#I might also add the tv dynamic works for people because people like comparisons and parallels

[brsb4hls]

I might be the only one upset at this, but what happened to Neil saying that Aziraphale and Crowley rescue each other? If I'm remembering correctly, in an ask he said that Aziraphale has saved Crowley plenty of times and it just wasn't in s1? It's such a tv show good omens thing and I don't take what is said outside of the media as canon, but S2 has only enforced that Crowley saves Aziraphale and not the other way around. That Crowley saves the day, that Crowley is main character material, and that Crowley is supposed to be who we're rooting for and sympathize with more. Having Azirpahale say out loud that saving him makes Crowley happy (like so many other things, explicitly said instead of shown) pushes it more and more. I don't like it. And I don't like that even after that scene where Aziraphale says he does have a plan, he does one thing and is like that was my plan that's all I've got. It's a characterization thing and a pet peeve for me mixed into one. Idk if anyone else feels the same way, but this whole saving business has gotten away from me.

You're definitely not the only one struggeling with that characterization.

They way they are presented reinforces a very cliched (and imbalanced) character dynamic.

Aziraphale is the soft (albeit slightly bitchy) reluctant one and Crowley the bad boy with a heart of gold who saves the day.

Which is a) boring af and b) pretty straight.

Which is why it works so well in fandom.

It's a character dynamic that a lot of people are familiar with, because typical romances work that way, we have a lot of them and are used to them, so they resonate.

It does take away from the uniqueness of their characters though.

The fun thing about Crowley and Aziraphale is that they are not fullfilling typical roles.

(Book) Crowley tries to be cool, but is failing spectacularily, while Aziraphale is supposed to be the rightous one, but his moral compass is all over the place.

That dynamic creates comedy and some great philosophical points to think about.

And it could have easily be transferred to the show.

I also agree that the one-sidedness of the tv relationship makes it feel a bit off.

Yes, Aziraphale makes heart eyes (thank you Michael Sheen for saving the script I guess), but is pretty passive otherwise.

He doesn't even ask why Crowley's plants are suddenly living in the Bentley, even though he carries them around.

It might be the lack of Terry Pratchett, it might be Gaiman, it might be Finnemore (I'm not familiar enough with his work).

It's a shame though, their original dynamic is amazing.

I do recommend 'Crowley gets summoned and Aziraphale saves him fanfic, there's some really good stuff.

(If I remember correctly there's also a bamf!Aziraphale tag, for balance).

[phynali]

Canonization and Fandom Purity Culture

I wrote a 1k-word twitter thread (as proof that I am Not made for Twitter and it’s goddamn 240-character limit) and am pasting it here with edits and updates (it’s now 2k words). 

I have thoughts to share (which I know have been stated more eloquently before by others) about this trend of demanding/obsessing that certain ships become "canon" and how it overlaps with the rise of fandom purity culture.

Under the cut.

Here in 2021 there is a seemingly large and certainly loud and active contingent of online fandoms who desire (or even demand) "canon validation" for a given interpretation of a source material. This is more true with shipping than anywhere else.

First, it is important to note that the trend is not limited to queer ships or to any single fandom. In the past few years I've seen it for Riverdale, Voltron, Supernatural (perhaps most extreme?), The 100, etc., and less recent with the MCU, Sherlock, Teen Wolf, Hawaii 5-0, etc. It is a broad trend across ships, fandoms, and mediums.

So if it is more common for queer ships, it is hardly unique to them. Similarly, pretending that it is about queer representation is a clever misdirect to disguise the fact that it is most often about ships and shipping wars. If you ever need proof of that, consider that a character can be queer without being in a given relationship or reciprocating another character's affections. Thus a call for more/better queer rep itself is very different than a call for specific ships to be made canon.

Also note that when audiences frame it as wanting to recognize a specific *character* as queer, it is almost always in the context of a ship. Litmus test: would making that character queer but having them *explicitly reject* the other half of the ship be seen as a betrayal?

(Note: none or this is to say we shouldn't push for more queer rep and more *quality and well-written* queer rep! Just that that isn't what I'm talking about here, and not what seeking canon validation for a specific interpretation or a specific ship is almost ever about.)

Why does this matter?

the language of representation and social justice should not be co-opted to prop up ship wars

it is reciprocal with a trend toward increasing toxicity in transformative fandom spaces

Number 1 here is self-explanatory (I hope). Let's chat about 2.

Demands for canon validation correlate with a rise in fanpol / fandom purity culture. What is fandom purity culture (and fandom policing)? This toxic mentality is about justifying one's shipping preferences and aiming to be pure (non-problematic) in your fictional appetites regarding romance and sex.

Note that this purity culture is so named as it arises linearly from American Protestantism, conservative puritanical anxiety around thought crimes, and overlaps in many ways with terf ideologies and regressively anti-kink paradigms.

It goes like this: problematic content is "gross" and therefore morally reprehensible. Much like how queer sex/relationships get labelled as "gross" (Other) and thus morally sinful, or how kink gets labelled as "harmful" and thus morally wrong. The Problematic label is applied by fanpol to ships with offset age or power dynamics, complicated histories, and anything they choose to label as "harmful". As such, they would decry my comparison here to queerphobia itself as also being harmful, because their (completely fictional) targets are ~actually~ evil.

(The irony of this is completely lost on them).

This mode of interacting with creative works leaves no room to explore dark or erotic themes or dynamics which may exist in fiction but not healthily in reality. Gothic romance is verboten. Even breathe the word incest and you will be labelled a monster (nevermind Greek tragedy or GoT).

As with most puritanical bullshit, fanpol ideology only applies these beliefs to sex and never to violence/murder/etc, proving what lies at its core. It also demands its American-based values be applied to all fictional periods and places as the One True Moral Standard. It evangelizes – look no further than how these people try to recruit others to their cause, aim to elevate themselves as righteous, and try to persuade (‘save’) others from their degenerate ways of thinking. 

“See the light” they promise “here are our callouts and blog posts to convince you. Decry your past sins of problematic shipping, be baptized by our in-group adulation and welcome, and then go forth and send hate to others until they too see the light.” In many ways “get therapy” by the antis is akin to “I’ll pray for you” by the Christian-right (and ultimately ironic).

(Although it has been pointed out to me that these fans are likely not themselves specifically ex-evangelicals, but rather those who have brushed up with evangelical norms and modes of thinking without specifically being victims of it. In many ways they are more simply conservative Christian in temperament and attitude without necessarily being raised into religion by belief).

What this has to do with canon validation is that these fans look to canon for approval, for Truth. On the one hand, if it is in the canon then it must be good / pure or at least acceptable. The authority (canon) has deemed it thus. It is safe and acceptable to discuss and to enjoy watching or consuming. In this way, validation from canon means a measure of safety from being Bad and Problematic. 

For example, where a GoT fan could discuss Cersei/Jaime's (toxic, interesting) dynamic in depth as it related to the canon, fans who shipped Jon/Sansa (healthy, interesting) were Gross and Bad. The canon as Truth provided a safety net, a launch point. "It's GRRM, not me, who is problematic." It wasn’t okay to ship the problematic bad gross incest ship, but it being in the canon material meant it was open for discussion, for nuance, for “this adds an interesting layer to the story” which is denied to all non-canon ships labelled as problematic.

(Note: there are of course people who have zero interest in watching GoT for a whole slew of very valid reasons, including but not limited to the incest. That’s a different to this trend. A less charged example might be The Umbrella Academy, where a brother canonically is in love with his sister and antis still praise the show, but if you dare to ship any of the potential incest ships then you are the one who is disgusting).

On the other hand, a very interesting alternate (or additional) explanation for this phenomenon was raised to me on twitter. (These ideas aren’t mine originally, but I wholly endorse them as a big part of what is likely going on): Namely, as with authoritarian individuals in general, they see themselves as right and correct, but the canon (which has not yet validated their ship) is not correct, and is in fact problematic, and so they can save the canon from itself.

As mentioned, these fanpol types see their interpretation as Good and Pure. So if they can push (demand, bully) the canon into conforming to their worldview and validating their interpretation, then they have shown the (sinful) creators the light and led them to the righteous path. This only works if the canon allows itself to saved though, otherwise the creators remain Evil for spurning them.

How is this different from fans simply hoping for their ship to be canon?

For a second here, let’s rewind to the 90s (since Whedon has been in the news recently). This “I want it to be canon” thing isn’t 100% new, of course. We saw this trend then for the show Buffy the Vampire Slayer, but it was different then. At the time, fans who hoped for a ship to be canon might have been cheering for a problematic one to begin with (Buffy/Spike). So shipping was still present, minus vocal fanpol.

(And Buffy fans learned that canon validation...can leave a lot to be desired. A heavy lesson was learned about the ways that fan desires can play out horrifically in canon, and how some things are best left out of the hands of canon-writers).

These days, this is still largely true. Many fans hope for their ships to go canon, as they always have. There are tropes like “will they/won’t they” that TV shows may even be designed around, which a certain narrative anticipation and a very deliberate build up to that.

But while shipping *hopes* occur for many fans, almost all ships fans that *demand* to go canon and obsess over are now the ones deemed as Unproblematic, or as Less Problematic. I’m talking here about the ships that aren’t necessarily an explicit will/won’t they dynamic but do have some canon dynamic that leads them to being shipped, but which the creators aren’t necessarily deliberately teasing and building up a romantic end-game for.

These ships often have fans who are happy to stick to fandom, but there has also been a huge uptick in the portion of fans who are approaching shipping with an explicit lens of “will they go canon?” and “don’t you want them to be canon?” and now even “they have to go canon” and “the canon is wrong if they don’t make this ship canon”, to a final end-point of “if the ship doesn’t go canon, the source material is Wrong and Bad.”

These latter opinions are the one we see more by extreme fans (‘stans’), hardcore shippers, but especially by fanpol-types, the ones who embrace fandom purity culture at least to some extent.

Why them?

In pushing for canon validation, fanpol types seek to elevate their (pure) interpretation of canon. As mentioned above, it’s validation of their authority, a safety-net, and a way to save the canon from itself if only they can bully the canon into validating their right and good interpretation. 

There’s also another reason, which is that canon validation is a tool to bludgeon those seen as problematic. They can use it to denounce other (problematic) ships as Not Being Canon and therefore highlight their own as Right and Good, because it is represented in the True Meaning of the Work.

Canon validation then is a cudgel sought by virtuous crusaders to wield against their unclean enemies. It is an ideological pursuit. It is organised around identity and in groups sometimes as insular as cults.

How does this happen?

Fanpol tend to be younger or more vulnerable fans, susceptible to authoritarian manipulators. As many have highlighted before, authoritarian groups and exclusionary ideologies like terfs are very good at using websites like tumblr to mobilize others around their organizing beliefs. Fanpol tend to feel legitimate discomfort, but instead of taking responsibility for their media engagement, ringleaders stoke and help them direct their discomfort as anger onto others; “I feel ashamed and uncomfortable, and therefore you should be held accountable for my emotions.” Authoritarian communities endorse social dominance orientations, deference to ringleaders, and obedient faith to the principles those ringleaders endorse.

As these fans attach more and more of their identity to a given media (or ship), and derive more and more validation and more of their belongingness needs from this fanpol community, they also become more and more anxious about being excluding from this group. This is because such communities have rigid rules and very conditional bases for social acceptance. Question or "betray" the organizing ideology and be punished or excommunicated. If that is all you have, you are left with nothing. Being labelled problematic then is a social death.

What this means is that these fans cannot accept all interpretations of a media as equally valid: to do so Betrays the ideology. It promises exclusion. And, in line with a perspective around ‘saving’ canon and leading others into the light – forcing and bending the canon to their will is what will make it Good (and therefore acceptable to enjoy, and therefore proof of them as righteous by having saved others). As was also pointed out to me on twitter, endorsement from canon or its creators also satiates that deep need they have for authority figures to approve of them.

Due to all of this, these fans come to obsess over canon validation of their own interpretation. In a way, they have no other option but to do so. They need this validation -- as their weapon, as their authority, as their safety net, as their approval, as their evangelical mission of saviorship.

Canon validation is proof: I am Good. I am Right(eous). I am Safe.

(In many ways, I do ache for some of these people, so wrapped up in toxic communities and mindsets and so afraid to step out of line for fear of swift retribution, policing their own thoughts and art against the encroaching possibility that anything be less than pure. It’s not healthy, it’s never going to be healthy.)

In the end, people are going to write their own stories. You are well within your rights to critique those stories, to hate them, to interpret them how you will, but you can never control their story (it's theirs).

Some final notes:

This trend may be partially to do with queer ships now being *able* to go canon where before so no such expectation would exist. Similarly, social media has made this easier to vocalize. Still, who makes these demands and the underlying reasons are telling. There are also many legitimate critiques of censorship, queerbaiting (nebulous discussions to be had here), and homophobia in media to be had, and which may front specific ships in their critique. But critique is distinct from asking that canon validate one's own interpretation.

[bigskydreaming]

Im asking this genuinely so pls dont yell at me; when you say that those using trigger warnings dont care about their readers’ mental health and wellbeing, what else are trigger warnings supposed to be for? To make sure people don’t enter fics that have material that would harm them. Just like tv shows that warn about nudity or violence or what have you. Its a rating system, theyre warnings. Tagging for rape or underage ARE the looking-out-for-readers thing. Past that, it is on readers to decide

I try not to yell at anyone engaging in good faith, I know it doesn’t always seem that way, but I would rather be engaged with than ignored...the latter is when my volume goes up, lol.

But in answer to your question, it comes down to the fact that trigger warnings are well established enough in fandom by now, that they exist as a kind of social contract.

In short, its EXPECTED that you provide trigger warnings, and that if you don’t have them, someone will bring that up at some point.

Problem is, this counter-productively works against what trigger warnings are actually FOR.....once we reach a point (which we’ve long since reached)....where a lot of people are only including the trigger warnings because of the social contract that expects them to have them, and not ACTUALLY because they’re prioritizing their readers’ well-being.

Something I see a LOT after trigger warnings is the phrase or sentiment “enter at your own risk”....and the phrasings are so, so key to what I’m talking about. 

Take a small sampling and just look for what I’m describing and I’m fairly certain you won’t have to go far to find an example of a fic where the tone of the author is not one of concern for readers, but preemptive concern for potential backlash from readers.

And these are two very different things.

Like, we all know how to read and interpret tone and nuance. Its genuinely not that hard to tell the difference between a sincere expression of wanting readers to be aware of potentially triggering content, and a faux-expression of that when really, the only thing you’re worried about triggering is a negative reception from people, and you want to get ahead of that by making it clear from the get go that hey, you did your job, you warned readers, and thus nobody has any grounds to say anything about your content itself.

Because also too there’s the fact that trigger warnings are inherently fallible. They rely on the author’s own AWARENESS of their content and everything it might include......but a racist author isn’t going to place a trigger warning for using their characters as mouthpieces for even blatant white supremacist ideology. 

A genuinely predatory author (and yes, they absolutely do exist, and its willful stubbornness that people rely on to pretend that like, for some bizarre reason, only genuinely predatory people don’t partake in this otherwise global hobby of reading and writing fiction, like what even is that, how do you arrive at that conclusion, that like, actual pedophiles are so busy preying on ‘real life’ teenagers in their zip code 24/7 that they just don’t have TIME to go online and cultivate predatory relationships with real life teenagers via social media? That doesn’t make any sense!)

But anyway, a genuinely predatory author, is absolutely NOT going to tag or place trigger warnings for pedophilia, etc....because they don’t WANT the things they write perceived that way.

People trying to normalize incest are not always going to tag for incest because they want to DISTANCE the cute, sweet dynamic between two ‘only sorta brothers’ as other than the kind of incest that destroys families...regardless of the reality that most cases of incest are the LATTER and its the FORMER that’s so rare it barely exists. 

And that sort of thing is how we get terms like dub-con and pseudo-incest and ‘consensual underage sex’ when its describing a relationship between a minor and adult....because this is mitigating, distancing language. Its entire reason for existing is to make unpalatable content seem more palatable.

And especially in Batfandom, we KNOW this.

Because we all, practically universally, give Devin Grayson crap for describing the rape in Nightwing #93 as ‘nonconsensual sex’ and go.....THATS NOT A THING!

And then half of fandom turns around and....acts like that and similar stuff...IS A THING.

That doesn’t work! LOL. It just...doesn’t.

Or another example, because abuse can be just as triggering as rape.....like, for me, personally, I’m a survivor of both, and yes, both CAN be triggering. But not as much as people might think....like, just reading a depiction of these things doesn’t trigger me.

Its, like you were saying at the get go, yes, a matter of surprise.....the kind of thing that CAN be warned for, and prepared for, and its the sheer unexpectedness that’s usually the trigger. 

Like.....I went off a few weeks ago about reading a story that was supposed to be about Dick’s brothers learning the truth about what led him to take the Spyral mission and what happened in Forever Evil. That’s what the summary said, that was it, that was the only thing it led me to expect about the story. So understandably, I go into the story expecting it to be sympathetic to Dick. I’m looking for catharsis from it honestly, a salve for the many fics and canon events that blamed and punished him for something I don’t consider his fault, right?

And then towards the end....I get Jason punching Dick again, before hugging him, because that’s just how he reluctantly shows love or whatever.

This genuinely triggered me, yeah. Its why I got so upset about it. Because I was blindsided, I had no way to prepare for it, because I went in expecting catharsis for a story that bothered me due to its victim blaming, and instead I got the author heaping on more of the same abuse we already saw in canon.....with zero awareness that’s what she was doing. 

So....that’s absolutely something I wrestled with should I message the author and ask them to add a trigger warning or not? Because I genuinely could have used one. It would have helped. I would have avoided that story if I had any notion that might crop up in it, because frankly, that’s not something I had any interest in reading.

But problem is, there’s only really two realistic outcomes there. If she was open to hearing a genuine request for her to be aware that her content contained triggering material for a reader....chances are, she probably would have just edited it and taken that out entirely. It was just one line. Easy enough to do. It certainly didn’t add anything.

Problem is....there’s an equal and opposite likely outcome....that she’d get defensive, call this unsolicited criticism, and double down on the idea that what she had written wasn’t abuse, because obviously she doesn’t condone abuse, so she wouldn’t have written that plain and simple. It has to be acknowledged that a lot of authors ARE innately defensive about social content in their work, and not open to hearing they’ve done something offensive or triggering....because that’s like...literally the basis of the ‘no unsolicited criticism’ movement in fandom, even though being critical of toxic ideology expressed in content is NOT the same as offering criticism of someone’s writing in general. 

So you see what I mean? A trigger warning COULD genuinely help in that situation....but our fandom environment simply flat out is not conducive for readers to be at all confident that they even CAN come forward and alert an author that they delved into an offensive, even harmful take with their content and be well received no matter HOW they phrase it....

For much the same reasons I mentioned in that other post. People are more likely to instinctively jump to the defense of the person WRITING the content that offended or did actual emotional harm....than the person simply trying to say, backed by their own lived experience of....being offended or experiencing emotional harm....hey, this is a problem for me and I would appreciate it being regarded as such....

Otherwise, what is even the POINT of this entire system of trigger warnings in the first place? If a problem for a reader isn’t regarded as worthy of attention in and of itself.....at least, not in comparison to whatever problem that READER’S problem creates for the WRITER.

You see what I’m saying? For this, and a lot of other reasons, trigger warnings are innately fallible. They rely on an honor code system, and the uncomfortable truth is none of us are actually naive enough to believe everyone in fandom is innately honorable enough to honor that....if they were, would we have as much cases of anon hate, spite fics, etc?

But fandom as a whole looked at the trigger warning system and decided well....its good enough. Because its not like I’m proposing a viable alternative, its not like I have a BETTER system in mind, offhand. All I do have is the point that well...no...its NOT good enough as is....because for a ton of reasons, there’s a ton of cases in which there’s a ton of people for which it flat out doesn’t work for or benefit at all.

But when this comes up to any degree, in any capacity whatsoever....and the only thing people fall back on is well, I tagged it, or I used trigger warnings what more do you want, or its good enough for me so that’s what matters, or just....

“I did what I was supposed to per the social contract about trigger warnings, so if anything goes wrong in your reading experience at this point, that’s entirely on you.”

Like, does that make sense?

Basically, there’s a world of difference between:

This is a problem that still needs solving because the solution provided now is not all-encompassing or inclusive....

And....

This is a problem that’s already been solved as far as I’m concerned, and I’m utilizing that solution so any further problems are just in the mind of the reader and have nothing to do with reality, let alone me and my work.

Again, as I said above....its the difference between genuinely engaging with other members of your fandom community with actual concern for THEIR fandom experience.....or faking engagement with other members of your fandom community when your only real concern is YOUR fandom experience, and at most, the experiences of anyone who already is of like minds to you on a subject.

Hopefully that answers your question or clarifies my stance there, anon. And thank you for actually engaging on this. It feels a bit like shouting into the void a lot of the time, lol.

[beatriceeagle]

I think my TV meta ask reported an error so I'm going to repeat my questions, feel free to ignore any of them! 1) I love Looking for Alaska the book, and whilst I'm not worried about the TV show as an adaptation, I am worried about it being good... should I watch it? 2) Are you excited for Bojack Season 6? 3) How do you feel about Agents of Shield as a TV show that's constantly changing? I'll never forget their pivot in season 1! 4) SPORTS NIGHT! Why do I love Dan Rydell so much?

I don’t think I could love a meta ask more unless it included Farscape. This is phenomenal.

1

The highlight is that the Looking for Alaska adaptation is good and you should watch it. To get deeper, without getting spoilery, I’ve heard a lot of people say that it improves upon the book, which I don’t exactly agree with. What Looking for Alaska is is a very smart adaptation.

Basically, Looking for Alaska, the book, pulls off a thematic trick using its limited point of view. Miles spends the first two-thirds of the book wildly idealizing Alaska, and often very much in the dark about the exact specifics of her relationship with Jake, but also with Takumi and even the Colonel. Then when the turn comes, that becomes the point: Miles might have loved Alaska, but the Alaska in his head was never the real Alaska, and that means that he can never really understand what happened.

We spend a lot of time hearing Miles’ very precocious, pretentious narration, and also Alaska’s precocious, pretentious dialogue, and a lot of that has seeped into the culture as being the book, as if there’s no deconstruction happening. But there is! Miles is a little bit self-deluding, and Alaska is almost always putting on a front, and neither of their words can ever be fully trusted. This is a book about a guy who never really knew a girl.

The writers of the series, I think, wisely realized that that dynamic was going to be incredibly difficult to replicate on-screen. No matter what they did, viewers were going to get an objective look at Alaska, and the time constraints of television (ironically, the fact that they had to fill out more time) meant that they would have to go outside of Miles’ perspective. So they ditched that idea entirely, and instead dedicated themselves to expanding wherever they possibly could. We get so much more Alaska than the book gives us. She is more real than she possibly could have been in the pages, because we get to see her, not Miles’ view of her. But we also get much, much more of the Colonel, more of Sara, more of Takumi and Lara, more of the Eagle and the Old Man. And it’s wonderful! Some of the show’s most incredible scenes are between characters who are neither Miles nor Alaska.

But it does undercut the theme, somewhat. (Especially when combined with some other adaptation decisions that I won’t get into, because they are spoilery.) Looking for Alaska, the series, gives up some thematic impact in favor of a great deal of character richness, and it’s absolutely the right call for the series, given its format, and given the context in which it was released. But it was a trade, and I think it should be acknowledged.

(The other thing the show does that I think is necessary from an adaptation standpoint, but makes for a kind of weird viewing experience, is that it adds a whole plotline to the middle of the series that doesn’t exist in the book. I do think that this was necessary, because there’s not a lot of structure to the middle of Looking for Alaska, and while that’s fine for a book, a series needs a plot with some kind of forward momentum to hang itself on. But the problem is that the inevitable arc of the book means that this new plotline has nowhere to go, and it ends up just sort of fizzling out, once the book plot takes over.)

Anyway: Looking for Alaska. Very good show, very good music, exceptional performance from Denny Love. Definitely check it out if you loved the book.

2

I am very excited for BoJack season 6! I’m just waiting to watch it with my sister. I have hope that, since this is a planned final season, it’ll give the writers space to move the characters forward, and actually give people like Diane some measure of peace, and people like BoJack some measure of atonement.

3

I think that being the kind of show that was a different show every season was the smartest choice that Agents of SHIELD ever made. (The least smartest choice that Agents of SHIELD ever made was “Fitz and Simmons can never be together for more than six episodes at a time,” even if it has led to several individually successful story arcs.) It makes the show infinitely adaptable, so for instance, if they kill off their lead character thinking that the show is ending, and then suddenly get renewed for two (!!!) more seasons, it’s very easy for them to bring the actor back without walking back the story they’ve told; the show is capable of going to almost any place or time, and pulling on almost any trope of sci-fi or fantasy.

It also makes the show really interesting. One of the problems with season one of Agents of SHIELD was that the MCU is this giant world, full of lots of different settings and genres, and in comparison, AoS felt bland. The genre it was taking on (sci-fi procedural) isn’t inherently boring, but it wasn’t a particularly fresh take on the idea, and the visual trappings of the setting were incredibly sterile. But post-Hydra reveal—and especially post-season four—AoS is like the MCU in a microcosm. It can be anything! It can do a season in the future, a season in space, a season in a computer simulation. It can do pulpy action and messy comedy and gorgeous, lyrical sci-fi.

And also, it manages to do something that’s incredibly difficult (even The Good Place didn’t quite manage to get the hang of it until literally just this last episode) which is to rewrite the characters’ realities over and over without losing track of their character progressions. So, for instance, Fitz has been regular Fitz, and then he’s had his entire reality rewritten by the Framework and become the Doctor, and then he married Jemma and died, and then we reset to cryo!Fitz. And throughout all of that, the show has always been very clear about where the current Fitz is emotionally, and how all of the past and alternate versions of him affect his mental state—but also how he is distinct from any past or alternate versions of himself. And they do this while carrying on actual physical trauma from season 2; if you pay attention, Fitz still briefly loses words when he gets stressed. (As someone who takes a medication that makes me forget words easily, this is my ACTUAL FAVORITE THING on television.) The end result is that you actually know more about Fitz from seeing his reality rewritten so many times—and he still has a coherent character arc.

Of course the downside of this constant shifting is that sometimes AoS will find something that really works for it, and then leave it behind. Like, over the course of seasons three to six, they built up a lot of texture and a deep bench of characters to the space setting, and I would probably say, at this point, that Space AoS is my favorite version of AoS. But the latter half of season six ditched that setting almost entirely, and it’s not clear to what extent we’ll be going back there at all for season seven. Similarly, Fitz’s character arc remains coherent, but I’m not sure the current version of it is my favorite version of it.

But at the end of the day, I think that’s a fair trade for a show that’ll change Daisy’s name halfway through and stick with it, you know?

4

Well, I don’t know why you love Dan Rydell, but after putting a great deal of thought into this over many years, I can tell you why I love Dan Rydell: He is, setting aside some baseline Sorkin patronization, a legitimately great guy, going through a legitimately tough time.

Like, in the grand scheme of things, there are a lot of people who have it a lot worse than Dan Rydell, but one of the cool things about Sports Night is that the narrative is genuinely engaged with that fact: It’s aware of Dan’s privilege, and it makes Dan aware of his privilege, in a way that future Sorkin properties never really manage to do. Think of “The Apology”: “No rich white guy ever got anywhere with me comparing himself to Rosa Parks.” Think of Bobbi Bernstein, a woman who Dan calls crazy until she proves that she was right. Think of “The Quality of Mercy at 29K,” an episode that’s basically all about turning Dan’s privilege inside out.

What makes Dan likeable is that the show is aware of his privilege, it points his privilege out to him, and he learns. When Isaac calls him out, he’s immediately contrite. When he sees someone in need in his office, he overcomes his immediate reaction and tries to help. And when he realizes his error with Bobbi, he grants her an immediate, complete, and sincere apology.

The thing is, Dan wants so desperately to be a good guy, and it’s just really hard not to like someone who is trying so hard. He’s incredibly good to his friends, and honestly, I think the turning point is “Mary Pat Shelby.” You give Dan and Natalie’s scene in “Mary Pat Shelby” to a halfway decent actor, and how do you not come out of that scene loving Dan? This incredibly unselfish, incredibly well-pitched moment where, while everyone else is freaking out and trying to get something out of Natalie, Dan just says, “No, I’m not going to tell you what to do, I’m just going to tell you that I am behind you a million percent.” How do you not love that person?

But the other thing is that Josh Charles is not a halfway decent actor, Josh Charles is a phenomenal actor, so actually the turning point isn’t “Mary Pat Shelby.” It’s the speech in “The Apology.” The speech in “The Apology” isn’t  Sorkin’s best writing—“high as a paper kite” is a choice—and honestly, that scene is a lot to ask any actor to take on. Performed competently, it would be kind of embarrassing.

Charles fucking impales himself on that monologue. He leaves blood and guts on the anchor desk. And he somehow does it without overacting? It is a very subtle, precisely-balanced act of self-dismemberment.

What I’m saying is that right from the very beginning, Dan opens himself up to the viewer, and we see all his vulnerabilities, all the ugly, painful pieces of him that make him. And because Charles is a really, really good actor, it’s all very believable, and it’s all very magnetic—you’re drawn to it. And he does it all while being so likeable, and so good.

So of course people love Dan Rydell. He’s generous, he learns and apologizes, he tries incredibly hard, he’s got level 25 charisma, and he’s an open book of emotion—not to the people in his life, but to the viewer.

(Hey, while you’re here, have a link to an amazing Dan Rydell vid!)

Send me meta prompts to distract me from my migraine! (Yes, I still have a migraine.)

[geekpellets]

Tragedy Girls

Gwen Gwen is a dark folktale about a teenage girl and the mysterious misfortunes that happen on the farm her mother runs. There are only two characters in this film that have any real focus at all. One might assume that means they’ll be given a chance to show off their complexity and development. No. Not really. Gwen herself grows, but it is something really saved for the end. The mother is akin to the typical strict puritan parent, and never strays from that. No other character is worth mentioning because their roles are SO small by comparison. The acting is generally good. The movie is filmed incredibly well. Yet, it has to be said, this is a dull film. It doesn’t have imaginative imagery. The sense of mystery in this film feels underdeveloped. So many of its characters and character dynamics are underdeveloped or not developed at all. It’s big plot twists are obvious. It took an hour and eight minutes for the film to finally become suspenseful, and at that point there is only twelve minutes of movie left. It’s not particularly poignant, poetic, or intelligent. It’s not very entertaining. It is a short movie, but it feels longer. This movie made me grateful for a jump scare, one that probably only exists to regain the attention of the audience. In a movie like this, to add a jump scare in such a forced way, you must already know things are kind of flat and underwhelming. This movie also relies on darkness too heavily. It is definitely a crutch here.There are scenes where I might as well just turn the tv off, turn the lights off, and sit in darkness for five minutes. The few instances of practical effects are quite good, and the blood is of good quality. The movie rarely uses a music or a score, in fact, it uses it for a specific recurring thing. It’s a move I can always respect. However, I’m not sure adding music for the recurring thing makes the impact of it more effective. I think they might as well have gone all in on not having a score. The sounds in the movie are nice and crisp. You might enjoy this if you enjoy some of the slower Hammer films of the 1960′s. Personally, that was never my cup of tea. There just isn’t enough here for me. There’s a mother. There’s a daughter. There’s a series of predictable arguments for an hour and eight minutes, and soon enough the movie is over. I’d skip this one. It’s put together well, but that’s about all it has going for it. Tragedy Girls Tragedy Girls is about two high school besties that aim to become murderers for social media fame. Tragedy Girls is like if you took a mid-90′s or early 2000′s teen comedy (not of the gross out variety) and made it about two girls that kill people. Conceptually, it’s amazing. The movie itself? It succeeds at being very funny, and it plays with genre troupes in interesting ways, although it ought to be said right here and now I am among the target audience for this film. Many of these characters are quite good. The Tragedy Girls themselves are excellent, they’re funny and have great chemistry together. Alexandra Shipp in particular stands out because she has facial expressions for days. Also, I don’t think I’ve ever seen Kevin Durand have so much fun with a role. I feel like most of the recurring characters get their time to shine, even if it’s just a small comedic moment. The acting is exactly what’s necessary for a film of this tone. There are characters who aren’t funny and are acted very seriously, and that manages to work just as well. In fact, I think in one case in particular it added an extra layer to the film. I love the way this film uses music. It does so in such a tongue and cheek way that the background music for many of the scenes end up becoming a joke in and of themselves. The practical effects in the film are good, but the blood is just passable. I think the movie is well paced. There isn’t anything I would consider taking out of it. The comedy just keeps coming at a brisk pace, sometimes even when there’s murder afoot. The surprising thing is, the film evolves. While it is mostly a comedy, it did make me feel suspense at a point. It’s a little bit sad at another. It manages to build something while one is distracted by the jokes that allows the audience to feel suspense or empathize with a character without ever fully jumping off the comedy train. This film is about what you expect it to be about, thematically, but it is about other things too. It’s about love. It’s about the error of fantasizing someone up in your head. It’s about celebrity killers and the potential influence that celebrity might have on people. It’s about Craig Robinson. I think this is a great film. I had a good time watching it. If you like Mean Girls or you like horror films, I think it is a must watch.

[echoeternally]

Which Mario characters would be, as Watership Down Characters, and vice versa?

You know, I took some time to think about this one today, and I’ve got to admit, for my tastes, I can’t think of a feasible way that this works out. And it’s for a few reasons that kind of get me hung up.

Honestly, I think it comes down to at least four pretty divisive factors that keep them from being compared on an equal scale, and adds a terribly heightened challenge to it all. These would be: gender ratios (A), inconsistent characterizations (B), mismatching personalities ©, and cast prominence (D).

Obviously, it’s a lot to get into, so, I’ll include that in a portion below the cut. If you keep going, I’ll try to properly explain why it’s not just a clear-cut question to answer for this one.

A) First, gender ratios, which can be worked around based solely on personality, but still glares out big time. Watership Down has some female characters on the roster, but they tend to matter little comparatively. Hell, there are multiple characters that started as male that were later swapped to female roles in later adaptations. It’s good, and shows that the role can be played by a character, not a gender. But it’s also a reminder that the original work is dated in its viable female cast. By contrast, Mario has a nice number, and they stand out a lot better, each with unique and distinct roles, personalities, and general flavors that they add. They’re fun and dynamic, a highlight to see.

B) This actually leads into the next point, though, which would be the inconsistent characterizations. Both franchises kind of mess around with how their characters are portrayed and what they do. Sure, you get the basics well enough with the major characters: Hazel’s the brave hero leader, Mario tends to be that too. Fiver’s the timid younger brother, so is Luigi.

But it gets weirder the further down the cast list you go. Bowser’s the big bad guy, but depending on his role as the main villain or not, he can either be sympathized with, or totally evil; he’s maybe just looking for love, or has insatiable desires for conquest. Bigwig is a strong authority figure, but can either be super loyal or a part-time jerk that questions his own leader’s authority. Peach is helpless, or more powerful than she lets on. Hell, Clover took over half of Hyzenthlay’s role in the latest adaptation, and they’re far from the only instance of variable depictions in the series, further depending on the characters that are used. Overall, these changes can make them flexible to develop over time, but it makes them harder to pin down on which role defines them best.

C) And that flexibility also leads to mismatching personalities between the casts of both stories. Because Rosalina first appeared as this quiet, graceful, and yet all powerful entity, we’d picture that side to her, kind of elevating her above the usual human counterparts she’d stand beside, calling into question if she’s even human herself. But she’s later show to have simple joys and pleasures, so she’s not totally detached and above it all. This doesn’t quite equate to any particular character in Watership Down; you could try to make her on par with the Black Rabbit of Inlé, based on powers and ethereal-vibes, but Inlé is too tied with death to be a fair comparison for Rosalina.

Likewise, we have characters from Watership Down known for their stock personality types: Blackberry is the smart one, Strawberry is the big eater, and Hawkbit is the deadpan snarker. None of these particularly hit Mario characters due to their shifts in depictions. Sometimes the big eater is Bowser, sometimes it’s Luigi (yeah). Rosalina seems smart, but Yoshi and Toad have been depicted this way as well. Virtually any one of the Mario cast can fall into sarcasm and dry humor. It’s touch-and-go, but doesn’t give a solid match-up for anyone.

D) Finally, if the mentions above didn’t already make it obvious, then the issue falls to how the casts line up with first themselves, and then one another. The core cast for Mario’s main game franchise tends to fall upon Mario, Peach, Bowser, and typically Luigi to round up the rest, though sometimes he can be left out. Watership Down’s main group would likely be Hazel, Fiver, Bigwig, and General Woundwart. These are more or less the essential characters to have for there to be a story to tell for the franchises.

From there, have fun figuring out who matters and to what level. You can probably safely include higher profile picks for the major characters of each. Mario tends to favor Yoshi, some form of Toad, and generally a rotating female cast member, plus a sidekick villain or a few. Watership Down gets a way better story including the heroism from Hyzenthlay (or a female character that takes on her role for the story), and the undermining plots of whoever gets to be Woundwart’s second-in-command. That could form your secondary main characters.

But it just keeps going from there, and each character is weighted differently. Toad can be an individual and important, but also can get shafted for another more important Toad (Toadette, Toadsworth), or simply suffice as a species, not an individual. Should he be considered main or minor? Dandelion is usually lorekeeper alongside being the fastest, but both of these roles have been divided and distributed to other rabbits (Bluebell and Blackavar respectively), calling into question his prominence. Kehaar tends to always appear, but he can be written around pretty easily. Similarly, Bowser sometimes relies on the Koopalings, but they can also be missing for something close to a decade without the blink of an eye. Who matters, who doesn’t? It depends on the audience, and their interests.

…

Honestly, I even tried breaking it down for the characters on each level, and I had a list spanning past 20 characters on each side. And I wasn’t even including everyone, but just the characters that I felt were important. Trying to mix and match them was even worse, to the point where it really couldn’t be done on a really fitting level.

Going by canon interpretations for both, I think you’ve got, at best:

Mario = Hazel

Luigi = Fiver

Bowser = General Woundwart 

Peach = Hyzenthlay

Yoshi = Bigwig

That’s going by a core cast, with some additions to make sure the major-most of each group gets included. It’s not great either, for several reasons, since Bigwig and Yoshi do not have comparable personalities, but are both strong. Bowser’s also got redeeming qualities to him that actually earn him some sympathy points, whereas Woundwart…well, I think writers have tried, but he’s best as irredeemable and blatantly evil.

Personally, if I were to go maybe one extra level and include Daisy for main cast on the Mario side, I’d fit her to Bigwig, and instead equate Yoshi to Dandelion, as both of the latter two are known for speed, while the former two can be tough, but also caring as well. But I don’t feel that Dandelion and Daisy are as important to their franchises, whereas one could argue a little harder for Yoshi, and Bigwig is easily important to the story.

I even tried going on my fanfic interpretations (of at least the Mario characters) to see if that would line up better, but then that just screws up where the main villain connects. Because, that would instead look like:

Mario/Luigi = Hazel/Fiver

Bowser = Bigwig

Peach? = Hyzenthlay?

??? = General Woundwart

Because, based on how I’ve written them so far, Bowser’s even less of an evil force, and more motivated based on his heart and his people. This makes no one particularly equal to Woundwart. Conversely, Peach is a lot, well…she’s hardened. If one were to go by Hyzenthlay’s depiction in the Netflix miniseries, I’d wager that’s good enough. But this splits who Hyzenthlay is, so the character doesn’t quite feel whole. Oh, and Mario tends to be leader-like, but also has weird powers and visions going on, which helps Luigi step up into his role in his absence, so…they both have shades of Hazel and Fiver’s roles.

Furthermore, I get lost in my own biased interpretations of the fanfic I’m never writing for Watership Down, so that would make going down the rabbit hole a lot more terrifying. Well, for you reading this, anyway; I’d be thrilled to keep it going and gush about personalities in my head for the WD cast, lol.

So, that’s kind of how it goes in my mind. Yes, I’m positive there’s enough flexibility to go down each list and match up characters based on as much as possible for each side of them, or by ignoring some things. Mixing some canons together, you could get:

Mario = Hazel

Luigi = Fiver

Peach = Hyzenthlay

Daisy = Bigwig 

Bowser = General Woundwart

Kamek = Vervain/Orchis/Whoever the schemer to Woundwart is

Yoshi = Kehaar 

Toad = Pipkin/Bluebell

Toadette = Clover

Wario = Strawberry

Waluigi = Cowslip

Bowser Jr = Campion

Rosalina = Dandelion

Here, not only do these feel weirdly off when you look further into those characters, but it doesn’t really cover them properly, nor does it pick the best from the rosters of each. Yoshi’s kind of the foreign type to the core cast, so he connects well enough with Kehaar. This, however, chooses to ignore his famous speed that aligns him best with Dandelion, which instead relates his storytelling to Rosalina, because both tell stories, but that’s where their similarities end. We also choose to ignore Yoshi’s big appetite, which would connect best to Strawberry, putting the much less important Wario up to that role.

Similarly, this also confuses the interpretations on certain Watership Down characters based on how they’re depicted, and then sort of picks a Mario character that might connect. The easier one is Woundwart’s right hand scheming little twerp, which has been both Vervain and Orchis in the tv series and miniseries respectively. They work in a role similar to Kamek, a dutiful but terrified henchman.

It gets worse, though, when we hit something like Pipkin or Bluebell, as the latter was absent from the tv series, the former from the miniseries, and though both have some childish innocence to them, neither personality ends here for either. Toad, when he’s fleshed out as a standalone character, probably could be seen as innocent and childish, but I doubt he’s alone, and also has roles that elevate his mindset, which doesn’t quite make him on that same level.

Not to mention that some just don’t outright fit (Junior to Campion), but going that far along, that’s about all that works out well enough for characters that can be argued for their prominence.

…

Bottom line would be that, while I totally love both franchises and would like to put them on a equal level for comparisons, it doesn’t do either one justice.

All the same, thank you for the interest and the ask! It was fun thinking it over.

[donny35127950853-blog]

How To Obtain And Convert YouTube Videos To MP3 Or MP4 With Converto.io

There's an app running on your telephone and it is known as YouTube but still you don't know the best way to obtain video from there however if you want to know the right way to download limitless videos on Android devices see this guide Individuals are getting their video from YouTube on their laptop first then sending it to phone or tablet and it's simply waste of time, downloading and changing videos in our own system making the way in which easy and sharp and getting us away from PC. Although there are no default settings for downloading and changing videos or audios on Android units you can also make your personal settings to your machine. YouTube is a goldmine of music movies, and many people still use it as their major supply of music, although subscriptions like Spotify are taking up. When you're one among them, in some unspecified time in the future you in all probability regarded for a "YouTube video converter" — an app that would allow you to skim music from your favourite movies on YouTube within the form of MP3 files. While the time period is technically incorrect, because you'd be downloading the audio monitor from a web-based video somewhat than truly changing that video, there are a couple of good Mac apps that can assist you to out. Particularly, Elmedia Participant, the multifunctional media player we talked about earlier, and Downie, a simple downloads app for mp3 to mp4 converter free download android Mac. As a result of they're so good at storing audio, MP3 files have turn into the de facto standard 10 Widespread Audio Formats Compared: Which One Should You Use? 10 Common Audio Codecs Compared: Which One Should You Use? We could all be acquainted with MP3, what about AAC, FLAC, OGG, or WMA? Why do so many standards exist? Which ones should you care about and which ones can you ignore? Read More for music software program, digital audio players, and music streaming sites. Irrespective of which working system or system you personal, you will be assured MP3s will work proper out of the field with no hitch. Permute supports a couple of dozen video codecs and over 10 for audio, which suggests it could possibly deal with just about any media file you throw at it. And by the way, when you're not sure which format you want in the long run because all you need is for the file to open in your iPhone or Apple TV, Permute has you coated. You simply pick "Apple TV" or "iPhone" as the ensuing format and the app will determine the rest. Lengthy story quick, be sure you give it a try, as a result of a media converter merely would not get better than this.

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[deltaengineering]

Spring Anime 2017: I did it for teh awkwardz

We’re already a month deep into the new season, but I’ve had this draft sitting around and I might as well finish it. It’s not much anyway, because a lot of shows just kept going this time. Oh, and just for the record, I also watched episode 1 of The Reflection and that was just a boring, sketchy looking mess without any sort of narrative hook besides “superheroes, right?” Thanks, Stan Lee.

Little Witch Academia

Little Witch Academia was a really cool short movie about little witches doing witch things, followed by another rehash short movie which raised concerns that the  LWA concept doesn’t have any legs besides good production values. Now we got 25 more short movies, and guess what: What worked once for half an hour of random entertainment can’t sustain 10 hours without major writing effort. And “writing effort” is clearly not where Trigger’s core competency is. LWA isn’t badly written in the ways that anime usually is: it doesn’t have terrible ideas, or schizophrenic tone, or a lack of concern for pacing. It just doesn’t really try and seems barely “written” at all. The script always has an air of “first draft” about it, in that it thinks that just winging it until the animators can make a cool action scene or a goofy face is good enough.

This is especially apparent during the first half, where Trigger are taking inspiration from episodic Western animation and just have Akko be bad at magic in various circumstances – but something like Dexter’s Lab actually has very skillful writing, even in absence of an overarching plot. In the second half, a plot rather haphazardly gets bolted on to this, but it’s not a good plot and the one good crisis it raises (an explanation of why Akko is so bad at magic that still fails to explain how she managed to get into a magic school) is so quickly resolved by everyone not actually caring about it much that I wonder if they even realized what they had there. In the end it’s just about the regular “believe in yourself, trust your friends, and ffs don’t try to harness the power of hate and suffering for your own ends” message I’ve seen a million times before, and usually done better.

And there’s more, like the cast: lots of half-assed scripts get by with just parading funny characters around, but LWA is almost always about the exceedingly one-note Akko. Apart from the ending, when Akko suddenly doesn’t matter much and it’s all about Ursula and Croix. Lotte and Sucy, ostensibly major characters, get one focus episode, then just sort of hang around later, and that goes for all the other students too. Diana gets a bit more focus, but that just points out that there isn’t a lot to her either (still more than to Akko, admittedly). There’s bizarre subplots about football. Croix gets introduced late and even then only sits around menacingly until the end. The universe is a Harry Potter knockoff without the depth (yeah, I know), and is decidedly un-whimsical for something that is supposed to run on the boundless power of imagination – just replacing mundane utilities with magic, like “crystal ball facebook”, loses its charm very quickly. And the rest is usual parade of references to things that caught the animator’s fancy that day – yes, there is a mecha episode. Of course there is. It looks good. Of course it does. 

So if the writing is only a means to an end, is at least that end (animation) worth it? Well, that mostly depends on how important you consider the writing. On its own, the look of the show is premium tier, it’s always colorful, expressive, and definitely notable on a technical level for quite a few cuts. But it’s not a notable artistical achievement in its own right, and of course a TV show still can’t afford to be awesome all the time. The animation is just where all the effort went and it should make for some very nice demo reels. And even the action scenes lack engagement, because they’re set to a whimsical wannabe Danny Elfman score with no rhythm or punch.

Overall, I’d consider Little Witch Academia barely mediocre. After all my complaints about the writing, that may sound like letting it off easy. Still, the writing, while beset with endless flaws I could easily spend as much time again on, is just one aspect. All other aspects are at the very least okay, it has a few nice moments, and the visuals are consistently good – the good parts are just nothing you can spend a lot of praise on, but they do exist. Compared to the originals it’s just “more of the same”, but it’s a stark reminder that “more” in itself often makes something not “the same”. Especially 25 times more.

Kabukibu!

After angrily ripping into an superficially easy-to-like, well-made anime, it’s time to be a hypocrite and give Kabukibu, a cheap, forgettable show that nobody cared about, a pass. I just have a soft spot for these little shows that try, and if nothing else, Kabukibu doesn’t feature strange self-owns like when Cheer Danshi introduced a dozen supporting characters between episodes. Kabukibu is just a show about some school kids that really like Kabuki, and that’s okay. It doesn’t excel at anything, but it doesn’t fail hard at anything either. Even the animation knows its limits, it’s obviously cheap but it never outright falls apart. The characters are a cut above the bland nothings they could be. There’s a semi-meaningful conflict about doing something for fun vs doing something as a job, and another interesting conflict of modernization vs tradition – The way that the kabuki club approaches non-traditional kabuki is actually thoughtful. And hey, even some of the jokes land.

I feel like these small stories about niche topics have one big benefit over the designated heavy hitters: They know they’re not pandering to the mainstream, and this means they can afford to be earnest (unless they’re pandering to a niche crowd, but I assume the lobby for amateur kabuki is very small). No, Kabukibu is not even close to a Rakugo Shinjuu, but earnestness is quite refreshing in anime – even if it’s just another fucking school club again. 

The King's Avatar

There’s a very simple elevator pitch for The King’s Avatar: “Sword Art Online, but Chinese”, and you’ll hear that pretty much every time TKA is mentioned. Like just now. But from what I can tell, it’s only surface level. Yes, TKA is about a cool dude who pwns fools in an online game, but that’s pretty much where it ends. What’s actually very true about the comparison, however, is that TKA is Chinese. Very Chinese. Much more Chinese than all the Haoliners anime made for the Japanese market. It’s still basically a very slow, idealized sports show about a bunch of quirky people that climb the ranks in an MMO that also is a hugely popular e-sport, led by a guy who is suspiciously good at it, but playing a game for a decade will do that I suppose.

I don’t know much about MMOs, much less Chinese ones, but the details of the game don’t seem to make a whole lot of sense to me (especially the focus on APM in a game like this seems questionable), but hey, I’ll accept it. It’s not like it’s very important either, since thankfully there isn’t a lot of backseat game design happening here. It’s just people having fights with the occasional random powerup, and that works well enough. The Chinese like their sudden comedic tone shifts even more than the Japanese do, so there’s a bunch of that too. But I like the characters and their schemes, and I like how the fights look – at least up to the standards of a mid-tier Japanese production. It’s pretty cool. To be honest, the culture clash my main draw here: TKA isn’t exactly great, but it feels odd in a way that reminds me of the time when I didn’t know every anime trope and a huge amount of Japanese cultural details. That makes it feel more like “anime” than actual anime does nowadays.

Uchouten Kazoku S2

Uchouten Kazoku didn’t have to do much to be a winner, and sure enough, a winner it was. If you liked the first season, you’ll like this too, since it’s more of the same. And that’s in fact the one major thing I would hold against it, and which makes me like season 2 less than the first one: The surprise factor is gone, but everything else is just... the same. Down to the plotline, which eventually turns out to be almost a replay of season 1. Only this time with an even less conclusive ending because there will be a season 3 eventually – but the book that will be the source material for that one hasn’t even been written, so it’ll be a long wait. 

But stagnating at a level as high as Uchouten Kazoku is operating on is still far from bad. And the few things they did add are top notch: The Nidaime finally gives Benten a counterpart that is able to stand up to her, with glorious results. Gyokuran, Yoichirou’s fiancee, makes for a nice romantic foil for his previously a little bland character. And Tenmaya is just a bastard you love to hate. Add to this some delightfully weirdo happenings like Benten taking a trip to hell to recreationally wrestle ogres, and you’re never lacking for entertainment with this show. It didn’t blow me away the same way the first season did, but it’s still an extremely solid show. Just come up with a few more new things next time, okay.

Tsuki ga Kirei

And finally, we have the hardest sell for a show in quite a while. What is Tsuki ga Kirei about? Well, it’s an understated romance between normal (i.e., awkward) teens. No magical realism gimmicks (like One Week Friends), no intense drama (like every shoujo romance ever), no odd couple dynamics (like Ore Monogatari), nothing. And it’s shamefully heterosexual on top of everything, who is supposed to watch this!? Well, there’s only one actual reason to watch it, and that reason is that it’s pretty damn good. There isn’t much to it, but it just does everything right: The characters are fully formed humans with relatable, relatively minor weaknesses that anyone could have. There are no designated villains; even the romantic rivals just turn out to be good people whose danger comes mostly from being a bit more outgoing that our introverted protagonists. The meddling adults really do have everyone’s best interests at heart, they just have a more cynical outlook on life. The characters develop in a relatable way, without leaving their original setup behind. It’s really good stuff that I would hesitate to call fully “realistic” (it’s a bit too sappy and positive for that), but has a verisimilitude that is almost unmatched in anime of this genre. And that is more important here than brutal realism.

It looks good too; the production falters a bit in the middle, and it has a curious reliance on stiff CG models for crowd scenes, but it’s nothing unusual and nothing that would amount to a major trouble spot since the character design, animation detail, background and and color work is consistently very good. I’m not going to lie, I love Tsuki ga Kirei and it’s the best show of the season, and that is no mean feat considering that said season had a very solid sequel to Uchouten Kazoku in it. Just a nice, small scale story about a bunch of lovable dorks that fully pays off and leaves no questions open.

[anothershadeofpurple]

glimpses of this "farfetched" friendship/support (or whatev) that you show with think-tank guys gives me hope. because in fandom filled with discord and people who impose themselves as “leaders” through pissing contests, this is a brilliant example how two extreme opposites CAN show respect for the other and communicate in a way more constructive, respecttful and enjoyable for everyone. i think i’m learning a lot here, so thank you. and thank you for everything else positive you’re giving us. (:

Thanks for your lovely message, Anon!

I think on here we are all hyper aware of people’s opinions in ways that we wouldn’t necessarily be with our offline friends. In real life, you get to know people differently. You find out their histories and their flaws. There are redeeming qualities that maybe aren’t visible online. The things you talk about are more varied and you get a more complete picture.

We’re a group of people who like the same tv show and would love to see the same pairing together. The irony is that if some of us met in high school, we might have felt like we’d finally met someone who understood us - raise hands if you were that lonely kid* - and here, because we flock together around one very specific subject and talk about it for years, it’s the differences that begin to stand out. That’s completely normal, it’s good to have clarity and understand nuance. Being a very active blog myself however, it becomes obvious that people put you in a box that doesn’t necessarily fit. I know if it happens for me, it’s happening to everyone else here as well. Everything’s amplified and other things are muted. Knowing what it’s like tells me that’s happening for the other bloggers here as well. I’m only seeing a fraction of who they are and everyone’s already been pigeonholed. Many before I even came here. I try to keep that in mind when I interact or judge.

The @ouathinktank-metacommentary and I both like SwanQueen and we want to see Emma & Regina together. We see a similar story and clearly we care. We want it to be done justice. Otherwise, would we even still be here? They think it’s queer baiting, I think it’s not, but we both like to build an argument about why we think what we think. They’re focused more on information surrounding the show and PR, I delved in and am basing my conclusions more on dissecting the story, less on knowledge of media landscape. It’s a different approach and focus. We clearly also both like to write. It’s only an unlikely friendship if you forget there’s people behind this that have a lot more going on than that blog about Once Upon a Time. (Apologies if there’s any misrepresentation of you, Thinky Tank. It’s unintentional. Especially cause I might be extrapolating the 25%.)

I am not uncritical of the show at all, but somehow that aspect of what I write gets completely forgotten and isn’t associated with me. In fact, it would be great if some of the more critical blogs would read my theories because I could use some help reformulating the criticism with the story concepts I think they’re using in mind. The criticism still stands, but currently we can easily be dismissed as ‘simply not understanding what they’re doing’ in my humble opinion. I still see an issue with showing years of a relationship that started with a no-means-yes dynamic - and continues to be deeply problematic. It doesn’t matter if it’s symbolic if you’re not encouraging people to take a closer look, does it?

I still think it’s harmful to queer code a character and then force a man on her for such a long time. I don’t think there’s any excuse for their treatment of POC. I think it’s awful to attract a queer audience without going the extra mile to protect them from the bigotry that inevitably will be reproduced from the real world in the microcosmos that is fandom. The thing is, my criticism hasn’t changed much over the years, so unless I can add something to it, or if I have an idea to activate people to communicate these issues, I can’t go on an endless repeat. Not to mention that other people are talking about it. If they weren’t, I would be.

Honestly, and yes, I’ll be the Queen of Positivity ( which 🙄 ) in that respect, I think many great things happen in this fandom. Plenty of people do interact in a respectful way. Relationships happen. I don’t know about you, but I’ve had… life-changing moments talking to people I met here. In real life and online. A lot happens on private chats too. This show has a way of getting under your skin and unearthing some issues - because it never goes there but hints at it, you end up talking about them in frustration. I think people have been there for me and I hope I have been there for other people too. So the interactions happening on our blogs aren’t the same as the ones that happen in private, but I count those as part of fandom as well. This really isn’t the snake-pit people reduce it to. Wherever humans come together, there are going to be issues. 

Respectfully disagreeing with people is a skill and there’s a learning curve. I find this an interesting place, I’m learning things about myself and it’s a relatively safe space to grow and figure out how to write and deal with how people respond to what you put out in the world. We have to stop seeing conflicts and differences as ‘bad by default’ and just figure out how to work with them. It’s cool. We get it wrong, we get it right. It’s learning. There’s people from all walks of life, different ages, different levels of education, different ethnicities. People from all over the world. Ever seen riots after a soccer derby? We’re doing mighty fine in comparison.

I think compassion is a key here, but a superficial understanding of compassion is often used to uphold the status quo. It’s often the powerful demanding compassion from the powerless or demanding to meet halfway but then completely mis-assessing where halfway actually would be if you consider the societal context of the groups people belong to.

What I understand compassion to be is to be very open to the other side and to really listen. And to stay open to hear the whole thing out. And to listen even when you find yourself disagreeing with aspects - so hard that one. It’s really about taking time and opening yourself up to somebody else - and maybe also letting yourself be seen. The pitfalls are - for me - that you have to deal with your own self-esteem issues if you want to do that in a healthy way while respecting your own boundaries.

Oddly - and this is something I’ve started contemplating while being here - I think in a weird way it’s often compassion for the self - or lack thereof - that stands in our way. Specifically because there are so many women here. We’re socialized to be nice. We have to be kind and good and nurturing and giving. We are all also subconsciously prejudiced about many things. When those prejudices are called out, beyond our ego getting bruised when we have to acknowledge we were wrong, there is this extra layer of realizing that we weren’t being nice. Somehow it’s worse when it was unaware or unintentional? It’s easier to convince ourselves that somehow the other side was wrong. It’s self-protection. If we had learned to be compassionate with ourselves. Say, yes, you were an ass, but not being the nice one - whatever the reason - is not the end of the world. Just learn from it and move on, because the real mistake is making it about you when there’s work to be done. So I think the cage that keeps us from talking to each other is a very complex one that we need to pick apart. Part of it is about us not wanting to be wrong, but the part we don’t talk about I think relates to the expectation of being nice.

The other thing is it only works if you find someone who applies compassion in a similar way. Only after taking that time you can really start to see if there is a middle road. You don’t have to agree on everything, but often another path becomes visible that you hadn’t seen yet. This all sounds very fluffy when described in abstract terms, but in reality, it’s about banging your head against the wall and still coming back. It’s looking at yourself in a metaphorical mirror for a day and still coming back risking that you might find yourself in that place again the next day. It’s not pretty, but there are rewards and they’re often in unexpected places.

This message has been brought to you by Hallmark.**

*Raised hand.**Also, humor is key.

[blue--green]

From the article: Time Magazine’s annual “Person of the Year” announcement is, year after year, grossly misunderstood. Time Magazine is clear on its sole criterion – “the person who had the greatest influence, for better or worse, on the events of the year” – yet, do a simple search on Twitter and you will find countless people who seem to think that the “Person of the Year” selection is tantamount to an endorsement.  Previous winners have included Joseph Stalin (1939, 1942), Ayatollah Khomeini (1979), Adolf Hitler (1938), and other figures who I think it is safe to assume the Time staff does not endorse. This year, it should come as no surprise that President-elect Donald Trump was chosen to grace the cover of Time’s annual issue (shot by Jewish photographer Nadav Kander). “For better or worse,” Trump, during his campaign and now after his election, has certainly been among the greatest influences on the events of the year. For clues as to how Time feels about that question — is it “for better or worse?” — we can look to the image chosen for the cover of the issue. The decisions that Time made regarding how to photograph Trump reveal a layered, nuanced field of references that place the image among, in this viewer’s opinion, the magazine’s greatest covers. In order to deconstruct the image, let’s focus on three key elements (leaving aside the placement of the ‘M’ in ‘Time’ that makes it look like Trump has red horns): the color, the pose, and the chair. The Color Notice how the colors appear slightly washed out, slightly muted, soft. The palette creates what we might call a vintage effect. The image’s sharpness and detail reveal the contemporaneity of the picture, but the color suggests an older type of film, namely, Kodachrome. Kodachrome, the recently discontinued film produced by Kodak, was designed to create accurate color reproduction in the early 1900’s. It was immensely popular between the late 30’s and 70s, and its distinctive look defines our common visual concept of nostalgia. By reproducing a Kodachrome color palette, the Time cover makes us reimagine the cover as if it were an image from the era of Kodachrome’s mass popularity. (Where your mind goes when thinking about leaders from the era of World War Two, segregation, and the Cold War era is up to you.) This visual-temporal shift in a sense mirrors a lot of the drives that fueled Trump’s rise. Trump ran a campaign based on regressive policies and attitudes — anti-environmental protection, anti-abortion, pro-coal, etc. This election was not just about regressive policy choices, but also about traditional values (defined primarily by the Christian right), about nostalgia for American greatness and security, about nostalgia for a pre-globalized world. The Pose Trump’s pose can be read as a subversive play on a traditional power-portrait pose (look to Delaroche’s portrait of a defeated Napoleon for another wonderfully subversive take on the pose, though the tone there is elegiac as opposed to scheming) Paintings of seated monarchs can be seen to hold two aesthetic functions — to ground the association between the sitter and the throne, thus solidifying the metonymy, and to heighten the sense of servitude in the viewer. The viewer must approach the monarch, the monarch does not rise for the viewer.In our post-monarchic time, the power of the throne is largely gone, but the power of a seated figure remains. The chair itself is unimportant, it is the act of sitting that matters. By placing a portrait in this tradition, the chair assumes the role of the throne, and the sitter the role of king (or queen) — the visual effect is the same.Consider the following image of the Lincoln Memorial (for further reference, view these images of Vladimir Putin and LL Cool J. The image of the Lincoln Memorial (and the other two images) is an exaggerated version of the traditional pose. We see our subject head on, but, most importantly, we see the subject from below. The angle forces us to look up at the subject, which in turn creates the impression that the subject is looking down at us. This pose and angle, with the viewer seemingly (and literally in the case of the Lincoln Memorial), at the subject’s feet, makes the subject appear dominant, powerful, judging.But, flip the image around, and suddenly we have a whole new set of connotations. On the Time cover, instead of seeing Trump head on and from below, we see him seated from behind and roughly at eye level. The power relation has shifted entirely. Trump’s turn towards the camera renders the tone conspiratorial rather than judgmental. There are two images at play here — the imagined power-image taken from the front, and the actual image, in which Trump seems to offer the viewer a conniving wink, as if to say, look at how we hoodwinked those suckers in the front (both Trump and the viewer are looking down on those in front). By subverting the typical power dynamic, Time, in a sense, implicates the viewer in Trump’s election, in his being on the cover in the first place.In another layer, much of what we know about Donald Trump has been gleaned through images. He is a master of branding, a reality TV star who has long been a tabloid favorite. By choosing not to shoot Trump head on, the Time cover almost offers us a “behind the scenes” glimpse of the man who has spent so much of his time in front of the camera – heightening the conspiratorial tone and complicity of the viewer. The highly posed and processed nature of the photograph offers yet another level of irony. Finally, we must note the ominous shadow lurking on the backdrop. It’s a small, but important and clever detail. Just as this image provides us with two theoretical points of view, it also provides us with two Trumps — Trump the president-elect, and the specter of Trump the president, haunting in the wings, waiting to take form. The Chair The masterstroke, the single detail that completes the entire image, is the chair. Trump is seated in what looks to be a vintage “Louis XV” chair (so named because it was designed in France under the reign of King Louis XV in the mid 18th century). The chair not only suggests the blindly ostentatious reigns of the French kings just before the revolution, but also, more specifically, the reign of Louis XV who, according to historian Norman Davies, “paid more attention to hunting women and stags than to governing the country” and whose reign was marked by “debilitating stagnation,” “recurrent wars,” and “perpetual financial crisis” (sound familiar?). The brilliance of the chair however, is visual rather than historical. It’s a gaudy symbol of wealth and status, but if you look at the top right corner, you can see a rip in the upholstery, signifying Trump’s own cracked image. Behind the bluster, behind the glowing displays of wealth, behind the glittering promises, we have the debt, the tastelessness, the demagoguery, the racism, the lack of government experience or knowledge (all of which we unfortunately know too well already). Once we notice the rip, the splotches on the wood come into focus, the cracks in Trump’s makeup, the thinness of his hair, the stain on the bottom left corner of the seat — the entire illusion of grandeur begins to collapse. The cover is less an image of a man in power than the freeze frame of a leader, and his country, in a state of decay. The ghostly shadow works overtime here — suggesting a splendor that has already passed, if it ever existed at all. Taken together, these elements add up to a profound portrayal of anxiety for the coming years. We have the implicit placement of Trump in the mid 1900’s (looking through the Time Magazine cover archives, no images really resemble this cover, save the one seen on the left [a purely visual comparison]). We have a suggestion of the scheming, sordid underside of power. We have the crumbling facade of wealth, which, like “The Picture of Dorian Gray” suggests more than just a physical deterioration. As a photograph, it’s a rare achievement. As a cover, it’s a statement.

[fmdsooaharchive]

CHO SOOAH — SELF-PARA #20 (THE PROJECT)

SUMMARY: it’s not the most ambitious project she was ever involved in but when sooah is contacted to talk about the possibility of her working in jtbc’s new variety show, sooah is thrilled beyond description. she’ll not only be working with big names in the industry, she’ll also spend two weeks in jeju. WC: 815

It’s early March when she’s called at the headquarters of Gold Star to discuss a few things and, among them, the possibility of new projects for her. Sooah is thrilled by the news, of course. Since Fuse, as a whole group, didn’t have any plans for a possible comeback anytime soon, she looked forward to whatever opportunity that was given to her to keep her working and busy. The fact that she would be releasing a song sometime later this month was already exciting enough, but having a variety show made her feel something different in comparison to releasing songs.

She loves working with music. Either when she’s the one singing them or when she’s more involved in the process instead. She just loves that she can do what she learned to like for a living, and that’s one of her biggest rewards since becoming an idol. But recently, Sooah also found out that going to variety shows can be a lot of fun, mainly because it’s so different from everything she does in her day-to-day life. It brings a new dynamic to the table, and she likes that.

It’s a few days later when her manager gets to her again and asks her to follow him to another meeting room. She wasn’t sure exactly where they were going or why she had to attend this meeting, at first. But then, he explained to her that they had a few things that needed to be discussed with the staff of the said show they were planning to send her on.

He didn’t say it was an interview though. With cameras.

Sooah spent most of her morning in the practice room that day. Even if there wasn’t anything planned for Fuse, she still liked to get in touch with old choreographies and practice old songs because she’s no expert. If she doesn’t do things with some frequency, she’s afraid she’ll start doing poorly again, and that’s not her goal in the slightest. But now, she’s wearing way too casual clothes to appear on TV, and her hair is a bit of a mess since it was tied up for hours now. But she takes everything in with a good mood in the end. If this works out, this won’t be the first time they’ll be seeing her in this kind of state.

“I like Lee Hyori-sunbaenim, and I think this is a nice opportunity to not only meet her but to get away a little as well,” she tells them honestly because what’s the point if she’s not being sincere. “We just finished our La Rouge tour in February, and I’ve been busy with other projects recently too, but they are always inside buildings, and I don’t get the chance to feel the sunlight a lot nowadays,” she says good-humored with a light chuckle. “So, right now, having some time to distress and heal a little bit sounds very appealing, and I’d like that very much,” she adds with a shy smile and a little shrug.

“I interact well with my colleagues and seniors, so I think people misunderstand me a bit? They may think that I’m a bit of an extrovert, but I’m shy around people usually. It takes me a little while to get used to them, but we can become friends quickly as well,” she tries charming them with words. She knows this is a basic introduction, but she still wants to make a good impression. “I’ve been to Jeju maybe a handful of times in the past. I never had the chance to visit a lot, even when I was in high school because I debuted so young, I couldn’t go on school trips like that, and my sense of direction is not so good, so I might get lost too if I don’t have anyone with me, but like a puppy, I’ll eventually get where I’m needed, I’m sure,” that, for some reason makes the staff laugh, and despite being the truth, she feels encouraged. “I don’t have a driving license yet,” and that again makes them chuckle amusedly, “maybe I should get one before we start filming?” she jokingly ponders.

“I just moved out from my parents’ house last year. Until then, I lived in the dorms with my member, so I started learning how to cook recently. I can make things taste as they should, but I don’t guarantee the looks or the preparation to be fancy.” Sooah answers when they ask about cooking skills, and again, it’s not something she should lie about because no way won’t be proven when they film, and she likes being a bad cook than a liar.

They give her some notebooks with a Jeju Island guide and recipes, and she promises to study them hard before the final week of March comes and they start shooting the show.

“I will work hard!”

[jenniferasberryus]

Why Sonic Is the Perfect Mascot for Gen Z

Ever since the film based on the Genesis’ Sonic games got regenerated for Gen Zs, it’s got me thinking: “Gen Z’s” sounds a lot like “Genesis.” But, beyond that, it’s got me thinking about the ever-improving system we have in place for marketing nostalgia to Millenials, while also trying to convince new clusters of Gen Z kids to embrace these characters and franchises as their own.

Marvel comics became the MCU, the Star Wars continue unabated, and everyone’s so aware that we’re living in recycled times that... that’s all I’m really going to say about it. What’s interesting to me is just how perfect Sonic the Hedgehog is as a vehicle for this kind of weaponized nostalgia, and how he’s served as a measure of our relationship to coolness for three generations now.

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Obviously, by casting Jim Carrey in a wacky role and re-doing the CG to make Sonic look more like his classic self, the filmmakers aren’t shying away from appealing to fond Millenial memories (you know, for money!). But Sonic remains primarily a kids’ movie, and thinking about the ways that today’s young people may relate to the blue blur made me realize that Sonic said a lot more about the Millennial generation than we realized - whether he intended to or not - and he sheds light on some of the things that connect us across time, no matter our generation...except for the Boomers, who I guess we all hate now? Is that the meme? Regardless, to understand why Sonic is the fuzzy multi-generational mirror that he is, we’re going to need...

A Bit of a History Lesson

To be clear, I’m considering a Baby Boomer someone born between 1950 and 1965, a Gen X-er someone born between ‘65 and ‘80, a Millenial someone born between ‘80 and ‘95 (prime Sonic age), and a Gen Z-er anyone born after 1995.

When Sonic was initially released in 1991, I was six years old, and “being cool” was super important both to myself and all of my peers (except for the kid who brought a gavel to school every day). What I think younger folks today might not understand is that this quest for coolness was not about authenticity, individuality, or any kind of meta-awareness of our identities. We weren’t “cool,” we were Cool™, and Coolness™ was defined by brands, something most of us didn’t grow up with the media-savvy to question. It was about being in a minority product vertical: skateboarding, black clothes, skitchin’, rap and/or punk rock on MTV, and unironically spelling the word “extreme” with a capital X.

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Speaking of irony, I’d argue that the ’90s were the decade where Detached Irony was born, grew up, got perfected as chronicled in the 1995 Alanis Morisette song “Ironic,” and, in a sense, died. Irony is a toy we make memes with nowadays, but it used to be what we used to identify ourselves as - we were misfits who were “over it,” and therefore cooler than you. You were Coke, we were Pepsi. Flash forward twenty years and I’d call myself more of a Blueberry Acai caffeine-free Diet Coke guy; my point being that identity issues have gotten more complex over the years. And Sonic has all of that wrapped up in his fur. Needles? His…hedgehog...texture.

The ’90s were a gaming landscape dominated by Mario: a fat, middle-aged human who focuses primarily on jumping. This made Sonic feel like pure, uncut, corporate-designed cool in a way that immediately juiced the X-centers of my brain. If you were a Sega kid, you felt indie, edgy, a little more Pitchfork than your Nintendo playmates. Sonic focused on going fast, his head had Liberty Spikes, and he was such a crude, rude, awesome dude that if you stopped playing for a few seconds he’d look right into camera and give you the stink eye for wasting his time.

Amazingly, none of that seemed corny to us at the time. Sonic’s Cool was genuine and accepted by his fans with a naivete born of the mono-media culture of the ’70s and ’80s, and which has been slowly decaying ever since Fonzie jumped the shark. These days it’s almost been completely dispelled as the internet and other technologies drive us to be more aware of the systems around us from a younger and younger age.

Considering that, it’s no coincidence that the 90’s saw the ascendance of grunge music, pop-punk, an explosion in goth culture, the advent of “The Gritty Reboot,” and popular films with nihilism as a central theme. As a culture, we became obsessed with the “fakeness” of all the sheeple around us — irony became a way to interact with the broader world, and a signature part of the Gen X and Millenial attitude. Suddenly we were only interested in bands that hadn’t “sold out” yet, and anyone who didn’t think everything sucked was probably a phony.

[ignvideo url="https://www.ign.com/videos/2015/10/14/history-of-awesome-1998"]

In that environment, Sonic’s cool started to taste a little Chemical Zone-ey, a little factory-produced. Although the fact that his transition to 3-D graphics was far less graceful than Mario’s was definitely a factor, as a pop-cultural icon Sonic had to shift gears, too. The first Sonic TV show, essentially a kid’s comedy, was canceled and replaced with a much more action-packed and serious take on the Battle for Mobius (if you didn’t know, Sonic’s from a planet called Mobius in the year 3235, but it’s best not to question it).

During the same period, Sonic stopped moving merch, and Sega announced their retirement from the console wars. Which finally brings us to Gen Z, the generation that’s proud to be themselves and frankly doesn’t give a f**k what you think about it.

Sonic & Gen Z (or... Zennials or… Whatever You/They Want to Call Your/Themselves)

These days, truly being yourself, unique, authentic… just you, is huge business. Youtube and Twitch are filled with child billionaires who lean into their personality quirks and are loved specifically for that reason. Also some racism. But the bigger point is, in the new normal, ironic detachment isn’t nearly as valuable. It’s actually cooler, these days, to be into something than to be over something. Young people feel more empowered to simply like what they like, which makes it an ideal time for Sonic to re-enter the fray.

[ignvideo url="https://www.ign.com/videos/2019/11/12/sonic-the-hedgehog-old-and-new-design-comparison"]

None of this is to say the movie will definitely do well (or even be good), but as a Sonic fan for life, it’s been interesting to watch him go from cool, to corporatized and “fake”, to “kinda corny and silly and… still fake, but that’s what’s funny about it.” The whole debacle with the initial CG Sonic reveal speaks to that...the filmmakers tried to make Sonic “realistic” and the internet said, “No you idiots, he’s a cartoon rascal that thinks he’s too cool for school, just let him be that!”

Gen Z is the first generation of humans to have grown up fully immersed in a digitally-enhanced society. Everyone is able to indulge their interests and hobbies much more thoroughly now, which has resulted in a galaxy of fragmented fan-bases and communal identities that make the “Are you a Sega person or a Nintendo person?” question seems quaint by comparison.

[ignvideo url="https://www.ign.com/videos/2019/03/01/why-are-there-no-good-video-game-movies"]

Nowadays, someone isn’t just a Nintendo or Sega player - they’re an anime cosplayer with an interest in tabletop gaming, or a maker of pixel-beats who crochets Star Wars scarves on Etsy in their spare time. The pop culture landscape is richer. Case in point: there were 130 more movies released in the US in 2018 than in 2017, and the number of scripted TV series’ have increased by 85% since 2011. In such a dynamic environment, generalizations are tough to make, but there is a lot of statistical data on Gen Z folks -- mostly marketing data about buying trends, because Capitalsim™ -- that I think bodes well for the possibility of a Sonic Renaissance.

Environmental Consciousness

Gen Z kids are more concerned about pollution, sustainability, and conservancy than any previous generation. Sonic the Hedgehog’s arch-nemesis is a boomer in a non-self-driving vehicle who’s here to automate all the flowers and animals and build a giant factory.

Fiscal Responsibility

Gen Z-ers are notoriously thrifty, more likely to work a series of freelance jobs or change careers frequently, and always looking for bargains or a place to live that they can actually afford. Sonic the Hedgehog hoards gold rings and emeralds and is in danger of being gentrified out of his neighborhood.

Cord-Cutters

Gen Z is the generation that “cut the cable,” and consumes most of their content on their mobiles, seeing screens as essentially interchangeable and TV as outdated. Sonic destroys hundreds of old-fashioned TVs every game and is mobility incarnate.

Data Protection

Gen Z places less emphasis on the importance of personal privacy. Sonic wears gloves and shoes but no pants.

Ethically-Sourced…Chili Dogs?

Gen Z is consuming far less meat than previous generations. Sonic loves chili dogs, which is a tube of several kinds of meat with ground-up meat on top. Okay, that one doesn’t work. Um...

Blue Hair

I’ve been seeing lots of kids with blue hair lately? What’s up with that?

Let’s see, how can I sound older than I already do? Oh! Bidets? No thank you! What’s all this fuss lately about bidets and bidet seat add-ons? I’ll stick to good old-fashioned American-made two-ply, thank you very much! Now, in my day, we had the Virtual Boy, and he was my best friend and oh my, the times we’d have…

[poilib element="accentDivider"]

Editor’s Note: Michael just kept typing out SNES titles until he got sleepy. We put a blanket over him to make sure he didn’t get cold.

What’s your take on Sonic these days? Corporate Shill or Moderately Funny In Sort of a Kitschy Way Corporate Shill? Let us know in the comments, or to really see how far the internet has fallen, check out what happens when you put the creepy old CG sonic’s teeth on other game characters.

from IGN Video Games https://www.ign.com/articles/2020/01/09/why-sonic-is-the-perfect-mascot-for-gen-z via IFTTT from The Fax Fox https://thefaxfox.blogspot.com/2020/01/why-sonic-is-perfect-mascot-for-gen-z.html

[asrarmukadamworld-blog]

Understanding Web Design

We get better design when we understand our medium. Yet even at this late cultural hour, many people don’t understand web design. Among them can be found some of our most distinguished business and cultural leaders, including a few who possess a profound grasp of design—except as it relates to the web.

Some who don’t understand web design nevertheless have the job of creating websites or supervising web designers and developers. Others who don’t understand web design are nevertheless professionally charged with evaluating it on behalf of the rest of us. Those who understand the least make the most noise. They are the ones leading charges, slamming doors, and throwing money—at all the wrong people and things.

If we want better sites, better work, and better-informed clients, the need to educate begins with us.

Preferring real estate to architecture

It’s hard to understand web design when you don’t understand the web. And it’s hard to understand the web when those who are paid to explain it either don’t get it themselves, or are obliged for commercial reasons to suppress some of what they know, emphasizing the Barnumesque over the brilliant.

The news media too often gets it wrong. Too much internet journalism follows the money; too little covers art and ideas. Driven by editors pressured by publishers worried about vanishing advertisers, even journalists who understand the web spend most of their time writing about deals and quoting dealmakers. Many do this even when the statement they’re quoting is patently self-serving and ludicrous—like Zuckerberg’s Law.

It’s not that Zuckerberg’s not news; and it’s not that business isn’t some journalists’ beat. But focusing on business to the exclusion of all else is like reporting on real estate deals while ignoring architecture.

And one tires of the news narrative’s one-dimensionalism. In 1994, the web was weird and wild, they told us. In ’99 it was a kingmaker; in ’01, a bust. In ’02, news folk discovered blogs; in ’04, perspiring guest bloggers on CNNexplained how citizen journalists were reinventing news and democracy and would determine who won that year’s presidential election. I forget how that one turned out.

When absurd predictions die ridiculous deaths, nobody resigns from the news room, they just throw a new line into the water—like marketers replacing a slogan that tanked. After decades of news commoditization, what’s amazing is how many good reporters there still are, and how hard many try to lay accurate information before the public. Sometimes you can almost hear it beneath the roar of the grotesque and the exceptional.

THE SUSTAINABLE CIRCLE OF SELF-REGARD

News media are not the only ones getting it wrong. Professional associations get it wrong every day, and commemorate their wrongness with an annual festival. Each year, advertising and design magazines and professional organizations hold contests for “new media design” judged by the winners of last year’s competitions. That they call it “new media design” tells them nothing and you and me everything.

Although there are exceptions, for the most part the creators of winning entries see the web as a vehicle for advertising and marketing campaigns in which the user passively experiences Flash and video content. For the active user, there is gaming—but what you and I think of as active web use is limited to clicking a “Digg this page” button.

The winning sites look fabulous as screen shots in glossy design annuals. When the winners become judges, they reward work like their own. Thus sites that behave like TV and look good between covers continue to be created, and a generation of clients and art directors thinks that stuff is the cream of web design.

DESIGN CRITICS GET IT WRONG, TOO

People who are smart about print can be less bright about the web. Their critical faculties, honed to perfection during the Kerning Wars, smash to bits against the barricades of our profession.

The less sophisticated lament on our behalf that we are stuck with ugly fonts. They wonder aloud how we can enjoy working in a medium that offers us less than absolute control over every atom of the visual experience. What they are secretly asking is whether or not we are real designers. (They suspect that we are not.) But these are the juniors, the design students and future critics. Their opinions are chiefly of interest to their professors, and one prays they have good ones.

More sophisticated critics understand that the web is not print and that limitations are part of every design discipline. Yet even these eggheads will sometimes succumb to fallacious comparatives. (I’ve done it myself, although long ago and strictly for giggles.) Where are the master pieces of web design, these critics cry. That Google Maps might be as representative of our age as the Mona Lisa was of Leonardo’s—and as brilliant, in its way—satisfies many of us as an answer, but might not satisfy the design critic in search of a direct parallel to, oh, I don’t know, let’s say Milton Glaser’s iconic Bob Dylan poster.

Typography, architecture, and web design

The trouble is, web design, although it employs elements of graphic design and illustration, does not map to them. If one must compare the web to other media, typography would be a better choice. For a web design, like a typeface, is an environment for someone else’s expression. Stick around and I’ll tell you which site design is like Helvetica.

Architecture (the kind that uses steel and glass and stone) is also an apt comparison—or at least, more apt than poster design. The architect creates planes and grids that facilitate the dynamic behavior of people. Having designed, the architect relinquishes control. Over time, the people who use the building bring out and add to the meaning of the architect’s design.

Of course, all comparisons are gnarly by nature. What is the “London Calling” of television? Who is the Jane Austen of automotive design? Madame Butterfly is not less beautiful for having no car chase sequence, peanut butter no less tasty because it cannot dance.

SO WHAT IS WEB DESIGN?

Web design is not book design, it is not poster design, it is not illustration, and the highest achievements of those disciplines are not what web design aims for. Although websites can be delivery systems for games and videos, and although those delivery systems can be lovely to look at, such sites are exemplars of game design and video storytelling, not of web design. So what is web design?

Web design is the creation of digital environments that facilitate and encourage human activity; reflect or adapt to individual voices and content; and change gracefully over time while always retaining their identity.

Let’s repeat that, with emphasis:

Web design is the creation of digital environments that facilitate and encourage human activity; reflect or adapt to individual voices and content; and change gracefully over time while always retaining their identity.

SHE WALKS IN BEAUTY

Great web designs are like great typefaces: some, like Rosewood, impose a personality on whatever content is applied to them. Others, like Helvetica, fade into the background (or try to), magically supporting whatever tone the content provides. (We can argue tomorrow whether Helvetica is really as neutral as water.)

Which web design is like that? For one, Douglas Bowman’s white “Minima” layout for Blogger, used by literally millions of writers—and it feels like it was designed for each of them individually. That is great design.

Great web designs are like great buildings. All office buildings, however distinctive, have lobbies and bathrooms and staircases. Websites, too, share commonalities.

Although a great site design is completely individual, it is also a great deal like other site designs that perform similar functions. The same is true of great magazine and newspaper layouts, which differ from banal magazine and newspaper layouts in a hundred subtle details. Few celebrate great magazine layouts, yet millions consciously or unconsciously appreciate them, and nobody laments that they are not posters.

The inexperienced or insufficiently thoughtful designer complains that too many websites use grids, too many sites use columns, too many sites are “boxy.” Efforts to avoid boxiness have been around since 1995; while occasionally successful, they have most often produced aesthetically wretched and needlessly unusable designs.

The experienced web designer, like the talented newspaper art director, accepts that many projects she works on will have headers and columns and footers. Her job is not to whine about emerging commonalities but to use them to create pages that are distinctive, natural, brand-appropriate, subtly memorable, and quietly but unmistakably engaging.

If she achieves all that and sweats the details, her work will be beautiful. If not everyone appreciates this beauty—if not everyone understands web design—then let us not cry for web design, but for those who cannot see.

[Source] https://alistapart.com/article/understandingwebdesign/

 Jaspal Khalsa - Web Designer in Navi Mumbai. 7+ year’s experience of Web Design and Logo Design Services. Develop user http://jaspalkhalsa.com/web-design.html friendly and Responsive website from expert at affordable cost. I am expert to create integrated design that fills a need.