#The 4th installment doesn’t exist though

[sinclair-enterprises]

[hermioneismyrealname]

SKZFLIX HM.

Here’s my skzflix theory as a relic stay, I don’t know the damn name of what type of stay. Im the bitch who listened to 42 from 3racha from back in the day and decided to stick with them.

1st. Lino died.

That’s a fact. This is from the B Me (non-existent) mv. Lino? Yeah, that dude is dead. Fight with Hyunjin after On Track. In that universe, he is dead. This I believe is the beginning of Felix's turmoil. This is the start of all the universe jumping.

2nd. Resolving conflict.

Felix wishes for nothing more than for them to get back together. This we see in OH. Perhaps OH is the in-between universe. This is where they fought but nobody died, but no one is together.

Felix begins to wish for nothing more than for them to be together.

Going back to B Me and see what the conflict was. He was examining the tape.

He fixes another universe but this time he doesn’t exist and the fight between Hyunjin and Lino doesn’t happen. I.N.makes sure Hyunjin’s place is in production but Felix replaces Lino in life (skz album for B me). At the end we see Felix where Lino started but also linking I.N. from B Me.

3rd the constants.

The constants are Han, Chan, Seungmin and Changbin.

This is intentional. Roles might be slightly different but they are there from the start of the production and more or less have the same amount of importance as before. We see Chan holding the boom stick.

We see Seungmin writing.

We see Changbin with effects.

We see Han with papers, directing

and most importantly, running. We see Han constantly chasing Lino in a sense.

Why? I don’t know. Cant be bothered at this point? Nuanced romance? Hah, I don’t trust JYPe but I wouldn’t put it past SKZ for giving the fans what they want. Am I aware of minsung? Of course I am. Been here since the tempo pacing hand holding 1st elimination survival show bullshit. Am I going to touch the subject? Yeah. They have their own private life and if they wrote that script like that, good writing on them. None of my fucking business or anyone else's. “I’ll find you in every lifetime.” my ass.

Seriously though, the heck? I'm not homophobic. I'm just chronically single. I'm just felix here.

We also have bus.

Back on topic. The other constant is Felix making sure Lino is in the production. In a way, this is his send off. “Leave” the title of the short film and I think it will be the final installment of this universe, hence the "leave" MV. Im betting on it being the short film they made.

He walks Lino down the path were Han would spot him.

Even then, the focus is on Lino and a blurry Felix.

By the end of the shoot, Felix is almost out of shot.

Lino was in the story Felix lived. “I have to go back.” Jeongin says and Felix does.

The cake.

The cake is the most simple thing. Call it catalyst or call it a cake. It the constant that links the universe and created the bridge in the first place. It’s a simple wish that both I.N. and Felix make. I.N. doesn’t want to be left out, Astronaut, and Felix was them all together. I.N. was left alone at the end of Astronaut.

Their wishes happen to coincide. This may be a stretch but in Scars, I.N. watches a star shoot across the sky.

Their wishes are parallel.

4th maintenance

I.N. is wearing Lino’s leather jacket. He is the cool guy in this one. They end it in a theater instead of a drive in cinema. They bring cake together instead of Felix alone. The setting. B Me had a lot of concrete but SKZflix has a lot of greens.

5th basketball.

The heck do I know about basketball. All I know is that there are two hoops and SKZ are not the tallest. Is this heightist? For sure but warmth I guess. Basketball was in On Track, B Me, OH and now SKZFlix.

6th. My final point in my skzuniverse theory.

The universe affected is in this order,

Grow Up - On track - B me – Oh – SKZFlix - Leave

How it is affected?

Well remember in district 9, it almost felt like SKZ were in a lab. Especially in their “I am not” era. This was only solidified in their “Yellow wood” with side effects and voices. Perhaps, I.N. and Felix are the result of this experiment. They can alter and travel universes. So HOW the universes change are via these MVs;

Levanter (step out of cle).

Astronaut (owners of cle).

Maniac.

Scars.

Cheese.

DLC.

Why did I add Cheese? Remember I.N. tied up?

Yeah he might have gone a little bit loco and needed Felix to reel him back in again. DLC is where Felix brings I.N. back to sanity and safety. In paris? Meh.

There were also hints in Venom where Lino was seen as two different people. One in the broken mirror and another walking away. Felix and I.N. are also playing chess.

Another one would be in Lonely St. were Lino is the only one that wakes up and where Felix aims the gun at his shadow.

What about "the view"? Ah that is both Felix's and I.N. dream. It is their ultimate goal but it is also a dream. There were a lot of similarities and parallel scene between blueprint and the view. This is because Felix and I.N. have their blueprint, the members, in order to build the(ir perfect) "view".

In conclusion. FINALLY B ME MV! HOW LONG HAVE I BEEN ASKING? TOO FUCKING LONG. YOU ARE LOOKING AT A STAY WHO HAS BEEN HERE SINCE THE BENINGING. IS THIS A TYPO OR REFERENCE TO A VINE, YOU DECIDE. I AM UNHINGED AND HIGH THANK YOU VERY MUCH NOW WHERE IS MY TEA.

if jype realizes this is the entire skz universe in a nutshell i might get all my social media revoked. hah, thanks tumblr isnt a real social medai. ahahahahahah.

CHEERS TO CHAOS.

Any additions or rebuttals are welcome but not always entertained. too tired to look at reblogs. Goodnight.

[exittapes]

Another Excerpt From "Floggity Pinko"

“Have you heard your child demand that you “Uninstall the Program!”…? Did that catch you off-guard? You should probably be able to do that yourself, you respond. Which program is that? Oh, you begin to understand. The One Inside. They later tell you that they called for the killing of Osama Bin Laden using this same technology on August 4th, 2001. Even having Swindler’s List carve their name into the dead body,” Bonnie Silo asks, sort of.

“Nanotechnology doesn’t even exist at that point! And the facts state that it was another 10 years before he was killed! And trust in the state of the current research as not even being capable of such things!” A member of The Proper Order of Things responds.

“That the Bush Administration (even so far as The Supreme Court) was able to mercilessly mock their orders for evacuation of skyscrapers across the cities of Miami, Chicago and New York as late as 2:45am on 9/11/01 and for up to four months prior.”

“Ha, something definitely happened that morning that could cause such False Memory.”

“How their social-studies teacher had even repeatedly corroborated that their paper on the greatest threat facing America in the 21st century, ‘On Roman Holiday/No Way Out’, with the subject of war-starved Republicans working with foreign governments to recruit possible terrorists, was being used as a military blueprint for installing a global surveillance network, as the project itself had warned, before committing suicide under mysterious circumstances and with their copy of the scholastic endeavor being stolen.” 

“How dare they try & project upon the death of a father and a husband with such amateur clairvoyance! He was sick! He only locked the door in order to protect his kids from finding his body! Not to allow the escape of a secondary person in the room!”

“Where later upon visiting Vancouver, B.C., only one of their “brands” and/or “receivers” was in use as they relayed the nature of the pre-intelligence they’d withheld through a senseless ego-death at the hands of drug-addiction to a voice that later became Prime Minister as per request if their transmission proved accurate.”

“Compound stress can lead to exhaustion which then creates a pathway to a forced hallucination justifying this tiredness as being outside their grasp.”

"Of America’s treachery towards every aspect of the fairness “not quite incarnate” with their own World Trade having been built on the back of Apartheid, and though not deserving to die, still approached a rebellious irony, in their mind, that the debauchery amongst the elites only became more depraved, even ‘savage’…”

“Huh? They think that is logical? All of culture has become less private in the years since the utter devastation in New York.”

“The location of the corpse of Bin Laden became a rallying cry for the Anti-Taliban movement in late-2003, far too soon to recoup the financial sins of the United States’s fundamentalist occupancy, because… “There were too many other countries now involved,” as one Afghani Diplomat said.”

“And, in response, your son and/or daughter thought only of their internal cybernetic components as being part of their own cover-up? One also soon to be erased from the internet? That their involuntary jaw surgery had nearly melted their body on behalf of the local task-force? That makes absolutely no sense.”

“This kid is obviously insane. You did your best.”

“Thank you… They are also not a volunteer for any program that we are aware of… Sorry…”

[salternator]

What CPU does Ash run on?

A little bit late to the party - I just watched the Ashes to Ash cinematic and something very familiar caught my eye:

It’s an Intel CPU! I’m guessing the animators looked up “CPU” in the model library and pulled the first cool-looking one, rather than this being really bizarre product placement. For reference, here’s a Intel Celeron G550 from my desk:

The gold triangle in the left corner and the wings on the metal heat spreader are a dead tell... but this isn’t the exact CPU in the cinematic, as mine has a notch at the bottom of the heat spreader. Time to figure out which one is the exact match!

The shape of heat spreader in the cinematic without the notch and without other protrusions is used in Intel’s 4th and 6th generation CPUs. (Why not 5th? That generation sorta doesn’t exist.)

(photos from ebay.com)

That narrows things down significantly. To pick out the exact CPU though, it’s time to look at the underside:

There are notches on either side without gold contacts, and counting from the notch to the inside there are exactly 6 gold contacts inbetween. This matches with Socket LGA1150 on motherboards for 4th generation CPUs (left), and not Socket LGA1151 for 6th-9th generation (right):

(photo from 3dnews.ru)

Aaaaaaand now for matching the capacitor layout in the centre of the CPU... I don’t have a special way of doing this, so it’s just looking at the bottom of all the CPUs until I find the right one. It wasn’t any of these...

(photos from bit-tech.net)

...but it was this! An Intel i7-4770K!

(photo from techpowerup.com)

A side-by-side for easy comparison:

So in conclusion, Intel exists in the Apex/Titanfall universe and they’ve gone and installed people into bodies running a CPU from 2013. Unholy hell.

[focsle]

I have to work on commissions and frantically refresh my memory for a tour I haven’t given in near 3 years at this point that gotta give in 2 days but instead I got sidetracked being like ‘I wonder what theater my good friend William went to on July 4th and 5th of 1856 even though he clearly doesn’t really like the theater?’

[ID: Excerpt from an 1850s whaling journal kept by Wm Buel, transcript follows.]

“4th July 1856

Rain : cleared at night : N.B. quiet. Theatre in evening: “Satan in Paris” : I was tired to death : did not get out until near one oo.

5th July 1856

Fine weather : made up my mind to not go to Theatrical performances in out of the way places like this unless expecting to be disgusted + fairly put to sleep as I was last night.

Also came to the conclusion that theatres are rather a childish amusement at best, but if not of the best quality —— they are slightly unendurable. Have since seen the Drama of “the Wife” at the Theatre: by the help of two prominent actors from Boston it passed off well and two Yankee farces afterwards were amusing.”

Bringing in a little bit of his New York City Lad snobbery here.

New Bedford didn’t have the most robust theater scene in part because of its Quaker roots. In 1840, residents voted on the granting of more theatrical licenses, and the results were 12 in favor, 566 against. But theaters still existed because at least 12 of those residents wanted to be entertained! And New Bedford also had a steady stream of out-of-towners coming in to try their hand at a’whalin who were also likely clientele.

I imagine it was likely Liberty Hall that William visited. Liberty Hall (which no longer exists), was situated three blocks from where he was staying at the intersection of William and Purchase streets. And it would be having a Grand Reopening at this point!

[ID: 19th century photograph of a 4 story brick building. The ground floor has some commercial spaces, and the 2nd and 3rd floor are dominated by big arched windows. Several men are congregating outside. /end ID]

The theater would’ve been newly reopened on May 20th 1856, about a month before William landed in New Bedford. The new brick structure was built to replace a former wooden building that had burned down in the Autumn of 1854 (apparently someone had left a lamp going at night). The old building had originally been a Unitarian meeting house starting in the late 18th century, but after a new Unitarian church was built in the 1830s, the building was repurposed as a space for various lectures and performances. By 1846 it was specifically fitted up to be a theater.

At the top of the old building there was also a Liberty Bell installed by abolitionists, that in the wake of the Fugitive Slave Act would be rung to warn people who had escaped enslavement that U.S. Marshalls were coming into the city…and, frankly, to warn all Black residents of this since kidnapping in the name of the Act was rife regardless of whether someone was born free, had been manumitted, or self-emancipated. Unfortunately the bell was destroyed in the fire that burned the rest of the structure. And the brick building no longer stands either, demolished to make way for the Merchant’s Bank in the late 19th century. There is a plaque on that building today however that reportedly contains a melted piece of the old liberty bell.

[ID: Photo of the current plaque reading: On this site the former meeting house of the First Congregational and Unitarian Societies was erected 1795-97. These buildings were converted into Liberty Hall 1839. Original Liberty Hall burned and rebuilt 1854. Merchants National Bank Second Bank erected 1893. This building erected 1914. News of the passage of the Fugitive Slave Law was brought from Boston in 1851 by an express messenger who rode all night and the bell on the old hall was rung to give warning to fugitive slaves that U.S. Marshalls were coming. The bell was melted in the fire of 1854 and a fragment is inserted in this tablet.’ beneath the text is a warped lump of metal. /end ID]

[mikaze-discord]

Love letter project ♡

Sooo to celebrate the 4th anniversary of Shining live, I put together a project! I basically got a bunch of people to write a love letter for their favourite boy. Things like, why they like them, how they got to like them and what they like about them were all accepted!

The event was supposed to have 2 fans for each boy but unfortunately I was unable to get two for some of the boys. 

Under the cut will be the love letters for all of Class A!!! Please enjoy~ And thank you for all the people who participated in the event and taking the time to write the love letters out. 

CLASS A

OTOYA ITTOKI

From @ponzu-penzui:

Hello world! My nickname is Yuki, and I’m here to tell you about the sunshine boy that is Otoya Ittoki. The redhead of the series, Otoya is your seemingly a-typical sunshine in a mascot boy character. But, as we all know with these types, the sunshine isn’t as, well, sunshine as they seem. Or, if you didn’t know, well… spoiler alert I guess. Go watch the anime, or play the otome games, then come back here. Anyways, let’s get started on our journey, shall we? Through the rabbithole that got me here in the first place!

Otoya immediately became my best boy the second I saw him. I’m not quite sure what immediately got me at first, whether it be his red hair and eyes, his voice, or his immediate friendliness, but here we are. I should also mention that UtaPri was my first idol anime, so I was completely unaware what was going to hit me later. And, if you’ve watched the entire anime, you know where I’m going.

Season 4 was an emotional wreck. I cried at least twice. Did I have a newfound appreciation for Otoya after all that heartache? Definitely. Without spoilers, it was incredibly painful for me to watch, but I don’t regret it.

After watching the anime, I soon found out about the existence of Shining Live. So, with no other UtaPri content to binge, I started to play SL in late 2018. After playing for a little more than a year, I tiered in my first Otoya event (Heartwarming Snow Festival), and achieved my first top 200. Ever since then, I’ve tiered in every Otoya event, getting top 200, then top 100.

But, why do I like Otoya Ittoki even to this day? Well, I guess this is the time where I say that, after a certain point, I started to see bits of myself in Otoya. This led me to start to RP him, and, as you probably know if you’ve ever roleplayed a character before, I started to look at the miniscule amount of translated game content (many thanks to the Ohayaho Translation Team) for, well, more content. And content I did receive. Long story short, this only served to solidify Otoya as my favorite boy of not only UtaPri, but from all anime/manga/game content I’ve ever seen/watched. His cheerfulness may have been the first thing that got me in this rabbithole, but his backstory and how he managed to grow up pulled me in even further. And, I don’t think I will or want to get out anytime soon.

Next one from; Anon

As much as we all know our Otoya for how sweet and kind he is, there is so much more to him than just a precious smile. He is uplifting, cheerful towards everyone he meets. He has empathy and goes out of his way to make sure his friends are happy. Even so, Otoya has feelings that aren’t always happiness and smiles. He can feel sad and angry just like anyone else.

The reason I care and love Otoya so much is because he has shown me that I don’t have to always put on a smile. It’s nice to show off your pearly whites, but sometimes, it’s okay to be sad too. There are times in everyone’s life when they feel out of place and that they don’t belong. Otoya also felt this way and that’s perfectly okay. He’s still being the best idol he can be: The idol that Otoya loves the most.

MASATO HIJIRIKAWA

From Anon: 

Masato Hijirikawa. Why do I like Masato Hijirikawa? I like him to the point that it feels weird for me to even question why I do. He's just- a good boy. A great boy. I love him. As a joke, I'd usually say that it was his weirdly pretty, bowl-cut hairstyle that drew me to him, or I'd say that he caught my interest when I read that he was "very good with his hands" (wink wonk) in his Shining Live description, and while both of these reasons are still true, it wasn't until I started role playing him in an old server that I really started to appreciate his character more.

Masato, despite his aloof and almost "perfect" initial image, is a very relatable character. When he first arrived at Saotome (in-game) he wasn't necessarily seen as someone with a lot of talent to become an idol, which he acknowledged with grace and worked hard to make up for. He's humble despite his privileged upbringing and is incredibly self-aware of his flaws, which are sources of insecurity for him sometimes (a lot of times). Though it should be said that most of this insecurity stems from not having a lot of control over his early life, which is why it felt so gratifying to see him break free of his metaphorical chains to pursue his happiness without any doubts. He's a hard worker and is willing to accept criticism with open arms, not only for himself but for the people around him. Despite his traditional upbringing and nature, he's very receptive to change as long as it benefits both him and STARISH. He values the people he cares about more than anything, which is why he constantly strives to be a better version of himself every day, not only for himself but for the people around him.

Though his stoicism sometimes makes him seem plain or even "boring" to some people, he hides a warm, hidden passion within that's just as bright as everyone else's. Like the springtime bloom of cherry blossoms after winter, Masato shows his passion and love with no restraint to anyone who takes the time to understand him, and I can very much attest to this. I love him a lot and I hope to see more content of him, STARISH, and the others for more years to come.

NATSUKI SHINOMIYA

From uh....me:

HELLO I’m Z~ also known as the mod of the mikaze-discord/utapri-hcs tumblrs, as well as the organiser for the event! But enough about myself, let's talk about Natsuki Shinomiya.

When I first watched the anime as a youngin, I had already known about the games and their plots but had decided to try out the anime as well since I had nothing better to do.

Natsuki was actually one of my least favourite characters in the anime just because of how they presented him. I just...didn't care for him at all. He was just some random tall guy who loved hugs and almost murder…. Yeah.

I’m sure like most, I had a changing point. Originally, I was a Tokiya rper but...I was just unhappy with how my Tokiya was, I wasn't as experienced in rping with that server being my first rp server i was ever in. I didn't feel like I matched up with the others. I felt my Tokiya was just lacking something, substance maybe. Another person actually had a similar feeling and had changed their character from Camus to Syo and since we already had an Ai, I had just decided to go with the flow and complete the rest of the cute team. Best decision of my life. I’m so grateful for Natsuki and everything I associate him with. Without him, I probably wouldn't have made my tumblrs, I wouldn't have stayed in that server, I wouldn't have gone looking for other servers to rp in. I don't think I would be the same without Natsuki. I just find him so endearing now, he is just a lovable giant who happens to be able to be a disney princess. He is just so darn cute damn it. , just look at his Christmas card, his King card, quite literally just half his Shining live URs. Also, just like his songs just slap. Natsuki to me, is just serotonin. He gave me so many opportunities that I could have missed. I don't even think I would have started this love letter project without him if I’m being completely honest. I genuinely enjoyed all the memories I made as Natsuki. Thank you to Natsuki and to the Mikaze-discord for basically starting me off.

From Luke:

Natsuki was actually the very first character I encountered before I got into utapri. A friend showed a photo of him and told me that I'd probably be into this guy. She sure was right! After installing shining live for the first time and having a familiar face on the screen, I grew curious of him each day and just had to find out why was so attracted to him. The fact that I've seen him so many times in the past was haunting me, telling me that this man actually watched me grow up from a distance without even knowing his name. It sounds weird but I find it rather comforting for someone who doesn't want to be protected but isn't strong enough to defend myself alone.

The thought of having him there was enough to get me through the day and gave me enough reason to wake up to the next. I admit I may have adapted some of his habits after looking after his account for a year but that isn't a bad thing if it means that it would turn me into a much better person than I am now. I guess you could say we've grown together now in a sense, preserving the feelings and just living through the moment no matter how happy or sad it is. What's important is that we're not alone in all things we do and in everything we feel, there will always be someone there to keep us moving when we feel like giving up.

[delanyb]

Since I’ve been slacking off with the Fnaf headcanon series for quite some time now, with no good reason, have some AR skins and event character headcanons

Shamrock Freddy

Like Frostbear and Firework Freddy,he’s a Freddy made specifically for the holidays. St. Patrick day to be exact

Has a Irish ascent to go with his holiday theme

Similar to Rockstar Freddy, he desires Faz-coin to a unhealthy degree

Enjoys talking about St. Patrick day traditions and folklore.

Is pretty self-centered

Usually picks on Frostbear for no good reason

All the other animatronics who take part in the Fazbear Funtime Service either are indifferent to him like Chica or 8 Bit Baby. While others like regular Freddy and Bonnie hate him for just being a overall jerk

In some instances when the animatronics are being shipped together in trucks for customers, a Shamrock Freddy always seems to cause some sort of commotion that usually leaves everyone in mangled animatronic parts by the end

The company was actually considering removing him off from the service completely given all the problem he caused

But considering that he makes for great revenue during the St. Patrick day season, they just left him alone for the other animatronics to deal with.

Firework Freddy

Aside from Chica with her cupcake, he’s the only one who comes with a accessory.

Has lots of nicknames, but the most common ones are Firework and just Summer Freddy

All the other animatronics find his firework very cool

Springtrap however does not becuase anything that goes boom gives him flashbacks to when the springlocks snappped back in the saferoom all those years ago...

Is a expert on cooking with a barbecue

Has a lot of knowledge on sport related stuff from all over the world

Hates the cold

However he doesn’t hate Frostbear and feels bad for him becuase of Shamrock Freddy’s constant bullying

Has a lot of extras clothes and extra accessories that correspond with the traditions of the customer(s) that ordered a vist from him

For instance, he may be all decked out for 4th of July one year, and the next you’ll see a bear ready for the beach and so fourth.

Constantly switching his attire for each visit does get a little annoying, but for him, making people happy in the end makes it worth all the hassle.

VR Toy Freddy

Is a completely different entity than regular Toy Freddy

Is the textbook definition of absolute gamer chad

Playing video games takes first priority for him

Recently he’s been playing the newest instalment in the fnamh’s (Five Nights At Mr Hug’s) series

He’s quite clumsy and bumps into other animatronics or common house things likes selves on a daily basis

But on the rare chance he’s not using his headset he’s usually making absurd theorys on what’s going on with the lore in the new Vr game

His main theory is that that this new strange crate looking character escaped from dumper purgatory from the previous game in the series and placed themselves into the in universe VR game.

Shamrock Freddy question why he’s still invested in that series though. As he states, the original trilogy is the best and that it all went downhill once that weird gumball machine used paper plates as a skin suit.

Whenever He or anyone else for that matter says something along the lines of that, VR Toy Freddy always goes into essay long arguments for why he’s wrong. He’s very quick to defend his favourite franchise

Jokes that he’s The Man Behind The Slaugher unironically even when the meme has died ( *In this universe the man behind the slaughter meme exists because of the Fnaf 1 news paper clippings, along with the fact that Springtrap is a well known entity thanks to HW, and the Fazbear Funtime service.*

Chocolate Bonnie

Nicknames are Choco Bonnie, and unfortunately as immature as it, Poop Bonnie

He’s made of real actual chocolate

Once somebody’s dog took a big bite out of his bottom right stomach area that simply couldn’t be repaired. The dog took 87 bites out of him btw

That’s why every single copy of the Chocolate Bonnie model scanned in after that day has that big and distracting hole

His three button and botie are mint candy flavoured

Real Easter eggs are hidden inside his stomach cavity and are placed near his endo parts

Though he’s more appropriate for Easter time, sometime he’s advertised for the Halloween season for that trick or treat goodness

Similar to Bon-Bon and Funtime Freddy , Easter and Chocolate Bonnie are a two in one package.

Given the surprising popularity of the Funtime Service, (*in universe*) a merch store has being set up to only spread word of their brand but to bring these beloved characters in the pop culture consensus again, and Chocolate Bonnie gets a bunch of merch

Whether it be a coffee mug,a shirt, or the type of chocolate bunny you’ll see in those craft stores, Cholocate Bonnie has it all.

Easter Bonnie

Is very dramatic and has a showman like personality. (Similar to Funtime Foxy in UCN)

His Easter egg pattern on his stomach area is actually drawn with crayons and the circles are get plain circle shaped stickers you would find at the your local dollar store. Goes to show that the Fazbear Funtime Service sticks to the roots of Fazbear Entertainment, being really cheep

How Easter and Chocolate Bonnie entertain customers is that Easter Bonnie usually has a “dramatic” retelling of the Easter bunny fairytale while Chocolate Bonnie’s the food, customers can eat while enjoying the play

He’s quite athletic

The “Happy Easter” tag on the top of his ear isn’t actually a intentional design choice

Easter Bonnie just stole it from a random candy store nearby

Some confuse him as a winter themed Bonnie covered in snow due to his mainly white colour palette. Considering that Freddy Frostbear’s a thing that isn’t that much of a stretch

Can perfectly imitate any of the other animatronic’s voices. It honestly shocks animatronics like Springtrap or Foxy with how well Easter Bonnie can capture this respective accents to a tee

He prefers to hop like a actual bunny than walking normally

Loves decorating Easter eggs.

Toxic Springtrap

All that purple goo is actually just fungi infected with some of that classic remnant

Due to his frightening nature he’s only available during Halloween time

However despite his looks he’s actually quite kind at heart. Much more than regular Springtrap that’s for sure

Is actually scared of the dark

He likes playing chess

Doesn’t like the fact that he’s advertised as something to be feared

Usually hangs around with 8-Bit Baby the most and the two usually play board games all day

Although like everyone else he feels some sort of discomfort whenever he’s shocked, the pain is really minor for him compared to other animatronics

Given that he’s only desired during the month of spooks, for the rest of the year, he’s left alone at the factory where all the animatronics are constructed and duplicated in the first place

Due to this he’s got a pleta of abandonment isssues

System Error Toy Bonnie

His head, body and limbs can be detached and put back together very easily

That’s how he entertains customers in fact. He’s basically a animatronic sized construction set, similar to Mangle

Their eyes glow bright orange in darkness

Is able to phaze through physical objects

Due to some people complaining about regular Toy Bonnie’s voicebox, the team chose to implant stock computer sound effects into System Error Toy Bonnie’s voicebox rather than actual dialogue.

Knows your WiFi password

Is taller than regular Toy Bonnie

The system error phrase near his stomach area gets brighter amd brighter whenever his costume shell is damaged

Static electricity flows through him from time to time. So it recommend that whenever a customer should wear gloves and other appropriate safety equipment when interacting with the animatronic

Balloon Boy always tries to get the static electricity balloon trick to work, but it never seems to work. System Error Toy Bonnie could really care less about this ordeal though

Highscore Toy Chica

Loves playing video games

But unlike Vr Toy Freddy, Her life doesn’t focus on it 24/7

She likes playing a variety of games too. virtual games, handheld games, games on consoles, board games, etc

Is very supportive

Knows what emojis are

Considering that she’s meant to be hip with the kids, she knows a lot about current gaming and fandom culture in general

Is a pretty good speed runner when it comes to video games

Although it doesn’t happen often she can get quite serious when it comes to gaming. You can tell when she’s just playing for fun or not if her endoskeleton eyes and grey are exposed

is indifferent to the term “Gamer Girl”

Hates games where you can’t skip the cutscenes

Radioactive Foxy

A random model of Foxy accidentally found his way into a power plant and eventually got covered in radioactive goo

The higher ups working for the Fazbear Funtime service thought that it would be a shame to throw out a perfectly good plush suit and endo. So after some strange testing involving remnant they just rebranded this as a completely new skin.

Green radioactive material drips over his body all all times

His hook is twice as big as regular Foxy’s. Probably due to the combination of experimenting with both remnant and toxic radioactive goo

Has no eyebrows due to the constant radioactive energy

Thanks to Radioactive Foxy’s transparent look, this was the first time any of the customers got a real good look on the inerworkings on how a endo properly fits into a plush suit.

Is on the hunt for and wants to consume more radioactive energy

Can transform into a more liquid based form

He’s slower than regular foxy but sill runs at a moderately fast pace

One of the more aggressive animatronics in the service alongside the likes of regular Springtrap and Frostbear

8-Bit Baby

Similar to Highscore Toy Chica, she’s meant to be marketed to the gaming crowd.

Specifically those who enjoy old school videogames

Can despense real cupcakes for eating pleasure

Has a extra sprinkler perfect for ice cream decorating

Her fan operates correctly and henceforth can be used for cooling or drying needs

Her microphone is preprogrammed with chiptune styled music

Has become many people’s favourite animatronic and has been in high demand ever since they were first brought to the service due to their uniqueness

Moves at a snail’s pace

Loves playing board games with Toxic Springtrap.

Regualr Circus Baby finds her 8 bit version adorable

[wearesorcerer]

Highlights from OD&D

I’m perusing Book 1 - Men & Magic from the original D&D box set and it’s wild.

Y’know, in the “weird first installment” sort of way.

I’m going to stick to what’s relevant to the Magic-User, as otherwise we’d be here all day.

Magic-Users as artillery pieces go back to Chainmail (the fantasy wargame rules out of which OD&D grew [and upon which they still relied]). However, the spell list does not suggest this role. They are squishy, though, and described as such (obviously without using the word “squishy”).

Whereas Fighting-Men and Clerics can build strongholds and gain followers who, eventually, will provide them taxes/tithes, Magic-Users can craft magic items. They can’t use many of these (magic weapons, for instance) unless they multiclass (though it’s not called that; Elves are expected to do this).

Magic-Users can only equip daggers. (Quarterstaves aren’t listed as weapons yet.)

There’s no arcane spell failure chance for wearing armor; Magic-Users simply aren’t able to equip it without “changing” classes (multiclassing).

Spellbooks are required for all spellcasters, Clerics included.

Spell slots exist, but aren’t called that. The progression is a little weird.

The Magic-User gets up to 6th-level spells (one higher than the Cleric, which is de jure a gish).

There are more higher-level spells of each spell level than there are lower-level ones (8/10/14/12/14/12).

Cantrips are an invention of 3rd edition (which I knew already), so the list of 1st-level spells is a mixture of cantrips (detect magic, read magic, and light) and other familiar spells (hold portal, read languages, protection from evil, charm person, and sleep).

In case the above didn’t make it clear: spells are not alphabetized. At all.

Magic missile doesn’t exist.

Neither do dancing lights, mage hand, or prestidigitation (though I know the last one was called “cantrip” in 2e).

The first spell which can deal damage is phantasmal forces (silent image + the shadow conjuration/evocation line). It doesn’t make a lot of sense how it would, as another creature’s touch automatically dispels it.

Of the 70 spells on this list, there are only 4 direct damage ones: 3rd - fire ball (sic), lightning bolt; 4th - wall of fire, wall of ice.

Aside from phantasmal forces, there are eight spells meant for attacking: 5th - cloudkill, conjure elemental, magic jar, passwall; 6th - control weather, death spell, disintegrate, invisible stalker. (Animate dead is also on the list, but you could do other things with that, ‘cuz y’know it raises permanent minions.)

The vast majority of spells on this list are for information-gathering, mobility, dealing with obstacles (especially doors), and crowd control.

Each spell’s entry (counting range text) takes up 2-4 lines, with very few exceptions. There’s plenty of room for questions, especially on what one can and cannot do with a spell.

Haste spell refers to slow spell for what it does, but slow spell doesn’t say in the original print what effect it has, only the maximum number of targets, its area of effect, its range, and its duration. (A revised version says that it reduces enemies’ speed by 50%, but I have no idea what that actually means.)

Remove curse exists, but bestow curse does not.

Hold person is not a paralysis effect; it’s mass charm person with a shorter duration and the option to make it harder to save against if targeting only one character.

Clairvoyance is not a scrying-style effect; it’s x-ray vision. Clairaudience (a separate spell) is the same thing but for hearing. The only scrying spell is “Wizard” (arcane) eye, which is still a 4th-level spell but not for any of the reasons that justify it being that high.

There’s a spell (massmorph) specifically to pull a Birnam Wood Moving Upon Dunsinane (from MacBeth). ‘Course, this version of the game is more wargame than it is collaborative storytelling adventure, so that makes sense.

The wonkiness of sleep dealing with hit dice comes from here.

Baleful polymorph is called polymorph others, as it had been until 3.5. However, polymorph is called polymorph self, for once explaining the nomenclature.

Polymorph self does not grant combat abilities, but does grant movement modes and disguise.

Polymorph others doesn’t cause the target to lose its mind (like it does in later editions), but does grant a creature all of the combat ability of its new form. It lasts until dispelled.

Several Druidic spells (control weather, growth of plants, growth of monsters, lower water, move earth, part water [think Fantasia instead of Exodus, I guess], REINCARNATION) are Magic-User spells. (I mean, several of those remained on the Mage and then Sor/Wiz lists, but reincarnation?) Insect plague, speak with animals, speak with plants, and turn sticks to snakes, however, are Cleric spells.

The Finger of Death (with definite article) is also an Anti-Cleric spell rather than a Magic-User one. (Also, ANTI!)

Passwall isn’t explicitly an intangibility effect: it opens up a 10′ pit “in a solid rock wall.” (Why they split the effect from the name is a question for another day.)

Project image is a 6th-level spell, but functions like the mirror image of later editions (spells appear to come from the image, but you’re not creating a true duplicate/using bilocationality).

[stillwinterair]

2020 in books so far! All 21 of them!

Season of Storms by Andrzej Sapkowski -- Finished January 1st. My least favorite Witcher novel. In a series that managed to surprise and endear me at every turn, this one final romp did almost nothing for me. 2/5 stars.

Star Wars: Hard Merchandise by K.W. Jeter -- Finished January 17th. The final chapter in the Bounty Hunter Wars trilogy, and by far the worst of the three. 2/5 stars.

Migration by Julie E. Czerneda -- Finished February 18th. The middle chapter in Czerneda’s excellent Species Imperative trilogy, fun and charismatic, sciencey and cute. Didn’t hit me quite the same way as the first in the trilogy did, but still had fun. 4/5 stars.

Star Wars: Heir to the Empire by Timothy Zahn -- Finished February 2nd. It was okay. 3/5 stars.

To be continued under the cut, including thoughts on The Expanse, which has taken over my life this year:

Mass Effect: Revelation by Drew Karpyshyn -- Finished February 25th. Borrowed from a coworker, was immensely disappointed, decided once and for all I wasn’t going to touch tie-in novels for the rest of the year. That wound up being a great decision. 2/5 stars.

The City of Brass by S.A. Chakraborty -- Finished March 12th. The first of Chakraborty’s Daevabad trilogy, this was a great little historical fantasy fiction about a half-djinn caught up in about a thousand tropes I usually hate, but were written with care and nuance and charm. 4/5 stars.

Midway through The City of Brass, news of a virus overseas begin making waves.

Ancillary Justice by Ann Leckie -- Finished March 29th. The first of Leckie’s Imperial Radch saga. So, so, so many incredible concepts that I loved dearly... but all just slightly off to the side of where they would normally hit me. I wanted to love this book so badly, and it kept almost hitting me, but never quite did, at least not as hard as I wanted it to. Still, I enjoyed the world and the characters enough that I bought the sequel and will read it soon. 3/5 stars.

AAAAAND PANDEMIC! I began this book when I was still working, and finished it while in quarantine. So that’s fun. From here on out, all of these books were read from my couch or my bed.

The Goblin Emperor by Katherine Addison -- Finished April 16th. Another book I wanted desperately to love and... succeeded a bit more than with Ancillary Justice, thanks to how ceaselessly charming it was. But the names. Oh, god this book is full of fake fantasy names and titles and you have to remember all of them and the glossary isn’t always helpful. But, still. I found myself so endeared, I couldn’t put it down. 4/5 stars.

Leviathan Wakes by James S.A. Corey -- Finished May 3rd. The first book of The Expanse, and I fell in love instantly. This one hit all the right buttons and didn’t stop: good science fiction, fun space adventure, charming characters, perfect level of tension, the list goes on. And reading this one was... the beginning of a certain obsession I’ve had this year. 5/5 stars.

Consider Phlebas by Iain M. Banks -- Finished May 21st. The latter half of this book? Great. Stellar. The first half...? Uhhhhh. Eh? By far one of the most insufferable protagonists I’ve ever had to slog through, but some really cool scifi concepts here (and also some really bad ones -- the whole desert island cannibal thing was stupid as hell, but the Damage Game got me). 3/5 stars.

Caliban’s War by James S.A. Corey -- Finished May 30th. The second book in The Expanse series. I could not put this one down. Everything I loved about Leviathan Wakes, amplified a thousand times. The additions of Bobbie, Prax, and Avasarala made me ascend. This book fired on all cylinders and I loved every moment of it; it stands as one of my three favorite Expanse books so far -- but we’ll get to those. Anyway, I can’t give it 6/5, so we’ll have to settle with: 5/5 stars.

Slaughterhouse-Five by Kurt Vonnegut -- Finished June 1st. A book I’d been meaning to read for a while and finally got around to. Literally finished it in two sittings. Mostly it made me sad. 4/5 stars.

The Strong Shall Live by Louis L’Amour -- Finished June 2nd. A collection of wild west short stories. A couple were great, a few were awful -- most were just okay. I’d been reading it slowly since December, and finishing felt more like a weight off my mind than anything else. Still, some of these stories were incredibly memorable. 3/5 stars.

Larissa by Emily Devenport -- Finished June 4th. I read this in about three sittings overall, which is a lot faster than I usually read. It wasn’t particularly good, but it was the exact sort of scifi junk I eat up for some reason. This is... a very, very weird one. It was very progressive for the time (the book is as old as I am), so much so that I wasn’t surprised to find her on Twitter very publicly supporting BLM and decrying the current administration. It’s about a black woman in space, wealth disparity, and a bunch of other stuff. Some of it works, some of it doesn’t, but Devenport was trying, all the way back in 93. It’s also the sequel to a book I didn’t know existed until I’d already finished, but I guess that one didn’t matter so much to the plot of Larissa? Anyway, had a blast, even though I can’t quite put a finger on why. 4/5 stars. (I actually had this one marked as 3/5 stars, but my memories of it are all very positive, so... it was worth the bump.)

Abaddon’s Gate by James S.A. Corey -- Finished June 13th. Third in The Expanse, and not my favorite. The pacing in the first half was a little wonky, but once it gets going, boy does it go. 4/5 stars.

Regeneration by Julie E. Czerneda -- Finished June 25th. The final entry in the Species Imperative trilogy. This might have been my least favorite of the three, unfortunately, as much like Ancillary Justice it always seemed to hit just to the side of where I wanted it to. The first one was by far my favorite, and the third installment just couldn’t recapture that magic, but I love the protagonist and was happy to walk with her to the end. Plus, as always, there’s some damn good science fiction here. 4/5 stars.

Cibola Burn by James S.A. Corey -- Finished July 4th. HELL YEAH MOTHERFUCKER, this one has everything! I don’t even want to spoil what, just know that this is exactly what you want after Abaddon’s Gate, and had everything it was missing and more. This one rocked my fucking world, and is one of my three favorite Expanse books so far. Another one I’d rate higher if I could, but for now... 5/5 stars.

The Curse of Chalion by Lois McMaster Bujold -- DNF, July 8th. This book had me until the 35-year-old protagonist started trying to hide his arousal while he was watching the two teenage girls he was tutoring swim, and it was played off as like... cute? I don’t know man, fuck this book, it made me miserable.

Nemesis Games by James S.A. Corey -- Finished July 16th. Once again, HELL YEAH MOTHERFUCKER, HELL YEAH! This book begins with some of the slowest pacing in the series so far, but god, have they earned it. It feels so good to just take a break and walk a mile in the shoes of all your favorite characters. And then when things hit? Boy do they fucking hit. The third in my trifecta of favorite Expanse books so far, and another I’d rate higher if I could. 5/5 stars.

The Assassin’s Curse by Cassandra Rose Clarke -- Finished July 21st. I really thought this was going to be a fun pirate book. Instead, it’s a book about a fun pirate slogging along with the most obnoxious man in the history of fiction, who she is also falling in love with, apparently, for some reason. I don’t know. This is a duology but idk if I’m even interested in the sequel. Which is a shame, because I really liked the protagonist. 2/5 stars.

Babylon’s Ashes by James S.A. Corey -- Finished August 5th. Definitely my least favorite Expanse novel so far, mostly because the narrative was stretched very thin. This one hit really fucking hard toward the beginning, and again at the end, but in the middle? The middle was very... nebulous. A lot happens and I’m not interested in all of it, which is something this series has thus far managed to avoid doing. Still, very good, just not quite up to the standards I’m used to from this series. 4/5 stars.

And... it’s August! And I haven’t picked up another book since the 5th, which feels weird, but is due to a lot of factors. I’m in the middle of moving, so I don’t have as much time to read during the day. But also I’m waiting on a shipment of books to come in, and it hasn’t yet, and that’s stressing me out. Of those, there are a couple I’m leaning toward reading, but if the ol’ Read The First Page trick doesn’t work on any of them, I’ll probably hop back to Imperial Radch.

[paddysnuffles]

Nonbinary Genders Throughout History

I started compiling these with the intention of posting them on trans visibility day as a congrats to @neurodivergent-crow getting their top surgery consultation (woot!), but I kept finding more and more and more third gender figures and it developed into this ever-growing monster of a list of genders to research about... and next thing I know we’re entering Pride month.

I've already found 24 extinct genders and 48 modern ones, so I figured I could start with the extinct ones I’ve already researched and post more instalments as I go so people don’t have to scroll for half an hour to get to the end of this post. ;P

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Ay’lonit [איילונית] (Ancient Israel)

A person who is identified as “woman” at birth but develops “man” characteristics at puberty and is infertile. 

There are 80 references to this gender in the Mishna and Talmud and 40 in the classical midrash and Jewish law codes.

-----------------------

Androgynos [אנדרוגינוס] (Ancient Israel, from at least 1st century CE to 16th century CE)

A person who has both “male” and “female” sexual characteristics. 

There are 149 references to the gender in the Mishna and Talmud and a whopping 350 mentions in classical midrash and Jewish law codes.

-----------------------

Assinnu (Assyria, Mesopotamia)

An ambiguous gender often represented as being a passive man, but which also at one point was "listed among a group of female cultic attendants".

In Mesopotamia, the man was supposed to be sexually active while the woman took on the passive role. Because of the assinnu's passivity, they were categorized as a third gender figure.

-----------------------

Çengi (Ottoman Empire, now Turkey)

According to Şehvar Beşiroğlu they were “dancers who are non-moslems or [Rromani]”. 

From what I understand the term has now evolved to be the feminine form of the noun “dancer” in Turkish, but it was originally considered to be a gender separate from man or woman, which is why I put it in this extinct gender list.

-----------------------

Gala (Sumer, Mesopotamia, 3000 BCE)

^ Cuneiform tablet of Old Babylonian Sumerian proverbs mentioning the gala

A person who is identified as “man” at birth who is a "chanter of laments".

Simply working as a professional lamenter categorized them as feminine because laments were typically performed by women (not unlike how men who practised seiðr magic were regarded in Norse culture). 

During the Old Babylonian period, the role of the gala expanded and became a synonym of kalǔ, becoming a singer who dealt with music-related areas of the worship of Ishtar.

-----------------------

Girseqû (Mesopotamia)

A person who is identified as “man” at birth who is a childless figure within palace administration.

-----------------------

Kalǔ (Akkad, Mesopotamia)

^ According to the inscription, the beardless person is Ibni-Ištar, kalû of Ištar-of-Uruk.

A person who is identified as “man” at birth who is a "chanter of laments". 

Simply working as a professional lamenter categorized them as feminine because laments were typically performed by women (not unlike how men who practised seiðr magic were regarded in Norse culture). 

During the Old Babylonian period, the role of the gala expanded and became a synonym of kalǔ, becoming a singer who dealt with music-related areas of the worship of Ishtar.

The kalǔ were institutionalized into religious practice and ritual in order to maintain strong social distinctions between men, women, and a third gender comprised of non-conformative males.

-----------------------

Koekchuch (Itelmens, Siberia, mid 18th - early 19th century)

Individuals assigned to be men at birth but “who wear women's clothes, do women's work*, and have nothing to do with men, in whose company they feel shy and not at their ease”.

It was not uncommon for men to have up to three wives as well as one or more koekchuch (some men reportedly bypassing having any concubines altogether and preferring to have one or more koekchuch instead).

Note 1: Just as a heads up, the link for this gender has transcriptions of material from the 1750s, and as such features some racist, homophobic, and transphobic language. 

It’s nothing overly colourful, mostly just the writer having the judgy kind of jerkward attitude you’d expect from a 1700s Christian ethnocentric academic, but I figured I’d give y’all a heads up just the same. :)

Note 2: The book this info comes from, Pacific Homosexualities by Stephen O. Murray, is a treasure trove for anyone interested in the subject, as it features tons of primary sources you’d be hard-pressed to find access to if it’s not your field in academia. 

It costs around $40 on Canadian Amazon.

---------------------

Kurgarrǔ (Sumer, Mesopotamia)

Kurgarrǔ were people assigned as men at birth who took part of the cultic performance for Ishtar and presented themselves as militant and masculine. 

The kurgarrǔ were considered a third gender because of their involvement in the worship rites for Ishtar, a role that was considered to be ambiguously gendered because Ishtar was an ambiguously gendered deity.

-----------------------

Lύ-sag/Ša rēši (Mesopotamia)

A palace attendant typically in charge of women’s quarters within a palace.

The term Lύ-sag was interchangeable with Ša rēši.

It’s implied in contemporary accounts of the Middle and Neo-Assyrian periods that they were eunuchs, though there are no such mentions in other periods in the culture’s history.

-----------------------

Mukhannath [مخنثون] (Umayyad and Abbasid Caliphates, Middle East, 4th-7th century CE)

A term used in Classical Arabic to refer to men who were perceived as effeminate.

During the Rashidun era and the first half of the Umayyad era, they were strongly associated with music and entertainment. 

During the Abbasid caliphate, the word itself was used as a descriptor for men employed as dancers, musicians, or comedians.

In later eras, the term mukhannath was associated with the receptive partner in gay sexual practices, an association that has persisted into the modern day.

-----------------------

Paṇḍaka (Buddhist, 2nd century BCE)

Mentioned in the Vinaya as one of the 4 genders, it is a somewhat catch-all term for anyone who does not conform to the other 3 genders (for the other Buddhist third gender mentioned in Buddhist scripture, scroll down to “Ubhatobyanjanaka”).

“As the Vinaya tradition developed, the term paṇḍaka came to refer to a broad third sex category which encompassed intersex, male and female bodied people with physical and/or behavioural attributes that were considered inconsistent with the sexual ideal of man and woman.”

-----------------------

Pilpilû (Mesopotamia)

A member of the Ishtar cult** with feminine traits.

** When talking about ancient theology, “cult” doesn’t have quite the same meaning as it does in everyday language. It just means they worshipped Ishtar.

-----------------------

Sadhin (Gaddhi people, in the foothills of the Himalayas)

People identified as women at birth who renounce marriage and dress and work as men, but retain female names and pronouns.

-----------------------

Sanskrit Third Gender

The Mahābhāṣya, a book on Sanskrit grammar from circa 200 BCE, claims that the 3 linguistic genders of Sanskrit are based on “the three natural genders”. 

The Ramayana and the Mahabharata (the two Sanskrit great epic poems) also indicate the existence of a third gender in ancient Indic society.

-----------------------

Saris [סריס:] (Ancient Israel)

A person who is identified as a “man” at birth but develops “woman” characteristics at puberty and/or is lacking a penis. 

A saris can be “naturally” a saris (saris hamah), or become one through human intervention (saris adam). 

There are 156 references to this gender in mishna and the Talmud and 379 in classical midrash and Jewish law codes.

-----------------------

Sḫt (Egypt, 2000–1800 BCE) [pronounced “sekhet”]

“Someone who is neither a man nor a woman.” 

Because the gender is known from only a few pottery shards, it’s not entirely clear whether the ancient Egyptians were referring to man and woman in the sense of sex or gender roles or both.

Note: Since the bulk of early archaeology was dominated by cishet white men who believed only two genders exist, the term has historically been generally translated as “eunuch”. 

However, there’s little to no indication that sḫt were all biologically male (let alone castrated ones at that), and the eunuch interpretation of the word has begun to be questioned by gender study historians.

-----------------------

Tamil Third Gender (x2!)

The Tolkappiyam, the oldest known book of Tamil grammar, refers to intersex folk as a third "neuter" gender, as well as mentioning a feminine category of unmasculine males.

-----------------------

Tīru (Mesopotamia)

Not much is known about this gender. 

Historians believe it was likely a childless castrate who had a part of palace bureaucracy (I don’t know if this is like the case of the sḫt and cishet dudes just have a propensity to assume “third gender person assigned male at birth = eunuch” or if there’s evidence to back this up).

-----------------------

Tumtum [טומטום] (Ancient Israel)

A person whose sexual characteristics are indeterminate or obscured.

According to Maimonides' Mishneh Torah, Mada, Avoda Zara, 12, 4 Tumtum is not a separate gender exactly, but rather a state of doubt about what gender a person is (kind of like a Schrödinger’s gender?).

I added it to the list because I thought that, like myself, some folks might find it interesting (and it is gender-related...). :)

-----------------------

Ubhatovyanjañaka (Buddhist, 2nd century BCE)

Mentioned in the Vinaya as one of the 4 genders, it is the gender of people with a dual sexual nature (for the other Buddhist third gender mentioned in Buddhist scripture, scroll up to “Paṇḍaka”).

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

P.S. I tried to not use transphobic language, but I’m still learning, so if anyone sees any error please let me know so I can fix it and learn from my mistake! :)

[zenosanalytic]

4/20/19 HSE 1

OK, so it seems like they dropped the whole epilogue today rather than releasing it in installments, so I probably wont get through the whole thing in a single session. Here goes! (under cut for Spoilers)

Ok, starting with ‘Meat’

First off: Yuck

So yeah: choosing “Meat” is choosing to go, and choosing “Candy” is choosing to stay. The symbolism was pretty obvs on that of course.

I like that, of Lord English’s crimes, the first things John thinks of are 1)his stupid face and 2)his terrible art. Priorities u_u

Though John’s decision making process has always been pretty ...temperamental? Like he responds to how he’s feeling and other than that just kinda goes with Whatever.

so Roxy’s upset, though whether over John being gone forever or Earth C being consigned to erasure(which, I maintain, doesn’t make sense if Rose was being honest&accurate about its situation re: canon) is unclear.

“An invisible layer of oil seems to cling to almost every square inch of your body no matter how hard you scrub” I can read potentially three(though all interconnected) implications in this:

choosing canon is staining/corrupting. On Earth C is he “clean”, in a certain respect, and choosing to return means choosing to give that up.

choosing to return means choosing violence and “relevance”(pride, arrogance) over peace and not caring how important you are, which is “grimy”.

John’s literally deciding to return to adolescence rather than face the troubles of an adult life, and this is a “grimy” choice.

Of course, he also just did eat a bunch of raw steaks. Which is Gross. Honestly I feel like there was a third(and possibly 4th) unexplored option here, which was “Ha ha, very funny Humans aren’t Cherubs, Calliope, let’s just go to a restaurant/call in some delivery!”

Apropos to the question of arrogance/relevance, it’s probably significant that this choice is almost immediately followed by him thinking

“What kind of guy would you be if you stayed here, when you’re the only one in existence capable of completing the grim task?”

which is a bit of an arrogant way to think about it(and maybe not true? Like, they’ve got a handful of god-powered ppl on this planet, including one with a connection to Void and two with a connection to Space, so I’m sure they could think something up if they wanted to).

I hope we get to see those letters, at some point.

[proudtoehaver]

Jedha’s Legacy – Chapter 4: Dinner Time

A/N: In honor of May 4th have the next chapter of Jedha’s Legacy.

Can also be read on AO3

Chapter one can be found on AO3 here and on tumblr here.

Present

Finn slowly gets to is feet, waves of dizziness washing over him. Hesitantly he reaches out a hand and with two fingers touch the spot on the hologram where Beshen-42 is placed.

It's real. It's real and right there.

One reason why he's been so accommodating of Brance's obsessiveness with getting every little detail he could from Finn's memory is that it has given him the opportunity to study maps of the galaxy, of Republic and First Order territories in detail and at length.  

He had known the chance of finding the system was tiny. Finding one single system among tens, hundreds, of thousands, had astronomical odds. Even more so as its name indicated a small colony or facility as it sounded like it had not changed its name from the one first given to it by whatever scout had located it.

Still, he had not been able to stop hoping.

But as days wore on into weeks and then more, that hope had slowly and surely been worn away into nearly nothing. But here, now, when he had all but given up he has stumbled upon it.

But why hadn't he seen this earlier?  

He's been over this part of the map with Brance before, yet he hadn't noticed the system. And he couldn't imagine missing that name if it had been there.

Unless, unless it had been under another name.

He turns to the shelf that holds the map files, quickly flipping through them to find one that covers the section of the galaxy he need.

His hands are shaking as he inserts the map into the console and he hesitates before calling it up.

The Imperial map is old, more than thirty years in fact. A lot can happen in that time.

Does the system still exist? Is it still inhabited? His file did say 'seized', that would indicate fighting. It would not be beyond First Order MO to take what they wanted and destroy everything – and everyone – else.

There's only one way to find out.

Taking a deep breath, he hits the button that brings up the map.

It's there. Just as insignificant and out of the way as before, but there. But on the Republic map it is named Datung.

Relief washes over him, making him feel faint again and he drops down onto the chair and just stares at the map.

A loud beep of the chrono's alarm starts him from his daze. Damn, it's almost dinner time.  

Ah well, he can just skip-  

No, he can't. Poe's definitely going to make good on his promise and come down to get him if he doesn't show up for the meal.

Finn grimaces.  

The thought of having to sit placidly through a meal with the knowledge he's just found is aggravating. It'd be impossible. And he doesn't want to share his discovery with anyone, not even with Poe. This is his and his alone.

He sighs and rubs his face.

Maybe he could hide?  

He chuckled to himself. A bit too extreme perhaps and Poe would just track him down and then he'd really start asking questions. If he could eat without having to talk to anyone that would be ideal.

Hey, that's it!  

He'll go to the mess, grab some food and let everyone know he's eating something, then come back here. It's still early and not many people would be there yet and Poe's been so busy lately training new arrivals that he almost certainly won't. Poe might not like being dodged like that, but Finn knows that as long as he's eating his friend will let it go at that.

Plan conceived Finn turns off the console, grabs the chips containing the maps and heads for the mess.

                                                          oOoOo

Just like Finn had assumed the mess is all but empty, only the staff – which consist mostly of droids – setting out the food and a few off-duty personnel eating early, are here. He'll need to find someone who'd talk to Poe. But first, food.

Grabbing a plate, he haphazardly heaps food on it without really looking at what he puts on it. Snagging a glass of meiloorun juice as well he scans the mess hall for some of his and Poe's common friends.

He's in luck. He spots Jess and Karé just stepping in the door, deep in discussion with each other and sets his course for them. Perfect.

"Hi Finn," Jess says, lighting up in a smile when she sees him. "How's it going? Had Brance been tolerable?"

"Good. Fine. Been working mostly alone today in fact. Speaking of that. I was just grabbing some food before getting back to work."

"Oh come on," Karé says. "Don't let that old curmudgeon Brance work you into the ground. Kick back and sit with us."

Snap comes up behind the two women.

"Brance is not that old, he's my age," he says.

Karé looks back over her shoulder and grins.

"As I said, ancient."

Snap swats at her playfully. Karé dodges easily.

"I apologize for the children," Jess says drily to Finn. "Don't let them discourage you. I'm sure they'll behave as soon as there's food in front of them."

"First I'm a geriatric and now I'm a kid?" Snap grouches. "Can you two make up your minds?"

"Listen," Finn interjects before the playful argumentation washes his resistance away. "I really want to get this done tonight. Then maybe I can get Brance off my back tomorrow. So, some other time?"

"Alright. But I'm gonna hold you to that," Jess says as Finn heads out the door.

"Oh yeah," Finn says and turns back. "Could you tell Poe I'm eating? He seemed worried about my eating habits earlier today."

"Sure. Will do," Jess says. "Have fun with the maps."

Finn gives all three of them a smile in parting, hurrying off before he gets roped into anything.

                                                           oOoOo

He puts the plate and glass on a small empty space on a shelf near him and boots up the console again. A borderline panic flashes back momentarily as he loads the map, an irrational fear that the system will have vanished or that he imagined the whole thing.

But Datung is there just as before and Finn exhales slowly, forcing himself back to calm.

Absentmindedly nibbling on the food, he considers what his next step should be.

He needs information. Of course, the room he's in holds an abundance of navigational data. That's not really what he wants, but he supposes it's a place to start.

A few minutes of searching gets him the bare basics about the system.

System name: Datung.

Number of planets: 5, one inhabited.

Navigational phenomenon: None.

Name of inhabited planet: Shanchen.

Climate: Temperate, dry.

Population: <1 million.

Technology level: Mid-high.

Urbanization: Negligible.

Starport: Limited service.

He looks at the sparse information.  

A planet with very low population, but relative high technology level would suggest a newer settlement and no indigenous inhabitants, but there was no hint at what kind. No indication of what would have made that many people go to the middle of nowhere and settle down. A mining colony? Farming?

Or was it a military installation, an old Imperial one, that had turned to a civilian purpose after the end of the galactic civil war? But what kind of installation would warrant that many people.

The files before him offers no reply.

While continuing to eat he digs through every other file or directory that might yield something, but to no avail.

                                                      oOoOo

When Poe drags himself into the mess he feels exhausted, drained from spending the day teaching Resistance newcomers the basic of fighting as a squadron and not as a loosely affiliated group of individuals.

He loves teaching. It had always been his plan to become flight instructor for the Republic Navy once he got too old to fly active combat missions, but this is different. Few of the new arrivals have formal military of any kind or even combat experience, most only have rudimentary skills in flying and what they've seen in holovid. That and too much enthusiasm is going to get them all killed their first time out unless they break their bad habits.

If this had been the Republic Navy, if there had been peace, he would have had time to slowly get them out of their exuberant mood, or if he failed that flunk them out of the course. But this is neither and they have no time nor can they afford to reject any who can fly.

He tries to keep his calm when instructing, no one ever learned anything by being yelled at, but he can't push away that increasing thrill of fear down his spine and it puts a sharp edge in his voice at times.  

They all seem so young. They should have their whole lives ahead of them, but if they continue as they are they won't live through their first battle.

He feels like he's leading children to their deaths and that makes him feel ancient.

He fills his plate and scans the room, quickly spotting Karé's telltale multicolored braids and bee lines for Black Squadron. He needs company to distract him from his dark thoughts.

He drops down next to Jess with a deep sigh.

"Hey," she says. "You look like something the Loth cat dragged in."

"Long day."

"Aren't they all these days?" Karé asks rhetorically.

"How are the new people shaping up?" Snap asks.

"Can we talk about something else please?" Poe says. "I just want to forget about work right now."

There's a murmur of agreement from the others.

"Though speaking of work," Jess says. "You're not the only one working hard. Finn only leaped in here to grab some food earlier before going back to those maps of his."

"Oh," Poe replies, suppressing the twinge of disappointment that he won't be seeing Finn tonight.

Having Finn near always makes him feel better. No matter how bleak things look there's something heartwarming about the man and that gentle but persistent determination of his. Even if said persistence sometimes made him push himself in ways that weren't good.

At least he was eating, that's the important part.

Snap shakes his head.

"The way that guy it working, Brance is going to latch onto him permanently and have him removed from the troops to intelligence."

"Maybe that's what Finn wants," Jess says.

"What do you mean?" Poe asks.

"I just mean, maybe he wants to get away from the frontlines."

"Oh come on, he's not a coward," Snap laughs. "I think we've got ample evidence of that."

"What are you talking about?" Jess looks perplexed at him. "How did you get that from- What I meant was that it can't be easy for him shooting at people he once knew, that he grew up with. That's nothing to do with courage."

She takes a bite of egg.

"To us the First Order is just evil. We don't think about it out there, do we? That the guys we're shooting at are people too. And some of them are bound to be people he knows, that can't be easy for him. I know I'd have a hard time shooting you guys even if you were fighting for a fascist regime."

"Thanks, Jess. I'm overwhelmed by your tenderness," Snap says drily.

Jess gives him an elbow in the ribs and continues eating.

"I can see what you mean," Karé says, her tone somber. "It might be easier for him to look himself in the eye if he doesn't have to get up each morning knowing he might end up killing someone he once called friend."

Poe has been listening to the others in silence. Finn is often so quiet it is hard to know what's going on inside his head, but now Poe wonders if this is why Finn has been pulling away lately. He had written it off as both of them simply having their hands full with too many things that needed doing and not enough people to do them, but now he can't help wonder if the fact that he's training combat pilots and flying missions has something to do with it.

That thought hurts more than Poe wants to admit, though he can't blame Finn if he feels that way.  

He hasn't asked Finn about his past, he doesn't want to pry into painful memories, but Finn must have had people among the First Order he cared about, even loved. Poe can't even begin to imagine how it must feel to shoot at a Stormtrooper and be left wondering if that was a person he once called friend.

Perhaps he should broach the subject with Finn, give him a chance to unload if he wants to talk. Of course, if he's not comfortable with Poe then that won't be productive.

Jess snapping her fingers in front of his face starts him out of his thoughts.

"Man, you were far gone. Are you okay?"

"Yeah, yeah I'm fine. Just..." His voice trails off as he tries to come up with an answer she'll believe.

"Worried about Finn. Yeah, that's obvious. We don't want to lose him either, but he's a grown man with his own path. And personally, I'd rather he got through this war still able to live with himself."

"I know. Ditto. I just- Never mind. Was that all you wanted to say?"

"No. We're headed for the lounge to kick back for a bit and was wondering if you wanted to come along? In fact, Karé and Snap have gone ahead. You were completely oblivious to us asking. For real Poe, are you okay?"

"I- I'm not sure how to deal with the new recruits. They're going to get themselves killed and fast if they don't learn, but nothing I say seems to get through to them. They're going to get their squadron mates killed too."

"Want me to come along tomorrow? Yell at them? I do a good screeching harpy imitation remember?"

Poe starts to laugh.  

The memory of Jess giving a new recruit who had behaved in very irresponsible fashion during a test flight a sharp dressing down is as vivid as it is enjoyable. When the young punk had said he didn't take instruction from screeching harpies Jess had very calmly challenged him to a one on one duel. If he could outfly and outgun her she'd stop yelling at him, but if he lost he'd follow orders to the letter and no more flying off on his own to show off.

The nerfherder had accepted.  

Poe had thoroughly enjoyed seeing him get 'vaped' five times in rapid succession. Neither the nerfherd nor anyone else in that group had acted up again.

"That might be overkill. But if they keep acting this way I may call you in later."

"You can always use me as a threat. So, are you coming or not?"

Poe considers begging off, just head to bed and sleep for ten hours straight, but he misses hanging with his friends. And maybe it can take his mind off... things.

"Sure, count me in."

[mickeyyasi]

Tomorrow (Does not) always come

This came out one night when I thought about the possible scenarios for this couple in Infinity War, and although I have my opinion of why would hire twins for the 4th installment, I really hope that these two end with a happy ending instead of the one they had in the comics I take two iconic phrases in the comics of these two to write this, the first is from Vol # 1 of Avengers and the second if memory doesn't fail, it is from Vision # 7 both said by Wanda towards Vision.

I hope you enjoy it.

Vision writes a letter for Wanda on their last night together in an attempt to show how he feels about her and in case Thanos and his evil plans to conquer the Galaxy end up working:

To the love of my life, Wanda. 

Maybe at this moment while you read these lines, a series of events occurred that led you to know this through this letter and not in my person, I'm probably unable to do so, or I'm no longer here, but in essence, it's me.   

  You may ask why a letter if in all the time of knowing us I never made one, but in this moment, when you are lying  between my chest, I can feel the soft warm skin of your back increases my senses and I think it's the perfect time to write a letter with words I may never tell you, dreams that may never come to fruition, and that doesn't mean that I didn't want it, believe me, I do it and a lot. I'm a being born of logic, guided by it, but you, you beat my logic and now there is only what is in my synthetic chest, and that can't be quantified because there is simply nothing I can use to do justice for gauge my feelings for you, not even an exponential figure such as pi, or infinite could, and that is that from the moment your mind touched mine the day I was created, my love for you only started to growing.   

    You don't know how much I regret not telling you this before, I guess being new in such an old world made me think that someone as wonderful and beautiful as you wouldn't feel the same for a machine like me, I know that thought is not justification and you detest when I say these things, but I bring the subject afloat because without you. I wouldn't feel that I can be something beyond why I was created for, you make me feel like a complete man, your man.

    Still, thanks for emphasizing that I am different from anyone, I’m happy to be it, because I assure you that I love you more than any human heart would do. If I had known you felt the same, and I had been brave, tonight would not be our first night together, and I think it was just my fault, at some point between the Accords and the Raft, I made so many mistakes thinking that I was protecting you and then thinking that it was not the moment to tell you what should not be silenced; and wasted the few days we had until tonight, I guess we lost a lot of time.  

 But in spite of everything, I don't regret anything because you have given me the most beautiful moments of my life, my first kiss, my first sigh, my first in everything, and I need you do not forget it, you always be my first and only love, forever and ever and neither the Accords, nor Thanos can ever take that away from me. I also don't regret the worst moments we lived because the pain of your loss made me more human, you don't know how much hurt lose you in Leipzig, with the uncertainty of not knowing if I could hold you in my arms again, then I had to bear that you were not by my side and I missed you too much, cursing not being able to sleep every day to find some peace, I felt terribly miserable for not taking you away from everything when I had the opportunity and instead I put you in the middle and I lost you. The months you spent in the Raft were incredibly slow, and I being unable to do anything to get you out made me feel the most useless being of existence; The only thing I thank Steve Rogers for all that conflict is that without his help you wouldn't have been free and we would have missed all this time too.  

  I don't want look back on the past because that is not the purpose of this letter, I mentioned it because the only time we talked about the Accords and the breakdown of the team I told you my perspective of the conflict but I didn't tell you how I felt and you deserve to know that I was not indifferent. Not when I couldn't have you by my side. I don't know what will happen tomorrow when we all meet again as a team, I know that you had that vision of the end and you promised to protect me, but when the time comes I will not allow you to do it. I care too much for you to sacrifice yourself for someone who puts you in danger every second that passes since they attacked Earth. I hope that one day you can forgive my decision and understand why I did it, and that is that I cannot lose you again, even though physically could do it.   

 I don't know what you see when you look at me, but when I see you, I see only my home, in your eyes, I see happiness, through your eyes, I can find myself, I can return to you where I belong where I always have to belong. Your smile, always sincere and sometimes sarcastic. The way you frown when you focus, the way you laugh, the way you sing or dance and play the guitar, I've seen people doing all that and yet none of them compares to you and I like having I had the opportunity to be with someone as unique and irreplaceable as you are, Wanda Maximoff. 

   Last night I had a beautiful dream, one where the pain did not exist and you woke up in my arms, I held you strong, but I no longer had or felt the fear of losing you, there was nothing that could take you away from me as in this moment. I don't know if it was your dream, mine, or both that was created as one, but in that dream you woke up and you looked at me with your beautiful smile, you tenderly kissed my lips, and I wanted to show you that I was yours, but you stopped me and with a little laugh you said, "You will wake them up." At that moment I didn't understand anything, but it wasn't a confused feeling but rather happiness, and as the dream went on I understood why. 

Twins. 

Yes, twins, they were identical but not for their hair, one of them had your brother's hair and the other yours before you dyed, one had my smile and the other my chin, both were more than ready for a Picnic in what appeared to be our garden. You wore a long yellow dress that fluttered in the wind, then one of the twins lay asleep in your lap between your arms, I played with the other and we laughed at his frustration at not putting the correct figures in a box, he had the same face that puts a woman who fought against an army of evil robots but can't open the jar of pickles after an Asgardian closed it. At some point in the dream you looked at me and smiled, we were really happy.    

  Then I woke up and even though you were by my side, I had to accept the reality of the situation, I know we will win, although the recent breakdown of the team does not favor us and we do not have the best odds, we all still have hope and that's enough, although to win sometimes sacrifices are made and not all of us will be there to see it, but I know and I firmly believe that you will be there and I want you to have all this that I dreamed, even if is not with me.   

    Today, this night I choose to think that there are alternate universes, those of which you like so much and I read to you on nights when you have nightmares. I want to believe in them and maybe in some of those universes, we will continue dancing on the roof in the light of the moon as we once did in the complex, that you will eat your breakfasts I made you even if they are horrible and you only do it because you love me, that you will give me the best years of your life and I live only to ensure that you don't have any bad and make you happy as much as you make me with your simple existence. Wanda, thank you for teach me that love is for the soul and not for the body, thank you for being my love and my soul itself, thank you for loving me in the way no one else could.

 In case tomorrow doesn't come, I give you my last today.

 I love you 

Yours, Vision.

It was the hundredth time read it, and she was sure that she could never tire of reading, again and again, the same lines written neatly for her, all the love he could give her had been expressed in that letter.

 “Wanda, are you ready?” Tony asked as he peeked through the door of her temporary room in a complex that was being rebuilt for the remnants of the war.

 “Yes.” She answered wiping the tears from her cheeks.

 “You're fine?” 

“Yes, it's just the emotion of the moment.” 

“He will be fine, Helen, Banner and I did our homework.”

 “What will happen if he´s not the same again?”

 “We will find the way to him return to us. I promise.”

 “Okay.”

 In complete silence, they went to the improvised laboratory, Wanda walked with slow but firm steps with her hands on her chest trying not to let her face reflect her fear, Tony pointed to the entrance and inside she spotted the people who helped create the man of her life the first time,  surrounding him expectantly because Vision had just awakened and was sitting motioning insecurely, looking at his arms, hands, and legs with amazement, He seemed to be the same Vision that came out of the cradle three years ago. Suddenly, he stopped and looked towards the entrance where Wanda was. And he stared at her.

 “Vision?”

                                                   Epilogue

 The sun was beginning to show signs of hiding, the birds were still singing merrily, even if enough attention was paid, an owl could be heard, the smell of flowers, and a nearby forest was unique, toys are overflowing the garden grass, and a small indoor pool, Leonia was a really charming neighborhood, or maybe just the house, the house they could call home. She had Thomas curled up in her lap while caressing his white hair. He had William exhausting his last energies playing with wooden chips. Suddenly he noticed that while caressing their son she was staring at him.

 “Definitely Billy has your scowl, not mine, the one you use when you are slow to solve something” His wife spoke looking at the little baby who was playing settled between his dad.

 “And Tommy definitely has your smile, especially the smile you make when you sleep.” Vision answered. 

“I thought I was snoring, I don't think that counts as a smile.” Wanda answered with a small laugh. 

“After these years I learned that your sleep patterns change with certain situations, not regularly, but you only snore when you are tired and sick with the flu.” 

Wanda smiled.

 “Is that how your dream was?” Wanda asked in the hope that he will remember.

 “You remember? Did you read the letter?”  Vision asked with surprise in his voice.

 “Of course, is a very beautiful letter, in fact, I keep it.” 

“You never told me.” 

“You never asked” 

“I, I don't know what to say, I remembered that letter some time after you told me that we would have our children.” 

“I keep it very well after your reconstruction, you know, to try to recover your memories and show it to you when you were ready.” 

Vision recalled those moments, wake up after the war and without memories, for a time, the only thing he managed to preserve from his old self, was the love towards her.

 “If I had known that I just needed to tell you I was pregnant with your children for you come back to me and be your again, I would have confirmed my suspicions weeks before and not two months after it was obvious that they were coming.” 

“The memories came to my mind one after the other and suddenly they were so fuzzy that they could not stay. But the ones I had with you were different, yours were like following your voice home. And our children were the final piece to return.”

 “I'm glad you came back.” 

Vision smiled with the best smile in years. The one that was only for her and their children. 

“I love you.”

 “I love you too.”

 “And you were right...” Vision affirmed.

 Wanda tilted her head without understanding still looking at him.

 “Tomorrow always comes”.

 The End.

Well, according to the rumors and statements of Paul, our actor for Vision, is a possibility that at the end of one of the two films, Vision and Wanda end up being a family that sits in the suburbs and then have their twins, but what I know and investigate about Marvel movies, usually they hire twins when it comes to ONE child character, for example, Lila Barton's daughter the actress girl has a twin, but Cassie's actress Scott's daughter, she doesn't have it, so everything can happen, right? Another of my theories is that if there really is that of time travel or What if? in the movies, maybe the role for these twins is that of a Tony Stark child who has a Steve Rogers uncle who never ends frozen or that Tony himself travels to that time of his life to find the key or something that may be useful to stop Thanos, anyway, if you have another theory let me know

[brkfstclubnyc]

Judd | MoMA in NYC

Hi all,

There’re shows that you must see if you’re in NYC for Armory Week 2020. One of them is, of course, Judd at MoMA.

https://www.moma.org/calendar/exhibitions/5076

Donald Judd at MoMA NYC

First of all, we thank MoMA for press access this time - free entry, “divine” moment - some photos here are from Friday preview when I said hi to press desk, but our editor-in-chief had to work late on Friday *for a big art fair coming up* so we decided to go later (we tried but couldn’t reach the 6th floor).

Last few weeks were almost impossible to do anything due to work and meetings

That said, Sunday afternoon was the big day for us!

...but MTA failed us again (no E and M subway train was running this past weekend), so we decided to join a MoMA gym class

(meaning “walking from Rockefeller Center to MoMA”)

This worked out great because not many people were at MoMA!

It was unbelievable that there was no line at the main entrance to the museum on Sunday. There was a line for the show itself. 

My guess is that, though, the lines for the Judd exhibit will be longer and longer every day with international visitors, so I recommend that you attend this important show early.

The show statement says older generations of the audience suspected that these pieces may not have been “art” when it was made, but that’s ok.

Crash course on Donald Judd:

https://juddfoundation.org/artist/biography/

Ah, he created Chinati Foundation by himself...

https://www.chinati.org

You can schedule an appointment to visit his private studio and permanent installations in Marfa, Texas, HERE:

https://juddfoundation.org/visit/marfa/

The first piece we saw looked very familiar (to me at least):

I was thinking about it for a while, but ohhh, that’s my salmon dinner from past Friday! (our fav, Cafe Gitane)

3D circle painting by Judd (below) also reminded me of...

a circular candle at the center of the dinner table...💭✨

Early sculptures in curious shapes

Prints:

Reading the wall texts is a great way to learn more about the artist:

so...these are kind of like “big stamps” then:

wondering what this shape is about

close up

Judd’s “titled” drawings:

Almost all of his sculptures are untitled due to his aesthetics, but drawings had titles.

Below is my favorite piece (I think they should clean the floor):

an important piece coming up next:

need to read about it

an “external reference that a title adds to a work”....

to be honest, that doesn’t exist if you only exhibit art at places where wall labels are not in place (i.e. alternative art space) or you don’t have a good relationship with curators...felt sorry for their extra work during the install.

it’s like, you go to a restaurant and all menu items didn’t have names, “let me have the blue one on the right!”

photo worthy piece - one of the only two “titled sculptures” by Judd 

* another view

Judd’s green period starts here...

looking back what we saw so far...

Site-specific...

We entered another room before we knew it...

Below is also my favorite that somehow reminded me of Park McArthur’s work.

this is also a nice one

another view (blue-green period)

sometimes, attending the first day of public openings gives you more ideas of artwork:

Is this how we’re supposed to enjoy Judd’s blue period?

wooden pieces with wavy edges

Note: the problem we had during Judd preview was that MoMA attempted to reroute all preview guests from the 1st floor to the 5th floor, and then we had to walk through many galleries from the south to the north building to take another elevator for the 6th floor. The worse comes to worse, we already knew the MoMA building and its floor plans, so every time we attempted the shortest route, we had to be stopped by the security and rerouted to another, more unreasonable path. Who knew seeing Judd would be so complicated!?

Anyway, all well now.

We noticed on the way to Judd show that there was the red-alerted “Last chance” on the 4th floor. This system was very helpful...

It was a performance program!

Very curious setting, costume, and movements:

(we secretly called this MoMA’s “gym class”)

It was a stark contrast between Donald Judd’s show and this work by Adam Linder (although I’d say both shows are related to the concept of “shelves”).

Also quite possible that we left before seeing two more performers who’re involved in this piece.

https://www.moma.org/calendar/exhibitions/5195

http://www.adam-linder.net

Thank you MoMA for having us!

reported by nozomi 2020

[picturesinlove]

THE FUTURE IS BRIGHT: a *super* unoriginal ‘best films of 2017′ list

In life, we’re constantly asked what we learnt from things. It’s one way of measuring a completely immeasurable experience. Most films are built on this- ’character arcs’- how do they change and grow? What do they learn? (That’s not a negative thing, just the mechanics of this stick out when it’s done badly). With that in mind, I asked myself, from everything I watched this year, what did I learn?

THE BEST 12 ‘FILMS’ of 2017:

The first thing I learnt- films and TV series have become indistinguishable. It didn’t happen solely this year, but 2017 is definitely the ‘flag in the road’ point. Films are increasingly designed so they can be watched on a small screen with headphones, and most TV should really be watched on a big screen with proper speakers. And TV is sort of the wrong word. Netflix isn’t TV. I don’t know what it is. Just Long Form Storytelling perhaps? It’s certainly becoming less and less episodic. More and more feel like 10 hour films split into 10 parts so you can digest it better. So, this list is really the best 12 *things* of 2017.

The second thing I learnt- how you watch something is almost as important as what you’re watching. What headspace you were in, what time of day it was, if the room was totally dark, if someone a few rows in front of you was talking through the movie, if you’d seen the previous instalments in the series, hell- even if you’d seen the trailer. It all adds to how you think about the film. So, on the list, I’ve included where I saw it.

12. THE DISASTER ARTIST (directed by James Franco)

True story about the making of Tommy Wiseau’s The Room, the best worst film ever made.

I cried like I haven’t cried in years watching this. I don’t know what it was. Just something about the last act hit me so hard I couldn’t contain myself. And when you’re trying to contain yourself BECAUSE THIS IS NOT A SAD FILM AND YOU SHOULD NOT BE CRYING EVERYONE ELSE AROUND YOU IS LAUGHING PLEASE STOP CRYING it’s really hard to stop. It’s a story of ambition, heart and following your dreams no matter what.

Green screen! Lovely green screeeeen! Purely on an aesthetic level, whenever they’re shooting against that unmistakable, vibrant colour I just loved it.

You know when films do that thing and show pictures of the real people the film’s about before the credits so you can go ‘wow this film’s so accurate and got that detail right’?? This does a version of that, and it’s the only one that’s ever mattered/will ever matter.

The real Tommy Wiseau also has my favourite film related tweet of 2017:

Seen at BFI Southbank.

11. ORANGE IS THE NEW BLACK SEASON 5 (created by Jenji Kohan)

The lives of the women at Litchfield Penitentiary, a minimum-security prison in upstate New York. (the annimalllsss the animalllls, TRAP TRAP TRAP till the cage is fulllll...)

This show is about everything the opening titles suggest- women, decisions and time. What’s striking about OITNB is the characters never serve the plot. Plot *is* character. It’s there to serve them. It gives us a framework to waste time with these characters, because ‘all they’ve got is time’.

Season 5 is brave in terms of content and form. There are thousands of people more qualified to speak about the content, so I’ll leave it to them. Form wise: Orange is the New Black is Netflix’s most watched show, and probably it’s major tentpole along with Stranger Things. It has a well-oiled structure. Each season takes place over a few weeks, each episode focusses us in on one character, complete with flashbacks that inform us how they ended up in prison. Season 5 tears that to shreds, setting it basically in real time over 3 days. When it works, it *really* works. There’s no looking away. You feel the grind of what they’re going through. It sometimes leaves them too much time to pad out and we get some boring side plots- but on ambition alone I loved it.

It’s the perfect continuation and accumulation of previous seasons in many ways. The characters you know and love are in extraordinary circumstances. It brings out sides to their personalities that you never knew were there, but fit perfectly. Where all the characters are situated within the prison after the inciting incident is the best use of character geography *as* character I’ve ever seen. Tonally the series has gradually been getting nastier and nastier for a while, but there’s a scene towards the end of this season which is so nasty and so long and REFUSES to cut away even though you desperately, desperately want them too. It’s raw. It hurts. It’s a scene the show has always been heading for tonally and building towards dramatically. 

Season 5 slots in just under 4 for me in terms of ranking them all- but it’s still damn good. One things for certain, 5 changed everything for OITNB. The game is different. 

Oh, and Nicky’s the MVP. 

Netflix.

10. BAD GENIUS (directed by Nattawut Poonpiriya)

Thai Heist-Thriller. A genius high school student makes money after developing elaborate methods to help other students cheat.

WHAT A FUCKING RIDE!! The most fun I’ve had in a cinema all year. More stakes in this than most ‘end of the world’ superhero movies. Genuinely unpredictable.

The filmmaking is so good it makes you forget plausibility is sometimes being pushed. Amazing set-pieces. Expertly choreographed. Form and content perfectly married. This is the best way to tell this story, like a Michael Mann thriller, a Steven Soderbergh Oceans-style heist.

Every character is so rich and textured in their own way. So fully realised. You’ve met them all at some point in your life. It’s whimsical, but painful and genuinely emotional when it needs to be. Never pulls it’s punches.

2 years time, there will almost certainly be an American remake… and it’ll suck so hard. It’s rooted in Thailand, the socio-economic situation of people, the time zones, the pressure to succeed, and honestly- just hearing it in Thai. 

SEE THIS FILM. SEE THIS FILM. SEE THIS FILM. SEE THIS FILM. If you take anything from reading any of this, SEE THIS FILM.

Seen at Vue Leicester Square.

9. NATHAN FOR YOU: FINDING FRANCES (directed by Nathan Fielder)

The feature-length finale of Nathan For You’s 4th season. It’s a show that’s difficult to describe without saying ‘trust me’.... but honestly, *trust me*. Nathan Fielder graduated from business school with ‘really good grades’. He offers outlandish solutions to solve problems for struggling small businesses. In Finding Frances, Fielder uses all the resources of his successful show to help an old Bill Gates impressionist track down his high school sweetheart. Trust me.

Nathan Fielder has accidentally and totally on purpose made one of the best documentaries of the last 10 years.

It’s funny how we remember things. Reality and fiction are blurred. Truth is irrelevant. What does real mean? Does it even matter if we remember it how we want to?

Laptop.

8. THREE BILLBOARDS OUTSIDE EBBING, MISSOURI (directed by Martin McDonagh)

A mother takes desperate steps to pressure local law enforcement to find her daughter’s killer.

Perfectly woven and layered characters. I fucking hate the phrase ‘the character arc’, but if I were teaching a class in it- I’d show this film.

A film about relationships, and every relationship between every character or creature or inanimate object is perfect.

McDonagh loves theatrical sensibilities. Nobody does grand, rich set-pieces quite like him… makes highly stylised situations feel real in the world he sets up.

I could have watched hours more of these characters interacting.

Seen at Embankment Garden Cinema.

7. BLADE RUNNER 2049 (directed by Denis Villeneuve)

Neo-noir, sci-fi sequel to Ridley Scott’s 1981 classic.

I’m not a fan of the original Blade Runner. I appreciate it! It’s beautiful! and groundbreaking! but I just find it so heartless and cold. I just can’t connect to it. The best sci-fis are amazing stories with really fun furniture (the gadgets, tech etc.) The original is too much furniture for me. In other words, I had no reason to like this one IP wise. 2049 takes everything that could have been interesting from the original and expands on that. The furniture is just that- furniture. An amazing setting that enriches and serves the story. Everything is there to tell the story. I left the cinema feeling I’d experienced something the way that everyone talks about experiencing the first one.

The most expensive art film ever made. I literally cannot believe this exists. I cannot believe they gave Villeneuve £185MILLION to make a 3-hour long, philosophical film that has no blockbuster tropes: no loveable rogue hero; no ‘off-beat’ quippy humour to keep you interested; no CGI extravaganza 3rd act; NO.FUCKING.SKYBEAM with floating garbage spinning around it that threatens to destroy the world and the heroes have to stop it before everyone in the world dies; no setting up 5 other already planned sequels in the franchise so nothing important happens in this one. It’s a rare type of blockbuster in 2017- one that trusts it’s audience is intelligent.

Denis Villeneuve really is the most exciting director working today. This is just further proof. Arrival (2016) still my favourite of his, but I’m almost more in awe of him for this. Taking such a well-loved franchise and doing something new with it in a way that still feels respectful of what’s come before. It’s his film.

The only use of Hollywood’s new trend of digitally recreating actors (ala Peter Cushing in Rogue One: A Star Wars Story) that will ever matter. THIS is how you do it well.

Gender politics (we’re gunna’ go there, SPOILERS AHEAD and I know my opinion doesn’t really matter or count for anything on this just thought it’d be silly not to bring it up, feel free to disagree, v. interested to hear what everyone thinks about this!!) Lots has been written about the treatment of female characters in 2049. Most apt example I can think of to explain how I feel- Taxi Driver (1976), there’s a cafe scene in which the camera lingers on some black characters for uncomfortably long in a kind of parading manner, a ‘look at how terrible these guys are’ manner... it’s very understandable why one could interpret the film itself as racist. I’d argue the film is completely aware of what it’s doing- it’s putting us in Travis Bickle’s eyes, who is a racist character. I mean, we’re literally in his head the whole thing, hearing what he’s thinking and seeing what he’s seeing... I guess what I’m saying is- ‘it’s a decision.’ It’s not an offhand random shot where the filmmaker’s own gaze comes through, it’s a skilfully planned decision to make us question and think about something, in Taxi Driver’s case- what kind of man Bickle is. The treatment of women in 2049 *IS* a decision. It’s not Villeneuve lazily commodifying women, it’s him saying a world where women are only a commodity is a fucking bleak one. It’s a world where real women have been rendered obsolete because the height of success in our society (the CEO of a large corporation), an egoistical white guy with a god-complex manufactures life so women aren’t necessary for continuing the human race, and creates holographic partners for everyday men so they’re emotionally fulfilled without having to engage with actual women. And it’s so horrible. I mean, is anybody happy in this film? Is the picture of the future this film paints bright? It’s a film about how the arrogance of men will destroy everything. And on a base story level, it’s literally about guy who thinks everything is about him... but it turns out to be about a woman. Perhaps it’s lazy for the film to make the decision ‘it’s a patriarchal world so all the women are prostitutes and are treated badly so we’re just gunna’ do that’, but I dunno’... I think there’s more going on. I think Villeneuve is too good for that. I mean his last film was literally about a genius female linguist being the saviour of the world and how a mother’s love is the most precious thing. Would he really do such a U-turn and make a film where the female characters are just objects to be gazed at? I mean- maybe?? If any other aspect of the film felt like it was the studio meddling with Villenueve’s vision I’d buy that... but it’s just SO his film. And I think he’s clever enough to know who the primary audience of this film is- geeky 20 year-old guys. He draws them in with the surface (and all too familiar) images of the female characters, and then turns all of that on it’s head. Just my opinion. Obviously I can never be completely impartial- very happy to be converted the other way. 

Seen at Picturehouse Central.

6. CALL ME BY YOUR NAME (directed by Luca Guadagnino)

Somewhere in Northern Italy, Summer 1983, Elio’s life changes.

Sun-drenched Europe, the smell of warmth and twirling cigarette smoke, deep blue sky- pure, breakfast with a glass of apricot juice and an espresso, the sound of bike spokes spinning lazily.

I wish I could live with these people.

‘Later.’

The rawest and best final shot in the last 10 years.

Seen at Odeon Leicester Square.

5. THE BIG SICK (directed by Michael Showalter)

A Pakistani-born standup comedian/Uber driver and a grad student strike up an unlikely relationship.

MAGIC. The perfect retort to use when someone says ‘all rom-coms suck’. A genuine slab of gold that’s as funny as it is heartfelt. And it’s just SO the kind of thing I like.

I’m unbelievably bored of films and just art in general that’s terrified of being sincere in fear of being labelled sappy or over-sentimental. The Big Sick says ‘fuck you’ to that school of thought and goes for it. 

Comedy, romance and drama are effortlessly blended- sometimes all in the same scene. And it never feels off-kilter, mainly due to the amazing performances. Kumail Nanjiani, Zoe Kazan, Ray Romano, Holly Hunter and the rest of the cast always play the truth of the scene- not the humour, the romance or the drama, just the TRUTH of the moment.

The perfect antidote to the year 2017 in general.

Seen at Aldeburgh Cinema.

4. YOU WERE NEVER REALLY HERE (directed by Lynne Ramsay)

Gulf War veteran Joe rescues children from trafficking rings.

This is a horror. And more terrifying than any jump scare, this whole film is populated by ghosts.

Deeply troubled, deeply disturbed. Beautiful. Precise. Scatter-brained. Focused. A violin strung too tightly, then played by a madman. How can something so stripped down and raw feel so symphonic and wholesome?

There are things in this that will play on loop in my head for the rest of my life. Images and sounds so seared into my brain they find me at the strangest of moments in a day, and I’m always left thinking about them for the rest of that day. It’s clever like that. Joe can never escape what he’s seen. 

Francis Ford Coppola famously told press at the 1979 Cannes premiere of Apocalypse Now - ‘My film is not about Vietnam. It is Vietnam.’

You Were Never Really Here is not about PTSD... it is PTSD.

Seen at Odeon Leicester Square.

3. LOGAN (directed by James Mangold)

Wolverine’s last outing.

I’m not a huge fan of superhero films. Most are fun. Most are also lazy. Few will survive the test of time. Those that will use all the tricks in their genre box and do something interesting with them, transcend- Rami’s Spiderman 2 (2004), Bird’s The Incredibles (2004), Nolan’s The Dark Knight (2008)... and Mangold’s Logan. 

So aged. So weary. Everyone is tired. Tired of running, tired of fighting, tired of living. Like three sharp metal claws jaggedly tearing through flesh, nothing is polished about this. Bloodshot eyes, skin like leather. He feels so much regret. Like most real heroes, he mourns those he couldn’t save rather than celebrates those he did. And it’s eaten him up inside for the hundreds of years he’s lived.

Here I go talking about furniture again... but every piece of furniture (superpowers etc.) is there to serve the story (and here the characters are story). Like so many blockbusters and superhero movies fail to do, this film is about something other than the furniture... e.g. how do you tell a story about dementia that gives someone who hasn’t experienced a family member suffering from it *that* feeling of sadness, loss, embarrassment, empathy and frustration? You give it to Charles Xavier (played by Patrick Stewart), a character you’re use to seeing as the leader, who always has a clever plan up his sleeve and has the ability to control other’s minds. You give it to him, and you force everyone watch the person they respected the most have to be lifted into bed while screaming about fast-food. It’s heartbreaking. Complex. It’s actually about something other than how in superhero world teamwork saves the day. Every ‘plot point’ and moment tells us something about these characters, even to a fault sometimes. SUBTLE: Logan pulling them jammed claws the way an old boy down the pub with arthritis feels his fingers. UNSUBTLE BUT STILL INTERESTING: making Logan fight the only thing he’s truly scared of- literally the version of himself that blindly obeys orders.

Everyone is SO fucking real. Just *watch* the way Daphne Keen eats that bowl of cereal.

Would highly recommend watching the ‘Noir’ Black & White version. 

mild spoilers: It also features the best single edit of the year, from Laura stabbing the shit out of some dude to a flurry of scattered drum beats in the score... then that piercing animalistic roar rips through and all is silent... she spins.... from this:

CUT to this:

An empty forest, the roar echoes out... a low bass note tolls like a funeral. Something is coming. Help is on the way, but it’s an untamed, ruthless, violent help. He’s near...

No one single cut has ever given me chills like that before.

Seen at Odeon Leicester Square & Picturehouse Central (Noir version)

2. TWIN PEAKS: THE RETURN (directed by David Lynch)

Agent Cooper’s odyssey back to the small town of Twin Peaks. The original series of Twin Peaks that aired in the early 90s is often cited as creating ‘prestige’ television as we know it today- your Game of Thrones’, HBO high-quality, Netflix and so on... 25 years later, David Lynch and Mark Frost have returned to kill it. 

Earth-shattering. Groundbreaking. An 18-hour film (split into 16 parts) so layered, so complex i’m not even sure where to begin... and most of what I have to say has probably been written by someone else much more eloquently. 

For the first 9 hours, I found The Return mostly frustrating. I love the original series so, so much (and the prequel film Fire Walk With Me is one of my favourite films of all time). When I hit hour 10, it was like all the clouds in my head suddenly cleared. I ‘got’ it. What I thought I wanted was all my favourite characters back again talking about cherry pie and coffee with that soft romantic filter. Lynch and Frost (the creators) knew I wanted that. They also knew I didn’t *really* want that... because, the original series will always exist. They knew nothing would disappoint more than a soft reboot. The Return is it’s own thing- within the universe of Twin Peaks, and... within the actual universe. Seriously, how can you categorise this? It jumps from screwball slapstick comedy to silent black and white existentialist horror to 10 minute live band performances... what is the point of even trying to categorise it?

On some of the individual parts: Part 3 is a low-fi, surrealist, near silent masterpiece. Part 8 is... ‘Pure Heroin Lynch’ and has already changed TV forever. Part 11 is the most satisfying instalment, fulfilling storylines from the original series in a measured and poignant way. Part 17 is the conclusion we wanted, sort of... Part 18 is the start of a new mystery, and one of the most haunting things I’ve ever seen.

Twin Peaks will change you life.

Seen on Laptop.

1. THE FLORIDA PROJECT (directed by Sean Baker)

In the shadow of Disney World, 6 year-old Moonee and her friends spend the summer playing around the Motels they live in, while her mother Halley struggles to find a new job.

Pastel bright colours. Every person has survived a storm. Explore the wasteland of failed corporate America. Become a child again. The endless spinning of helicopter blades, a constant reminder of what they can’t do- escape. 

Doesn’t ask you to like the characters. Doesn’t need to. Moonee has seen too much. Halley’s anger at herself and her life bubbles underneath every word and action, but she just doesn’t know how to fix it.

It is *SO* achingly beautiful it hurts. I find it hard to even watch the trailer without crying.

For the problems that face Moonee, honorary queen of The Magic Castle Motel, and the impending darkness that’s sure to come, she has the most powerful gift of all- finding hope where there is none. 

‘See, I took you on a safari.’ 

Seen at Odeon Leicester Square & ICA.

DISCLAIMER- things that are not out yet in the UK/I shamefully haven’t yet seen and would likely be on my list too: Lady Bird (further DISCLAIMER i would actually kill somebody to see this) A Ghost Story Raw Phantom Thread War for the Planet of The Apes Coco American Vandal Mindhunter

BEST SCENES:

The third thing I learnt this year- it’s impossible to talk about a specific scene in a film without spoiling it. So... SPOILERS.

The Stairway Fight - ATOMIC BLONDE (directed by David Leitch)

If someone could tell me what the fuck was going on in Atomic Blonde that’d be great but until then I’ll just marvel at how amazing the fight sequences are. Charlize Theron again puts herself at the centre of the progression of American action cinema following her iconic performance in Mad Max: Fury Road (2015). From the first time we see her, lying in an expensive bath healing her wounds and soothing her bruises, we know at some point we’re going to see how she got them. CUE: The 15 minute stairway fight sequence, made to look like a single continuous shot. Leitch and Chad Stahelski (his frequent collaborator and director of the also brilliant John Wick: Chapter 2) are determined to show general audiences what good action scenes look like. This 15-min beauty harkens back to the almost dance like hospital shootout in Hard Boiled (1992), with the rawness and determination of a Children of Men (2006) tracking shot. Charlize Theron (as MI6 agent Lorraine Broughton) fights her way through swarms of henchmen over several floors of an abandoned block of flats, all the while trying to protect Eddie Marsan (who wouldn’t want to protect Eddie Marsan??) Every punch, kick and throw HURTS. By the end, she and the final henchman are so exhausted there’s a sense they might just call the whole thing off- but something pushes them on. Oh, and there’s a 5 minute car chase all part of the same shot to end. Also features the BEST LINE OF 2017. In retort to the final henchman strangling her desperately whispering ‘Take this, bitch!’, she turns the tables, stabs him up hard, then before delivering the final knockdown, pushes her nose to his and asks- ‘Am I your bitch now?’ She doesn’t wait for a reply.

The Eyeless Woman - TWIN PEAKS: THE RETURN (directed by David Lynch)

Lynch’s best nightmare.

Train Hysterics - LAST FLAG FLYING (directed by Richard Linklater)

2003. A Vietnam veteran recruits his two oldest buddies, who he served with, to accompany him on a journey no one should ever have to take. 

I liked this movie a lot- just missed out on the top 12 list. The standout scene happens little over half way through, the characters sitting in a storage carriage of a train talking about losing their virginities. It’s the best ‘characters uncontrollably laughing’ scene since The Intouchables (2011). 

The Snowball epilogue - STRANGER THINGS 2 (directed by The Duffer Brothers)

Stranger Things season 2 was super mixed for me. I enjoyed it a lot. Kind of. 

The first series is a perfect little story, with a perfect beginning, middle and end. I god damn *love* it’s characters so, so much. The plot was simple remixed 80s nostalgia beats, but really just a vehicle for you to get to know Mike and Eleven and Nancy etc. Think about how much each and every scene was practically designed to reveal more about who they were. It was so beautiful. Season 2 however had wayyyyy too much plot which was obsessed with itself and how cool it was and as a result left characters with nothing to do. In other words, in Season 1 all the characters had something to do because the plot came from them, in season 2 characters were given plot roles... like, explain to me what Mike did all season before he saw Eleven again at the v end of episode 8?? What did Jonathan’s storyline tell us about him we didn’t already know? Sure, they don’t have to set up who they are all over again, but the best sequels never take for granted we love the characters- they give us new reasons to love them. 

It’s clear to see whose storylines had natural progressions from season 1 and they knew where they were going, and those they had to think of something because Netflix desperately wanted another season quickly. The only original characters season 2 really worked for were Steve and Will. ‘Steve The Babysitter’ was the perfect progression for his character- him voluntarily discarding his Alpha-Jock status, seeing it was all bullshit, now his caring side comes out. Fuck, think how much you disliked Steve all of Season 1 compared to how much you love and deeply want him to be ok at the end of season 2. THAT’s good writing. His storyline was perfect for his character, it kept giving us new reasons to love him. And Will. Holy shit. His descent into Reagan-level possession was the most engaging part of season 2. Basically all of the story came from him. And Noah Schnapp is so damn good. I think simplicity is the key. His story was unpredictable till the last moments, when you realise it was inevitable. It has a clear premise, unlike most of season 2. 

In the first, there were very clear overarching premises from the start- Will Byers is missing, Eleven has escaped from the Lab, the Demogorgon is on the loose. Simple premises that allow our characters to manoeuvre around... Season 2 doesn’t really have one other than Will is clearly still connected to the Upside Down... the Mind Flayer doesn’t really start as a concept till the penultimate episode... Hopper and Eleven living together maybbe?? but we’re not really given enough time with them. Everyone else is left with nothing to do, or something that doesn’t really serve their character... UNTIL THE LAST 15 MINUTES.

The Snowball epilogue was like coming to the surface after swimming laps underwater- I sort of enjoyed the laps but I’d rather just be able to breath. All the self-indulgent 80s nostalgia *plot* is done, and all the characters have interesting things to do!! Steve giving Dustin tips dropping him off, and then that longing look he gives towards the hall. Dustin realising ‘I don’t look like Steve Harrington’ after being rejected by every girl at the ball and dejectedly crying... and in comes Nancy to save the day!! Genuinely one of the most beautiful moments in anything all year (notice how we learn more about Nancy’s true nature in this one moment that anything else she really did all season??) Jonathan nearby keeping an eye on Will and being his helpful self taking the Ball pictures. Lucas ignoring what the rest of the group think about Max and asking her to dance. Will actually going to the ball, acting as normal as he can and dancing with someone!! Joyce and Hopper nervously wait outside and reminiscently share a smoke as they did in their highschool days- contemplating on how they probably won’t ever feel like they aren’t worried about their kids... and finally Mike and Eleven just having a bit of happiness for once- actually going to the Snowball together, a beautiful conclusion after speaking about it at the end of Season 1.

As each moment passed in this glorious sequence, I loved the characters more and more. They aren’t doing anything supernatural or life threatening, but the stakes feel SO much higher than they had all season. It’s real. They aren’t shackled with ‘advancing the plot’, they can just be themselves. And I loved it.

BEST CINEMATOGRAPHY:

Time’s Arrow, Episode 11, BoJack Horseman Season 4 (created by Raphael Bob-Waksberg)

BoJack Horseman has been the most visually beautiful cartoon for a while now, it’s breathtaking season 3 silent underwater adventure Fish out of Water helped to gain it much appreciated wide applause. Time’s Arrow is a different beast. Genuinely horrifying. A mind cracked into a thousand pieces and glued back together into something resembling crazy paving. The animation is disturbing. Really disturbing. The nightmarish images running through the failing mind of an old woman with dementia. Images of her regrets, the neglect and abuse at the hands of her parents. Memories burn and melt away like plastic in a fire. The faceless humans and constant scribble over Henrietta’s face haunts me. Beyond the obvious sinister imagery, it means something. A puzzle with too many missing pieces to really make out what the picture actually is. And we’ll never really know.

It’s not the first thing that pops into mind when you think of ‘cinematography’, but Time’s Arrow is the best visual storytelling since... the previous season of BoJack Horseman.

BEST PERFORMANCES:

Cate Blanchett as various in MANIFESTO (directed by Julian Rosefeldt)

Originally a critically acclaimed multi-screen video installation in which Cate Blanchett plays 13 different characters, ranging from a school teacher to a homeless man, performing artist’s manifestos in 13 different scenarios. Part of the financing deal was Rosefeldt had to cut a 90 minute, linear version of the piece for a cinematic setting.

NO one could have pulled this off like she did. She’s running on adrenaline and pure bravery. She makes interesting choices at every twist and turn. How does looking at her never get tiresome? Every jump from character to character feels genuine. She blew my mind- I knew I was looking at the same person over and over again, but I also *knew* I was looking at 13 different people. 

A masterclass.

Kyle MacLachlan as various in TWIN PEAKS: THE RETURN (directed by David Lynch)

2017 is the year of staggering ‘multi-character’ performances. Kyle MacLachlan’s involvement in the new season of Twin Peaks was basically the only thing anyone knew about it going in. And he is the heart of this season in so many ways. Returning to a character 25 years later must be a daunting prospect, but MacLachlan shows no fear. Not only does he play the pragmatic, joyful Agent Cooper we all know and love, he plays his steely, pure evil doppelganger Mr C, child-like amnesiac Dougie Jones and in the final episode... someone quite special. And he makes it look so damn easy. He is the fabric that holds together The Return.

THE ‘KIDS’ in EVERYTHING

2017 has been a bad year for Hollywood. Ultimately though, it will be looked back on as the turning point. THINGS CHANGE NOW. The old guard is running from their past scared. And they should be scared. Uma Thurman is coming to murder them all. There is no room left for the Harvey Weinstein’s, the rotting core of top-down abuse has been exposed. Brett Ratner can fuck off with his swaggering playboy image and terrible movies. 

What is truly uplifting is who is going to replace them. A new generation of pure, true artists that this year has shone a spotlight on.

The future is Brooklynn Prince and Bria Vinaite, stars of The Florida Project. The future is Timothée Chalamet, whose central performance in Call Me By Your Name is the realist, rawest thing ever. The future is Saoirse Ronan, the next Meryl Streep. The future is Daniel Kaluuya, who has finally gained world-wide recognition for his stunning leading performance in Get Out. The future is Finn Wolfhard, Millie Bobby Brown and all of the kids from Stranger Things, who masterfully manage the horrific pressures of being thrust into the tabloid spotlight at the same age most of us just want to cry in our rooms. The future is Sophia Lillis and the rest of the Loser’s Club from IT (a film with the most oppressively terrible sound design ever yet they still manage to make it fun and watchable.) The future is Daphne Keen, the best on-screen cereal-eater who almost steals the film from Hugh Jackman in Logan. The future is Lucas Hedges, someone with rare human fingerprint over every word he speaks in Three Billboards and last year in Manchester By The Sea. The future is Donald Glover, the most creative, multi-talented young artist alive. The future is Caleb Landry Jones, who’s had maybe the most impressive year, with standout supporting roles in The Florida Project, Twin Peaks: The Return, Get Out and Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri. The future is Tessa Thompson, the best thing about Thor: Ragnarok.  The future is Michael B. Jordan, Chadwick Boseman, Lupita Nyong'o, all the team behind the upcoming Black Panther film, helmed by Ryan Coogler. The future is Barry Jenkins, director of best picture winner Moonlight. The future is Daisy Ridley, John Boyega, Oscar Isaac, Adam Driver and Kelly Marie Tran, the new faces of the most popular franchise ever. The future is Alice Lowe, a force to be reckoned with. Writing, directing and starring in a feature film is difficult enough. She did all of that while heavily pregnant. Oh, and it was her debut feature. It’s called Prevenge and it rocks. The future is Ava Duvernay, a beacon of hope- cannot wait for A Wrinkle in Time, which drops early next year. The future is Sean Baker, the most empathetic filmmaker working today. The future is Patty Jenkins and Gal Godot who have revolutionised the superhero film and inspired a generation of little girls with Wonder Woman.  The future is Kumail Nanjiani and Zoe Kazan, who I’ll follow in whatever they do after The Big Sick. The Future is Jordan Peele, the most exciting new director. The future is GRETA GERWIG, mumblecore queen turned saviour of cinema.

So, what did I learn this year? Well, Agent Dale Cooper is certainly one of the best characters of all time. But most of all: amongst the darkness of everything that’s happened within the film industry in 2017... there’s hope.

The future is bright.

[ramajmedia]

10 Things That Make No Sense About The Matrix Sequels

Well, it's happened - Keanu Reeves and Carrie-Anne Moss are set to make their long-awaited return as Neo and Trinity, as the 4th installment of The Matrix is confirmed to be in development. The existing sequels contained some confusing moments, to say the least, while also tying up some loose ends. Thus, it'll be interesting to see where Lana Wachowski will - or can - possibly take this 4th film, given these events and the finality of the trilogy's conclusion.

Following the confirmation of another sequel, now would seem as good a time as any to analyze the often strange events that will lead us up to The Matrix 4. Even now, a decade and a half after their release, a number of questions linger. So let's plug back in as we analyze 10 things that make no sense about The Matrix sequels.

Related: 10 Things Everyone Gets Wrong About The Matrix

10 Smith's Motives

Of course, it's set up rather early in Reloaded that Smith is the negative side of the anomaly to Neo's positive end. Beyond this, though - what exactly is his "purpose?" It seems to be to simply eliminate our protagonist, but if this is the case - why is he copying himself across the entire Matrix to achieve this? What's the goal of this rogue agent assembling an entire army of himself just to reign over a dark rainy Matrix crawling with no one else but Smiths?

The villain's motive of "taking over the world" has become a trope, and in the case of Smith, it seems pretty pointless given the implications.

9 "Mobil" Avenue

Neo's comatose state following his overexertion of powers on the sentinels somehow sees him stranded in this limbo. How did he get to this virtual place, considering he was clearly not wired to the Matrix? Theories suggest that he got there "wirelessly," but if that's the case, why couldn't he also disconnect wirelessly? This also seems to be the first case of this happening. Does this come with the powers of "The One?"

For that matter - how can exiled programs be smuggled within this Matrix-bound program without the system's creator or agents controlling or gaining access to it?

8 Neo Defeating An Army Of Smiths...

Neo is significantly more powerful by the second movie. Still, how is it that he's able to withstand the barrage of dozens of Smiths during an early fight scene of Reloaded? Smith is no longer an agent at this point - he's "unplugged," and while we as an audience aren't aware of this yet, he's basically Neo's super-charged counterpart. This being the case, it stands to reason that just one rogue program who parallels his strength should be able to go toe-to-toe with him; let alone several.

Related: 5 Best Action Scenes In The Matrix Films (& The 5 Worst)

As a side note - why is the army of Smiths just standing idly in Revolutions as Neo fights his counterpart in Dragon Ball Z fashion when they could easily overwhelm him? The point is to defeat Neo, is it not?

7 6 Versions Of The Matrix/Zion?

One of the biggest revelations among the Architect's barrage of exposition explains that Neo is merely one of 6 total incarnations of "The One." He isn't a liberated human whose been elevated to "prophet" status, but rather, just another cog in a larger machine of control. This is an interesting twist but makes little contextual sense.

Neo existing as just the next anomaly inline - set up to return to the source and save Zion for the 6th time begets several questions. What exactly happened to the other incarnations? For that matter, what's the role of The Oracle in all this, and how has she managed to fail 5 times? How are the agents, along with the other rogue programs Neo interacts with, not more privy to his actions since he's a repeated version of the anomaly? How has Zion managed to be destroyed and rebuilt 5 times with no knowledge/recollection of anyone in the city?

6 Contradicts The Original Film's Theme

Much of the Matrix's central theme seems to revolve around breaking from the "system" and being in control of one's own destiny. After all, Neo answers Morpheus' posed question - "do you believe in fate?" with a resounding "No - I don't like the idea that I'm not in control of my life." That answer largely "sells" Morpheus on Neo being The One, and ready to learn the truth.

And yet - the sequels seem to do a 180 from this idea of liberation. It often pounds home the notion that we're all - even Neo and Zion's band of free humanity - just mechanisms in a larger machine. The illusion of "choice" seems to be stripped away in favor of understanding one's predetermined purpose. Even The Oracle makes this clear by telling him "You've already made the choice. Now you have to understand why."

If this is the case and everyone's destiny is predetermined - why should we care?

5 The Celebration In The Matrix Reloaded

Dialing things back from broader points to a more specific event - why did Zion seem to be so optimistic  - even celebratory - following the information that an army of sentinels had set out to destroy them?

Related: 5 Ways The Matrix Holds Up (& 5 Ways It Doesn't)

Sure, you could say that the populace was somewhat left in the dark as to the magnitude of the threat on Zion. Regardless, the prospect of countless machines honing in on the last human city would seemingly put the thousands of humans trapped underground on edge. It would probably see many brace for combat in one way or another. It certainly wouldn't coax a massive dance party, like the one this news abruptly leads to.

4 Why Do The Agents Care About The Keymaker?

If you've been following what little of the plot transpires in the Matrix Reloaded's first half, it makes sense that the Merovingian and The Twins would be after their prized Keymaker. But... why exactly do the agents care?

After all, merely a few scenes after this highway chase, it's revealed to Neo and the audience that he's essentially being played to return to the source and be reintegrated into the system. If this is the case - and Neo was meant to reach the Architect, why are the agents trying to stop him? Surely they must be aware of the ultimate goals by "the powers that be." Since they're hardwired to the system, they could at least have this information "downloaded" into their agent hard drives...

3 The Oracle's Motives

The Oracle is very much portrayed as the peaceful, caring, "all-seeing" program of the Matrix.  Why, then, does she seem to play right into the Architect's hands?

Related: 10 Movie Sequels that No-One Ever Asked For 

After all, it is The Oracle that essentially leads Neo to the Keymaker, which in turn leads him to the source; exactly where the Architect wanted him. Was she working with him the whole time? After all, it's heavily implied that she's the "mother" of the Matrix. Or did she know something the Architect did not - that Neo would achieve what his predecessors failed to do and break from the system? And how could she have this elevated awareness if the Architect was the system's creator?

2 Neo's "Matrix" Powers In The Real World?

In an eyebrow-raising plot twist during a desperate scramble from some sentinels, it's revealed that Neo has apparently gained powers outside of the Matrix. This is hardly explained.

Have some of Neo's Matrix-manipulating abilities rubbed off on him in the real world?

Could Neo and company be in a Matrix within a Matrix? This could actually tie together Reloaded rather nicely. And yet - this is never revealed or even really implied to be the case. The movie seems to be blurring the lines between reality and the Matrix at this point.

1 That Revolutions Ending...

Although Revolutions contains a visually impressive final battle - it's tough to be emotionally invested given its nonsensical, bitter-sweet "ending."

After Zion is basically left in utter ruin, Neo removes himself - and thus his malignant counterpart in Smith - establishing peace between the humans and machines. This is nice, except it minimizes the significance of this drawn-out battle and the sacrifices made. It also feels very incomplete, as only those who "want out" will be freed from the Matrix.

Next: The 5 Best (& 5 Worst) Things About The Matrix Sequels

source https://screenrant.com/matrix-sequels-make-no-sense/