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dasnercaret · 3 months ago

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how ISAT makes you feel like going home

so one of my friends said to me "the first time i played (isat) was when i was home sick, i felt like it had curative properties. analyse that mr playstyle 😎" and i took it as a fucking challenge. i've never written an (tumblr-posted) analysis essay before and i'm going into this with a bunch of haphazardly folded ideas and NO OUTLINE fuck it we ball

so to begin with: DORMONT.

isat, as a whole, is extremely a traditional rpg setup. which unfortunately i know little to nothing about, so forgive me in advance if i put my foot in my mouth regarding traditional rpg mechanics. but like many games, you start at a home base, at home. and the whole vibes of the place honestly serve to only emphasize the safe / at home / storybook atmosphere isat cultivates. you wake up in a field, sleepy and tired. your dear friend mirabelle leans over you and tells you to wake up, because you're going to beat the king tomorrow! and you laugh and you're sleepy but eventually you start playing. eventually, you push yourself up and wander around and meet the townsfolk and your party.

now, the player doesn't know the party. they've just opened the game! they don't know these characters. siffrin does though, and it shows in the interactions he has with each one of them. mirabelle teases siffrin about the quality of his nap. isabeau puns with siffrin. odile smiles at him. bonnie... looks away, because of backstory you don't have yet, because you're leaping into this story at its very end. but siffrin knows.

(...)

siffrin knows. which informs his narration, of course, and overall it gives the sense of - you're watching a story already known, with characters who already love each other. like walking into a family home midway through a dinner party, to know and be known in turn.

(you know where you are. you're home!)

siffrin provides some exposition of course, enough to catch the player up and let them know the basics of the world you've set foot into. these people are here because they have natural ties, connections to the land they've been born or raised in or are travelling through. you all are here to defeat the king, who is the epitome of a traditional storybook villain, the big bad evil you defeat at the end of the fairytale. he's just the generically evil guy, with no focus given to the atrocities he must have committed and been willing to commit in order to get where he is. there's no need to be scared of him, not really. (yet.) he's evil, but in the way a storybook villain is evil. all the sharp edges defanged, sanded away, all the humanity and dimensionality and violence inherent in his character compressed into a set of scribbles on the page, words on a screen. it's not personal. it's not.... scary. not to you, and not to siffrin, who's already been floating above it all.

(the rest is under a cut! spoilers for The Entire Rest Of The Game)

similarly, the exposition is in the form of little childlike drawings, emphasizing the same nostalgia it draws on - fairytales, fables, those stories where the heroes collect the magic sword and slay the dragon and save the princess. you know these stories, consciously or not. you love these stories, (probably), and it all serves to emphasize the familiarity with which you step into dormont. heroic stories are extremely common in the stories we love today, from the old classic prince charming to (somewhat) more modern legend of zelda, and no doubt many people picking up isat have a similar passing familiarity with the overarching story of rpgs. (i in fact was the exception, but that's a whole other essay)

the townspeople definitely do not help this vibe as well. they are practically one and all kind, steady people, precisely the sort of common folk you'd want to save in a story where nothing hurts and everyone is safe and loved. they're happy to gift you a flower or a pan au chocolat and cheer you on in your quest, certain of your victory and at least certain of their continued happiness even if you fail. simple, easy, familiar, comforting in the way redwall is comforting or an old set of childhood fairytales is comforting. there's no real judgement, no anger at you for potentially failing and (almost) none of the gross ugly real emotions that would be present in a more 'realistic' story. simple, easy, familiar, comforting.

(You like knowing what happens next!)

so. i think we all know that isat at its core is a game about homesickness. god's sakes mal du pays is literally right there. the central conflict of this game, beneath the overlaying fluff of an rpg archetype and an evil to defeat, is about siffrin not being able to go home while the rest of his party get to do so. and even at this very early stage (approximately act 1 and i would argue a bit into act 2) you can start to see the cracks. siffrin is shown alone, tagging along with the party because he had "nothing else to do" (read: nowhere else to go.) he laughs and pals and jokes with the party, but like before, like always, he merely mirrors them. he makes puns with isabeau because isabeau likes puns, and siffrin liked making him laugh so much so that he adopted puns into a part of his personality. he comforts mirabelle about her future, jokes with odile about her research, and always, always, avoids talking about himself. when they ask where he's going to go after their journey is over, his answer is always a mirror of their own - pilgrimage, research, travel, comedy. when he makes a wish at the favor tree, there's no option to wish for himself.

because the thing is, right. siffrin never thinks of himself. the only options instead are to wish for his family - his home, his only living and real connections in his life, the people surrounding him that really make dormont feel like a real home and not just another friendly place in vaugaurde he's passing through. cause the townsfolk are nice, sure, they're friendly, sure, but - they don't know him. they're not important enough for him to literally rewrite his personality for them. it's his party instead, that he laughs and jokes with and is known with, even if superficially. he wants to be allowed to go home, to stay home. he's been homeless both literally and figuratively for so long that he's beyond desperate to be allowed to keep what little he's found for himself.

(You want to stay with them!)

except - what happens when you beat the game? what happens when you finish the rpg, when you reach the end of the book, when you grow up and leave this set of children's fairytales behind?

you put it down, right? you go home, right? you go back to your home, you go back to travelling, you go back to your family.

what do you do when you don't get to go home? when dormont and the clocktower and the house are the closest you will ever get to home, are the last moment you will ever have being home before it's ripped away from you forever? (ripped away from you just like before - )

you'd want to stay, right? forever and ever and ever?

siffrin is a character who has a very bad time letting go. just like the king, he wants to have, desperately, enough to kill himself a hundred times over for it. and, through the timeloop, he can pull you, the player, and himself and his hapless party along through the timeloop, repeating the same two comforting days over and over and over and over.

and perhaps after a few loops of settling in you, too, can understand why he would want to do this. it's nice, isn't it? knowing what will happen? knowing that these people will always love you? knowing that you can always get the flower, always get the drawing, always get the pan au chocolat, always beat the tutorial kid and get the jackpot? that the townsfolk will always smile at you, that your party - your family, your home - will never know what you've done?

it's not enough, isn't it?

(Dormont, unchanging! Dormont, stagnating!)

no matter how hard siffrin tries to cling to the past turned present to stave off his inevitable future, he is still human. under the fairytale setting and pretty lights, even under his own desire to stay with them, he needs that human connection. he needs something to change, to give way. needs to be seen, to be known, to be loved for himself and not because he's learned the perfect pretty words and actions to trick them into loving him. you, the player, the person driving siffrin, can understand this frustration perfectly as well - you need something to change. you need something to give way, because you can't keep doing this. because you can't hear the same lines over and over and over anymore. you can't do the same thing over and over anymore. you're not happy. siffrin's not happy. something needs to change.

i finished isat over the course of about four days, playing about 12-14 hours per day. during that time, i experienced possibly the most deeply intensely felt emotion i have ever experienced. to this day when i look back on my first playthrough of isat, the sheer depth and fury of that emotion takes my breath away.

and it was frustration. just like siffrin, i was trapped. i couldn't look away, because i loved these characters, because i loved their story, because i wanted them to keep going and going and living and i wanted to keep living alongside them. but i couldn't keep going like this. i couldn't do the same thing over and over and over. i needed something to change, but both siffrin and i were desperately, agonizingly trapped in the same few days. the same places, the same faces, the same lines said rote until i was zoning out through every dialogue interaction, only pausing when i needed to make sure that i hadn't missed something new.

because i loved these characters. i loved how homely they felt. i loved them, i loved them, i -

needed them to be real. to change, to grow, to have their future returned to them. i needed to see them go home, not trapped in this same endless time-frozen loop. i had been trapped at home too long, and the cabin fever was eating me alive. my desire to be allowed to keep playing (to stay in the timeloop) was duking it out with my desire to see them change beyond what they were allowed to change in the span of just two days. i wanted to see bonnie grow up, to see isabeau change into someone else, to see odile come to terms with her half-vaugardian nature, to see mirabelle learn to accept her sexuality (or lack thereof). i wanted them to remember us as family.

ah, isat, absolute king of getting in my head and making me think like siffrin.

back to dormont. in the end, dormont only changes permanently in act 6, after the time loop breaks. the only time the townsfolk ever change, ever coherently move to different places and act differently (act 5 is similar, but i would argue that's because siffrin changes, dormont still doesn't really meaningfully change) is after the loops.

and it's fitting, isn't it? by this point in the game, you could recite dormont backwards and forwards. but by this point in the game, you are well aware that you need to give them back a future. their future. the one they wished for in the first place. they've been trapped in their fairy tale wonderland for long enough. they deserve to go home, truly home, to go forward and live their lives and keep moving on. to allow them to change, to grow.

to allow yourself to change, to grow. to allow yourself to go home, to admit that you want to keep your home you have now, to keep the family you've built from blood and death and tears and stars.

(You want to stay with them!)

to leave dormont. to leave this fairytale behind, and keep living.

#isat #in stars and time #isat analysis #in stars and time writing #isat writing #dasner speaks #isat siffrin #isat dormont #dormont #isat spoilers #this is just me rambling furiously for uh. several hundred words at least #hope you enjoyed! no promises on quality but i just had a lot of thoughts i needed to get out somehow #in stars and time analysis #this was a lot of fun ngl. i don't let myself ramble like this very often bc i don't think i have much coherent to say #still don't think this was super coherent but i liked it. and i had a lot of thoughts i wanted to get out that got out finally in here #so !

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ar3s-r4t-qu33n · 2 months ago

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Johnny's Bluffing

CW for discussion of potential sexual assault, toxic/unhealthy relationships, stalking, obsession, and, of course, murder and cannibalism. Nothing like, too crazy I think? But especially this one section on sexual assault, it's brief but separated out so it's quite easy to skip if that makes folks uncomfortable.

Hi I am currently in a really bad insomnia cycle and as such haven't slept so I'm sure I'm gonna have missed something that immediately prove me wrong, but here we go:

I don't think that certain members of the Family know that Maria is alive, and especially Nancy. This theory sort of delves into a lot of different stuff, I wrote and rewrote this a fair bit and idk, this is what I ended up with. It's a lot of my personal interpretation of both the written text and the way lines are delivered, as well as my own analyses on characters and how I personally think the timeline of events went (Danny and Virginia dying before the gang even show up in Newt, Maria being the 'Definitive Final Girl' and surviving to the very end, but never getting to escape the Slaughters/Johnny. That isn't to say that she dies, but Sally is the first and only person to escape until Stretch if she is canon to this timeline now that Choptop is on his way) so idk, I hope you like what I've been thinking about I guess?

Nancy and Drayton both have several voice lines that refer to Maria being in the past tense. So does Johnny, but my theory here is that he is playing into this line of thought so they don’t realise that he is still keeping her.

I will source my way of hearing all of the voice lines at the end.

Starting with Nancy, she has several;

‘It didn’t have to be this way, you know? You just had to come looking for that floosy of yours, didn’t you?’

‘Your little friend had it coming. Looking at my Johnny that way- he’s a sweet boy!’

‘You ever hear the saying murder starts in the heart? … I think my Johnny liked that girl…’

The first two are obviously extremely defensive over Johnny and are meant to taunt the other Victims over Maria’s ‘death’. The last one, however, feels almost like a realisation. This line has confused me for a long time, because it sounds like two different once spliced together, but they are, in fact, connected. This is the only time that Nancy ever speaks about Maria in any other way than pure disgust and defensiveness. Another interesting thing about Nancy is that she does not hate her husbands. She murdered all three of them, none of them were able to give her a baby of her own, and yet she defends them from Sissy, she keeps them all in her basement man cave, and even when talking to Hands, she’s apologetic about Harold to him. She still holds a fondness for them, it seems, and I feel like maybe this is what makes her finally realise that Johnny actually, truly loves Maria. For Nancy, she loves people to death, and that type of love extends to Johnny, too. Sure, he’s still alive, and could easily kill her now, but she permanently scarred his face when he tried to leave her. I don’t believe that Nancy isn’t above murdering Johnny to keep him with her, and I think this admittance leads to her realising that Johnny actually did love Maria. Of course, she can’t say ‘love’, that’s a bit too far, but at the very least, she will acknowledge that he likes her, and these days, Johnny doesn’t seem to like anyone, not even her. It’s also interesting to note that she says this after losing sight of a victim she was chasing. She says herself that she hasn’t hunted like this in a while, it seems as if physically chasing people down to kill them is making her reminisce on her feelings about murder and love in a way.

But all of that to say, she believes Maria is dead. Beyond a shadow of a doubt, she’s dead now, and maybe she plans to talk to Johnny about it later, maybe not apologise, but try and make it easier on him now that she’s realised just how much she meant to him.

Then we’ve got Cookie.

‘Look, I’m sorry about your friend… but… I’m afraid you done landed square dab in the shithouse!’

‘We didn’t have much choice! Couldn’t let Johnny spring no lovechild around here. It ain’t personal! Now get back here!’

There is obviously a lot less here, the former being Cook or Drayton’s more humble, car salesman type approach to everything, apologising sincerely that their friend had to die… but now so do they, so how sorry can he be, really?

The second is far more interesting. I’m still sort of working out the kinks with what I think on all this, but it implies not only that the whole family knew about Johnny’s feelings for Maria, but that there was a worry about something more than just his feelings. A genuine attachment, the possibility for a child.

Now, one thing I wanna throw in real quick is that a lot of people think Johnny assaulted Maria once he kidnapped her. And I personally don’t think that that is true. And it’s more than just ‘noooo not my pookie he would never!’, I feel as though Johnny’s feelings for Maria are beyond sexual, or beyond purely sexual. I’m not gonna get super into it because I wanna make a whole post about just their relationship, but in short, Johnny knows he’s hot shit. He knows women love him and men do too, and he uses that all the time to lure people to their deaths. Maybe he fucks them first, then kills them, who knows. But this is a man who is used to being sexualised and uses it to his advantage, like a reverse femme fatale, almost. A lot of his lines are sexually charged and he speaks seductively low at times, even flirting on the odd occasion. However, Maria is in love with Danny and is a sweet girl in the seventies. There is no way she’s heading off to knock boots with the pretty boy at the bar no matter how charming, persistent, helpful… always somehow exactly where she needs him to be… is. She’s kind, she’s sweet, she brings out the best in people, we know this about her. And when there’s no sex, when it’s not about fucking them and killing them… Johnny has no choice but to fall completely head over heels for her. It’s no surprise that the day she’s heading out of town, maybe to go back to see her boyfriend, that is when her car breaks down. Johnny’s oil stained gloves, the fact that he’s designed to look like he helps at a gas station, his friendship with Uncle Hands, the fact he lives in a junk yard? This man knows mechanics. He knows cars. And he is definitely not above tampering with an already busted old car to ensure it stops before she can get away from him. It’s just his luck that she happens to break down by his family’s land. All this to say, I don’t think Johnny assaults Maria once he has her. Not only because that would be a lot, like, in general, for this game to go from goofy cannibals to sexual assault by one of the game’s most beloved characters to one of the game’s most beloved characters, but because I don’t think Johnny is the type. He’s pretty and charming enough that people want him, he doesn’t have to take it, he earns it. And he wants Maria to give it to him, for him to earn it because she wants him. He likely spends his time down there with her trying to get her to fall for him and forget about Danny. He wants her to want him. Or at least, this is my personal interpretation.

Maybe she does begin to fall or maybe Drayton’s complete lack of any and all sexual knowledge just makes him think they’re already going to pound town, but he was worried about a baby. That’s something I wanna explore in the future, why he’s so worried about Johnny and Maria having a baby, but moving on; again, Drayton is seemingly fully convinced that Maria is dead.

For Johnny I wanna take his lines one at a time, but it is important to note that I think some of these lines are referring to someone else and not Maria, but also some of these are in present tense, he either slips up or sometimes on purpose mentions things that could hint to her being alive to the Victims.

‘You wanna know how your friend died!? … I can show you!’

‘Your little friend put up a better fight than this… come on! Make it interesting, will you!?”

Pure just bluffing to get them angry and scared. It could also be referring to Danny but more on that a different time.

‘That’s what I get for taking it easy on them. Time for them to join that little friend of theirs…’

‘You’re gonna look real nice next to that friend of yours…’

Again, if my belief that Danny not only went to Nancy’s a lot earlier than the others is true and that he has been dead for a good few days before the gang shows up, then this is absolutely about him, not Maria.

‘You kinda remind me of your little friend’

To Ana about Maria, obviously, and comes across as quite flirtatious. He’s figured out that not only does Maria have a sister (if she never told him), but that Ana has no intentions of leaving there without her. I interpret this as Johnny taunting her, making her his new priority to get rid of. I said he loved Maria, I never said he loved her in a healthy way, alight? This is The Texas Chain Saw Massacre, not the Notebook (never seen that movie)

‘You should have never came here looking for that girl!’

I don’t need to explain. Pure possessive Johnny in his raw form.

And finally, the infamous;

‘You know… I was actually kinda fond of that girl, I-I didn’t really wanna hurt her… but… family first, you know?’

Johnny is an agitator. Almost all of his lines are trying to fuck with the victims, playing with his food. Egging them on to hit him, teasing them about being too slow, the way he calls after them as he hunts them down, he wants to see them upset and charged, he wants a good fight, he wants to feel something. The main part of this line is just that, I think; he wants them to believe that even though he cared about Maria, he fucking killed her. He wants them to be angry, to fight him, to hurt him. The end is guilty. Incredibly guilty sounding, and I don’t think that’s out of a guilt for killing her, since… well, Maria is alive and kicking. But more a guilt about his family in general. ‘Family first, you know?’ he’s almost saying it so himself, as if that’s what he should think, what he should be doing. But he is actively betraying them and knows that once everything blows over, he’s going to keep on betraying them for every day he keeps Maria alive. And he also knows that even if he feels all of this guilt, he will do it anyway because he loves her, and he can’t let his family have her. She is the only person who is truly his, who represents what life could have given him. I have another analysis I made on TikTok that I’ll repost here soon, but it essentially goes like this; Johnny and Danny really aren’t too different. Scrappy orphans who are good with mechanics. Except Danny got to go to college, travel freely, meet the girl of his dreams, and Johnny is forced to be someone he doesn’t want to be. He isn’t not a killer, but he also could have not been a killer. Maria is everything he has not been allowed to have; naivety, kindness, softness. And now that he has her, and once everyone else is out of the way, he has no intentions of letting that go.

So he is pretending that she is dead. And for now, it is working. I have a feeling in the canon story of the game, the victims stumble upon her somewhere once they’ve already caused enough trouble for the family, and then all bets are off. Once they find out she’s still alive, it’s a new game for Johnny, a choice; does he kill her, make his mother proud and live the only life he knows because even if he leaves, he knows he can’t be any better? Or does he take her away and try, try to be a different man in the softness of her love?

Rush Week could be the result of either of those. Either he kills her, and becomes an even worse, even colder killer, now able to handle a situation like in the game completely on his own, or he takes her away to start a new life and just couldn’t stop the urges; the Bad Man needs to feed. He stays late after work or pretends he has a night shift and gets his fill on blood and chaos before stumbling home, washing it all off, and returning to Maria’s (definitely traumatised at this point from seeing her friends and sister murdered (don’t worry about Danny I’ve got thoughts on him shhh) in front of her and ‘rescued’ by Johnny) arms.

That was a lot... Please tell me what y'all think on this, again, a lot of my personal interpretation on a lot of things, but isn't that what art is for?

Sources for the voice lines:

Texas Chain Saw Massacre Game - Johnny All Voice Lines (youtube.com)

Texas Chain Saw Massacre Game - Black Nancy All Voice Lines - YouTube

Texas Chain Saw Massacre Game - Johnny All Voice Lines (youtube.com)

Promised I'd tag @bloodfeeder when I finished this so here ya go!! :)

#johnny slaughter #maria flores #black nancy #drayton slaughter #tcm game #tcm #rush week tcm #tcm rush week #the texas chain saw massacre game

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fiendishneko · 6 months ago

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Over-analysing Stormcast Eternal character design

So we've gotten a good look at the new AoS starter box, right? No? Well you should, because for even those 40k die-hards among you, there's some absolute gold here.

Now this is coming from someone who's been into Stormcasts conceptually since the first edition, but seeing the "flawed forging" narrative come to fruition is SO SATISFYING!

(Very big, mostly coherent post under the break)

So first off, I'm going to show you the main character models from the 1st and 2nd edition AoS boxes: Vandus Hammerhand and the Lord Arcanum:

So I don't think it's much of a stretch to say these characters are both "Hero Coded"; gleaming gold armour, weapons held aloft and sat atop a fearsome, yet noble looking steed. Hell, paint them entirely grey and they wouldn't look far removed from actual statuary we have in our world.

At this stage in the AoS timeline, the Stormcasts are still these nigh-impervious heroes, champions of Sigmar and civilisation itself, the flaws of their construction being apparent only to their creator himself. There's an underlying tone of something uncanny though, the human looking, but eyeless helmets feel familiar, but a little off...

Ah well, nothing to worry about, here comes 3rd edition, and champion of Sigmar, Yndrasta, along with it!

So that's different. She's certainly brandishing her weapons, but her armour is dull and tarnished compared to the gold of previous editions (this is due to her being of a different stormhost, but the lack of gleaming gold IS of note here). Additionally, not only does she not have a steed, but it's her counterpart in the box set, the Orruk Kruleboss that comes saddled up, almost aping this cliche hero pose we've become used to.

Add onto this how Yndrasta is characterised, not as a proud leader or wielder of magic, but as a hunter prone losing herself in the act of slaughtering her prey and dumping their severed heads in Sigmar's throneroom. And to put a cherry on top, here's how she is depicted in art form, gorgeous, radiant and FUCKING TERRIFYING.

So that leaves us at 4th edition, the Stormcast Eternals who have been killed and reforged so many times as to be nothing but a shadow of what they used to be are being called back into service against the Skaven. And who leads them this time?

Oh.

This is the Lord Vigilant. His weapon is lowered, his armour a dull, battered silver and his steed... oh his steed...

The side by side of this guy and the Lord Arcanum is pretty shocking to me. The mount of the Lord Arcanum is a Gryph Charger, and incorporates elements of horses and birds of prey like hawks and eagles. It reads as noble.

The Lord Vigilant rides a Gryph Stalker. It doesn't rear up like a knight's heraldry come to life, it stalks, hell it looks like it's staring you down through the screen! (Good job photography team, btw!) Like, I really need you to understand when I first looked at that thing, I was drawn straight to it's eyes and I got chills.

The use of colour here also feels like a natural conclusion. The bold colours have faded and worn, the armour's gold plating has been chipped and broken away from years of war, even the Gryph Stalker looks washed out.

Anyway, that's about as much as I can write on this subject without wanting to smack myself for being a pretentious art nerd, but there is a whole (half) box set of interesting model designs I'd be down to analyse if that's what you folks are into?

#miniature #wargaming #warhammer #warhammer age of sigmar #warhammer aos #stormcast eternals #aos #aos 4th edition #art analysis #mini painting #it's ok I know I'm a pretentious art nerd #but I have to use my degree for something right?

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alpaca-clouds · 2 months ago

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Is There Actually A Media Literacy Crisis?

Something I am thinking about a lot is that supposed "media literacy crisis" that people talk about a lot online. Some people say it is real, some people say it isn't.

Of course I am in the strange condition of not being American and this discussion focusing mostly on America. Talking to some of my bald eagle loving friends, I know that most Americans get way less media analysis taught in schools than us Germans. Like, I kid you not: All I did in German and English and history class between 7th and 13th grade was analyse texts and pictures. NOTHING ELSE. And how that was very dependent on the teacher in terms of how much media literacy I actually learned would be a topic for another day. But I know that a lot of my US friends did some analysis, yes, but comparatively little.

I will openly say one thing: Despite being pushed through so much literary analysis in school, I probably learned more about media analysis thanks to the internet than I ever learned in school. Because while we did it a lot. Well, it was basically the quality of content that the Japanese schools have when it comes to learning English. Do they start in primary school? Yes. Do they then absolutely fail on building on the vocabulary and all? Absolutely.

In history class we did a lot of analysis of historical propaganda. But do you think we ever spoke about framing? Just as a very accute example.

I would however not quite argue that we have a media literacy crisis really. More... Well, I would say we have four other problems that are seperate from one another - but that will contribute to it appearing as if people are media illeterate.

People do generally not think about or inform themselves how the media they consume is created. They are not really aware of what goes into the production of a piece of media, that has more complex behind-the-scenes scenarios than a book. Movies, TV shows and games are the most notable example here. As such, folks are often not quite able to see how the influence of several different people working on a project can be felt - let alone be able to analyse how that might have influenced the end product.

A lot of the most widely marketed media is very much created by coorporations to extract money. While some of the people involved might have had something to say, the studio producing it just wanted to make something that they can sell, which often results in some watering down of more complex themes. Through this people have kinda forgotten to even expect themes in their media. (Yes, this is very much about the MCU and most of AAA gaming.)

Because half of the discussion of any piece of media now takes place in the arena of the culture war, people often just reduce themes - if they are there - to very superficial culture war readings. And this happens on both sides of the isle. While the on the right we have idiots going "they hate white men", because a movie does not have a white male protagonist, the other side will go "this is sexist" because in a show of mostly female characters, a female character died.

People just do not have the time currently to actually sit with a piece of media and everyone in the industry knows it. A lot of media is created to be "second screen content", aka, something that you watch on your TV while you are in home office and working on that stupid powerpoint. And of course you cannot really interact with that media the same, you would, if you watched it on a first screen basis, right?

And of course, then there is the fandom side of things. Because yes, the entire proshipping and antishipping thing is also very much a media literacy problem, that mostly originates with, well... How should I say?

It originates with the same stuff like the rightwing leftwing culture war: From people not touch grass. From people not being aware that the folks that scream so loud online are actually a minority. And most people who will ever engage with a given piece of media will just never write something on tumblr, reddit or twitter about this piece of media. They will just consume it... and move on.

#media literacy #media literacy crisis #media analysis #culture wars #proship #fuck antishippers #fuck capitalism #video games #movies #mcu #entertainment

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reikunrei · 3 months ago

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I'm not gonna make as in-depth a post about it as my other DW analyses, but a month or so ago I watched the season 1 episode "Dalek" and now I'm thinking about it in relation to what Vecna's ending might look like.

A lot of people complain when they hear folks (such as myself and my friends) say they want Vecna's end to be tragic in some way. They interpret it as us saying we want him to be redeemed, or forgiven, or be made into a "good guy" who actually did nothing wrong, or whatever. Which (setting aside all the Henry/Edward stuff, which I'd argue is a separate discussion anyway) isn't the case at all. Not necessarily, at least. Vecna has done a lot of heinous things that can't be overlooked.

However, that doesn't mean he's entirely unsympathetic. He's very relatable in his motives and is a fun way to explore revenge and justice in the extremes. He's an example of the cracks in the Capital S System. However, I would agree that Vecna as a person and as a concept shouldn't be given a full pass on everything he's done just because his reasoning has a strong foundation.

"Dalek" offers a really interesting alternative where the Dalek in the episode is given multiple chances to "redeem" itself or is shown sympathy, only to constantly push back against it and refuse the kindness offered to it up until the very end. Even so, its eventual self-destruction is still tragic.

This is for multiple reasons, but the one I want to introduce here first to set the tone is: It's tragic because there's no changing what's been done to the Dalek, what the Dalek has done, and the general circumstances of what a Dalek is and their history. Rose wants to help the Dalek, but it's simply not feasible given the circumstances.

So, let's get into some of this episode.

We open on the Doctor and Rose landing in an underground bunker in Utah, USA, having followed a signal "calling for help." Inside this bunker are rows and rows of glass cases containing extraterrestrial artifacts, owned and collected by a man named Henry van Statten. We learn that one of these is a live specimen, which van Statten keeps in "The Cage," where they've been attempting to get it to speak for some time, often resorting to physically harming it and making it scream. Okay, NINA silo.

The Doctor goes in to speak to it, since van Statten wants to know what it is, and we get this exchange:

Some abridged Doctor Who history to explain this interaction: The Daleks are an alien race that's been around for the entire run of the show, first introduced in the original series. As it pertains to the 2005 reboot, early in the show we learn that the Doctor is the last Time Lord in existence because all of them died in the Last Great Time War. The Last Great Time War was fought between the Time Lords and the Daleks, and it was ultimately ended by the Doctor themself killing (or sealing away) both the Time Lords and the Daleks to stop the conflict and save the universe(s).

The Daleks and the Time Lords have had beef for... basically forever, as far as I know. The Daleks also make multiple returns throughout the rest of the series and still remain a recurring antagonist, though I don't know what's been going on with them past like... season 7 or so. We even get a few more sympathetic portrayals of them, but we don't need to talk about that today.

I should also briefly explain here that the Daleks were bred and evolved to hate. They exist only to kill things that aren't Daleks because they see anything that isn't a Dalek as "wrong." They have such a strong will to live in order to push this regimen that they almost don't die, as their bodies will simply refuse to do so, unless ordered or killed by force. Okay, Vecna. In short: they basically only know hatred and anger, and anything else simply isn't part of their genetics. There's some nuance to this in the greater lore, but I won't touch on that here because it's not introduced in this episode.

Anyway, back to the episode!

Once the Doctor realizes that the Dalek is damaged and can't actually kill him, he starts laying into it, circling it and asking "What are you good for?" and "What's the point of you? You're nothing." The Dalek says it's awaiting orders (something it's bred for), and the Doctor breaks the news that all the other Daleks have been destroyed by him and it won't be getting any orders.

Admitting to his own self-hatred, the Doctor switches on the chains holding the Dalek, electrocuting it. The Dalek begs for pity, and the Doctor says, "Why should I [have pity]? You never did." Then, van Statten enters The Cage with guards and pulls the Doctor out, at which point the Dalek returns to refusing to speak.

The Doctor speaks to van Statten more, telling him about the Time War, learning how the Dalek fell from the sky "like a meteorite" and surmising that it must have fallen through time as the only survivor. And at this point, van Statten smugly eyes up the Doctor, now knowing that he, too, is an alien not of this Earth, and chains him up to be studied and tortured just like the Dalek. There's honestly so much I could say about van Statten and his similarities to Brenner, so I might do that some other time.

Meanwhile, Rose, who's been tagging along with van Statten's assistant, unaware of what's happened thus far, sees security footage of the Dalek being tortured by one of van Statten's scientists and goes to The Cage to investigate and try to help.

She talks to the Dalek, asking if it's in pain, saying that she can help because she has her friend, the Doctor, with her. The Dalek says yes, it is in pain.

Rose continues to insist they help, but the Dalek says that its race is dead and it will simply die alone. Rose places a gentle hand against its "head," which burns her, and as she pulls away, that Dalek shouts, "Genetic material extrapolated. Initiate cellular reconstruction."

Having gotten DNA from Rose, a time traveler, the Dalek is able to regenerate, fixing all of its damage and breaking free of its chains before hacking out of The Cage and gaining access to the entire bunker. In short, it starts killing people indiscriminately and drains all power from the bunker, from Utah, and from the entire west coast of the USA, also downloading all of the information from the internet at the same time.

Most of the rest of the episode is an extended chase scene, where Rose and the assistant, Adam, are trying to get up to a higher level of the bunker, though are often relegated to stairwells and detours in an attempt to keep the Dalek locked away as deep as possible. At one point, Rose and Adam are being escorted by an armed guard when they come face to face with the Dalek in a stairwell, and the armed guard starts trying to talk it down:

Martin "but but but I locked you kids up because I loved you" Brenner, over here.

The first major hint that we start to see something is awry with the Dalek is it and Rose making eye contact, and Rose leaving the interaction feeling like the Dalek saw her as more than just a target for extermination, and rather that "it knows [her]."

Then, after some more chasing and some more mass murder, the Dalek addresses the Doctor. It says that, now with no place to get orders from, it will follow "the Primary Order," or the "Dalek instinct to destroy" and conquer. The Doctor asks why, though. What's the point of doing that at this point when it's the only Dalek left? The Dalek can't answer that and just asks what it should do, wherein we get this impeccable line that aired on public television in the year 2005:

He rips into the Dalek again, really showing his anger as he screams, "Why don't you just die!?" at which point the Dalek responds with, "You would make a good Dalek" before ceasing communication. Mic drop of the goddamn century!!! That scene still drives me absolutely batshit. Anyway.

Rose and Adam are rushing to try and escape the vault portion of the bunker, but they're running out of time. Adam makes it through the final door as it's shutting, but Rose doesn't and is now trapped with the Dalek. Rose talks to the Doctor over her cellphone, telling him that it wasn't his fault and she wouldn't have missed any of this for the world. The Dalek fires its laser, the call drops, and the Doctor reluctantly accepts that she's dead.

However, unbeknownst to him, the Dalek didn't actually kill Rose.

They have a brief back-and-forth, and Rose questions the Dalek's hesitation to kill her.

The Dalek speaks to the Doctor again, revealing that Rose is actually alive and uses her as leverage to get him to open the bulkhead and let the two of them out. Rose pleads with the Doctor to not open the door, but the Dalek uses the Doctor's emotions against him, saying, "What use are emotions, if you will not save the woman you love?"

Rose and the Dalek take an elevator up to where the Doctor and van Statten & co. are hanging out, with the Dalek all the while continuing to act strangely.

The Dalek approaches van Statten, threatening to kill him for torturing it, but Rose tells it not to do it, and it listens. She asks it what else it could want that doesn't involve killing, and the Dalek answers with "freedom." Vecna when...

Rose takes the Dalek ahead, closer to the surface. It blasts a hole in the roof, bringing in a ray of sunlight. Rose says she thought she'd never feel it again, at which point the Dalek asks what it feels like before opening its metal casing to expose the actual Dalek inside. It feels the sun on its skin and reaches out toward the light.

In this moment of vulnerability, the Doctor appears, having grabbed one of the alien-made guns that van Statten has in a feeble attempt to actually kill the Dalek. He yells at Rose to get out of the line of fire, but she refuses, even when he tries to justify it with the number of people the Dalek killed that day, or the fact that it was the Dalek race that created the downfall of the Time Lords. She urges the Doctor to pause and just look at what the Dalek is doing.

Love a good TFS word.

The Dalek asks, "Why do we survive?" and the Doctor doesn't have an answer. When the Dalek once again says that it's the last of its kind, the Doctor explains that it no longer is a Dalek. Having absorbed Rose's DNA for its regeneration, it's begun mutating into something new. Rose asks why that wouldn't be a good thing, but, as I explained earlier, it's because Daleks view themselves as superior, so if they're no longer a Dalek, then they're not worth living.

The Dalek is experiencing human thoughts and emotions, ones that it can't, nor wants, to comprehend, and it asks Rose to order it to die, saying that "This is not life. This is sickness. I shall not be like you!" With some more pushing, Rose finally relents, quietly saying, "Do it."

Guy who says he's not gonna go as in-depth before proceeding to do so anyway. But trust me, I could say a lot more about this episode, I just wanna keep this brief and explore this one concept without the plethora of off-topic potential references.

I hope you can see some of the bones of what I'm getting at in how this could potentially be applied as inspiration for ST5, but let's get into some of my thoughts.

1) Paralleling the Doctor and the Dalek

This is something I've talked about in a lot of my other DW posts so I won't rehash it too much, but it's incredibly telling to me that we, once again, get this emphasis on muddying the waters between "good guy" and "bad guy."

Through the season, we've seen the Doctor grieving his people, constantly saying he's the last Time Lord in the universe and being generally depressed about it. We're very frequently reminded of how sad he is about it, and we're meant to be sad about it, too. More often than not, it's meant as a way to show a deeper bond between him and his companion whenever he shares that information.

Then, we meet this Dalek who is also the last of its kind in the universe, and who is also suddenly made to grieve the loss of its people. From the get-go, it's framed as a sympathetic creature begging for help as it's tortured, and only once the Doctor's bias is brought to light do we get any sort of inkling of an opposing stance.

Then, almost right away, we see their roles essentially swapped. Sure, the Dalek is a formidable opponent with an innate desire to kill everything it sees and perhaps maybe should be eliminated for the sake of the greater good. However, the Dalek is weak and vulnerable, with no way to defend itself, and the Doctor does the objectively shitty thing and tries to kill it while it's cornered. The entire episode has a bad ick about it. Even if the Doctor is technically justified, you still feel bad watching him take advantage of a situation to harm a defenseless creature.

The Dalek says it itself: the Doctor would make a good Dalek, allowing his hatred to drive him to make some morally fucked up decisions. He encourages his fear and rage to guide his hand, and it's not until he has an outside perspective - specifically from someone he cares about the opinion of immensely - that he backs down. If and when we get a similar scenario with Will and someone else having to talk him down... I'm seated.

In the end, it's hard to have sympathy for the Doctor without also extending that to the Dalek.

It very much makes me think of the larger fandom's perspective on Henry in ST, and how they'll dish out heaps of sympathy and empathy for the other characters, and even encourage them to do shitty things for the sake of "revenge" or "taking what they deserve," but then turn around and look at Henry's objectively worse situation and claim that he doesn't deserve that same courtesy simply because of a slightly less appealing past.

To specifically tie it to comparing the Doctor and the Dalek, I'm looking at how we're meant to compare Henry and Will to one another. We see two sensitive boys who come from imperfect households with a desire to be loved and accepted for who they are. We see them go through hardships beyond our imaginations and, the key here, is how their situations during and thereafter are different.

We see the perspective of the Doctor first, and we feel bad for him! When he attacks the Dalek, it feels justified given the history between their races. In ST, we see the perspective of Will first, learning everything he's been through, and thus when he says "we have to kill [Vecna]," it makes sense! We've been led to believe that everything that's happened to Will has been enabled by this one guy, so of course it's justified to want to put a stop to him, and we cheer on the other characters when they come to Will's aid.

But then we get the perspective of the Dalek. We see it admit that it's in pain, that it's sad, that it yearns for freedom and an end to its torture. In ST, we learn more about Vecna, about his (alleged) past, and the trials he's been through to shape him into who he is today, and his desire to make things better. It, then, also makes sense for these characters to react the way they do, even if it's not ideal, and even if their methods and motives aren't the most morally clean.

(I'd also be remiss if I didn't at least briefly tap in on the whole "perspective" thing with what James is discussing in his upcoming big thesis post about TFS. Definitely keep an eye out for it, because it's a super interesting exploration of perspective and how that paints certain behaviors/scenes in different lights than we may have initially been led to believe.)

When I first watched ST4, I wasn't in the fandom at all. I was entirely unaware of the vitriol being slung at Vecna and Henry. I watched him do all these inexcusable things, but then... we have NINA Henry explain what (allegedly) happened and why he is where he is, and I thought... oh.

We're told that this guy had a good reason for doing everything he did. Even if everything he's done is reprehensible, I still sat there thinking "wow, he didn't deserve any of that, everything could have been avoided if he was just treated with decency."

With the Dalek, even after we see what it's done, we're meant to feel bad for it. Should it be forgiven? Perhaps not, but it was just doing the only thing it knew how to do after being put in a situation by someone else (van Statten) that allowed it to do the damage that it did, much like Brenner essentially enabling the creation of Vecna by cornering a child into the lab and forcing his hand.

All in all, it really pushes you to accept that someone who is "good" can do bad things because they think it's what should be done, and someone who is "bad" can be offered a chance to change and become better, and it doesn't even have to be detraction if they refuse that help. And, ultimately, I wouldn't be surprised if Vecna is offered help, but refuses it because it's too late. Not because he's being petulant and stubborn, but because there's genuinely no point, much like with the Dalek (even if the Dalek is being more petulant and stubborn than anything).

2) Vecna and the Daleks

By no means do I want it to come off like I'm directly correlating Vecna to the Daleks. There's too many key differences, particularly in what they are, for me to do that with a straight face.

I already explained that Daleks are born and evolved to hate. That's the only emotion they feel, because anything else would give them doubt in their Primary Order. Meanwhile, Vecna very much is a person. Even if he's not fully human, there's a human core there that allows him to hesitate and feel something other than disdain for humanity (I will always and forever stare at the way he kept El alive. Sir, I know you're not that cocky. Just kill her. Unless she....... means something to you......?).

Throughout ST, everything that comes out of the UD is distinctly nonhuman. I remember very early on in ST4 thinking it was weird that they made something from the UD so close to human. So, even if we're led into the story believing that Vecna is something purely monstrous, by the end we're shown that he is, in fact, still a human and always has been a human.

It's similar, if not slightly inverted, to what happens with the Dalek in this episode: We open on this strange alien creature and learn it was the reason for the downfall of the Time Lords, but by the end, it's been infused with enough human DNA that it becomes even harder to treat it with cruelty.

And I know I said I wasn't going to get into the deeper lore of the Daleks, but I have to just mention one of the myths of their creation from the short story "We are the Daleks!" published in 1973:

So like... um... anyway... just chew on that a little bit, I guess!!

As a final note for this thought, I do also find it interesting that even their motives could be considered similar. The Daleks kill everything that isn't a Dalek. And, yes, it is because of hatred, but it's also specifically about guaranteeing their own survival and making the universe fit for them. Not too far off from that, we have Vecna wanting to reshape the world into what he wants it to be so that he can exist freely. It's not exactly one-to-one, especially given that Vecna's motives are more of a commentary on the flaws of society while the Daleks are committing a "racial cleansing" (the Doctor's words, not mine), but I'd be remiss to not at least touch on it.

3) Objective Perspective

Rose gives us a very stark show of what bias can do in this episode. She showed sympathy before she knew anything about the Dalek, and while she does become frightened and tries to flee from it, by the end of the episode she's managed to either fight against or accept her fear and continue to try and help the Dalek and show it kindness.

It reminds me a lot of what we see with D'art in ST2, to the point that Rose's experience is almost beat for beat what happens with Dustin:

Finding the demoslug and growing fond of it because he doesn't know what it is.

Becoming frightened when he learns it's a "baby demogorgon" and tries to trap it.

Learning that he can have a connection and cooperate with it even if he's still scared.

Even Will manages to fight against his fear, understanding that D'art is just in a vulnerable position and needs help more than anything.

On top of Rose's demeanor with the Dalek, we also get to study how she reacts to the Doctor as the episode progresses. By and large, she's disgusted with the way the Doctor is behaving, calling him out multiple times and begging him to see the bigger picture. He's hurt, of course, but he can't continue to resort to violence under the guise of being afraid when this Dalek is no longer the same as the Daleks he hates. She doesn't even fully understand that until the very end, and still she can see that it's changing and it's been deserving of compassion this whole time.

The Doctor and the Dalek both hate each other and hate themselves, and Rose is the only one who can cut in, generally understanding both sides of the argument, to get everyone to back down. She's viewed both the Doctor and the Dalek with a clean, unbiased lens, which allows her to take in all the information she's given without any sort of judgement clouding her decisions.

Sure, her fear does take over a few times, but it's almost exclusively when her life is in immediate danger and she never takes it out directly on the Dalek. As soon as the Dalek refuses to kill her, she can wrangle herself into at least trying to approach things calmly and objectively and attempt to talk the Dalek down rather than resorting to brute force.

It makes me wonder just how, exactly, this is going to go down for Vecna. We've been given a lot of information thus far, but everyone has a different set of pieces without a way to combine them correctly just yet, and there's so many personal stakes involved that it becomes hard to parse out what's really an objective reading.

Will has been personally affected by the UD and the MF, which also affected his immediate family and friends.

El lived in the lab for her whole life and knew Henry personally, and potentially was the catalyst for finally creating Vecna.

Brenner has a desire to make himself look good as he works for his own selfish gains, and puts others in harm's way to get there.

Multiple people have had their lives directly altered by something Vecna did.

Vecna himself has a mess of wrongs against him that he's desperate to "fix."

etc. etc...

It's really just a whole big mess, and it's going to take a lot of work for someone to break out of the personal feelings involved in order to get everyone on all sides to step back and do some self-reflecting.

It's interesting to me that "Dalek" is not only a lesson in sympathy for others, but a lesson in sympathy for oneself. It's a large part of the Doctor's arc in this first season, and sympathy in general has been a huge part of ST throughout the whole show (which I know I've talked about endlessly irt these comparisons to DW), and it's a sentiment becoming increasingly pushed on our "villain" characters.

Like how the Doctor is "brought down" to the Dalek's level of cruelty and the Dalek is "brought up" to the Doctor's level of deserving sympathy, our "villain" characters in ST are being brought up to the protagonists' level of deserving sympathy, and our protagonists...? Well, we've already been blessed with loads of imperfect "good" characters in this show thus far, so I will not be surprised when that gets taken to the extreme.

It's already in line with El's monster vs superhero internal debate: a good character can do something morally reprehensible, with or without "proper" motive, and they will still be deserving of compassion.

In conclusion, while obviously I don't think it'll be a one-to-one, I do think that this DW episode offers an interesting route for Vecna's arc to take, specifically in regard to his demise. While a character such as Henry or Edward, who were dragged into this situation against their will, might be deserving of forgiveness/clearing their names and may still be able to be "saved," in whatever form that may be, someone like Vecna might simply be too far gone. There's no going back at this point, and it just has to be accepted.

I was talking to James about this, and I agree when he said it wouldn't be surprising if Vecna was offered help, he earnestly thanked them for it, but then had to refuse it anyway. I wouldn't be shocked if El wants to help him so badly but ultimately has to accept that sometimes things can't be undone, and they simply have to run their course, even if it has an unsatisfactory outcome. Especially if that outcome was one that could have been avoided had they gotten to the problem sooner. That is the tragedy.

The Dalek is a bit more complicated than that, obviously, given what it is as a species and its refusal for help being because it sees no point in existing now that it's "contaminated," but I think you can pick up what I'm putting down. The Dalek could have accepted the help and could have striven to change like Rose thought it could, but it simply wasn't in the cards and would have caused more pain than not.

The Daleks come up again in future episodes, which I might talk about someday, but I felt like this one was a good exploration of what you can do with an established villain and flip the narrative until they're almost entirely sympathetic while our "good guy" seems ridiculous for behaving the way he does. It is not a stretch to apply that sentiment to ST, especially because we have even more of a foundation for compassion toward our "villains" in that show than the Dalek got in this episode.

I could talk a lot more about this episode, too. There's so many trains of thought that this inspired, but, again, I want to just talk about this topic for now, so all the weird "why is this so ST" bits can stay in the vault (or you can go watch the episode yourself, which I highly recommend! It's a good one).

Overall, just knowing that DW was some level of inspiration for ST makes me excited to see what the Duffers took from that classic series and how they'll use it to inform their own final season, and specifically how they'll further the "no one is special/better/worse" message they have going on. We'll see!

#i say things #st dw #stranger things #vecna

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mercair · 1 year ago

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I was looking for some stuff around my house, when i found some sort of saferoom sealed behind one of my walls, and there, i found MY NEXT SB OC: LEFT-E

He used to be a mascot for ICE-E's P'E'ZZA sometime around the 80's. In the darkworld, he was a new kind of warrior, an animatronic that could both entertain the kids, as well as being a really tough soldier. And so he became protector of his darkworld. That did not last long...

One day, a strange persone came to the darkworld, they said they were curious to see this new warrior, as some called it "The greatest invention ever made by darkners". The CEO of the darkworld happily let them see their new invention, they thought they were a business man. The person stood right in front of the robot, deeply analysing it, that was when something inside of the robot snapped. It suddenly tried to attack the person, for some reason, the robot classified them as a menace. Both of them fought each other while the guards tried to pull the robot away from a potential client. Surprisingly, the person was completely fine, as if nothing happened, it was the robot the one that took a beating. The CEO quickly realized how dangerous this soldier was, and decided to dismantle it, and then seal it awyan deep down in the basement of the pizzeria.

But the robot wasn't done yet. What it saw inside of that person's eyes was too dangerous to let them go. It couldn't move anymore, it's core has been removed, but it's WILL persisted. And now it waits in the depths of the basement for a new source of energy, strong enough to let it hunt that person down, no matter what. A human soul... That'll do it.

Heey so i finished my new lil' guy. Well, no, actually he's a pretty big boy, even without legs.

As you may have already guessed, this guy is an ENORMOUS FNAF reference, and by that i mean is that the whole point of his existence is to be a FNAF reference.

Now, about his design, i tried my best to make him look like a "What if ICE-E was a FNAF animatronic?"... thing, but still tried to give it that magic/fantasy vibe from Deltarune with that holographic arm, also, it's his left arm, get it? CUZ HE'S LEFT-E. Honestly, i'm not sure if i succeded at it.

He has no SUPER for or anything like that, he is just that strong. The SOUL mode for his battle is ORANG SOUL, which would let you parry some of his attacks.

It seems i haven't done enough references here, so have this;

If you know, you know.

And lastly, BOSS BATTLE THEME, LET'S GOOO

Fun fact: This one is partially based/inspired in the FNAF 1 song by living tombstone, i tried to make the Freedom motif drop similar to the one in that song. I clearly failed, but i still LOVE how it came out. Anyways, that's all folks! Keep dreaming!

#deltarune oc #oc #deltarune secret boss #deltarune #ICE-E #Gaster is William Afton Confirmed #LEFT-E #SoundCloud

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whencyclopedia · 6 months ago

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In Search of Japan's Hidden Christians: A Story of Suppression, Secrecy and Survival

“In Search of Japan’s Hidden Christians” documents the arrival, flourishing, stifling, and eventual prohibition of the Christian faith in Japan's Edo period. It was survived only through those known as “Kakure Kirishitans” (Hidden Christians), whose secret ceremonies and home-grown rituals persevere even today.

Dougill writes about the history of Christianity in Japan writ large, before focusing more precisely on the history of Hidden Christians and their existence today. There is much for both the casual reader and the academic to enjoy here, as the author interweaves his own perspectives and experiences (particularly those he had while traveling in Japan to research the topic) into the narrative. Dougill leaves little room for interpretation as he explains his thoughts and emotions throughout the book, which may sometimes conflict with the reader’s own. As such, the book reads as more a journey of the author's understanding of the topic, factually and emotionally, rather than the work of an impartial academic who seeks nothing but the cold truth without a hint of bias.

Chapters One and Two chart the arrival of the first Jesuit missionaries, the difficulties they initially faced, and the eventual conversion of some Japanese people. Chapter Three shows the reader that the Christian faith experienced some significant success in its early days, as the missionaries found favour with then Shogun Oda Nobunaga. However, in Chapter Four, we see a shift as the Christian faith that was spreading throughout the nation was seen as a potential threat by the new shogun, Toyotomi Hideyoshi, and expulsion edicts were put in place. Chapters Five and Six are about the intensification of the prohibition of the faith, as well as persecution, including the crucifixion of the 26 Martyrs at Nagasaki.

Then, in Chapters Seven and Eight, the Shimabara Rebellion is explained, as well as some of the circumstances that came about after the incident such as how the Christians would attempt to hide their religious symbols in plain sight. Chapter Nine is dedicated to Endo Shusaku and his widely-known work Silence, which leads into Chapter Ten, where the history of the faith in Japan is harboured and sometimes transformed by Japanese thought in the Goto Islands, off Kyushu. Chapter Eleven explains the Dutch connection in Nagasaki and how some of the first Hidden Christians started to emerge into public view as the country began to open itself up to the world after its period of isolationism. Finally, Chapter Twelve explains the Protestant and Catholic connections to the country a bit more and reveals to the reader that the Hidden Christians of Japan were more akin to a Japanese folk religion rather than the Christianity that first arrived on their shores. Additionally, the book includes a short bibliography, as well as many images of what Dougill writes throughout the book which helps to lend a sense of realism to what can sometimes feel like an otherwordly topic.

While Dougill, who currently teaches British Culture at Ryukoku University in Kyoto, at times shows a limited understanding of Christian doctrine, the discerning reader might be able to find what the author misses through his discourse. Regardless, this book is a fascinating tale of hope amongst harrowing circumstances and the determination of the human spirit, and anyone who seeks to learn more about this little-known part of Japan’s history should see this book as a window into a much larger world.

For those wishing to look further into this topic, Ann M. Harrington's Japan's Hidden Christians (1993) which, written from a Catholic point of view, focuses more on the beliefs of Hidden Christians may be of interest. Some more contemporary analyses are Kirk Sandvig's Hidden Christians in Japan: Breaking the Silence (2019) and Christal Whelan's documentary Otaiya: Japan's Hidden Christians. Finally, The Beginning of Heaven and Earth: The Sacred Book of Japan's Hidden Christians, written by Hidden Christians during their years of persecution and edited and translated by Christal Whelan, would give the reader an insight into the beliefs that these particular Christians held and regale the reader with Bible stories with intrinsically Japanese themes.

#History #Christianity #HiddenChristians #Japan

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kerubimcrepin · 9 months ago

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Episode 42 - The Trial

TW: mentions of genocide, totalitarian regimes, political extremism, and alcoholism. This one gets silly after I get lost in the sauce of analysing Bonta's political structures throughout history.

He was trying to toast them but couldn't reach. That's when the Darkness began to grow within him. That's the true sad backstory of Joris.

Not the last time he's too short for a toast in canon.

"ALBUM PHOTO"

Also, I will be real, by now I am actually unironically fluent in the Astrubian alphabet (non-cursive, non-handwriting). I don't know whether to be ashamed or proud of the lengths I went to, for this blog.

I think this takes place at the same time period as episodes 26 (A Hairy Mystery) and 50 (A Deadly Charm), because during both of those he also lived in Bonta, while Lou worked in law enforcement in some way. This would place those episodes before, or slightly before, all the adventures Kerubim would have with these three guys.

We are making some real progress here, folks.

Bonta, city of good, city of justice, everyone. Nothing corrupt or evil has ever taken place in it.

And it is definitely not just as bad as Brakmar.

Yes Kerubim. There are.

"DOSSIER"

Presented without comment.

Let's ignore the yet another instance of Kerubim being an unreliable narrator, or that ticket saying "KANI LAND", and focus on more important things:

Do you think Lou utilized girl power correctly when she sentenced three men, one of whom was scammed, the other of whom was robbed, and the third of whom is literally mentally ill, to prison? Do you think it was real Bontarian justice when she accepted a bribe to reverse that decision, and then decided to put the man who gave her that bribe in jail for four months to ensure she would receive it?

People who have only watched the shows may not be aware just how canon Bonta's evil nature is, and how much of a joke and a sham its "The City of Good" name is. It hasn't been explored in the Wakfu series, — actually, on the contrary, it has been portrayed as unquestionably good, through its aid to the Sadida Kingdom, through Joris's good deeds, — while in this series, its corruption is mostly played as a joke.

But it really is an unending nightmare that keeps failing everyone within it.

From people who are forced to mold themselves into an aspirational, heroic image, by completely destroying themselves with untreated mental illnesses and alcoholism, — like Bakara, or, to a lesser degree, Kerubim,

To people caught within its intrigues, unfairly convicted or framed. Like Julith's framing, which was an inside job, perhaps by the Huppermage temple itself.

To the fucking Huppermage genocide that happened centuries after, during a civil war, which has forced the survivors to flee to an island.

To the tolerance and acceptance of nobles like Ush.

Bonta has sucked badly for 600 horrid, horrid years, and it will likely never stop sucking, because the gods who founded it also suck ass.

It's such a tar pit, it's insane.

Anyway, man I wonder if trying to fix a city for 600 years, while knowing that this city killed your parents, made your aunt an alcoholic, and then resulted in the genocide of your people, would make someone want to start, perhaps, a militant fascist dictatorship with LOTS of guns, and slavery (BUT WOKE) as well as exploitation. Because only they, all alone, with like, two other people, can fix it. With guns. Haha.

Man, my headcanons are getting more delusional by the m——

GOD FUCKING DAMMIT.

#ep42 #ro liveblogs dofus #dofus #wakfu #krosmoz #joris jurgen

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monstersandmagicians · 2 months ago

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Anyways, cheered when I checked my inbox this morning. Been waiting months for this announcement.

So, thoughts:

-Avallon Hotel and Spa: obvious Arthurian connection here. Healing springs. Will be fascinated to see the level of significance here - I think Maggie typically names with easter eggs in mind whereas I try to dig as deep as possible when analysing these choices, so we'll see.

-WONDER: so, Stiefvater said that she is trying to writing Wonder as opposed to Horror. The synopses, especially the QBD one, are written as if for a gothic-ish sort of novel, the sort that leaves you feeling claustrophobic. Considering the effect Sinner had on me, I do trust Stiefvater to achieve what she is setting out to do.

-Synopsis: again, the sort of synopsis I would read, think has the good bones for a story, but know it will make me depressed so I'd skip. Again, I have faith.

-"class conflict, an ensemble cast, about four different kinds of love": from the email. Book's set in the Appalachian mountains in the 1942, so the class stuff will be good. Willing to bet on some good sibling content, even though we only have two named characters. Obviously, this will be an adult novel, but I feel its going to sit comfortably next to The Scorpio Races in my head.

-Cars: nothing has mentioned cars, even the bits that have talked about it being a Stiefvater novel. Still, I expect cars, in loving details.

-June Hudson: Okay, so June Hennessy was my first thought on seeing the name, then the fact the book is coming out in June. Hudson? All I've got is the Hudson River folks. From the synopsis I don't think I can make an assumption about which way Stiefvater's taking her character, but I'm assuming she's a Responsible, Practical one. Is described as enigmatic

-Tucker Minnick, FBI Agent: Love the name, again, look forward to finding out where the components were plucked from. Despite working for the FBI, the main synopsis* suggests he hails from the Appalachian. Class conflict bound up in one man?

-Cover: so, a cover had been included. It's white and purple with a house on. Generic and I don't see people pitching a fit over it, but it includes a "sticker" saying "Cover to Be Revealed". That makes sense, we're ages out from the release. Still, feels like the publisher creating problems for Stiefvater there. Looking forward to the real cover and I hope it feels more Stiefvater-y, even if others aren't fond of it.

-The Listeners: while I'm stomping on hornets' nests, the title. Simplistic, but evocative. Would love to know what is listening to who and how many ways this title can be applied.

-Betrayal: the QBD synopsis uses the word betrayal. Could mean anything, tbh.

-The Nazi Thing: has the potential to be really interesting and insightful, if Stiefvater hands it well. Considering her experiences with fandom, I imagine she has proceeded with more caution than others (*cough*Chibnal*cough).

-Length and Date: According to QBD, the paperback is 416 pages (a very satisfying number). Penguin has the hardback at 384. This suggests longer than MI, shorter than CDTH. Penguin has release date at June 3rd, while QBD (Australian Bookstore) has the 10th. The email just says June, so I would say, expect early June.

-Bears: I would rather approach a bear than the TRC fandom, tbh.

*(QBD synopsis differs from the one Stiefvater released; doesn't include Minnick at all)

#maggie stiefvater #The Listeners

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celestialtrolls · 8 months ago

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Showtime

[Prelude] [Part 1]

The past couple of days had been a rollercoaster of anxiety, keeping out of the line of sight of windows, and a very fast masterclass in Suits Carnival from Kerros, who of which kept avoiding your questions about whether he was still a part of the organisation that Aelynn loathed so much.

Your dreams are full of purple, with glowing crystals and growing darkness, influenced by what you’ve seen of the carnival only a few steps outside the safe walls of Kerro’s small house. You wonder whether even the higher-echelons within the fleet know even half the extent of what goes on here. Dread has come to sit in every crevice of your thoughts, and your sister's moirail has given up trying to calm you.

Your phone informs you that it's the 13th as you blearily try to rouse yourself out of bed. Today's your final day here. It's the day of The Show. Your chance to look around, observe your ancestor, and then run without ever looking back.

Or you could just run. Just get out, escape before anyone even has a chance to see you. But no. You can't, you can't. What would have been the point of coming all this way? Despite how far your vision reaches, you haven't seen even a hair of the Queen of Hearts. You're surrounded by her fortifications, but the hours you've spent trying to analyse the structure of her creations have taught you nothing.

If you leave without learning a single thing, you're going to-

You don't finish that thought.

"Renn, you ready to face the outside again?" Kerros knocks on his bedroom door - having leant it to you for the duration of your stay - opening it after a moment to stare at you with a tired expression. "They're gonna start letting outside folks in inna couple of hours, you got your shit togeth- like, your belongings... together?"

You raise your head from your phone screen, which you had just been staring at without even paying attention, the photo of your boat docked at the harbour disappearing as you clicked to lock it. The outside world was still there, unchanged, despite your stay here. You'll come to see what you can, and then leave. It's that straightforward.

"Yeah, remind me of the important stuff again one more time?"

You hadn't forgotten, but you found some reassurance in having the instruction fresh in your memory.

"Fuck's sake man." His tone is incredulous, but he indulges you regardless. "Don't mention fleet, don't mention other carnivals. If anyone asks, you have no affiliations. You're just a city boy, you don't know shit about no messiahs or grand purpose. Don't mention Aelynn. Someone says you look like her, you say you've never heard of her in your life. Don't approach the Creator. Especially don't talk to her. Even if she talks to you, just don't... don't open your mouth. Nod at the most, but avoid even that if you can. And don't attend the show. Don't go into any of the buildings."

"Okay."

"And try not to look anyone in the eyes. That's just sensible practice around these subjug fucks though, you should already know that. Centre of the forehead."

"Yeah."

"Don't. Mention. Aelynn."

"Wh-? You already-"

"I mean it. The second someone clocks that you're her brother, I can't tell you what might happen, but it's nothing good."

The seriousness in his expression sends a shiver down your spine, adding to the fear already freezing you.

"Yeah. I get it."

He shoots you a look before he exits the doorway back into the rest of the house, leaving it open as you pull your hoodie over your head and fix your eyepatch in place over the glowing mark in your iris. No paint. No symbol. You're just a perfectly generic purpleblood, visiting a carnival that you saw a poster for a while ago just out of sheer curiosity. Kerros leaves his hive before you, and you're left with the sound of your own thoughts. You glance at your phone one more time, wondering whether the sound of your moirail's voice would calm you... but you reconsider quickly, burying it back into your pocket. His potential fretting over you might make you feel worse.

In the distance, you hear a garbled shouting over a tinny loudspeaker, followed by the popping sound of fireworks. And so it begins.

The air is full of lights - quite literally, red hearts floating and swirling around above everyone's heads like fireflies, disappearing when someone's hand reaches up to capture some, only to reappear moments later. Music flows from every building along the main road, not loud enough to deafen, but enough that the shouts and shrill voices of the crowd are muted in comparison. Stalls fill the spaces between each tent and building, selling everything and providing the widest array of food smells, enough to overwhelm even the dullest of senses. Meats and candy, traditional stews and fruits doused in enough sugar to nullify anything healthy about it, huge punch bowls in a variety of suspicious colours, watered down beer in plastic cups, and everything and anything else that someone with a bit too much free time could imagine. The heart theme sticks though, whether that's the shape of the food or the fliers in the air, the balloons that are tied to younger trolls wrists as they dive through the crowd - red is almost, if not more prevalent than purple.

You might be stupid.

It's overwhelming, and you can see all of that all at once, a mile or more around from where-ever you stand on the main road, with no way to shut your eyes or any of your other senses from the chaos. It takes everything you have to try and get your legs to autopilot you towards the centre of the city. Trolls of almost all castes surround you, walking every which way. There's no system in place, and people mill about without purpose from shop to stall, from building to amusement.

If you weren't busy with the sensory assault, you might be shocked that so many non-purples were in attendance. But if this was a regular thing, you suppose they had a reputation for just being a fun night out? Kerros never revealed to you what The Show was, but if there were repeat visitors, surely it wasn't something too sinister.

The migraine starts forming faster than you hope, and your head is throbbing with pain by the time that you finally reach the town centre, the base of the huge tent - a building that externally looked like a typical, although unrealistically large, big-top circus tent - but you could see inside, the centre stage and it's seats, the corridors leading around to different zones, an absolute maze of a building.

It's empty however, though a line has already started forming at the entrance.

It's empty, apart from one thing, that at first, you didn't even recognise as a person. It looked more like the shell of a statue, a wireframe with a strange flesh amalgamation ins- Were those meant to be someone's organs?

The blood drains from your face as you truly start to understand what you're seeing.

You try to focus your attention elsewhere, but the infallible power of the vision you were granted provides you no mercy.

You might be stupid.

Your feet feel like they've become cement, an anchor to the ground that you can’t free by will alone. You have no time to panic, and it is an unpleasant but not necessarily unwelcome experience as a hefty blueblood knocks your shoulder as they push past you, sending you off balance and freeing your legs of their psychologically induced prison. You take advantage of the adrenaline and, while trying to keep your stomach still, you begin a march back towards the exit of the Suits Carnival.

You've seen enough. What were you even thinking? Someone who can create anything, who defied death itself to return after 600 sweeps? That's not someone you can understand.

You pause by a small colourful stall while you wait for people to move out of your path, and a voice brings you out of your thoughts.

"Oi, you seen a ghost boy? Looks like a drinker's used you as a juice box."

You turn your head to look at the speaker, a painted girl who looks younger than you, with odd mismatched pupils and white streaks through her fringe. She gives you a smile, and picks up a handful of boiled lemon candies to hold out for you.

"Oh, sorry I'm not bu-"

"Take them! You look like you're going to motherfucking collapse, and if you're gonna do that then you better do it away from my shop!"

Despite her crude wording, her tone is friendly, and you reach out to accept them, unwrapping one quickly to pop in your mouth. The sharp sour flavour shocks you a little, and pulls your mind to where you're standing.

"Thank you."

"You needed it! Your first show?" You nod. "You gotta come to one of the quieter ones first! Hearts always goes too hard, shit's craaazy!" No one else is coming up to the counter, and the crowd is still swarming behind you. "Only happens once a sweep though, can't be too mad! Queen's gotta flex on all us other suits, just how it is! Clubs’ is more fun though! I’ve only been here a couple of-"

You're content to let her monologue continue, the sour lemon flavour slowly fading to nothing as you nod along, taking the worst of the fear you were experiencing with it.

"Well, you look like you're feeling better, get your motherfucking ass back out there, make the most of it, alright? Oh-"

You're so fucking stupid.

The empty space beside you is filled as a small woman in a wide dress almost seems to materialise out of the crowd and steps forward. The friendly expression of the girl quickly changes to an anxious grin, her hands moving to grip the counter like a vice as if that was the only thing keeping her standing.

You can't make out the words the elder highblood says to the stall keeper. All you can hear is your heartbeat in your skull as you turn your head slightly to look at her with your uncovered eye.

Constantly, things are forming inside the shell that makes up her skin. You can see tiny crystals forming and then dissipating back into dust which flows like a liquid as she moves, like a constant purple kaleidoscope.

It's horrifying.

This is what you wanted?

"Ah, were you talking? Well Asteya, tell him to find me if you see him, yes? And you,"

Creator Ceremiré finally turns her head to look at you, dark purple eyes with glowing lilac rings meeting yours, and it takes everything to suppress every reaction you could have as her mouth forms a grin.

"Come and enjoy the Show, won't you?"

It is more of a threat than an invitation, not from the tone of her voice, not from any part of her non-existent body language, but you simply know it is. Years of fleet training and instinct manages to force a nod out of you regardless. You've never understood Aelynn's explanations about your ancestor better than now.

She disappears as suddenly as she appeared, seemingly content with the reaction, and before the girl behind the stall can turn her attention back to you, before your ancestor can realise that you have a familiar face, before anything else happens, you have already burst into a sprint, disappearing into the crowd.

#no comment just. rennra time.#this was 67% awareness by the way #Rennra Stuff #Kerros Stuff #Creator Stuff #Asteya Stuff #gold writing

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adrianastrix · 12 days ago

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Pre-Dracula vampire fiction (1)

Since Halloween is upon us, I decided, as a treat, to rescue my "live reading" tweets about the most important books of vampire fiction (according to Myself, of course) in the form of a reading log. (The things between [ ] are notes I'm interpolating now, for clarity.)

And, since Dracula Daily is coming quickly to a close, I'm inviting you all to a deep dive into the almost two centuries of vampire tradition that Stoker had behind him when he wrote Dracula.

We will start with Augustin Calmet's treatise on the undead (1749), then we will jump to a special edition I have of The Vampyre (the first vampire piece of prose, that we know of, from 1817) with some fanfic short stories based on it attached and then we will visit the Dracula's Brood anthology and a few similar ones (that you only find on Amazon BR). Depending on my ADHD, we may or may not have some highlights of books on folklore vampires (mainly my complaints about them, but there are positive highlights).

ANYWAY LET'S GOO

17/07/2002 - 12:35 am

"I'm reading the vampire reports analysed by Augustin Calmet (a monk that lived around the end of the 17th century and the beginning of the 18th and OH MY GOD MY BRAIN IS SCREAMING. It's too much information in a huge tangle. But the reports he collected ARE the materials that most classical vampire writers read.

I've previously read summaries of his work, not the book itself. I'm reading this free version: https://gutenberg.org/ebooks/29412 This log is my way of organizing all the info in a way that is useful to me.

17/07/2002 - 12:56 am

I'm reading a PT-BR version of the vampire reports, they start at page 243 of the Gutenberg ebook.

In case you don't know, Calmet's treatise is his way to give a Catholic Church perspective on what are essentially paranormal stories that were spread by magazines and newspapers as true. [It was written in 1745, a few years after the Vampiromania started in Europe (we will talk more about that later).]

He talks about ghosts, vampires, revenants, angels, demons and more. We will focus on the vampires.

17/07/2002 - 12:57 am

We start with the first (highly controversial) folk ethymology for "vampire" as a derivation of "oupire", both meaning "bloodsucker". They are classified here as a type of revenant, or "those who come back".

[You would THINK we know what the word "vampire" actually means and from which language it originally comes, by now, given how much interest there is on the topic, and you would be naïvely, DELICIOUSLY wrong.]

17/07/2002 - 12:58 am

Another cool fact he adds is that vampires only *sometimes* cause their victim's deaths. As for what causes the vampirism cases known at the time, he lists four possible things: 1 - nothing, it's just superstition; 2 - people buried alive [yikes]; 3 - dead people that God allowed to come back and haunt the living; 4 - Satan shenanigans

17/07/2002 - 12:59 am

I think cause 3 is cool, because when was it the last time you've read a story of a person that became a vampire because God Himself told them "no, no, they really screwed you over, go back and drink a couple liters of their blood to teach them a lesson"?

17/07/2002 - 1:05 am

Here Calmet enters a tangent about cases of actual ressurrections, Lazarus-style. I'm skipping that, it doesn't interest me. Let me get back to action on page 261, with M. Vassimont's case.

17/07/2002 - 1:13 am

Hahahahahaha oh my GOD this is my favourite case. So, the vampire is the ghost of a shepherd that sometimes appear as a man, sometimes, as a dog. He attacks people [not by drinking blood, but] by making them feel weak, and he also ties the tails of two or more cows together [because he is also a petty jerk, apparently].

So, when the peasants decide to stake him to pin him on the ground, he flat out LAUGHS at their faces. The corpse mocks them, saying that the stake is just a stick to shoo dogs, and keeps tormenting him until he is dragged out of the village and burned to ashes.

17/07/2002 - 1:22 am

I love so much the mental image of a group of peasants around the coffin, tired and soaked with blood after staking that jerk and he just keeps LAUGHING at their faces.

17/07/2002 - 1:28 am

Calmet keeps repeating the signals that a corpse is a vampire: its blood is still red and liquid, rosy faces and flesh that is soft, pliable and devoid of worms. And to illustrate it, he offers cases of people that didn't decomposed after death and how things around them sometimes move by themselves.

17/07/2002 - 1:29 am

It's interesting because the vampires in those reports are considered revenants, too, but they don't rise from their tombs and drink blood. Instead, they cause poltergeist phenomena in their former homes, throwing rocks and messing things around.

17/07/2002 - 1:37 am

Another case of vampirism. This time, the vampire appears to his son after his death and asks for dinner. The son feeds him and the old man disappear. The next day, he does the same. The next morning, the son dies. When they exhume the old man's corpse, it's *breathing*.

[TO BE CONTINUED...]

This was an eventful early morning. It was 5 months after the beginning of the quarantine and I my home office work didn't have official hours, so my sleep patterns had already gone to space at that point.

At this point, I think it's important to notice how vampires bring signs of life to the corpses they inhabit, and sometimes these signs not necessarily include the corpse moving around. I mean, for all his laughing around, the jerkish vampire shepherd above never did anyting to stop the stake or his own burning.

You will see so much more that sadly never made its way into fiction tomorrow. At the end, I'll make a summary of what was a vampire at that point, before the Germans muddled it all (yeah, the Germans, bet you didn expect it - although the French also had a hand on it). Stay tuned!

#halloween #vampires #augustin calmet #folkloric vampires #reading log #when most people say that they want to find the origin of vampires they always mean “Dracula” in a way or another #Universal Dracula warped the pop culture perception of vampires so much #that people either don't recognize folklore vampires as vampires OR overcompensate and call ANY revenant a vampire #but by far the worst assumption you can make at a folkloric vampire is that it drinks blood - or that it does so by physically sucking it

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agentnico · 8 months ago

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Late Night with the Devil (2024) review

Nothing beats retro 70’s demonic haunting. It was a simpler time…

Plot: Johnny Carson rival Jack Delroy hosts a syndicated talk show ‘Night Owls’ that has long been a trusted companion to insomniacs around the country. However, ratings for the show have plummeted since the tragic death of Jack's beloved wife. Desperate to turn his fortunes around, on October 31st, 1977, Jack plans a Halloween special like no other- unaware he is about to unleash evil into the living rooms of America.

Ladies and gentlemen, please do not adjust your television sets, for there is a new found-footage horror film in town from the indy circuit, and it might just breath the right amount of fresh air into an oversaturated genre. Personally I’ve never been a major fan of found-footage. I hear folks raving about the original Blair Witch Project yet all I watched was a bunch of guys running around the woods screaming endlessly for no reason. Additionally the shaky-cam element can be so dizzying and sickly that I truly end up questioning the entertainment value of it all. There are exceptions to the rule of course. 2008’s science fiction invasion popcorn flick Cloverfield was tons of fun, as it provided a genuine experience of what it would be like if you were thrown right into the middle of monster attack in the millennial age. There are also some genuine scares and the found footage format worked really well with the film’s themes. I too enjoyed the 2020 black comedy Spree, where Joe Keery’s driver goes on a murder spree whilst constantly filming himself in hopes of becoming a viral sensation. It may not be a five-star ride, but it earns its tip for being a well crafted and inspired effort. To be fair, The Visit from M. Night Shyamalamadingdong was enjoyable piece of horror involving creepy grandparents. Okay, maybe I do enjoy found-footage flicks, but as long as they are decently made and that format style supports the narrative in a cohesive and advantageous way.

With Late Night with the Devil, ideologies of faith and the paranormal are challenged through the lens of the late-night TV format. Think how the 1976 Network analysed the corruption of the television industry, and how the camera can influence the politics and beliefs of those watching, Late Night with the Devil does the same but with the supernatural. Presented as a rediscovered master tape of a notorious Halloween late night special, it feels like we’re watching an actual talk show in real time, and the 70’s inspiration is in full display here from the grainy monitor display to the costumers to the special effects. It truly feels like we’re looking into a time capsule of the past, and that this all really happened. Again, found-footage as a filmmaking style works when it serves the purpose of the narrative, which in this case it does. It is a shame then that the movie in its finale loses the found-footage element and instead opts for the shock value by showcasing a dream-like vision of one of the characters. Granted at the time of watching the ending it did give me a “what the fuck” reaction that the movie was going for, but looking back this sequence did hinder what otherwise was a fantastic piece of creepy unique horror.

Performances across the entire cast were great and really dedicated. Wonderful to see David Dastmalchian finally get a leading role, as he’s always been a stand-out supporting performer, whether he was polka-dotting in The Suicide Squad, or stealing the comedic limelight from Paul Rudd in the Ant-Man movies, or being a haunting presence in every Denis Villeneuve epic. Dastmalchian is a true scene stealer, and at age 48 it is shocking that only now he finally gets a lead role. Regardless he is fantastic as Jack Delroy, as he balances the charming charisma of a late-night talk show host whilst also showcases the inner demons of this character, still mourning the recent death of his wife, as well as his eagerness to become relevant again after consistently losing ratings. From the quivers in his voice to the fear in his eyes, this is a really juicy showcasing role for Dastmalchian and one that is sure to be a memorable one when looking back on the actor’s rich filmography. Ingrid Torelli as Lilly the possessed survivor of a Satanic cult was truly creepy and unnerving. From her voice changes to her awkward movements, she truly felt unnatural, or dare I say supernatural, and her strangeness was at times even comical, but also really uncomfortable. Ian Bliss as Carmichael Hunt, a paranormal sceptic, too gave a powerhouse performance, delivering lines with prowess and was a truly commanding presence. Rhys Auteri rounds up the cast as Gus the announcer of Jack’s late night show, acting very befit of, say, a Higgins for Jimmy Fallon or a Guillermo for Jimmy Kimmel. He very much embraced the role as Dastmalchian’s side-kick and provided some solid light-hearted comedy to the proceedings.

Late Night with the Devil is a true delight for horror enthusiasts, with some great use of old-school practical effects evidently inspired by 1982’s The Thing, solid sound design that harkened back to that era of television, and enough unsettling moments of suspense to entertain and shock. Minus a couple of cheap electrical sparks there isn’t any CGI used which is refreshing, and overall visually the retro element was truly delightful. Again, the ending does scratch some heads, but overall this is a refreshing piece of campy horror, with a showcasing performance from Dastmalchian. In this you can truly put your faith on.

Overall score: 7/10

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