the low view counts and negative words build, his directing and writing become more spiteful in tone, characters more mean. Due to his default self-referential/deprecating humour style however, it isn't as apparent at first.

That's all I have for now, ideas or questions or critique welcome!

[90363462]

On ‘Saturday Night Live,’ Dave Chappelle Mocks Kanye and Kyrie

In his monologue, the comic channeled antisemitic myths as he ridiculed Kanye West and Kyrie Irving.

When Dave Chappelle has previously hosted “Saturday Night Live,” his primary role has been to help the audience find humor in recent news events. This time, he was the news event.

But while Chappelle used his standup monologue this weekend to comment on a wide range of topics, including recent antisemitic remarks from Kanye West, the midterm elections and the persistence of former President Trump, he did not directly address the fallout from his 2021 Netflix special “The Closer,” which was criticized as sexist, homophobic and transphobic.

Taking the stage at “S.N.L.” as the house band played “Try a Little Tenderness,” Chappelle told the audience that he would begin by delivering a prepared statement. “I denounce antisemitism in all its forms, and I stand with my friends in the Jewish community,” he said, reading from the statement. He then looked up and added, “And that, Kanye, is how you buy yourself some time.”

In his usual fashion, Chappelle mocked West, now known as Ye, while performatively pushing boundaries of propriety and channeling some of the myths that underpin enduring antisemitic stereotypes.

From early in his career, Chappelle said, “I learned that there are two words in the English language that you should never say together in sequence. And those words are ‘the’ and ‘Jews.’”

He later said in the monologue that he had been to Hollywood and, based on his own travels, “It’s a lot of Jews. Like, a lot. But that doesn’t mean anything. There’s a lot of Black people in Ferguson, Mo. That doesn’t mean they run the place.”

The tradition of Chappelle’s postelection appearances started in 2016, when he hosted the “S.N.L.” broadcast that followed Donald J. Trump’s surprise presidential victory. On that show, Chappelle delivered an 11-minute stand-up monologue in which he reacted to the news (“America’s done it: We’ve actually elected an internet troll as our president”) and shared an anecdote about attending a White House party hosted by President Obama with a predominantly Black guest list.

“I’m wishing Donald Trump luck,” Chappelle said at its conclusion, “and I’m going to give him a chance. And we, the historically disenfranchised, demand that he give us one too.”

Four years later, Chappelle returned to host the “S.N.L.” episode that aired just hours after several news organizations had called the 2020 election in favor of President Biden. In that monologue, which ran about 16 minutes, the comedian called it “an incredible day” and, after observing that many white Americans feel pain and anguish that go unacknowledged, said that he could relate and urged a spirit of healing.

Sign up for the Watching newsletter, for Times subscribers only.  Streaming TV and movie recommendations from critic Margaret Lyons and friends.

“You’ve got a find a way to live your life,” he said. “You’ve got to find a way to forgive each other. You’ve got to find a way to find joy in your existence in spite of that feeling.”

The following year, Chappelle performed “The Closer,” in which he asked to address “the LBGTQ community directly,” adding, “I want every member of that community to know that I come here in peace.”

In the routine, Chappelle went on to speak in support of celebrities like the rapper DaBaby, who had made homophobic remarks, and the author J.K. Rowling, who had been criticized as transphobic. “I’m team TERF,” Chappelle said in the routine. “I agree, man. Gender is a fact.” He also talked about his friendship with Daphne Dorman, a transgender comedian who died by suicide.

“The Closer” drew condemnation from some critics. Netflix employees walked out of the company’s offices and participated in a protest with other activists who said Chappelle was endangering transgender people. Netflix said it could have better handled the internal debate over “The Closer” but did not remove or edit the special, which was nominated for two Emmy Awards.

The announcement that Chappelle was returning to “S.N.L.” itself elicited some derision. Terra Field, a former software engineer at Netflix who is transgender, and who had said that Chappelle’s material marginalized the trans community, wrote in a sarcastic Twitter post: “Wait I thought I cancelled him. Is it possible cancel culture isn’t a real thing??”

The New York Post reported that some writers at “S.N.L.” would not participate in this episode, though a representative for Chappelle said in the same report that no signs of a boycott were evident.

But Chappelle did not take up these topics in this weekend’s monologue, which instead was largely focused on Ye and Kyrie Irving, the N.B.A. star who was suspended from the Nets for promoting an antisemitic movie on Twitter. (Chappelle said that Irving “was nowhere near the Holocaust — in fact, he’s not even certain it existed.”)

He also joked about Herschel Walker, the Republican Senate nominee, whom Chappelle called “observably stupid” and described as “the kind of guy that looks like he thinks before he makes a move on Tic-Tac-Toe.”

And Chappelle revisited Trump, needling the former president over the seizure of thousands of government documents from his private Florida club. Chappelle explained that he sometimes stole things from past jobs where he’d been fired,: “Staplers, computer mouses, all kinds of stuff. But you know what I never stole from work? Work.”

Only at the end of his monologue did Chappelle seem to comment on his own circumstances. Looking again at how Ye had been punished, Chappelle remarked, “My first Netflix special, what did I say? I said, I don’t want a sneaker deal. Because the minute I say something that makes those people mad, they’re going to take my sneakers away.”

Chappelle ended by saying: “It shouldn’t be this scary to talk about anything. It’s made my job incredibly difficult and to be honest with you, I’m getting sick of talking to a crowd like this. I love you to death and I thank you for your support and I hope they don’t take anything away from me. Whoever they are.”

Opening sketch of the week

Hours after it was reported that the Democrats will retain control of the Senate, “S.N.L.” was on the air with this sketch imagining the deflated hosts of “Fox & Friends” (played by Mikey Day, Heidi Gardner and Bowen Yang) reacting to the absence of a red wave in the midterms.

Cecily Strong returned as Kari Lake, the Republican nominee for Arizona governor, who vowed she wouldn’t “stop fighting until every vote is counted and then some votes are taken away.” The Fox hosts also awkwardly attempted to cut ties with former President Trump (James Austin Johnson), who pleaded for airtime while he called in from his daughter Tiffany’s wedding.

“What did I do?” he asked. “Was it the insurrection?”

‘House of the Dragon’ parody of the week

The HBO drama “House of the Dragon”ended its first season a few weeks ago, but if you find yourself missing its unique blend of cutthroat palace intrigue and incestuous romance, “S.N.L.” has this filmed segment to tide you over.

It’s mostly an excuse for Chappelle to revive some of his “Chappelle’s Show” characters (alongside cameos from Donnell Rawlings and Ice-T) and imagine how they might fit into this big-budget fantasy series. True devotees also get the sight of Johnson as an especially decrepit King Viserys, which may or may not be a bonus.

Weekend Update jokes of the week

Over on the Weekend Update desk, Colin Jost and Michael Che riffed on the midterm results.

Jost began:

Democrats have retained control of the Senate. I don’t know if that’s really official but we’re not a real news program so I’m just going to call it. I was actually surprised they won, given President Biden’s low approval ratings. I guess Biden’s kind of like the “Jurassic World” movies — extremely successful, despite a 42 percent rating. Republicans, by the way, are not taking it well. Tucker Carlson, seen here struggling to make it through No-Nut November, criticized the voting process and called electronic voting machines a threat to democracy. I’m actually not that worried about the voting machines. I’m worried that they’re being operated by the oldest people I’ve ever seen. Truly, this year, the woman who gave me my ballot was wearing two stickers. One that said, “I voted.” And another that said, “I survived the Titanic.”

Che continued:

The key Senate race in Georgia between Raphael Warnock and Herschel Walker will move onto a runoff in December. But Walker has offered Warnock $500 to just, you know, take care of it, baby. Many Black voters in Georgia were frustrated with another runoff election, because the burden of saving the Senate fell on them once again. This happens so often, there’s already a movie about it [his screen showed a mocked-up poster for “Tyler Perry’s Madea Saves the Senate”].

[evco-productions]

Revisiting “Sahara” (2005) (Repost from Quora)

Today, I want to talk about the 2005 action-adventure movie Sahara. If you haven’t heard of it, it’s based on a novel by Clive Cussler, and it’s from a series following this suave explorer guy named Dirk Pitt, which totally sounds like a real person’s name.

I’ve never read the book, but I once heard it described as an “airport novel,” meaning it’s a book you might pick up at the airport for seven bucks, read on your flight, be casually entertained, and then forget about. And I remembered that and thought to myself, “Wait a minute, that’s exactly the kind of movie I want to champion on this blog.”

Honestly, at this point, there’s not many movies I think I’ve seen more times than Sahara. Not even because I set out to rewatch it so many times, it’s just the go-to lazy Saturday afternoon movie for me when I can’t find anything else I feel like watching.

What makes this movie the kind of movie Just Admit It was made for? Well, what doesn’t? Its budget was 130 million dollars, but it only made 119 million dollars worldwide. Very few professional critics had anything good to say about it. But in spite of all that…it’s good.

The main stars are Matthew McConaughey, Steve Zahn, and Penelope Cruz. Some good character actors also have supporting roles—Rainn Wilson, Delroy Lindo, William H. Macy. But it’s McConaughey and Zahn that bring this home. Their chemistry is great. I listen to them banter and I think, “I totally buy that these guys have been friends for most of their lives.”

And I’m sure you’re thinking, “Well, McConaughey’s obviously a great actor, and I don’t watch as many movies as EvCo Productions does, but I’m sure this Steve Zahn fella has good comedic timing. So, what’s the big deal?”

Well, that kinda leads me into the major point I want to make with this movie. I have this theory that the only people who care about things like cinematography are the filmmakers themselves and cinephiles. And I’m sure you’re thinking “Well, yeah, duh,” but really think about that for a second.

There’s so many hundreds of people who want to dissect movies and go “Oh, this shot was so masterful because yada-yada-yada,” but you know what? The average audience member doesn’t think like that. All they want is to be entertained. Now obviously, you have to have at least acceptable writing and cinematography to be entertained, but at the end of the day, what does your average audience member connect with?

Two things: one, actors. People love actors. They love seeing familiar faces, they love faces that emote well. Human beings are largely sympathetic creatures. If an actor is good at their job, we will watch a movie that we otherwise wouldn’t watch.

Two, soundtracks. Nothing connects with the human soul like music. This is a technique every movie uses; the music in any given scene is meant to help bring out a certain reaction in the audience. However, a lot of movies turn this technique into a trick. If you put into your movie an instantly familiar or at least a very likable song, that song has the potential to win the audience over for the rest of the movie. There’s a reason the Guardians of the Galaxy soundtrack is ten times more popular than the actual movie. This trick works. And even though it is a trick, that doesn’t necessarily mean it’s a bad trick. Some movies totally overuse it (*cough* Suicide Squad *cough*) but in the right dosage, I think it’s a reasonable method.

The point is, Sahara has both of these things. It’s got great actors and great music. These are the things that elevate it, that make it enjoyable and for me, memorable. The actors and music choices are so good, in fact, that I can enjoy this movie even though there are a couple of really bad editing choices. Like there’s this one part where Steve Zahn’s character is getting shot at by this guy, and he hits the deck, and then it just cuts to the shooter going, “Where’d he go?” and Steve Zahn just apparates behind him and takes him out. How did he do that?!

But then for every dumb part like that there’s a part that has the makings of an iconic action-adventure sequence like the “We need to pull a Panama!” scene.

In a lot of ways, Sahara really stands for what I believe movies were meant to be all about. It’s this big treasure hunt adventure with a bad guy who has an evil lair made out of solar panels and they blow up a helicopter with a 200-year-old cannonball. Does it make sense when you take the time to think about it, no, but so what? Whoever said movies have to be realistic was wrong. Realism isn’t fun, this movie is fun.

Needless to say, I rate Sahara a W for Watch, and if you haven’t seen it, I recommend it. See you next time.

[ultraericthered]

OK. With all that said....

you do need to understand the movie itself was not good

And the movie was not bad either. It's a middle-of-the-road kind of flick where you have to decide for yourself whether you found it good or bad, or if you enjoyed it in spite of whatever its quality is. Sure, you weren't a fan, but you cannot say it was objectively entirely bad.

We only got a glimpse into the backstory of the king, which wasn’t enough

How little or much we got out of Magnifico's backstory really wasn't that big an issue, as Disney villain backstories tend to not matter stacked against their villainous goals and deeds that drive the plot in the present day, and their evil characteristics that make them so fun to watch. The Magnifico folly is that we needed just enough out of the backstory to establish a proper motivation for his character and the decisions he made that led to him corrupting himself with the tome of forbidden magic and going mad with the power it gave him. In the finished film, such motivation feels really unclear because they sped by the backstory exposition the way they did. Pacing matters.

If you turned your brain off and watched the movie then it would be better I suppose

but for what was meant to be the pinnacle of Disney’s career, their stories and animation and movies, it fell so flat.

I don't think I ever heard the movie described as such. You could say it's a culmanative work of 100 years of animated stories (that are frequently musical), but not "the pinnacle of Disney". Disney wasn't even doing movies when they started out 100 years ago, so in that respect Once Upon A Studio is far more the tribute to its history and career than a random throwback movie that came out a bit after it.

The king was shoehorned into being the villain, the reveal felt too rushed and far too soon, and it felt like he was jumping too far to conclusions when he didn’t even know what the mysterious light was or if it truly was a threat.

See what I said about the need for motivation establishment, but I don't see how he was "shoehorned into being the villain" when he was set up as the bad guy from the start. That's like arguing Gaston got "shoehorned into being the villain" because he was just some vain, boorish, misogynistic jerk at the start rather than a true evildoer.

The way they did it you can’t tell if that was the case or if he was just unhinged in the beginning

It was very clear that he was not unhinged in the beginning. His early scenes made it a point to show him as an well-meaning, easygoing, charming guy who at least makes an effort to think with rationality, deliberately to contrast with what he'd decline into becoming later.

We know that she cares, but why? Because she was brought up to believe in the king? Her father whom she lost taught her to care and be good? She’s just nice? It’s all too vague

This is a silly criticism. Asha is far from the best realized character, but she is the heroine in a simple fairy tale, and many of that type tend to be Good Guys Just Because. Snow White is "the fairest of them all" because she just is, etc. Not everything is all that deep.

The care and love put into Wish just doesn’t seem to be there, which is saddening.

Your Mileage May Vary. Some viewers found a lot of love, care, and heart put into the movie by the people who actually worked on it. It's the corporate mandates and post-production slapdash editing that is really to blame for turning out a lesser product than was wished for.

Wished for. See what I just did there?

with all the negativity Disney's wish has received lately it genuinely feels like people are just looking to hate one something. Disney gets critiqued for not making original stories. So They make a princess fairytale movie. Disney gets critiqued for not having evil Disney villains. They give it an evil Disney villain. Disney gets critiqued for having overcomplicated plots. They make a sweet little movie about wishing on stars. But then it's "too safe" the villains evilness is "forced" and the movie is "self indulgent" for all its references even tho it's literally Disney's 100th anniversary movie.

Do y'all just not know how to enjoy things like a classic Disney fairytale movie without only seeing what you'd rather it be? Wish was a fun, sweet, cute little movie but because it's not the greatest film they've ever made it's a "disappointment"? Idk it feels like Wish is being held to a way higher standard then all of their other films from the last 5 years and after seeing the film I just don't see what's got y'all this upset.

[shihalyfie]

Regarding Konaka’s influence on Tamers (or how much he actually didn’t have)

(Rest assured that if you’ve had a conversation with me recently about this issue, I’m not vaguing you; this conversation has come up a lot in the last few weeks, especially in my private chats, so this is just me deciding that I should write something about this for once since it’s been weighing on my head lately.)

I think, right now, with what happened regarding the DigiFes debacle, a lot of people are having complicated feelings about how to feel about Tamers, and this is completely understandable. I think there are also some things that may be inevitably unavoidable, such as starting to second-guess certain nuances in the series and what they might lead to. All of that is perfectly reasonable, and in the end, it’s going to be up to everyone to decide how they feel.

In light of this, a lot of people have been bringing up the fact that, while Konaka was the head writer, he was by no means the only person working on it. This is very much true, but I’d like to add something else to the equation: this is an issue that goes much deeper than the usual claiming death of the author for the sake of sanity. The full picture is that Konaka has always had much less influence on the series than the fanbase tends to attribute to him. Official statements have been very clear as to not attribute the entire series to him, and, among all the other controversial statements he’s made, Konaka himself has at least been very active about crediting the other staff members as far as their influence on the series! The idea that he was the only person who ever did anything substantial for Tamers is something I’ve been warning against since long before any of this happened (if you want proof, I have a post from April with this sentiment in it), and right now we just happen to be seeing what’s basically the worst possible outcome of the fanbase constantly worshipping him like the only real creative heart behind the series to borderline cult-like levels...when that’s never been true, and has resulted in unfairly taking credit away from people who deserved it.

I’ll go into detail below, and I hope this can help people understand the situation better and sort out how they feel about it.

Note that I make references to his infamous blog in this post, which I’m deliberately refraining from directly linking for obvious reasons, but all of the information is still there, so it should be verifiable if you decide to look for it yourself.

Personally, I’ve always found it really bizarre how there’s been this obsession with portraying Konaka as some kind of auteur whom the entirety of Tamers depended on. I’m not saying this out of spite towards him, because, again, even he himself was very insistent on disclaiming credit for things he wasn’t actually responsible for (he was quite humble in this respect, actually). Not to mention that I think it’s a mistake in general to constantly pin a single person in a multi-person production as the sole heart behind it, and the Digimon fanbase has historically had this strange double standard behind it when it comes to uplifting him as the only heart behind Tamers when nobody says that about any of the head writers for...anything else. (How many times has Nishizono’s name ever popped up when talking about Adventure? People are usually more obsessed with talking about Kakudou or Seki.) Konaka’s work is certainly distinctive, but Tamers had a lot more going on besides just that.

In fact, based on his own statements on the matter and all of the other official information we’ve gotten about Tamers production, while you can’t really quantify such things, it’s generally been estimated that Konaka was responsible for something like only a fourth of the series. Which is an incredibly low amount compared to what the fanbase would have told you before all of this happened, because of this fixation that he must be the genius mastermind behind the whole series. Not only that, this “brilliant auteur” image of him was so inflated that people were attributing way more of 02 to him than he deserved; 02 episode 13 was the only thing he contributed to the series and he was specifically brought on as a “guest writer”, and the overall plot of the episode was determined by the rest of the production staff and not him -- but ask the fanbase and they’ll tell you stories about how he invented some grand planned arc for 02 that got cancelled, or even that Tamers exists because of a “writer revolt” from him and other writers not being allowed to do what they wanted. (You know, as much as I understand 02′s a controversial series, it would be really nice if people didn’t make up completely baseless stories like this just to scapegoat it...)

I honestly cannot emphasize enough how much of the problem we’re in right now has been horribly enabled by the weird pedestal the fanbase has been putting him on. This is to the point where there’s even been a double standard where some of the more unpopular/criticized elements of Tamers must not have been the fault of a brilliant writer like him, and in fact was forced on him by the executives (this excuse had always been brought up anytime someone doesn’t like something about Tamers, just to make sure the image of him as a perfect writer was maintained). Turns out, as per his own admission on the infamous blog, while he wasn’t the one who initially had the idea of putting Ryou in, the part that rubbed the fanbase the wrong way -- that he came in as an accomplished senior who was better than everyone and played up by everyone in the cast -- was unabashedly his idea (he apparently was enamored with the idea of having someone like Tuttle from the movie Brazil). Again, this is a weird scenario where even Konaka himself has been more humble about this issue than the fanbase’s perception of him; he fully admitted whenever he had trouble writing certain parts. For instance, he doesn’t actually like writing about alternate worlds, felt they were out of his comfort zone, and only wrote in the Digital World because the franchise needs one; he’d stated that if he’d had his way, the Digital World arc wouldn’t have come in as early as it did, which might be a pretty shocking statement for a Digimon fan to hear.

If you want even more specifics, here are some extremely major parts of the series that Konaka was not actually the one behind:

The character backgrounds. Konaka stated on his blog that he wasn’t interested in going too much into character backstories because he felt it was too plot-limiting to say that a character is the way they are thanks to something in their past or background (basically, he cares more about plot than character for the most part), and that he’s also not into worldbuilding. Certain things like Ruki going to a girls��� school were supplied by Seki, who infamously loves worldbuilding, family backgrounds, and character settings.

Certain nuances of Ruki’s character, especially the part where she’s pigeonholed into uncomfortable places due to being a girl, were informed by Yoshimura Genki, writer from Adventure and one of the head writers of 02 (who eventually would go on to create an entire career out of feminist cinema).

According to the posts on his blog, Impmon’s character arc didn’t have much input from Konaka himself and was largely written in by Maekawa Atsushi (also a writer from Adventure and one of the head writers of 02).

The whole concept of Yamaki being redeemable in the first place was something Konaka didn’t originally plan for; he’d initially intended to make him a straightforward antagonist, but, of all things, his Christmas song, combined with the input of the other writers (especially Maekawa) humanizing him, led to the development where Yamaki eventually changed sides and became sympathetic. (This makes Konaka’s recent stunt revolving around Yamaki a bit painfully ironic.)

The director, Kaizawa Yukio, was deliberately picked because he didn’t have experience on the prior series, for the sake of changing things up, and he spent Tamers as a period of studying what Digimon should be like. Based on what he’s hinted, it seems Konaka's writing style and choices were able to have as much influence as they did because Kaizawa approved of them -- that is to say, Konaka’s detailed imagery and descriptions were extensive enough that Kaizawa could go “sure, let’s go with that.” But in the end, nothing Konaka did would have gone through unless Kaizawa and Seki (among many others) didn’t also approve of it or provide input. Moreover, Kakudou Hiroyuki (director of Adventure and 02) has also been stated many times to have been a valuable consultant on invoking Digimon so that the new staff could understand what to aim for and how to get the right feel (and also assisted with providing stuff for the mythos, such as the Devas). Nevertheless, Kaizawa also seems to have had his own strong opinions and input on the story; he especially seems to get passionate when it comes to the topic of making the story something the kids watching it could relate to and imagine. (He would eventually go on to direct Frontier and Hunters, along with several episodes of the Adventure: reboot.)

So in other words, looking at this, a lot of these things that people emotionally connected to and loved about Tamers are things that literally were not his personal creation, and were largely contributed by the other writers! Of course, Konaka’s “creator thumbprint” is very obvious -- he was the head writer, after all -- and all of this had to go through his own vetting to make sure he personally liked it as well -- but nevertheless, you can see that this very much was a collaborative effort from head to toe, with him being very open about this fact himself. Insisting on making sure that this fact is well-known isn’t just a coping mechanism to try and remove his presence in the series, but rather a desire to get people to seriously stop giving him credit that really should be going to others (especially since, again, even he himself was very diligent about assigning that credit).

In the end, I’ll leave you with another thing to keep in mind: Konaka doesn’t get paid anymore for Tamers work (unless they make something new like the DigiFes thing), so continuing to buy Tamers merch and supporting the series through fanart and such will probably end up going more towards the Digimon IP as a whole. Basically, if we’re just talking about Tamers specifically, what degree this is going to matter is only really relevant to the content in the original series, which is now twenty years old and remains unchanged. By Konaka’s own admission, he wasn’t into all of these conspiracy theories until 2010 at the earliest, so while it’s understandable to be a bit wary about the themes in Tamers having traces of the base sentiment, the original series itself does not seem to be an outlet for alt-right propaganda, and it’s probably forcing it a bit much to read into it that way. Konaka’s also repeatedly insisted that all of his attempts at a Tamers sequel have been rejected and that he’s been doing increasingly strange swerves to get around members of the original cast not entirely being available, and the Japanese audience has turned out to not be very fond of the contents of the 2018 drama CD and the stage reading for reasons entirely separate from the politics, so it’s also unlikely we’ll be getting a Tamers sequel from him or something in the near future.

So -- at least for the time being -- what’s done with him is done, and the remaining question is how all of us feel about Tamers. I think everyone will have differing feelings on it, and that’s perfectly understandable. Personally, given everything I just said above, I’m going to continue treating it as a series very important to me, and one that many people (including, as it seems, a very different Konaka from twenty years ago) worked on with a lot of effort and love, although you may see me getting a bit more willing to be critical about the series and its themes thanks to my concerns about some of the sentiments in it and what they imply. I also completely understand that there are probably people whose associations are going to be much more hurt and who will have a much harder time seeing the series the same way ever again, and I think that’s reasonable as well. But at the very least, going forward, I hope all of us can understand the depth of this situation, give credit where it’s due, and not force credit where it’s not due.

[calzona-ga]

In her unauthorized book, Lynette Rice explores the stories behind some of the ABC drama's biggest moments, including — in this exclusive excerpt — the factors that led to McDreamy's shocking death.

In How to Save a Life: The Inside Story of Grey’s Anatomy, author Lynette Rice recounts the ABC medical drama’s eventful 16-year history, revealing new details behind some of the show’s biggest departures. Included in the unauthorized, 320-page oral history (St. Martin’s Press, Sept. 21, $29.99) is a chapter that offers new insight into leading man Patrick Dempsey’s shocking exit in season 11 of the Shonda Rhimes-created drama. In the chapter, Rice speaks with Dempsey’s co-stars and exec producers who were present during filming of his final days on Grey’s Anatomy, and reveals claims of “HR issues” that contributed to the death of his alter-ego, Derek “McDreamy” Shepherd.

“There were HR issues. It wasn’t sexual in any way. He sort of was terrorizing the set. Some cast members had all sorts of PTSD with him,” recalls exec producer James D. Parriott, who was brought back to the series to oversee Dempsey’s exit.

In more than 80 interviews with current and former cast- and crewmembers, Rice, an editor-at-large at Entertainment Weekly, also explores the show’s early days, recounts the thinking behind some of its more polarizing storylines and offers exclusive details about the show’s behind-the-scenes culture.

“After 17 seasons, fans still can’t get enough of Grey’s Anatomy,” Rice tells THR. But what went down behind the scenes was just as dramatic as what viewers saw every Thursday. I’m excited for fans to read what I learned about those early days, along with what it was like to work for Shonda Rhimes, and why the drama was so freakin’ headline-prone.”

Below, The Hollywood Reporter shares an excerpt — the full eighth chapter — from How to Save a Life, and tune in Friday to TV’s Top 5 for an interview with Rice about her book and the other big reveals she uncovered in her reporting for it.

(Reps for ABC, ABC Signature, Shondaland, and Dempsey declined comment on the reveals in Rice’s book.)

“He’s Very Dreamy, but He’s Not the Sun,” Or, How Grey’s Anatomy Loved — Then Learned to Live Without — Patrick Dempsey Ellen Pompeo may have played the titular role, but for many fans over many years, Patrick Dempsey was the real draw to Grey’s Anatomy. Some of it had to do with his celebrity: Dempsey was the most famous member of the original cast at the time of the pilot and brought with him quite a cult following from his 1987 movie Can’t Buy Me Love. But a lot of it was due to the way Rhimes wrote her McDreamy and how Dempsey depicted him. James D. Parriott I would say, “The guy would never say that,” and Shonda would say, “He’s McDreamy. He’s the perfect man. He would say that.” I’d say, “Okay. It’s your show.” Eric Buchman Shonda had a very clear idea of how important it was to keep Derek as this almost idealized love interest, not just for Meredith but for the audience. Naturally, the writers—especially writers who had been working on one-hour dramas for a while—were like, “Well, maybe have McDreamy make a big mistake in surgery and kill somebody. Or he develops an addiction of some kind. What is his deep, dark secret?” Shonda was very insistent: that’s not the character we do that with. Even when you find out he’s married, that was done in a very sympathetic way that kept him being a hero. He was wronged by his spouse and in spite of it all he was still gonna give his marriage a second chance. Stacy McKee Shonda was protective of McDreamy, but it was really with an eye toward being protective of Meredith. I don’t think the two were separate from one another. I don’t think she wanted to put something out there that maybe on the surface might seem a little frivolous. At its core, there was something really substantial that she wanted to say. She wanted to be very specific about the type of relationship values that she put out there. Tony Phelan I was in editing with Shonda once, and it was the scene where Meredith and Derek had broken up. He comes over and she’s like, “I can’t remember the last time we kissed.” And he says, “I remember. You were wearing this and you smelled of this …”

Joan Rater “Your shampoo smelled like flowers, you had that sweater on …” He described their last kiss. Tony Phelan Typically in editing you start on Derek, then you cut to Meredith for a reaction, and then you’ll go back to him. I noticed that we weren’t ever cutting back to Meredith. I asked why. Shonda said, “Because the woman in Iowa who’s watching this show wants to believe that Patrick is talking to her, and if you cut back to Meredith, it pushes them out of it.” In those special moments, we would just lock into Derek and let him do his thing. Joan Rater And he was a master at it. Patrick Dempsey He’s the ideal man, and that’s what Shonda constructed. There’s a projection [of him] onto me when you come in contact with fans, certainly with the younger and older fans. There is a certain amount of expectation. There is a responsibility to it. It made me grow, too. There were good qualities [of his] that you work on to obtain. Off camera, Dempsey was equally as charismatic to his fellow actors, crew members, and anyone who would come to visit the set. Lauren Stamile I was going in to meet him, and I remember I had this little cardigan sweater on and I took it off before I got into the room. Dempsey is one of those people—it’s almost like there’s a light shining around his body, and you feel like you’re the only person in the room. I got so hot and I remember saying, “Gosh, I would take off my sweater if I had one on because I’m so hot, but I took it off.” I was just babbling. He said, “You look nice,” and I said, “You look nicer.” I felt so awkward and he was so gracious and lovely. I was having a nervous breakdown. It’s like this “it” factor. I was like, God, whatever he has, I wish I had. I think it was very obvious how nervous I was, and he went out of his way to make sure he introduced me to everybody and made sure I felt comfortable, which he certainly didn’t have to do. But he did. Joan Rater He knew I had a giant crush on him, and he loved it. And when we’d go to table reads—I was an actress at one point in my life—they would always give me Meredith if Ellen wasn’t there. And I’d be getting my chicken tenders at craft services before the table read and he’d come up behind me and say, “Are you reading Meredith?” in my ear, like, so sexy. I’d be like, Oh my God. I mean, I could barely … I could not look at him. Tina Majorino I worked with Patrick a ton. I love him so much. We had a really great time working together. I think he’s such a great actor and he really made me laugh a lot. I feel like we had a good dynamic in scenes together, and it was always fun to play opposite him. Yes, he’s that charismatic in real life. Yes, his hair is that awesome. Yes, he is dreamy up close.

Chandra Wilson Patrick Dempsey will forever be known as Grey’s Anatomy’s McDreamy. Derek Shepherd is a permanent part of television history.

Norman Leavitt He is a big, personable guy.

Jeannine Renshaw We all love Patrick. Patrick is a sweetheart. If I saw him on the street, I’d give him a hug. I love the guy.

Mark Wilding I’ve always had a soft spot for Patrick. He really does try to do the right thing. Brooke Smith, who played Dr. Erica Hahn, remembers how Dempsey defended her when the decision was made to fire her from the show in 2008. Brooke Smith I remember calling him and saying, “Oh my God, they said they can’t write for me anymore, so I guess I’m leaving.” And he was like, “What are you talking about? You’re the only one they’re writing for.” Which at that time, it kind of did feel that way. But I guess someone didn’t like that. They gave me a statement [to release, about her departure] and I never said it. Patrick said that he actually took it out of his jacket on The Ellen DeGeneres Show and read the statement. He won’t let me forget it. He was like, “I defended you, see?” And it was true.

By season eleven, however, fans saw a disturbing break in MerDer’s once unbreakable bond. Six episodes had gone by without a peep from Derek, who was supposedly in Washington, D.C., where he had apparently made out with a research fellow. Fans began threatening to bolt if their hero didn’t return soon to Seattle. “I have never missed one episode,” wrote a fan on Dempsey’s Facebook page. “But I swear if [Rhimes] kills you off I’m done.” But there was a critical reason for Derek’s strange absence: behind the scenes, there was talk of Dempsey’s diva-like fits and tension between him and Pompeo. To help manage the explosive situation, executive producer James D. Parriott was brought back in to serve as a veritable Dempsey whisperer.

Patrick Dempsey [That] was the first year that I haven’t been in every episode. I [was] in every episode since the pilot— close to 250 episodes. That [was a] huge run. James D. Parriott Shonda needed an OG to come in as sort of a showrunner for fourteen episodes. There were HR issues. It wasn’t sexual in any way. He sort of was terrorizing the set. Some cast members had all sorts of PTSD with him. He had this hold on the set where he knew he could stop production and scare people. The network and studio came down and we had sessions with them. I think he was just done with the show. He didn’t like the inconvenience of coming in every day and working. He and Shonda were at each other’s throats.

Jeannine Renshaw There were times where Ellen was frustrated with Patrick and she would get angry that he wasn’t working as much. She was very big on having things be fair. She just didn’t like that Patrick would complain that “I’m here too late” or “I’ve been here too long” when she had twice as many scenes in the episode as he did. When I brought it up to Patrick, I would say, “Look around you. These people have been here since six thirty a.m.” He would go, “Oh, yeah.” He would get it. It’s just that actors tend to see things from their own perspective. He’s like a kid. He’s so high energy and would go, “What’s happening next?” He literally goes out of his skin, sitting and waiting. He wants to be out driving his race car or doing something fun. He’s the kid in class who wants to go to recess.

Patrick Dempsey It’s ten months, fifteen hours a day. You never know your schedule, so your kid asks you, “What are you doing on Monday?” And you go, “I don’t know,” because I don’t know my schedule. Doing that for eleven years is challenging. But you have to be grateful, because you’re well compensated, so you can’t really complain because you don’t really have a right. You don’t have control over your schedule. So, you have to just be flexible.

Longtime Crew Member Poor Patrick. I’m not defending his schtick. I like him, but he was the Lone Ranger. All of these actresses were getting all this power. All the rogue actresses would go running to Shonda and say, “Hey, Patrick’s doing this. Patrick’s late for work. He’s a nightmare.” He was just shut out in the cold. His behavior wasn’t the greatest, but he had nowhere to go. He was so miserable. He had no one to talk to. When Sandra left, I remember him telling me, “I should’ve left then, but I stayed on because they showed me all this money. They just were dumping money on me.”

Patrick Dempsey It [was] hard to say no to that kind of money. How do you say no to that? It’s remarkable to be a working actor, and then on top of that to be on a show that’s visible. And then on top of that to be on a phenomenal show that’s known around the world, and play a character who is beloved around the world. It’s very heady. It [was] a lot to process, and not wanting to let that go, because you never know whether you will work again and have success again.

Jeannine Renshaw A lot of the complaining … I think Shonda finally witnessed it herself, and that was the final straw. Shonda had to say to the network, “If he doesn’t go, I go.” Nobody wanted him to leave, because he was the show. Him and Ellen. Patrick is a sweetheart. It messes you up, this business.

James D. Parriott I vaguely recall something like that, but I can’t be sure. It would have happened right toward the end, because I know they were negotiating and negotiating, trying to figure out what to do. We had three different scenarios that we actually had to break because we didn’t know until I think about three days before he came back to set which one we were going to go with. We didn’t know if he was going to be able to negotiate his way out of it. We had a whole story line where we were going to keep him in Washington, D.C., so we could separate him from the rest of the show. He would not have to work with Ellen again. Then we had the one where he comes back, doesn’t die, and we figure out what Derek’s relationship with Meredith would be. Then there was the one we did. It was kind of crazy. We didn’t know if he was going to be able to negotiate his way out of it. It was ultimately decided that just bringing him back was going to be too hard on the other actors. The studio just said it was going to be more trouble than it was worth and decided to move on.

Stacy McKee I don’t think there was any way to exit him without him dying. He and Meredith were such an incredibly bonded couple at that point. It would be completely out of character if he left his kids. There was no exit that would honor that character other than if he were to die. Patrick Dempsey I don’t remember the date [I got the news]. It was not in the fall. Maybe February or March. It was just a natural progression. And the way everything was unfolding in a very organic way, it was like, “Okay! This is obviously the right time.” Things happened very quickly. We were like, “Oh, this is where it’s going to go.”

So that was that: McDreamy would die in episode twenty-one of season eleven, even though Dempsey was in year one of his recently signed two-year contract extension. Rhimes wrote a script that was befitting of her lead’s heroic persona: she began “How to Save a Life” by having Derek witness a car crash and helping the injured. Once it appeared everyone was out of harm’s way, Derek continues on his road trip but is suddenly broadsided by a truck.

Rob Hardy (Director) The paramedics leave. He’s there by himself. He’s having a moment. The nice music is playing, and all of a sudden, bang. It comes out of nowhere, which, you know, is how accidents happen. So as opposed to watching it as a viewer, we saw the accident happen through Derek’s perspective. Derek ends up at Dillard Medical Center, a hospital far from Grey Sloan and the talented doctors who work there. His eyes are open, but his brain is severely damaged. No one hears his plea for a CT scan; he can’t speak. To help keep the episode a secret, the scenes were shot in an abandoned hospital in Hawthorne, California, about twenty-two miles from the show’s home studio in Los Feliz.

Mimi Melgaard It was really hard on all of us because it was so secretive and we had so many different locations. We shot at this closed-down hospital that was absolutely creepy haunted. All the scenes there were so sad anyway, and in this yucky-feeling haunted hospital? It was really weird. His whole last episode was really tough. Patrick Dempsey It was like any other day. It was just another workday. There was still too much going on. You’re in the midst of it—you’re not really processing it. Rob Hardy Here’s a guy who’s immobile. Now you’re inside of his head. We were trying to make that feel scary from the perspective of a person who’s used to being in control, from a person who usually has the power of life and death in his own hands. But now he doesn’t have the ability to speak on his own behalf.

Samantha Sloyan When I went to audition, I didn’t recognize any of these doctors’ names. I assumed they were just dummy sides so people wouldn’t ruin the story line or anything like that. All we knew is that we were dealing with a man who’s been in a car accident. I had no idea that it was going to be Derek. I just figured I was going to be a guest doctor and that whoever this person was who was injured, was going to be just a character on the show. Once it became clear what we were working on, I was like, Oh, my gosh. I can’t believe this is the episode I’m on.

Mike McColl (Dr. Paul Castello) I signed an NDA before they would release the script to me. I was reading it in my house, and I was like, “Oh, my God.” I didn’t tell anyone, including my agents. I just said, “This is a really great booking. It’s a great role on Grey’s.” And they didn’t know anything until it aired.

Savannah Paige Rae (Winnie) The first scene I shot was actually the sentimental scene when I’m saying, “It’s a beautiful day to save lives, right?” I’m in the hospital room with Derek and talking to him. Even though I never watched the show, I recognized the value of the episode I was in and just really took it to heart. It was so special that I got to be a part of it.

Rob Hardy [Patrick] had a lot of emotions during the whole shoot, which evolved. I think when we first started, he was very calm and cool … the same Patrick that I remembered when I worked on the show a year or so before. With each passing day, he was a lot more emotional. A lot more was on his mind, and that would show itself in different ways. The finality of the episode and for his character was setting in. You’ve become a global icon on this show and then in five, four, three, two, a day … it’s over.

James D. Parriott Patrick was very cooperative and good.

Mike McColl When I met Patrick, he’s lying on a stretcher and we’re rushing him into the ER. I just introduced myself, shook his hand, and was like, “Man, I cannot tell you what an honor it is to be the guy to take you down.” He loved it. He could not have been nicer to me and was funny through the whole shoot. He was on the table in front of me there when I cut his chest open and all that stuff. He gave me a hug at the end. It was a real privilege to be a part of TV history in that way.

Samantha Sloyan I remember him being incredibly kind. They had his neck in a brace, and he’s strapped down to the board, so there wasn’t a ton of chatting. I remember him being really kind, but it was clearly intense for him.

Stacy McKee It was such a beautiful piece of storytelling. I knew this event was going to be a really sad, horrible event for Meredith, but I also knew it was going to be the beginning of such an incredible chapter for Meredith.

Dempsey completed his final hours of shooting on a rainy night. There was no goodbye party, no goodbye cake. Maybe that’s because some cast members were left out of the loop. James Pickens, Jr., told ABC News that the cast “didn’t know a whole lot. It was kind of on the fly. So whatever information we got, we pretty much got it kind of right before it happened.”

Caterina Scorsone (Dr. Amelia Shepherd) I didn’t get to say goodbye to Patrick when he left. I do think that helped, because I’ve been using the character of Derek in my internal landscape since Private Practice. Derek was the stability in Amelia’s life. He became a father figure after they watched robbers shoot their father. When he was suddenly gone from the show, we didn’t have that closure, so I got to play it out. She’s about to use drugs again before Owen confronts her in a way that she finally talks about her feelings about losing Derek. She doesn’t end up using.

James D. Parriott The day he left, that was my last day. There was a certain sadness to it, but I think he was relieved. I mean, I think it took a toll on him, too.

Rob Hardy I didn’t see other actors showing up and saying, “Hey, it’s the last day! Wanted to come and wish you well.” I didn’t get that. It was more the Patrick show. We were in the Patrick world, and then Ellen came, and there was definitely a lot of emotion that both of them had individually … not necessarily together. It was more so her being there on the day that he died. He had his own way of being with that, and the same thing with her. It was like two people who grew up together and … here we are. They had their own way of reflecting.

Patrick Dempsey I very quietly left. It was beautiful. It was raining, which was really touching. I got in my Panamera, got in rush-hour traffic, and two hours later I was home. Big news like this doesn’t stay quiet for long. Both Michael Ausiello—who left EW in 2010 to launch the news site TVLine—and Lesley Goldberg of The Hollywood Reporter learned two weeks prior to Dempsey’s final episode that he would be leaving the show. No reporter worth their salt wants to sit on a scoop—least of all one as huge as this—but Ausiello and Goldberg didn’t want to spoil the outcome for fans, so they agreed to hold the story until after the episode aired. I eventually found out, too, but in the nuttiest way imaginable: I was standing on the set of CSI: Cyber, watching Patricia Arquette talk about some droll techno-criminal. Unfortunately, the publicist also cc’d Dempsey’s manager and ABC publicist while trying to give me a major story, so I couldn’t immediately report the scoop. But I did use the information to successfully negotiate the one and only exit interview with Dempsey. Two weeks before his final episode, I met him and his publicist at Feed Body & Soul in Venice, California, for a story that would hit newsstands on April 24. He seemed a little shell-shocked and at one point choked up, but at the time he said nothing about how his on-set behavior may have contributed to his ouster. My editor, Henry Goldblatt, wanted to put him on the cover of Entertainment Weekly, but he couldn’t guarantee to ABC that no one would see it before the episode aired. Good thing we didn’t: some subscribers got the issue on the morning of Dempsey’s final episode— and one actually tweeted the story. Our PR department tried to get the tweets removed, but the cat was out of the bag: some fans found out early that McDreamy was about to be McHistory. Outlets like Variety reported how the story got out early, while our PR department released this statement: “We are surprised that an EW subscriber may have received their issue a day earlier than planned. We always try our best to bring readers exclusive news first. We would like to apologize to fans of the show that learned the news ahead of time.” Dempsey’s final episode was watched by 8.83 million viewers—the show’s largest audience since the premiere that season. Variety even pontificated whether the ratings boost was due to my exclusive with Dempsey.

Lesley Goldberg (The Hollywood Reporter) I’m used to working with networks to hold news as part of their efforts to guard against plot spoilers. But the way Patrick Dempsey’s exit was handled involved a layer of paranoia and secrecy that has been unlike anything I’ve seen in my reporting career. News that he was leaving, and his character being killed off, would have been a major story considering how big the show is domestically and internationally. However, it also would have meant spoiling the episode and, more important, damaging key relationships I’ve worked hard to build. At some point, publishing the news of Dempsey’s exit before the episode aired became an ethical question of what was more important—a big story and its subsequent traffic, which would have come no matter what, or the relationships and trust that it took years to craft. Ultimately, I still published early because EW subscribers received the issue with Lynette’s Dempsey interview before the episode aired.

Mike McColl The morning after Derek’s last episode aired, my daughter sent me a link that was on YouTube or Facebook or something. I actually pulled it up to look at it, and it was a Grey’s Anatomy showbiz cheat sheet. It asked the question “Who is the attending doctor who killed Derek ‘McDreamy’ Shepherd?” It included a photo that I posted from the set. I had on a bloody rubber glove and was in my scrubs and mask. I never obviously would have posted this before it aired. I posted it well after the episode aired, and I [captioned it] “McDeadly.” This writer said something like, “Kill McDeadly.” Maybe that’s why the producer didn’t choose a big-name actor to be the one who killed our beloved McDreamy! I want to be ultrasensitive to these hard-core fans because it means so much to them, and I certainly didn’t mean in that case to make light of it. It’s just, I’m an actor, and I recognize it for what it is. Is everybody clear on the fact that this is just pretend and Patrick knew he was going to be leaving the show? It was just like, “God. He’s okay. He really is okay.”

Peter Horton Derek was going to be there forever with Meredith because you went through a whole journey with them. That was incredibly fulfilling. So even if he’s not there, he’s there. I don’t think any of us really worried about that going away because by then you were so invested in it. The show can last as it has for years.

Patrick Dempsey Lots of people [miss him]. “It’s good to see you alive” is the comment I get. I’m like, “Yes, I’m very much alive in reruns.” People were really invested in that relationship. I knew it would be heavy. Very happy to have moved on with a different chapter in my life.

Samantha Sloyan The montage just killed me, when Meredith says, “It’s okay, you can go.” God, I’m getting choked up just thinking about it. The chemistry they have as a pair and the way they were able to build that and sustain it! So many of these relationships are, like, “Will they, won’t they,” and then it wears thin. They sustained it for the duration of their relationship on the show, and it’s just, I think, a testament to what those two created. It was just unbelievable.

Pompeo addressed Dempsey’s departure with a tweet that focused solely on his character, not on how she spent eleven years working side by side with him: “There are so many people out there who have suffered tremendous loss and tragedy. Husbands and wives of soldiers, victims of senseless violence, and parents who have lost children. People who get up every day and do what feels like is the impossible. So it is for these people and in the spirit of resilance [sic] I am honored and excited to tell the story of how Meredith goes on in the face of what feels like the impossible.” Meanwhile, fans futilely created a Change.org petition to reinstate McDempsey, while other, more desperate ones simply tweeted “We Hate You” to Rhimes.

Shonda Rhimes Derek Shepherd is and will always be an incredibly important character—for Meredith, for me, and for the fans. I absolutely never imagined saying goodbye to our McDreamy. Patrick Dempsey’s performance shaped Derek in a way that I know we both hope became a meaningful example— happy, sad, romantic, painful, and always true—of what young women should demand from modern love. His loss will be felt by all.

Talk about the mother (father?) of all postscripts: In November of 2020 Dempsey reprised his role as McDreamy in the season opener—but only in Meredith’s dreams. Stricken with COVID-19, an unconscious Meredith “imagined” reuniting with her husband on the beach. After talking exclusively to Deadline and saying how it was “really a very healing process, and really rewarding,” Dempsey would return for more beach-based episodes that would ultimately stand out as the best moments of season seventeen. “It was a second chance thing,” one ABC executive told me at the time. “Shonda likes a comeback. Also, they wanted him in their last season.”

[a34trgv2]

In Defense of The Angry Birds Movie

When it comes to movies based on video games, more often than not they're recieved less than favorable by critics and audiences. The Angry Birds Movie was one of those video game based movies that critics didn't care for and most audiences thought it was okay. I'm of the rare opinion though that this movie is actually a really funny and well written story about why anger is an important and necessary emotion when used correctly. In this post, I'm going to talk about why I really liked Angry Birds in spite of its reputation.

Based on the popular mobile game by Rovio, this film focuses on Red and how he's put down by everyone for his temper. When the pigs lead by King Leonard come and manipulate their way to steal the birds' eggs, Red and his fellow bird companions must band together to get their eggs back before they're served Sunny side up. The film does a good job at showing Red getting rightfully annoyed to the point of violence after one inconvenience after another. This is very much how I often feel on a daily basis and as such I very much relate to Red. The film also takes the time to show what Bird Island is like and how its inhabitants commute. Everything from the birds living in huts to their diet is handled well thanks to very clever visual gags. Speaking of, I found a lot of the jokes to be really funny, including the use of gross out. Normally I'm disgusted by gross out humor, but here they managed to get a laugh out of me because I found their set ups to be quite clever and the punchlines executed brilliantly.

On to the characters beside Red, I found Chuck and Bomb to be both funny and entertaining to watch. Chuck is always on the move, has some of the funniest lines as well as the funniest gags. Bomb is more mellow and a bit dimwitted, but nonetheless funny and caring. Matilda tries her best to maintain her posture, even when Red makes it difficult. Terrence is the strong silent type who normally growls, yet what he lacks in dialogue he more than makes up for in action. Mighty Eagle is a very funny hasbeen that still thinks he's the coolest ever and just about every scene he's in is just so goofy. Then there's Leonard, the big bad pig of the film. Leonard is a very smart swine that plays the long game in gaining the birds' trust by manipulating them and distracting them with parties and gifts. Leonard rules over his pig kingdom with a toothy grin and the upmost confidence, even if his subjects are as dumb as, well pigs.

What truly brings these characters to life is the very stellar voice acting on display. Jason Sudeikis perfectly embodies the cynical and frustrated attitude of Red and makes him sound like a generally easy going guy who's had one too many bad days. Josh Gad really sells the speedy nature of Chuck and makes him sound like he's always in a hurry. Danny McBride really nails Bomb's mellow and dimwitted personality and makes him sound like he could be a good friend if he didn't explode every time he gets excited. Maya Rudolph gave a really fun performance as Matilda, making her sound quirky and zen, yet appears to be one minor inconvenience away from really letting loose. Sean Penn did a really good job providing the grunts and growls for Terence. Sure, anyone of the people involved in the animation or storyboarding department could've done it, but Penn was intentionally chosen by the directors because they felt it'd be a missed opportunity otherwise. Peter Dinklage sells the real showboaty and self-indulgent attitude of Mighty Eagle. Bill Hader makes Leonard sound like a smart and eccentric pig and delivers some funny lines of his own.

The animation is really well crafted and that's thanks to the wonderfully talented people over at Rovio Animation. The character designs were given a significant upgrade from their mobile game counterparts, becoming anthropomorphic bipedal characters with big expressive eyes, fingers and detailed textures. The characters move in a believable and natural way, with Chuck of course being the exception as he's always running and moving in just about every scene he's in. The village and landscapes of Bird and Pig Island are all very well detailed and feel lived in. The animation truly comes alive during the comedic scenes and the action packed climax. Scenes such the open with Red running late, Bomb and Chuck's Mighty Eagle day dreams and Red fighting with an annoying sign are all very well crafted and funny scenes. The climax best showcases the birds powers and as well as bring amazing destruction to the pigs' kingdom.

I should also mention that the score and song choices for the film were all well crafted and incorporated brilliantly. Heitor Pereira did a really good job incorporating the iconic Angry Birds theme music into the score and also provided some great comedic cues. Blake Shelton's song Friends sung by the pigs was a great way to show how the birds were manipulated over the course of a montage. Other notably catchy songs from the soundtrack include Demi Lovato's cover of I Will Survive, Imagine Dragons' On Top of The World and Explode by Charlie XCX.

I do have one problem with the film as a whole though: all the birds on Bird Island are a bunch of mindless sheep. I'll detail my problems with this trope in a later post, but it honestly bothers me that the entire island is against Red. How come there isn't at least one person on this island that sympathizes with Red and his frustrations? Personally, I think there should've been an additional member to Matilda's anger management class, someone's whose been there for years and yet is just as frustrated as Red. And that character, to me should be Stella, the pink bird that has a minor role in the finished film. Stella could be Red's first friend as she would share his frustrations with him, but rather than resort to violence, Stella would pull pranks on her victims. Stella could also go through her own little arc by not going with Red, Chuck and Bomb to Mighty Eagle's cave because she'd rather solve her problems herself rather than ask someone else to do it for her. This culminates in her getting injured during the climax and her asking Red for help, which he does without hesitation.

Overall, I think The Angry Birds Movie is a really good movie with excellent humor, relatable and funny characters, stellar voice acting and very well crafted animation and music. I also really liked the sequel to this film and I hope Rovio and Sony team up again to make another one. See you in the next post ;)

[japes-the-clown]

THE SPONGEBOB SQUAREPANTS MOVIE: AN INVERSION ON “COMING OF AGE” FILMS AND A CRITICISM OF ADULTHOOD

Hi hello hey it’s me Jericho Jay “Japes” Marshall out here with a pretentious love letter to the filmmaking on display in nickelodeons The Spongebob Movie. Yes, I know it’s a kids movie. Yes, I know it’s not that deep. But I’m majoring in english, and deeply depressed, so I need to get this OUT and onto a PAGE.

I have watched this film many times over my lifetime, a few when i was just a kid, then in my early teens, even when i turned eighteen, and now, a month before i turn 20. Every time, I grow a new appreciation for the nuances that this movie brings to the table, and on my most recent watch my own deliverance from childhood makes me relate to the core themes the hardest I ever have. The Spongebob Movie isn’t just a movie about childhood, but a movie about adulthood.

Today, I’m going to make clear exactly how The Spongebob Squarepants Movie criticizes our understanding of adulthood and how society treats the neurodivergent, while effectively turning the “Coming of Age” genre on its head, within its 87 minute runtime.

START: CONSISTENT CHARACTERIZATION

One thing a lot of films (ESPECIALLY kids films) fail to nail is consistently showing aspects of a character throughout the runtime, enough that changes to a character feel impactful and justified instead of rushed and stifled. The best examples of movies that fail to do this are often the marvel movies that people tend to not remember- the first two thor movies, the avengers age of ultron, etc. In these movies, characters certainly have traits, but their personalities and motives can be very weak and make dramatic changes feel A LOT less dramatic. This can be seen in age of ultron, when quicksilver gave his own life to save someone else, which felt like nothing because he wasn't well developed. He wasn't particularly endearing, nor did him sacrificing his life contradict a part of his character. It felt very much like the writers trying to say "Look, this character which was once opposing the avengers, is now dying for one. Please cry." No hate to the writers of Age of Ultron, but it proves itself often to be an unmemorable part of the catalogue.

In the Spongebob Movie, the characterization is ON. POINT. After the introduction, with the pirates rushing in to watch spongebob, we get so much information regarding spongebob as a character.

Pictured: Spongebob holding a piece of cheese like an operator

The first scene of the plot is a dream sequence a large crowded scene at the Krusty Krab, with a customer not receiving cheese on his patty, and it being positioned in the same way as a bomb being located. In the dream, everyone is panicked, and Mr. Krabs is visibly distressed, almost like a damsel. Spongebob comes in, announcing his position as manager, much to the relief of Krabs. He goes in, and puts cheese on the burger (again, very akin to a bomb defusal scene), bringing the perturbed customer out safe and sound. Everyone lifts spongebob up as a hero, which is interrupted by his boat alarm.

This scene is JAM PACKED with stuff that both introduces the character to new watchers and introduces the crux of his arc to everyone else. Spongebob of course is very fond of the Krusty Krab, and wants to be the manager- he wants people to see him as cool, and as a responsible adult. He wants to be the sort of person that can be trusted with big responsibilities. And we also see, most importantly, that he is extremely childish through his faximile of what it meant to be adult. Everything is scaled up; it's a very silly situation, which well suits both the joke and his character as an inexperienced kid. This is one of the most direct ways to convey someone's character, because a dream can be interpreted as a direct port into a character's desires. This being the first introduction to the character in the movie sets the tone for EVERY following situation.

In the next few scenes you see Spongebob's real life, which involves his lengthy morning routine; his life is sort of whimsical, and so too is his routine. He showers by shoving a hose into himself till he bursts with water, he uses toothpaste to clean his eyes but not his teeth, and he puts on pants which he must fold to make. Again, all pretty solid jokes, but also very telling about his outlook. He is funny, weird, and childish, which is juxtaposed by the scene where he's- he's uh- showering with squidward. Squidward is an example of the "adult" that spongebob isn't. This has always been the case, but here his normal routine makes it very clear that other people in this world aren't like spongebob. They shower normally, they brush their teeth, they put their clothes on like normal. Spongebob's world is one of wonder and without responsibility, which makes it questionable as to whether he could handle one.

Pictured: Spongebob's room, adorned with childhood imagery

Pictured: Spongebob celebrating his position as a manager, despite Krabs saying that it was squidward who got it

Even his room in this scene screams "kid". He has toys strewn about, glow in the dark stars, and pictures of superheroes on the wall. He even says "Sorry about this calendar" as he rips a page, personifying inanimate objects as a kid would. The movie is telling you, "THIS CHARACTER IS A KID", but in a way that's masked because it's also just a set up for jokes. It's done so well, in my opinion, that it would go over your head because from your perspective you would be laughing along as spongebob did his wacky antics.

On top of that, his excitement for his assured managerial position at the Krusty Krab 2 continues to be bolstered. He marked it off with a cute drawing on his calendar, for those familiar he changes his normal "I'm ready" chant to "I'm ready- promotion-", and he's even already set up a party to celebrate at his favorite chain, Goofy Goobers, a child's entertainment restaurant similar to chucky cheese, albeit replacing pizza for ice cream. He hasn't just gotten excited, but has this childish anticipation for something which isn't even assured.

Spongebob arrives at the opening of the Krusty Krab 2, where he is so excited he can't contain his glee. He breaks the silence and makes members of the crowd uncomfortable, reinforcing again that spongebob is a standout in a world of adults, and a kid who doesn't understand certain social norms, which society looks down upon. When Krabs reveals that Squidward got the managerial position, Spongebob hyped himself so much that he starts celebrating, not even noticing that he wasn't picked. He gets on stage, and begins to give a speech, to which Krabs interrupts.

The next part I think best illustrates Spongebob's clear ignorance to society: Krabs attempts to subtly tell spongebob that he isn't getting the job, but spongebob repeats everything he says into the microphone. Again, fantastic joke, grade A, but the amount this shows how invested spongebob was. He already saw himself as an adult, someone who everyone would look up to as a manager- he could take the responsibility, and isn't aware of everyone likely cringing in the audience. This is the natural step for him in his mind, especially because of his exemplary work which had been previously celebrated through employee of the month awards. This was not an option for him. There wasn't a world in his mind where he would be outclassed by squidward.

Krabs has to break to him that he lacks responsibility, and that his childishness makes it difficult for Krabs to give him such a job. This might seem harsh, but I think the intro again shows how Spongebob saw the job; he didn't understand what it would be like, fantasizing another level in the menial work structure to be an amazing adventure of a job. People in the crowd reaffirm that in the eyes of society, spongebob is just a kid, a goofball. In my eyes, this is a story not just of childhood, but of neurodivergence. Spongebob isn't normal, and is blocked by society for his ignorance of social norms and sunny disposition. He finds things fun that other people can not, and he places values in completely different things. So he is blocked from the meaningful recognition he desired, despite the obvious evidence of his commitment.

I think this is a mighty interesting dichotomy!!! Simultaneously, spongebob's understanding of the world truly is warped, often resulting in a lack of consideration for others as well as harm for himself when things don't go his way, AND he is a good worker which puts in MANY hours of work without so much of a complaint. This is COMPLEX. You have to ask yourself, as a viewer, "would I give spongebob the job?" The answer can be different and can be REASONED.

And that's JUST spongebob! There are other characters with characterization that mixes into the themes of the movie very well, but I'm going to bring up any related points in future sections.

Okay, Okay. So now you're saying "WOW OKAY GREAT so why does any of this matter?" I'm so glad you asked. VERY glad.

2: THE BREAKING OF A YOUNG MAN'S SPIRIT

THIS is the point of the movie. The obstacle in this movie truly isn't adulthood, but instead self doubt. Spongebob's whole world is turned upside down by Krab's rejection of his basic personality. Spongebob asks himself: is it REALLY okay to be who I am? Am I an adult? Is the world fair? One of the most shocking scenes in the movie is blended so well in tone with the rest that you don't really notice; spongebob eating ice cream to cope with his disappointment, akin to that of adults drinking alcohol, and appearing to be visually "drunk" and washed up. This is BRILLIANT, and a recurring theme, where the true line between adult and childhood becomes blurry and impossible to see. Spongebob, the representation of a kid, gets hungover, spiteful, and angry about the injustice of his situation. This is often how adults act in the fact of adversity, but what's funny is that this too is how a kid would act; getting angry and overindulging, feeling entitled and acting socially immature when he didn't get what he wanted. He walks in to the Krusty Krab literally just to shit talk Krabs. And it doesn't stop there.

Pictured: Plankton finding "Plan Z" and looking at it like a centerfold in a playboy magazine

Almost every character in this movie juxtaposes another, again smearing the line of what it means to be an adult. For example, Spongebob and Plankton are polar opposites; plankton is cold and vengeful, angry at the world around him, and spongebob is a happy person who tends not to take things personally, a friend to all. In planktons first appearances in the movie, he is portrayed with clear adult themes, mocking spongebob, making pinup jokes about plan z, and living in a fairly dark and grey space. But, as the story moves along, we see many similarities; both spongebob and plankton are fairly one track minded, and when spongebob's perception is broken he himself gets a little vengeful. When eugene is put in danger over this, though, we do see that he places the lives of others over his own wants. And, even at the end of the movie, we see their similarities. Plankton reuses the "Sorry Calendar" joke that spongebob used at the start of the movie, drawing another line of what it means to be an adult. Is it childish of plankton to say that? Is the inherent irony he has impactful here? His want for something that isn't his, and his disregard for others in pursuing it feels just like how a younger child may steal the toy of another, without understanding what it means to share.

Pictured: Neptune flipping his shit at his lost crown

Then, there's the character of Neptune. Neptune is a big man baby. He rules the entire land, commands the most respect, and is considered the most powerful person under the sea, and yet, we see that he gets overprotective of his property, prepared to execute anyone who even annoys him. Throughout the film, he's obsessed with chasing an image of youth, as he is bald, and ignores the suffering of the people on bikini bottom to make sure no one sees his bald head. He throws what's equivalent to a tantrum when he finds his crown is missing, and believes a very crude note written by plankton saying that it was eugene who stole it. His character is an "acceptable" child because he's in a position of power, where spongebob is an "unacceptable" child as he is just a working class member of society. And the funniest part is, that he mocks spongebob for wanting to go for the crown, when even he, the strongest person in bikini bottom, refuses to go out of fear.

We see that these "bastions" of adulthood, plankton and neptune, are the ones who are responsible for missteps of society; we're ALL children in the long run, but the strict enforcement of a perceived true adulthood creates a space where they can act immaturely yet those under them/around them cannot. Dennis makes this case even more, as the only thing he does in this movie is hurt others. There's only one thing that seems to truly denote adulthood, and it's cruelty.

Even squidward, the adult that is supposed to be more responsible that spongebob, refuses to go on the quest to retrieve the crown, as he acts mostly in self interest, even later claiming to only care that plankton was stealing the secret formula as it was hurting his own paycheck.

Spongebob is the only one willing to go, willing to defend the man who wronged him, willing to value life over his own interests. He is both child and adult, just as the adults are too children.

As he moves through the plot of this film, he becomes less confident in his disposition, with his naivete causing moments like him and patrick crossing the state line and immediately getting carjacked, or them being put into an uncomfortable situation by all the bubbles they blew when they tried to get their car back. His bright personality is questioned constantly: Only five days to shell city? BY CAR. This is man's country. But weren't we the double bubble blowing babies?

Pictured: Spongebob caught trying to take back the key to the patty wagon when patrick fails to distract everyone

This is made more obvious to him as patrick remains oblivious throughout; patrick is a mirror for him, that acts as a childhood constant, that makes it clearer for him every day the draws of his childishness. There's the moment in the club where patrick's distraction was poorly thought out, and only because he said he wanted to do it adamantly, there's the moment where patrick challenged neptune on how many days they would have to do it, which served no purpose but for his own fun, there's the moment patrick points out the free ice cream trap- he is the unemployed uncritical lens that spongebob is afraid he is.

So everything's fucked, and anyone who is childish is bad i guess!!!

But that isn't so,

3: The illusion of manhood

So we've talked about spongebob's characterization as a naive child, how this is impactful in his transformation into someone who is anxious about that aspect of his personality, and how the society around him is hypocritical in it's own immaturity. But where does this all come together?

Pictured: Planktons dystopian world, which Mindy shows Spongebob and Patrick

It's at spongebob and patricks "conversion to manhood". At his lowest point, spongebob becomes a squidward- he becomes critical of his AND patricks interests, and regards them as childish, deciding that this means that they can't make it to shell city, as it requires them to be adults. When mindy shows them the dire situation back home, she hopes that spongebob's sunny personality and care for others would shine through, but instead he turns to what society has been telling him; it's impossible. He can't do it, he's just a little kid, and there is no point to any of this as he'll fail regardless.

Thinking about it like this, it truly is one of the darkest points in the entire series; spongebob just openly admitted that there was nothing he could do, that all of his friends were goners because he was effectively useless.

Mindy comes up with an idea; she'll trick spongebob and patrick into believing they're men; she convinces them of mermaid magic (their innocence allowing them to believe) and uses kelp to make them think they've matured into adults. Notice that physical modifiers being the only key to this "fake adulthood". With this, they jump off a cliff because they believe that with adulthood, they are invincible.

This is really telling about how the society they're in thinks of being an adult, and relays that to children. There's another level, a distinct separation between spongebob and adulthood, which seemed like the difference between a squire and a knight- being an adult means that you aren't weak anymore (as though he was weak in the first place), and thus you can do things you never thought before. Is it truly healthy that this is how a society tells kids that adulthood is like, for them to enter the world and feel a truly awful financial and literal hellscape waiting for them? uh, you can, you can decide that for yourself i think.

Nonetheless, they survive the fall, and conclude that they really are invincible, able to power through a ravine with their happy go lucky attitude, eventually befriending the monsters which were once trying to kill them. They weren't acting like adults, but the labels themselves made it possible for them to soldier on with the childlike disposition they had. I find that to be powerful. If we were able to be more hopeful as adults, and power through the worst things brightly, could we do great things? Idk but these depression meds sure do taste good nom nom

After crossing the ravine, spongebob and patrick meet dennis, and have their worldview crushed as it's revealed that they are actually still kids. Dennis being the "alpha male" that he is, is characterized by violence and a lack of morality. The pair are saved by a giant boot, which is the first of two humans in this movie. Spongebob and patrick are both taken by the man in the diver suit, as we fade to black, marking the end of their illusion of adulthood.

4: Back from the Edge (of death)

Spongebob and Patrick awaken in an antique shop, realizing that they were surrounded by fish that had been killed specifically for sale as tacky antiques. They are lifted out of their fishbowl, and put under a heatlamp, as their fate is sealed to become a member among those dead fish. In spongebob's final moments, he mourns his inability to be an adult, as well as to reach shell city; but before they both die, patrick points out that they truly did reach shell city, as the crown was within their reach.

This. This is a phenomenal scene. Why? Because of what it means for spongebob's arc.

Pictured: Spongebob and Patrick on their deathbeds, finding happiness

He sees the crown, and realizes that, unequivocally, that even if he didn't bring the crown back, he made it to shell city. Every person he met told him that he couldn't even do that. and he did it. He is a kid, yes, but he's a kid who went where not even NEPTUNE dared go. Everything people said about him, about how him being a kid stopped him from success, was suddenly shattered. He has been asking himself if it's okay that he is a kid, and he saw, unambiguously, that it is. He is allowed to be happy. He can enjoy things that other people don't. He can be naive. He can be himself, no matter what anyone says. And so can you. Great things can be done by people who are "childish", who are "naive", who are kind without expecting a return, all of it. YOU are okay. Your stims are okay, your comfort series are okay, your interest in tropes are okay, YOU'RE OKAY!!!!

with that, spongebob and patrick are dehydrated on the table, and ostensibly die, the kids that they are, shedding one final tear each, forming a heart beneath them.

...

Miraculously, the tear electrocutes that lamp at it's socket, causing smoke to rise and set off the sprinklers, rehydrating the pair, and bringing them back to life. The "Man in the Suit" attempts to capture them, seeing them about to lift Neptune's crown, but the rest of the dehydrated fish come back to life- squirting him with his own glue and beating him to the ground, as spongebob and patrick run out with the crown. David Hasselhoff offers them a ride back to Bikini Bottom, and the pair begin their ride back.

5: The confrontation of Adulthood and Childhood

Pictured: Dennis looking all lame and shit

As spongebob and patrick are being swam back to bikini bottom, the boot under which dennis was crushed rockets to Hasselhoff, spitting him back out to finish the job. The appearance of Dennis, IN MY OPINION, makes him look rather goofy, with his broken glasses making him look more like a office worker than a badass assassin as he attempts to kill spongebob and patrick. Spongebob, in trying to reason with him, is able to ruin his eyes with bubbles, and then survives as dennis gets hit by a raised platform which spongebob and patrick are too low to be hit by.

Having defeated one representation of adulthood, spongebob and patrick are shot down by HasselHoffs MASSIVE MAN TITS with the crown in order to prevent Krab's fate, blocking Neptune's lazer just in time as they crash in.

All seems to be well, but plankton uses one of his mind control helmets (which we'll be getting into later) to enslave even Neptune, putting mindy, spongebob, patrick, and Krabs against the wall.

In another stark moment of characterization, Spongebob tells patrick that "Plankton Cheated", which prompts plankton to tell spongebob that the situation wasn't a kiddy game, and that it was the real world. This sort of distinctions in their ethos tell you how spongebob interacts with justice; he believes in "playing fair", while plankton is bitter and believes in getting what he wants.

Finally, the apex to our plot, is a musical number. Spongebob begins to make a long-winded speech, where he takes ownership of every label he was called as he stood on the stage at the beginning, the similarity between the two events being clear (holding a microphone at an inappropriate time, making a speech as he blocks out input from an adult trying to talk him down). Spongebob then busts out into the film's rendition of Twisted Sister's "I Wanna Rock", "I'm a Goofy Goober". This results in spongebob reversing plankton's whole plot with "the power of rock and roll". Plankton is made powerless, and thrown into a little padded cell.

The final scene in the movie has Mr. Krabs freed from his imprisonment in ice, and spongebob is offered squidwards position as manager of the second Krusty Krab. He seems hesitant, and squidward offers an insightful analysis of what spongebob might be feeling (the typical analysis of a coming of age movie, where the protagonist finds out that what they wanted all along is not what they wanted, but it was what was inside all along). Spongebob refutes that squidwards fly was just down, and GLADLY accepts the job.

AND THAT'S THE MOVIE

6: AN INVERSION ON THE COMING OF AGE GENRE

A coming of age story tends to be one which is focus on the growth of a character from childhood to adulthood, asking questions about what it means to be an adult. A character reaches for their perceived adulthood, and realizes what it means to ACTUALLY be an adult, typically juxtaposing what people think (drugs, parties, sex) versus what the movie postures as the correct adulthood (responsibility). In this, I think that the spongebob movie directly criticizes the position of what "an adult" is, in the sense of how someone acts.

Like we discussed in part 2, every adult character in this movie tends to be very childish in themselves, unable to see through simple ruses, and often very possessive of personal property. I don't think we actually see a child in this movie as a speaker at any point, only really as background characters (in goofy goobers to solidify spongebob as childish, and I believe in the chum bucket as they're lead to an unsafe place by their parents, who are supposed to be responsible). Thus, what is mostly examined is how adulthood and childhood is a very thin line. Squidward, for example, going directly to plankton to accuse him of stealing the formula, instead of taking it to the top immediately, which would have ended this whole thing fairly quickly; that was rather silly, and was the fruit of his need to assert himself as an adult.

Spongebob goes through this movie FIRST not caring much about whether or not he was an adult, and it is only after the social pressure from adults does he start to chase it. He then chases his perceived image of an adult, going on an adventure, and is crushed by the fact that he isn't an adult. Instead of finding what an adult is, he instead becomes comfortable with his existence as a child, finding himself at the end of the movie able to comfortably chase after an ideal again, where in a normal movie he would humbly reject the job he was offered.

This is, truly, what we should all take from this film. Spongebob realizes that people who aren't necessarily socially adjusted or acceptable can do great things, regardless of what the people around them say, especially because the people around them are liable to throw tantrums and be actively harmful to society. He is allowed to find comfort in childish things, and to be naive, because the world needs more people willing to help others. It's a scathing criticism on the imposed adulthood that exists in a lot of coming of age films, which begs us to drop fun in the interest of doing the right thing, as though those two ideas are contradictory.

BONUS: EXTRA STUFF THAT I LIKED

The goofy goober song became really good storytelling, at first marking childishness, then marking a level of discomfort and judgement in the club, then marking spongebob recognizing that his happiness came from what he liked and not some vague idea of adulthood, and finally marking his full acceptance of his childishness, taking the form of rock, the music of rebellion. It's not as subtle as leitmotifs, but it works really well in how the same song can give very different feelings throughout, and inform how we interact with a story.

There are a lot more examples of adults being pressured into childishness, with the connected twins who liked goofy goober at the club, who were beaten senseless for absolutely no reason, which highlights the way that the society hurts people that, by all means, are just as much adults as anyone else. There's of course Plankton's helmets which created a society of people who simply slaved away with nothing to say, taking life as it came and listening to authority.

On top of that, this movie is PRETTY ANTICAPITALIST AND ANTIMONARCHY, despite those things being allowed to continue to exist at the end- monarchy is seen misusing power constantly and often for unfounded reasons, and Spongebob's diligence at work is rejected by a penny pinching Krabs, who cares only about money. Like, THE KRUSTY KRABS ARE RIGHT NEXT TO EACH OTHER? THAT IS SOME MONTY PYTHON ASS SHIT. This year is the first year i laughed at that joke, because it's really some "capitalists are fucking dumb as shit" humor that slipped over my head when i was a kid. The villain literally being defeated by Rock and Roll, which was sung with a message against the oppression of differences in people? Yeah, I think the spongebob movie hated rich mother fuckers.

END: UH YEAH THAT'S WHAT IT IS

So yeah. The movie is good I think. There's a lot more i could go into, but I've been writing this post for hours and at this point i haven't even read it so...

I recommend going back and giving this film a rewatch!!! Pay attention to all the moments where adults act like children/kids act like adults, because it'll make ur brain pop like a zit. Anyways that's me, I'm Jericho Jay "Japes" Marshall, and I HATE facism.

[mysticdragon3md3]

I find it endlessly amusing how after 10 years, my OTPs have circled back onto the same type. lol

I realize the Blue Lions have Dedue, and Ashe used to be a commoner. But Ashe got adopted into a higher class. Meanwhile, the Golden Deer has 3 commoners who stay commoners.

And Yukimura probably had commoners serving under him, but Sengoku Basara (2009) takes a lot of time to emphasize that Masamune's commoner associates are named, get screentime, voice his effect on them, and spent time closely serving under him. Meanwhile, Yukimura's only named subordinates seem to also be lords or ninja, more than basic commoners.

When referring to "self-doubt & a phase of failing as a commander", I'm specifally referring to Sengoku Basara (2009) season 2 for Yukimura. That's pretty much most of what he does that season. And he made a critical decision error as a commander that got one of his major subordinates killed and probably also unnecessarily killed some of his other soldiers. Though I am vaguely aware that in one of the videogames, Yukimura similary spent most of the story in self-doubt, after thinking Takeda was dying, and I think he ran his army around doing actions without enough thought.

And of course, with Dimitri, I'm referring to his post-time-skip phase wherein he went full "boar" and refused to properly lead his army. Though after regaining more mental stability and becoming a proper general, he still gets haunted by self-doubts for the rest of his life.

When I spell "Strength" with a capital "S", I'm usually shortening my term "True Strength" and referring to both a mental and emotional fortitude, resilience, and frequently an iron resolve in Compassion. That's just my personal philosophy in defining "True Strength". Personally, I see 2 definitions of "strength" that both converge at Compassion, to define "True Strength". 1) In an amoral sense, strength is resilience in maintaining one's own "soul pattern"/emotions/resolve, without being swayed or influenced by outside forces to change. 2) In terms of defining strength as the ability to do what is most difficult, in my opinion, Compassion is the most difficult. Not only do acts of Compassion often cost a range of efforts from some to exorbitant, but it can also require the enacter to put themselves into a vulnerable position. So it is often something only the strong can afford, or survive, or disregard fears of being vulnerable or taken advantage of. Therefore, in my personal opinion, converging the 2 definitions into an unwavering resolve in Compassion, is my personal definition of "True Strength".

So when I categorize Date Masamune as having Strength, I mean he is unwavering in his resolve towards Compassion. Sengoku Basara 2009 takes a lot of instances to reiterate that Masamune cannot be swayed, his Resolve is unquestioning, no one can stop him, slow him, or change his mind. His catch phase is "pressing onward" (translated as "full speed ahead"). One of his first scenes is charging ahead, disregarding Katakura's warnings for caution. (Notice that in Judge End, this is framed as foolish brashness, but in Sengoku Basara 2009, Katakura smiles and continues following without worry, because he completely trusts Masamune's instincts and decision-making. Because everyone trusts Masamune 2009 to always make decisions based in the best ideals/Compassion.) This is reiterated throughout season 2, when Masamune makes allies and each of them ask him to change directions, but the most they can do is temporarily slow him down, because he doesn't stop moving forward. This Strength directed in outward Compassion towards others is almost unexpected after considering Masamune's historical backstory. One would think that someone betrayed by his mother would become disillusioned and spiteful towards the world. It's a basic supervillain backstory to be betrayed by a trusted figure, especially during fundamental development. But instead, Masamune seems to want only to protect others and bring the whole country under his command, so that the whole country of people can be under his umbrella of protection. The 2009 series only mentions his regret from one of his early battles where lots of his soldiers died, being his major motivation in protecting others, specifically his soldiers. But I've headcanon'ed a lot that can be extrapolated from his historical backstory, that when in conjunction to his actions in Sengoku Basara 2009, portrays a Masamune who has dedicated himself towards Compassion, despite his tragic backstory.

Similarly, Claude's backstory is tragic, yet he emerges with True Strength. I've heard criticisms within the fandom that Claude growing up experiencing so much bullying and discrimination against his being biracial, could not believably yield a person dedicated towards Compassion. But I think that's just brainwashing from too many supervillain tropes telling us that traumatized and mentally ill people invariably become villains. I've heard it's more realistic that people who have experienced trauma, tragedy, or some kind of pain, actually are more likely to increase their ability to empathize/sympathize with others, consequently becoming more compassionate. (Mentioned in https://youtu.be/bHe2seINnE0 at 2:03/9:09; https://youtu.be/zaZYDK1RcEU) Claude experienced descrimination and bullying; he explicitly explains in FE3H canon that he wants to create a world where no one else has to experience that same pain. I really don't see why this can be an unbelievable characterization to some people, when most of the world admires Batman for literally that same reason. And I think that characters, like Claude, who react to trauma and hardship with altruism, demonstrate a True Strength in their characters. They haven't been broken by their trauma. They not only survive, but survive as people who still want to care for others. (Also why I love Natsume Takashi.)

I was tempted to include Dimitri in the category of "Emerged from tragic backstory with Strength and vowing to make world where no one will experience same pain". But he didn't emerge with the same level of flawless Strength that Masamune and Claude did. Dimitri certainly did resolve to protect others from ever experiencing the pain that he felt, after the Tragedy of Duscur. But he was also not as mentally stable. He was so repressed and internally conflicted (concerning his feelings of vengence, or sadness that didn't know how to be expressed as anything but anger, lest he break), that he didn't integrate his "boar" impulses/emotions until much later in his post-time-skip. I didn't feel that Dimitri was a fully reconcilled version of himself, until after he had accepted his "boar" emotions, stopped repressing his unresolved anger, and learned to express them more appropriately or at more appropriate times. After he became more mentally/emotionally stable, I have no doubt that he still can have episodes of rage, anti-social moods, or crippling survivor's guilt, but I think he no longer allows those feelings/episodes to push away the people he cares about or disregard his true personal desires to be kind/protective towards others. He knows how to deal with those feelings now. But he spent a long time not yet at that stable level, until much later. Until then, he was frankly wavering, conflicting with his personal resolve, denying his own ideals, and allowing his survivor's guilt manifesting as ghosts to sway him away from his true desires/motivations/values of Compassion. Dimitri was Weak for a time. So I can't say that he was in the same category of Strength as Masamune and Claude.

Dimitri's backstory of his father's death and idolizing Rodrigue, after he took him in, is information he canonically tells the player.

But I realize that Sengoku Basara 2009 never actually mentions a backstory like this for Yukimura. I'm actually referencing the takarazuka version of Sengoku Basara. In that play, they include a childhood backstory scene, where Yukimura's father was a subordinate of Takeda and died while protecting him. Young Yukimura blamed Takeda for his father's death and went to punch him out. Because Takeda understood that Yukimura needed catharsis and was trying to reconcile with his grief, Takeda allowed himself to be punched. But he also punched back. I think maybe to encourage Yukimura to keep going? I can't remember. But eventually, Yukimura punched out all his anger and only had energy left to finally cry, and Takeda said something that comforted him. From then on, he called Takeda "Oyakata-sama" and became completely devoted to him. This explained the origin of the running gag from the 2009 anime, wherein Takeda and Yukimura engage in fist fights as a form a bonding. (It's a shame that the video of these scenes was taken off YouTube. ;_; ) I don't know if "Sengoku Basara Sanada Yukimura-den" mentions how Yukimura's father dies, since he finally appeared in that game. So I'm referencing the takarazuka version.

There isn't really mention of Masamune's mother in the 2009 Sengoku Basara anime. The closest, was Masamune's maternal uncle appearing in the movie "The Last Party" that ended that anime series. But historically, after the real life Date Masamune survived smallpox at a young age, and lost sight in his right eye, there was a lot of dissent among the other high ranking people within his clan, concerning his continued position as the Date clan's head. A lot of this dissent was lead by his mother, who insisted that Masamune's younger brother should become the new clan leader instead. Some accounts say that to shut up accusations that Masamune was weak and that his faulty eye was just an advertised weakness that enemies would take advantage of on the battlefield, Masamune either pulled out his own right eye or ordered Katakura to do it. Apparently, that shut up everyone except his mother, who still continued to try undermining his position. I don't know if there was one instance of several, but she also tried to kill him through poisoning, to replace him with his brother. Because of this, Masamune's only choice was to kill his own little brother, which forced his mother to run back to her original clan. (I can only assume that Masamune didn't just kill his mother, because it's possible she indoctrinated his brother to ursurp him. So Masamune might have ended up eventually needing to kill his brother anyway.) Lots of us in the Sengoku Basara fandom like to headcanon that all of this happened for the Basara version of Masamune too.

It's my understanding that Cornelia implicated Dimitri's stepmother in the murder of his father and friends at the Tragedy of Duscur, but that things were still left canonically vague. Personally, the fact that Patricia was always kind to Dimitri, combined with the fact that Cornelia is proven duplicitous, I find it difficult to believe that Patricia intentionally betrayed Dimitri. The way Cornelia described it, she offered Patricia a chance to be reunited with her daughter Edelgard, Patricia confirmed that desire, then the Tragedy of Duscur happened. Given that Cornelia was already doing terrible things behind Patricia's back, like experimenting on Hapi, and Patricia being angry at Cornelia when she discovered Hapi, I doubt that Cornelia would have been fully truthful with Patricia. I imagine Cornelia tricked Patricia into opening a path or lowering some defenses to "allow a clandestine meeting with Edelgard", but then Cornelia would probably use it to sneak in enemies to kill Dimitri's father and friends. That's my headcanon theory on the Tragedy of Duscur anyway. So Dimitri was only *possibly* betrayed by his mother figure.

And that's my comparison between DateSana and DimiClaude/DMCL/ClauDimi. It continuously amazes me how similar these ships are and how my shipping has come full circle. lol

[the-darklings]

coa one year later & self-reflection

(*drags out a creaky metal chair and plops down on it heavily*)

Hi. It’s me, ya boi skinny--

Wait, wrong one. Do over.

Hi, it’s me, Kat, and I’m not dead. Clearly. Today being one year anniversary of COA has kinda put me in a reflective mood, so I guess I decided to sit down and just...talk about some things, thoughts and feelings I’ve been bottling inside for a hot sec. Especially given how radio silent I have gone on here and people deserve a bit of perspective. 

And before anyone starts worrying, it’s all good, and I’m still around and currently in good health for the most part. 

So, let’s take it back to the start. Regardless of how dramatic it may sound, we need to go back a year for that. 

By technicality alone, COA actually turned one year old on October 12th. That’s when the first part was posted. However, the reason I’m treating today as the aforementioned birthday is simple: I had no intention of this story ever being more than a short two-parter. I told this to the discord gang already but COA was only going to have two parts. V was going to die in Tokyo and the rest of the story follows glimpses of John throughout the movies and it’s her ghost that haunts him. Skipping ahead, it was going to have a bittersweet ending of John eventually dying, having completed his task, only to be greeted by V, Daisy and Helen in the afterlife. A peace of sorts. Then, I realised that, well, no. I have more to say on this world and intrigue about this placeholder character V kept growing. 

November 1st happened and I made a very last minute call to continue COA but with the added pressure of doing it during NaNoWriMo 2019. And boy did I. Most of the story was figured out during that very intense month. I posted Part 2 on this day a year ago because I was so eager to share it. Perhaps, in retrospect, a bit too eager. 

For those of you who may not know this, I work as a writer full time for my actual every day job. I’m the main writer for an original webcomic called In the Bleak Midwinter on Webtoon.com and have been for almost two years now. Getting what is essentially your dream job is amazing. I’m very lucky on that front but it also taught me stark realities of having your job and only hobby overlap. It’s a dangerous creative mix. Especially because I was not used to being constraint in what I create or the feeling like I have to please anyone else. Writing as a job is a whole other avenue of creative exhaustion. I love my job a lot and am very, very lucky to have it but it doesn’t change the fact that those initial stages made me fall back on COA a lot for creative freedom that I craved so desperately. To an unhealthy degree looking back on it now. 

But going back to November last year. NaNo time. I did it. Finished on the 24/25th I believe. A juicy final count of 52k+. All while maintaining a weekly update schedule for a fic that usually hit around 10k per update, if not more, even during those early days. Add writing an original story on top of that. Writing every day for hours on end (we are talking 10-12hr days) without any time for other hobbies or time for myself in general. I kept pushing and pushing and pushing. Losing weight and sleep in the process. I think the thing that convinced me that I should continue doing so is the fact that the outpour of support for COA ended up surpassing anything I ever expected or even dared to hope for. I’m not a huge numbers person but the outpour of love and just sheer investment in the story and characters blew me away. John Wick fandom is on the smaller side and has been going through downtime when I posted COA so my expectations were...well, small tbh. I like keeping expectations low to avoid any disappointments in general. But I’ve also always had an issue of being a massive 0 or 100 kind of person. If I love something, it consumes me. In this case, it brought me as much joy and freedom as much as it was steadily pushing me towards the ultimate crash. 

That being said, I can’t thank you all enough for every comment, like, reblog and message and fanart. You’re the reason I got this far. With your support. It brightened some really dark days for me.

But. 

To be frank, it’s never been about you guys. I never wrote or pushed because I felt like I had to appease anyone. That creative mindset is pure poison and I long since learned to let go of it. I kept pushing and kept working myself to the bone because I liked it. I liked how reading peoples’ responses made me feel. I liked the addictive nature of reading all the comments and theories after an update. I loved the idea of brightening peoples’ days and giving them something to cheer them up after what might have been a shitty day. Even if that was at expense of my own time/well being. But for a long time, it wasn’t. I love writing a lot but facts remain facts. 

It was beyond unhealthy and burnout wasn’t a question of if but when and that when was approaching at neck-breaking speed. 

So we come to the end of November. Part 4 has just come out. People were invested and I was invested alongside them. I was just finishing up Part 5 which (back then) was the biggest single chapter I’ve ever written and god I still recall my sheer dread because that was the beginning of Santino being established as a LI. Looking back on that now, it’s downright hilarious how worried I was about the reception of him and V together after John.

So honestly, I hit burnout at around Part 8. Because that’s the first time I recall struggling with writing a chapter. Part 8 came out on December 28th. I had a brief break for holidays. But my mistake was not taking longer back then. Because I continued writing with a barely healed burnout. Followed by almost a year of struggling and continuously creating through that state. It wasn’t like I eased off the pressure, either. Oh, no. The chapters grew in size, the world and the characters with it. AUs amassed quickly and while I adore every single one - again, I didn’t know how to pace myself well enough.

I’m spiteful though. The more the chapters struggled the more I pushed against the burnout. By the time Chicago arrived, however, I knew I was in trouble. I ended up writing 43k+ in a span of 2 months, I believe. And while to some it may not seem like a lot given the time frame, it’s a lot when you’re burnout to a crisp & writing an original story for work + deadlines. Which I was burned out and then some. Chicago was something I was looking forward to writing for months. I have built it up since Part 4. It was a long time coming. So while I’m still proud of it, I would be lying if I said that some scenes were not sacrificed for the sake of keeping to my invisible schedule that no one but me actually cared about. You guys have always been patient. I never felt pushed into anything. It’s always only ever been me doing the harm. 

Chicago was the downwards spiral for me mentally. I felt like I was failing to live up to my own expectations. That people were drifting away from it. I was plagued by the thought that the story I poured so much into was falling apart and growing weaker. Which this has always been an issue with me: I am my own harshest critic. Always have been. In fact, I’m a downright mean little fucker when it comes to just tearing at myself. I know writing is for fun - and it is - but I still like the idea of being proud of my work which only made everything worse despite the love each update received. 

This takes us to the beginning of June. Specifically, June the 2nd. Or, as I like to call it: Kat Makes Another Impulsive Decision but This One Actually Works Out For the Better. On this day, I created the COA Discord server. And damn, I’m not sure what exactly I was expecting when I did ngl. I did it for fun and as an escape more so than anything. But somehow it ended up being the best decision I made in a long while. I know some of you are reading this. So love you lots, dorks. It’s such a privilege to be able to call so many of you my friends even outside of COA now. That little community has given me some of the best memories from this year and helped me to crawl out of my own metaphorical pit I was stuck in. Mentally, I’m doing much better than I did beginning of this summer. Which could be summed up as a constant self-hatred cycle and a feeling of inadequacy. 

That, however, does not mean my burnout magically disappeared. If anything Chapter 17 just put a nail in the coffin so to speak. 2020 has been a shitty year just across the board for obvious reasons I don’t need to go into here but that can only partially be attributed to my mental state. Chapter 17 was...exhaustive. To say the least. But I was determined to stick with my vision and not split it up. I was also starting to be a bit more forgiving towards myself in terms of how long I may take to write it thanks to guys on discord though the feeling of failure and worry never quite faded fully. I’m proud of Part 17. Truly. But that was also when I hit rock bottom creatively on COA. It drained me completely. 

I tried writing Part 18 for weeks after, day in and day out, not getting past the first scene and hating every word I wrote. So I took a deep breath and stopped. Figured I let it marinate and wait instead of trying to piece one of the most crucial chapters in this story like some Frankenstein monster two sentences at the time.

So my solution was simple: give myself some distance from it and write other things. Get my spark back. Of course that’s always a good idea. Having multiple creative escapes is the best thing you can do for yourself creatively. There was just one tiny little problem. 

I was still burned out. Still am. The problem went deeper than just being burned out over COA. I was burned out over writing itself. 

Which is an issue for a person who only has writing as a creative outlet.

I don’t have any other way to express myself. So I was stuck in a runt, trying to write because it’s the only thing that makes me genuinely happy even when I really shouldn’t have. And let me tell you. It’s a shitty fucking feeling. My burnout worsened. I had a thousand ideas but every time I tried to get them down it felt forced, fragmented, and weak. Repetitive and dry. Now, this is also in part because English isn’t my native language, so my vocab is limited as a result, but I hit that sweet rock bottom in that regard, too. 

So, I worked on V (but in her OC form Clara), Lucien and The Elites. All those characters have grown so much since you last read about them. I have multiple original projects planned down the line that will feature all of them existing in their own world, with their own stories and no longer constrained by JW canon.  

Which, finally, takes us to the end of October and beginning of November 2020. 

I was convinced that the best course of action was to do NaNo again but with an original story this time (involving V). Suffice to say, it took a grand total of maybe 5-6 days and hating every second of writing it while also feeling like this project I’m so passionate and excited to write (still am) is just...going down the toilet to be blunt, to realise I may have made the wrong call. 

Still, the stubborn ass that I am, I pushed through. Convinced I can get into it if I just keep going. The realizations that I am sharing with you right now won’t have been possible if it hadn’t been for a rather curious turn of events about a week and a half ago.

I recently bought a gaming laptop, all in preparation for Cyberpunk 2077 dropping ofc. But, in the meantime, I kept recommending a game to a friend on the COA server. That game? Far Cry 5. (It’s a blast to play btw, just a side note.) And playing it brought back all the feelings of nostalgia from the days when I used to write for that fandom. So I revisited some old work. Checked the stuff I never published and that has been sitting ducks in my docs for months and hoo boy. Let me tell you it was a vibe check of the worst kind. 

The stark difference in the prose and the ease with which it flowed was...startling. It made me remember why I love writing so much and how proud I used to be of what I wrote back in the day. Which is not to say I’m not proud now, but it was just such a sharp dip in quality it was impossible to ignore.  

So I didn’t.  

I paused NaNo, moving it to another month. I paused writing for everything but work, which with our season coming to an end I will also get a rest from soon, too. I kinda paused in general. For the first time in a while, I finally forced myself to switch off. Rest. 

The reason why I haven’t been on here is simple: guilt and not having energy to be on here. I like making my blog a safe space for everyone. Similar to escape it has become for me. I couldn’t pretend I was fine when I wasn’t. I felt obliged to perform and being here became exhausting. I haven’t been checking my inbox. Haven’t done much of anything except occasionally dropping by and reblogging a random post so people know I’m alive.

And that’s that, folks. That’s where I am currently. Resting. Completely exhausted mentally but resting. Getting my energy back. 

So where does that leave us, huh? If you read this far, dunno what to tell you. Thanks, I suppose. It’s still odd to think people actually care about my existence sometimes.

I know what you’re likely thinking, too. So does this mean COA is never gonna be finished? What is gonna happen to it? Are you abandoning it?

The answer: no. 17 out of 25 chapters and 250k+ in, I’m too far in not to give it a proper conclusion. Not because I owe it to anyone other than myself. I want this story to be a stepping stone for my future as a writer. I want to prove to myself that I can get this done and finish it. As of right now (as you can no doubt tell with how long it’s been since last update) it’s on a soft hiatus while I rest. This rest? Not sure how long it may last. Right now, my plan is till mid December at which point I will reevaluate. Ideally, I finish the year with an update. But my New Year’s resolution is to finish COA. That timeline has become a little more murky now but, again, ideally it’s within the first quarter of 2021. Will that happen? I don’t know. And I don’t want to make false promises, either. 

All I’m saying is that it will be done. I’m just no longer sure how long, exactly, it may take me to reach that Epilogue. I don’t expect many people to stick around for however long it may take me, but if you do, thank you. Truly. I really and deeply mean that. 

So what’s on the cards for this blog in the meantime? Well, CP77 is coming out in under a month (if it doesn’t get moved again lmao rip) and I expect that to be my soft return to posting my writing on here again. We will see where the muse takes me, if at all. Regardless though, I’m excited. 

One doctorate thesis later, here we are at the end of this really long rambling session. I hope that this has given you some perspective on things going on behind the scenes. I spared you some of the gorier details but I think this post has been long overdue. I suppose I, myself, was just too unwilling to face these things despite knowing about them deep down for a while now. I’m too self-critical not to notice but acting on correcting this behavior has been a whole other matter clearly. 

Thank you for reading this post, my writing in general, and supporting me. I’m not going anywhere. I’m still around. More is on the way in the future. I’ll be seeing you all real soon. And all my love to all of you. 

Love,

- Kat.   

[aces-to-apples]

Your Reputation Precedes You

A response to “On Fandom Racism (and That Conlang People Are Talking About)” because lmao that cowardly bitch just hates getting feedback from people that she can’t then harass into oblivion

i.e. God I Wish I Could Use The Tag Fandom Wank Without The Titty Police Nerfing My Post

-

To be frank, I'm not here because I think you or any of your little cronies are going to change your minds. If the 'name' wasn't a giveaway, your group of ~likeminded individuals~ have quite the reputation for espousing ableist, antisemitic, and, yes, racist views under wafer-thin the veneer of "calling out racism." I think we both know that what you're actually doing is using the relative anonymity of the internet and progressive language to abuse, harass, and bully fans that you personally disagree with. You and your group are toxic, hateful, and utterly pathetic, using many peoples' genuine desire to avoid accidentally causing harm and twisting it into this horrid parade of submissiveness to You, The One And Only Arbiter Of Truth And Justice In Fandom. Never mind that you have derided autistic people as lacking compassion and empathy, that you've used racist colonizer dogwhistles to describe a fictional culture based heavily on real live Maori culture, that you've mocked the idea of characters having PTSD, or that vital mental health services are anything more than "talking about your feelings with friends uwu." Let's just ignore that you have ridiculed the idea of adults in positions of power exerting that power over children in harmful and abusive ways, that creating transformative fan-content that doesn't adhere to the spirit of canon or wishes of the original author garners derision and hatefulness from you, and that you've used classic abuser tactics in order to gaslight people in your orbit into behaving more submissively towards you in order to avoid more verbal abuse.

Let's toss all of that crucial context aside in favor of only what you've written here.

What you've written here is nearly 3,000 entire words based on, at best—though, admittedly, based on your previous behavior, I am actually not willing to extend to you an iota of good faith—fallacious reasoning. You posit that a constructed language, to be used by a fictional religious group located in an entirely different galaxy than our own, is othering, racist in general, and anti-Asian specifically. This appears based in several suppositions, the first being that a language unknown by the reader will, by nature, cause the reader to feel alienated from the characters and therefore less sympathetic, empathetic, and caring towards the characters. That idea is patently ridiculous and, I believe, says far more about your ability to connect to a character speaking an unfamiliar language than any kind of overarching truth about media and the human condition. New things are interesting; new things are fun; the human brain is wired from birth to be fascinated with new things, to want to take them apart, find out how they work, and enjoy both the process and the results.

The second supposition this fallacy is based upon appears to be that to move away from the blatant Orientalism of Star Wars is inherently anti-Asian. While I find it... frankly, a little bit sad that you cling so viciously to the Orientalist, appropriative roots of Star Wars as some form of genuine representation, that's really none of my business. If you feel that a Muslim-coded character bombing a temple and becoming a terrorist and a Sith, a white woman wearing Mongolian wedding garb, a species of decadent slug-like gangsters smoking out of hookahs and keeping attractive young women chained at their feet (as it were), a species of greedy money-grubbers with exaggerated features and offensively stereotypical "Asian" accents, and an indigenous people wearing modesty garb based on the Bedu people and treated by most characters as well as the narrative as mindless animals deserving of murder and genocide are appropriate representation of the many, varied, and beautiful cultures around the world upon which they were "based," then that is very much your business. Until you pull shit like this. Until you accuse other fans, who wish to move away from such offensive coding and stereotypes, of erasing Asian culture from Star Wars. Then it becomes everyone's business, especially when you are targeting a loving and enthusiastic group of fans who are pouring their hearts and souls into creating an inventive and non-appropriative alternative to canon.

Which leads into the third supposition, that a patently racist, misogynistic white man in the 1970s, and then again in the 1990s, intended his universe to be an accurate and respectful portrayal of the various cultures he stole from. I understand that for your group of toxic bullies, the term "Death of the Author" holds no real meaning, but the simple fact of the matter is that George Lucas based his white-centered space adventure on Samurai movies while removing the cultural context that gave them any meaning, because he liked the idea of swords and noble warriors in space. He based the Force and the Jedi Order on belief systems such as Taoism and Buddhism, but only on the surface, without putting any real effort into into portraying them earnestly or accurately. He consistently disrespected both characters of color and characters coded to be a certain race, ethnicity, culture, or religion, and likewise disrespected and stole from the cultures upon which he based them. He was, and continues to be, a racist white man who wrote a racist story. His universe has Orientalism baked into its every facet, and the idea that fans who wish to move away from this and interrogate and transform the text into something better than what it is are racist is not only laughable, but incredibly disingenuous and insidious.

As I said, I am not writing this to change your mind, because I truly believe that you already know that "cOnLaNgS aRe RaCiSt" is a ridiculous statement. The way you've comported yourself in fandom spaces thus far has shown to me that you are nothing more than a bully who knows that the anti-racist movement in fandom can be co-opted for your benefit. If you tout your Asian heritage and use the right language, make the "right" accusations and take advantage of white guilt and white ignorance, you can have dozens of people falling at your feet, begging for forgiveness, for absolution. And I think that gives you a thrill. So, no, none of this will change your mind because none of this is genuinely about racism—it's about power, it's about control, it's about fandom being the only space where you have some.

So I'm writing this for the creators of this wonderful conlang, which has been crafted by multiple people including people of color, who don't deserve this nonsensical vitriol, and for the fans reading this manipulative hate-fest, wondering if they really are Evil Racists because they don't participate in fandom the way you think they should.

Here it is: fandom has a lot of racism, antisemitism, misogyny, queerphobia, ableism, etc. baked into it. Unfortunately, such is the nature of living and growing up in societies and cultures that have the same. The important thing is to independently educate yourself on those issues and think critically about them—not "think critically" as in "to criticize" them, but to analyze, evaluate, pick apart, examine, and reconstruct them again in order to come to a well thought-out conclusion. Read this well-articulated attack on a group of fans who have always welcomed feedback and participation, are open about their backgrounds, their strengths and weaknesses, and wonder who is actually being genuine.

Is it the open and enthusiastic group who ask for the participation of others in this labor of love? Or is it the ringleader of a group of well-known bullies who have manipulated, gaslit, and then subsequently love-bomb people who did not simply roll over at the slightest hint of dominance? The ones who spent hours upon hours tearing apart, mocking, deriding, and falsely accusing authors of fanworks and metatextual works of various bigotries and -isms, knowing that those evaluations were spurious and meant only to cause harm, not genuine examinations of the works themselves or even presumed authorial intent. The ones who made their own, quote-unquote, community so negative and toxic that even after the departure of a large portion of them, including this author in particular, that community still has a reputation for being hateful, toxic, and full of mean-spirited harassers who will never look critically about their own behavior but only ever point fingers at others. The ones who are so very determined to cause misery wherever they go that as soon as their usual victims are no longer immediately available, they will turn on each other at the slightest hint of weakness.

This entire piece of (fan)work is misinformed at the most generous, disingenuous at the most objective, and downright spiteful when we get right into it. The creators of Dai Bendu, along with various other works, series, and fan events that these people personally dislike, have been targeted because it is so much easier to harass, bully, and use progressive language as a weapon against them, than it is to put any effort into making fandom spaces more informed, more positive, more respectful.

As someone rather eloquently put it, community is not a fucking spectator sport. You want a better community, you gotta work at it. And conversely, what you put into your community is what you'll get out of it. This author and their friends have put a lot of hate into their communities, and now they're toxic cesspools that people stay well away from, for fear of contracting some terrible form of harassment poisoning.

Congrats, Ri, you've gotten just what you wanted: adoring crowds listening to you spout your absolutely heinous personal views purely to live out some kind of power fantasy, and the rest of us staying well away, because fuck knows nothing kind, helpful, or in good faith has ever come from Virdant or her echo-chamber of petty, spiteful assholes.

No love, bad night.

P.S. Everyone actually in the Dai Bendu server knows your ass got kicked because you didn’t say shit for a full thirty days and ignored the announcement that inactive members would be culled. You ain’t cute pretending like it’s because you were ~*~Silenced~*~ after ~*~Valiantly~*~ attempting to call out racism. We see you.