#Which made up for the shitty plot and sequencing and drawings

[genderlesssnake]

Pirate river mermaid Lyceum? River is very confused. Mermaids are ment to be dangerous. This one just keeps flirting

I spent way too long on this, but I also left this ask in my inbox for way too long so i guess it balances out.

And I got this one fairly recently, so apparently we love sirens

[payattentiontothescreen]

Bridgerton Rewatch S1E3 - Art of the Swoon

Hey y'all. Sorry for the delay on this one, grad school is taking over my life. Here we go!

This episode starts with Daphne’s dream sequence and I’m gonna take a second to give some love to the camera department. Beyond the cinematography (which is amazing and shouldn’t be devalued), getting those shots must have been a pain in the ass. POV shots are not easy to get, especially when they’re close-ups on a person’s face. Those close-up POVs of Simon and Daphne dancing must have taken some EFFORT and I salute the cam ops for getting it so smoothly.

We have made it to my biggest problem with this season. George Crane was on the front lines fighting in Spain. How did it not occur to ANYONE that he might be dead? Like, they immediately jumped to “actually he hates you and wants nothing to do with your child.” I’m sorry WHAT??? He’s at war and that’s the ONLY conclusion you jump to???? It bugs me a lot, in case you couldn’t tell.

Portia wants Marina to dress in the family colors. What are those colors? There is very little consistency in the Featheringtons’ wardrobes, which says a lot about their lack of cohesion as a family. But there’s pinks, greens, yellows, all kinds of colors that almost never match.

I love the parlor scenes at the Bridgerton house. They all have such good chemistry as a family. That’s a major strength of this season that the second season doesn’t have as much.

I remember watching this the first time and thinking Prince Friedrich looked vaguely familiar but I didn’t know why. Imagine how shocked I was when I realized that I was watching Adrian Chase be a Regency-era Prussian prince. Freddie Stroma is so talented, my god.

Couples that mock together, stay together. You can see that with the way Daphne and Simon are making fun of Cressida and Friedrich.

Jumping ahead a bit to the stove scene. It is so funny that titled members of society have no practical skills. This is a theme of how the class system works, even to this day. Not having basic life skills is basically a status symbol when you have a certain amount of money. They are out of touch, obviously, but Anthony and Daphne being fictional characters in a historical setting makes it easier to laugh at.

Madame Delacroix is not dumb. She definitely knows that Marina is pregnant. I think her acting in this scene with the knowing glances and everything kind of bolsters the idea that she could be Lady Whistledown. I know she isn’t but if I didn’t, I could see how she would be the main suspect further down the line.

So I’m one of those weirdos who likes knowing why shitty people are that way. I really hope we learn more about Cressida and her background in the next season. Like, beyond just entitlement, how does someone turn into…that?

We’re at the gallery now. I think it’s nice when the Bridgertons get to participate in things as a unit. Most of the plot happens during events that are exclusive to people who are out in society, which leaves Eloise (in this season), Gregory, and Hyacinth out. It’s great to see them interact with the larger world because they add so much texture to it. That being said, Gregory and Hyacinth showed up to that gallery to cause problems on PURPOSE!

I love it when Marina is bitchy to shitty old men. They deserve it.

I know that Benedict has very little regard for society but I love watching him participate in it. This is a bigger thing in the scene with him, Lady Danbury, and Henry Granville. Benedict has so much charisma but it doesn’t align with society’s rules and expectations. I can’t wait to see him take center stage.

I had a note to talk about the blocking in the scene where Daphne and Simon are alone in the gallery together but I don’t remember what my thoughts were on that. If I think of it, I’ll add it somewhere but lmk if y’all have thoughts.

Benedict getting frustrated with drawing hands is hilarious to me. I’m not an artist, I can’t draw for shit. However, from what I’ve heard from my friends who are artists, hands are notoriously difficult to draw. So Benedict beating himself up over drawing hands is the most realistic thing in this episode and it kills me.

The fight between Daphne and Eloise reveals a lot about Eloise’s main flaw. During the fight, Daphne has this line, “You never see things from my perspective,” and that’s true. Eloise never sees things from other people’s perspectives. She’s constantly on some crusade that doesn’t take into account how other people around her might be affected. I’m really looking forward to her chilling out a bit.

Simon laughing at how little mothers tell their daughters has a bit of a sinister tinge once he and Daphne get married. He exploits that, to a certain extent.

Phoebe Dynevor (I learned how to spell, wow) is such a trooper for staying in character during that sex education lesson. If Regé-Jean Page was explaining masturbation that close to my face, I’d waste the whole shoot day just cracking up.

Another queer-coded sibling smoke break. Them talking about Lady Whistledown is interesting. Eloise says that LWD has to hide her identity because she’s a woman. While this is true, it’s not the reason. Benedict responds by saying that if people knew who she was, she’d be strung up for what she said, which is the real reason. And Eloise does prove this right. I don’t know what other people think, but I’m of the opinion that, no matter when she found out, Eloise would react the same way to Penelope being LWD. The rage and hurt compounds over the two seasons, but I think it would have been there regardless.

This show really emphasizes the importance of fem pleasure, but I have so many thoughts about it that it needs to be a separate post.

Simon breaking it off with Daphne is some of the most textbook fear-of-commitment dialogue in the world. I have heard basically the same monologue from so many people in my actual life, it drives me crazy.

The entire cast is insanely talented but one thing stands out. The absolute best acting in this show is Jonathan Bailey acting straight. If you didn’t know that he’s gay, you’d never be able to guess.

So we’ve made it to the forged letter scene. I have 2 things to say about this one. First of all, Ruby Barker absolutely slays. I’ve watched this show so many times and I will always feel her pain. It’s so powerful. The other thing, Lady Featherington has a bit of a projection problem. She has such a miserable marriage that she can’t fathom that George might truly love Marina. Also, again, jumping straight to dismissal instead of being killed in action. I can’t believe I’m defending men right now but, especially in this universe, jumping straight to abandonment seems like projecting more than an actual conclusion.

I’m gonna condense my last few notes into one bullet because they’re all about the ball at the end of the episode. Daphne comes into the ballroom with a face card that never declines, everybody’s staring at her, classic. The way I interpret Friedrich’s behavior in this scene boils down to he was never actually interested in Cressida. I don’t know, something about this whole thing just makes me feel like Cressida was a pretty convenience. The other thing is Simon. Obviously, Simon gets crazy jealous and dips, but there’s something about the shot of the dance floor as he leaves that I never noticed. Penelope watches Simon leave. Not only that, Penelope is the ONLY ONE who watches him leave while everyone else watches the dancing. If that’s not a hint that she’s LWD, I don’t know what is. 

Managed to get everything into one part this time. There might be a gap in posting again but I will do my best to get through the whole series before season 3 comes out.

Hope you're having a good day <3

[terramythos]

TerraMythos 2021 Reading Challenge - Book 12 of 26

Title: A Wizard of Earthsea (Earthsea Cycle #1) (1968)

Author: Ursula K. Le Guin

Genre/Tags: Fantasy, Young Adult, Third-Person

Rating: 8/10

Date Began: 5/6/2021

Date Finished: 5/12/2021

Ged is a talented young magician with incredible potential-- possibly greater than any before him. He sets off to join the wizarding School of Roke, and quickly surpasses all of his peers. But in an act of arrogance, Ged tries to bring back the dead to impress a rival student. He unleashes a malevolent shadow upon the world, leaving him traumatized and permanently scarred. 

Soon Ged finds himself hunted by the shadow wherever he goes. None of his magic seems to work on it. Worse, he lives in fear that if the dark creature overtakes him, it will use his body as a weapon to harm others. Ged journeys from island to island in an attempt to find the solution and banish the shadow once and for all. 

Only in silence the word, only in dark the light,  only in dying life:  bright the hawk’s flight  on the empty sky. 

Content warnings and some spoilers below the cut. 

Content warnings for the book: Violence and death, including child death and animal death. Traumatic injury. 

As a fiction writer, Ursula K. Le Guin is best known for her Earthsea series, but I haven’t read them until now. She had a big impact on my childhood via a series of picture books called Catwings (they're... about a family of cats who can fly). As an adult, I’ve grown more intrigued as I've learned about Le Guin’s philosophies, especially anticapitalism. I read her famous horror story The Ones Who Walk Away From Omelas last year and found it unsettling and thought-provoking. So I decided to read some of her longer works! And, of course, speculative fiction is always the way to my heart. My wonderful sister gave me the first four books of Earthsea for the holidays last year, and I’m finally getting the chance to read them. 

Overall I had a good time with A Wizard of Earthsea. It’s structured differently than a lot of fantasy novels I’ve read. While there is a big overarching plot, the individual chapters usually have their own complete story arc. It’s the type of book where you can read one chapter before bed and feel like you got a whole story; each part advances the main narrative while also providing a complete side adventure. 

There’s a lot of travel in A Wizard of Earthsea due to the setting. Earthsea is a giant, possibly world-spanning archipelago, meaning there’s a ton of islands, each of which has its own way of life. The conflict naturally has Ged travel from island to island and interact with various peoples and creatures. The closest comparison I can think of is The Odyssey, and I’d be shocked if Le Guin didn’t draw inspiration from that. Both stories involve the protagonist traveling by sea and meeting a variety of characters and mythological creatures through smaller, discrete conflicts and interactions. Usually I find long travel sequences boring, but in this case they were one of my favorite parts of the book. There’s always a sense of anticipation on where Ged’s journey will take him next. 

The magic system is also is pretty cool. The idea is that all parts of nature, from humans to goats to oceans, have hidden “true” names. Knowing something (or someone’s) true name gives one power over it (or them). Thus wizards use true names to manipulate nature; giving another person your true name is an act of absolute trust and devotion. However, a big theme of the book is equilibrium. One must always be aware of potential consequences when using magic. Changing the wind in one part of the world could cause a devastating storm one island over. Sort of a butterfly effect type thing. 

Even though violence is one of my content warnings, I’m impressed that Le Guin largely circumvents it in the story. In many fantasy stories, a wizard/mage character uses their magic to fight and crush their foes. Not so much in this novel. While Ged clashes with various entities through the story, he usually just outsmarts them. Thus his showdown with a big, fuck-off dragon boils down to Ged guessing its true name and telling it to leave. Antagonists are usually the ones instigating violence. 

One thing I found odd about the pacing of the book is it slowed down a lot in the last few chapters. There’s a big action sequence with serious consequences around the novel’s midpoint, but everything after that is slower and more reflective. On a surface reading level, I’m not sure I liked this. I’m used to stories ramping up the tension more and more until the end. However, I did like the climax itself, when Ged reveals the shadow’s true name. The central moral of the novel is that one needs to accept everything about themselves, including their past mistakes. Everyone has a dark side, which ties into the central theme of balance, and even the opening poem of the novel (which I used as the excerpt for this review). It’s a pretty universal idea, but Le Guin presents it in a thematically satisfying way. 

I tagged this as a Young Adult novel because Le Guin wrote it for a teenage audience. YA didn’t exist as its own genre at the time, but A Wizard of Earthsea is a coming of age story (a staple of YA), and even has a moral message of sorts at the end. However, sometimes it’s really obvious that it’s intended for a younger audience. As I get older, I’ve noticed that YA tends to be pretty blunt about its meaning and symbolism in a way adult novels aren’t. For example, while pursuing the shadow, Ged gets lost in a mysterious fogbank. To me this was a clear callback to the first chapter, where Ged outsmarts a band of barbarians by trapping them in a fog. But Le Guin also made sure to tell me several pages later, in case I missed the parallel. I’m torn on this when reading YA. While I’m not the intended audience, I feel this approach underestimates teenagers’ ability to critically examine a text. But YA teaches many how to view things that way, so I see why authors do it. Teens aren’t a monolith, but it is interesting to see this tendency to over-explain in a novel from 50+ years ago. 

A Wizard of Earthsea is surprisingly progressive in many respects. Perhaps the most obvious is race. Ged and most of the main cast are explicitly nonwhite and described as such in the text. This isn’t a huge revelation in 2021, but it’s amazing to see something like that in a mainstream fantasy novel from 1968. Apparently Le Guin struggled with publishers for a long time, as many early covers whitewashed Ged for the sake of “sales” until she gained more creative control. And the (shitty) film/TV adaptations of Earthsea are just as guilty. I went through a LOT of covers while researching this book, and even newer editions often opt for heavily stylized art, nonhuman subjects, etc. The cover I chose is from 1984, when Le Guin presumably had more influence on Ged’s portrayal. I’m interested to see how past book covers stack up when I deep dive on the other books. 

However, I found the book to be not so progressive when it came to gender roles (I know, I wasn’t expecting that either). Le Guin makes it very clear that all the famous and powerful wizards/mages in Earthsea are dudes. The wizard school toward the beginning is all dudes. All the adventurers and sailors in the story are dudes. Ged himself makes some pretty sexist comments (though to be fair, that was pre-character development). There are relatively few female characters in the story, and many are either bit parts or (in one case) a seductive, power-hungry villain. Portraying sexism in a fantasy setting isn’t an inherently bad thing. Jemisin’s Dreamblood duology, which I read earlier this year, introduced stringent gender roles in order to explore the insidious nature of misogyny. But A Wizard of Earthsea doesn’t really go beneath the surface level. Yarrow is probably the most well-written female character in the story, and she only shows up in the last few chapters. Again, I’m interested to see how Le Guin handles this in later entries; the next book stars a female protagonist and Ged’s the deuteragonist. 

I liked A Wizard of Earthsea overall, and I think it serves as a good introduction to both the series and a central recurring character. While I have some criticisms of the first book, I do realize it’s a relatively early work of Le Guin��s. The last novel in this series was published in 2001, so I’m interested to see how the characters and writing changed over 30+ years. 

[starstuffandalotofcoffee]

Oh. What were your thoughts on Harrow the Ninth?

Oh man, so, spoilers everywhere below the cut and if the cut doesn’t work on mobile I am sorry for this webbed site. If you wanted my thoughts without spoilers do not read this; my spoiler free thoughts are extremely good, if you liked Gideon the Ninth it will not be a sequel letdown by any means.

I’ve never quite had this experience before which is a good thing: I started reading it, anxious to know what happened after the end of Gideon the Ninth, and it was CLEARLY some kind of weird alternate universe situation and I was incredibly frustrated because like, where is Gideon? For that matter where is the Harrow from Gideon the Ninth?

I think the most analogous experience I’ve had in terms of reading is when I read the Vorkosigan saga, the first couple of books are about the eventual main character’s mother, who is this badass scientific mission space captain who moves to a new planet for love and gets involved in a civil war (a lot more happens but this is a digression so I’m glossing over it) and I loved her as a main character and then the next book is about her fucking teenage son? It ended up being worth it but I spent pretty much the entire first book being annoyed, not because the story was bad but because it felt like they took the reason that got me hooked, namely a fucking awesome redheaded character (the redheadedness is incidental although as mentioned previously on this blog, plucky redheaded woman who doesn’t like sewing and would rather be doing science and/or swords is my personal representation in fantasy/sci fi), and then not just shifted the focus but pretty much had her minimally involved. Except instead of saying “oh she makes a cameo but now onto the main character” it’s “Gideon who?”

As a result it was harder to get into, even though I knew intellectually it would probably be worth it and the writing was as good and unique as ever. This did, however, make the ultimate twist absolutely amazing. I think I made audible shrieking noises alone in my apartment, which is very abnormal for me. I cannot wait for Alecto the Ninth.

Massive plot twist aside I love mythology in fiction and putting it in a space opera/psychological horror hybrid situation has been one of my favorite parts of the series overall. I also like how we weren’t done with the remaining characters; I feel like this is one of the only dream sequences ever I’ve actually loved as opposed to been like “okay but can we get back to the action”.

Funnily enough I’m not like, terribly interested in necromancy. I like fiction with LGBT characters and I like fantasy and I’m not grossed out by necromancy, but “lesbian necromancers” on its own isn’t actually enough to draw everyone in and I appreciate recommendations that actually covered the many other reasons to read the book (excellent worldbuilding, a really good writing style, being extremely funny and self-aware, containing multiple genres, being really fucking weird). With that said I do like how the ideas of necromancy were more fully filled (pun intentionally avoided) out in Harrow the Ninth because I am a math person and a D&D player and I love rules. I love magic that isn’t solely some physical exertion and saying some words - I like weird mechanics (Mistborn is a good example) and strange limitations.

I also like things that deal with the concept of immortality (I need to watch The Old Guard) and I think this might be my favorite take, namely the immortal people are just...totally selfish assholes who are smug and insufferable and clinging on to memes from ten thousand years ago and underestimate everyone else. I think one of my favorite parts of the Locked Tomb Trilogy is that 90% of the characters just kind of are shitty but highly entertaining people. I love high fantasy/epic fantasy where everyone is either noble or evil sometimes, but that can get boring. I got frustrated with this book but I did not get bored for a second.

[flying-elliska]

Ok I caught up with wtfock s3 because well, it felt weird to leave unfinished (except a few clips i just didn’t want to watch, like the attack one). here’s what worked and didn’t for me (i’m pretty critical so don’t read if that sort of thing upsets you or you’re not in the mood) because i still think having this story remade so often is an unprecendented storytelling experiment worth thinking about even when it doesn’t entirely work (and i think argumented criticism is good, but if you post hate about the actors/fans etc you really suck tbh) : 

- to start with positives : like many said, the acting was pretty damn good. overall wtfock has a really solid cast. the willems have succeeded in creating an onscreen queer intimacy that feels very believable, no holds barred and no awkwardness, and they have to be commended for that. there’s a lot of chemistry and tension at first between them, which then turns into something very soft and sweet and puppy-love-like. it was nice seeing Robbe evolve and the sweet bean energy that emanates from how the actor plays him is very very powerful. i also loved the warmth of the flatshare, and as a Dutchie I just adored the Sinterklaas bits, it was so funny and i loved the found family vibes. warmth is just something they do really well, esp with the last clips, perfume shopping, playing board games, the party at the end. They use the Christmassy vibes really well. the cinematography has its moments too, contrasts between warm and cold, the episode at the beach is gorgeous, the sequence in the tunnel, the light on their faces when they are in that classroom surrounded by drawings. wtfock as a whole is also good at creating some very lovable secondary characters, be it Milan, Yasmina, Noor, or especially king Senne. So, I do understand that there are things to love about this remake, which is probably why my disappointment feels so strong. I really wanted to care about these characters in their journey. 

- on to the controversial : i don’t necessarily fault them for wanting to show a more prononced aspect of homophobia. i think the debate about this often lacks nuance. on one hand, this is the sixth remake, and homophobia is something that is still often prevalent, and having one remake show that out of six is not in itself a problem. on the other, yes, happy fluffy stories are important, but sometimes people who have gone through stuff like this also need to see their experiences represented. the power of skam is that it shows difficult experiences BUT ALSO a happy ending. that can be very healing, i think, compared to other stories which focus only on the drama. the trouble is, i don’t think they dealt with it very well, or put any effort into processing the consequences of these harrowing things. and if you don’t, it feels cheap.

- on to my main gripe : the writing. previsible, i know. but to me, essential. and this is not about them ‘changing things’ - i like when remakes change stuff, when they do it well. the thing is, i have been burned too many times before. and when i sense that the writing is being wack, it makes it automatically much harder for me to invest emotionally in the characters. and simply put there were signs early on that made me distrust the writers. for starters, the first two episodes gave me a feeling that they didn’t have their priorities in order. the POV-immersion and depth is one of the most powerful aspects of skam, and it was lost. too many early clips felt out of Robbe’s perspective, and when it was him it was about Noor ; a few clips to show his discomfort were on point, but there were too many of them, and there were repetitive, losing time on what isn’t really an essential part of Robbe’s journey. and while they were spending time on clips that felt like misery flavored filler, they decided several times to condense original clips focused on Isak and Even, together ; like their first meeting and then their first hangout, or later in the series OHN and the minute by minute talk. and i think their story suffered from that. i think because they don’t have a real discussion early on, the buildup of their relationship feels mostly based on physical attraction. and while it certainly is a thing that happens, it just isn’t my fave love story thing. i missed the sweet pining from afar and tension that makes later drama believable. it felt like they brought the drama comparatively too fast without enough character work to make it worthwhile. Also there is just too much time spent on Zoenne drama, and their breakup seems like it foreshadows the dreaded s4 love triangle, which, yikes. the focus is all over the place, the rythm felt incoherent. 

- what’s more, they decided to introduce pretty grave elements of plot, like Robbe using slurs against Sander, the homophobic attack, the suicidal urges on both their sides, Sander kissing Britt while he was still saying I love you to Robbe in the morning, without either proper build up or resolution. It made it all feel cheap, jarring, and unearned, especially when they didn’t put trigger warnings or made jokes about it on insta or waited forever to give news about the characters being ok. it felt like drama for the sake of drama, and definitely not written with a vulnerable audience of queer teens in mind. and at the same time, when it came to the ‘big scenes’ of their relationship, like the first kiss or the universes talk or sander’s episode, it felt more or less lifted from OG without a lot of effort made to adapt it to them. i actually quit live watching/blogging after the first kiss scene, because of how similar it was, and how uninspired it felt, and lukewarm. it felt like a lack of imagination. when it came to OHN, the scene in itself was lovely, but the weird time gap, random timing and people seemingly doing nothing after a suicidal Sander disappeared, sort of broke it for me.  In the OG the combo of buildup, longing, realisation, fear, release works so well in a sequence, and splitting it over time really diluted it, to me. Similarly the quickly thrown out ‘life is now’ at the ending felt sort of out of nowhere, while in OG it was such a lovely bookend, him apologizing to Eva and reflecting on his growth. The symbolism, which ties everything so beautifully together in themes of rebirth, salvation, baptism, union, faith, deciding your own narrative in OG, here feels inconsistent. There is an attempt I see, something about wasteland vs. warmth/family, but it’s often absent of main clips. It’s nowhere near as coherent as it could be. 

- all of this builds up to the main problem for me, of the season. which is, i didn’t really get into Robbe and Sander’s relationship. Or their individual arcs for that matter. When it comes to Robbe, I guess he just isn’t my type of character. I feel like he is missing the fire of an Isak. A lot of the time he just felt too passive, like he let other characters make his decisions. I was waiting for him to stand up for himself more than he did. And there are too many scenes of another character doing his coming out for him. And then Sander ; I have to say I don’t understand all the love his character gets. Maybe because that’s because he sort of gives me Dutch fuckboi vibes...but there were several times he just came accross as a flat out asshole. I found him intriguing in his intro clip, chaotic and charming, but that never really went where i expected it to. i didn’t get his passion, what drew him to art. the symbolism around his character - basically Bowie, and drawing Robbe, and Chernobyl (which is a bit tasteless imho, turning a tragedy like that into a cutesy romantic thing), feels ...disjointed, and shallow to me. Like I never really got into it. And maybe some people did and noticed deeper links but to me, I got stuck at the surface. I saw a lot of interesting theories with what was going on with him but in the end they just copied OG. And I’m sad to say, but he ended up feeling like a manic pixie dream boy cliché to me, and i just didn’t understand what drew them to each other so strongly. Yes, Robbe is caring and Sander is in need of care, but that feels like a very reductive reproduction of OG. Beyond that...i don’t know. Certain complexities of the OG i loved  just...were sanded away, like Isak being ignorant about MI and learning compassion. This just...didn’t feel like it had the same depth, and often felt like soapy teenage drama, leaning too hard and too lazily on the actors’ chemistry. i like my romances wordy and solidly enmeshed in character development, and this was not it. It never felt like they had a real conversation about things, esp after the drama. 

- i think this is the first remake that made me actually angry for reasons not related to problematic cast shit, and so i’m trying to analyze that emotion. for me it comes down to too much drama, too heavy handed. Too much of the boy squad being shitty to Robbe, too much Noor, too much filler clips without any deeper meaning, too much things distracting from getting to know the main characters and going into their issues in depth. They changed stuff, but didn’t have the guts to actually follow through. They broke the mold but only in ways that ended up feeling shallow and unconsequential. Like I would have loved seeing Robbe go to therapy ! see his mom ! Zoe and Robbe go to the police together ! Sander have a complicated home situation ! or doing a Bowie related art installation to express his feelings of alienation ! seeing more of the underground graffiti scene ! or just...something, idk. And them also removing the faith-related themes also felt disappointing. and the ohn clip taking place in the place where sander draws feels very....basic to me, even if it was pretty. very ‘oh he’s an artist, here is his safe place’....hm, okay. I didn’t like that they made Britt into such a villain, I didn’t like how the boy squad showed no care for Robbe whatsoever for weeks until the plot said it was time for them to be redeemed in a way that felt too jarring, and I didn’t like that they made Moyo so horrible but redeemed him so easily. I actually thought they would show that it’s okay to separate yourself from friends who are that bigoted, because it just shows they are not willing to care for people. And him suddenly saying those sweet and mature things felt too out of characters and a ahah ‘gotcha’ rather than depth . I didn’t like that Robbe, too, was made so virulent by his internalized homophobia but got over it so quickly. I think what disappointed me most, in the end, was that I kept picking up potential and the show kept doing absolutely nothing with it, or confirming my fears, and it made me feel stupid and out of tune with whatever they were doing. And it’s, to me, symptomatic in modern storytelling of a trend to privilege shocks and twists over inner coherence and build up. And it makes for...Very underwhelming stuff, in the end. 

- all in all, i think this remake illustrates why s3 of OG is not as easy to remake as it sounds. it’s very intricate machinery, with a pitch perfect rhythm (and an extremely passionate nitpicky fanbase lmao). and if you don’t get all the parts of why it’s so great, you’re going to lose a lot of it. (and all the remakes ended losing up stuff in translation ; more or less compensated by inventivity and charm of their own.) so many mainstream press articles praise the real time/social media format and the ‘real talk about teen issues’ which, yeah, is part of the success, but doesn’t explain the devotion on its own. there’s the way the story uses real time to build up a storytelling rythm that feels organic and makes sense as if it was part of the lives of the viewer. There’s foreshadowing and aftershocks. Wtfock often feels like they wrote the clip numbers on darts and randomly threw them at a week planner. If an episode of a regular series ends on a cliffhanger, we can be thrilled and frustrated and put it aside for next week. but if you end an episode with a character shown to be suicidal, or you don’t show them being okay after a beating, for hours or days, that’s the emotion you leave your viewers with, because skam is a continuous experience. and remakes who pile on drama moments without respite (looking at you too skamfr s4) don’t get how tiring and disengaging this can be, in this format. skam worked so well because of how benevolent it was, on the whole. and also, cheeky, with that ‘don’t take it too seriously’ deflating humor. grumpy isak in ‘hate me now’ mode getting bumped into. this lightness and comedy often feels missing here. also my god the social media is absolutely terrible. plus...there is too much filler. honestly, them having more time, on the whole...ended up being a bad thing. Plus Wtfock feels like it has so much more unadressed plot points, like...why did Sander change his mind exactly and kiss Britt again ? How did Robbe’s mom react ? Who did the attack ? What is happening w Senne now ? etc. And it feels like they just missed the fact that OG, however subtly, did adress those things. 

- now, don’t get me wrong, i’m happy it’s popular in Belgium. On the whole it’s still a beautiful story of love and acceptance. and that people found something in it that spoke to them. but as a remake, it’s probably one of the most disappointing yet, to me. and i sort of...don’t get the hype. and i don’t want to be too ‘oh cute boys kissing’ cynical about it. but i think this illustrates why in the end, this is also very subjective. there are probably things i missed because i didn’t feel the need to examine it in depth or do the extra emotional work that comes with being a devoted fan of something. and some of their choices made me angry, and i’m not forgiving when it comes to these things. i still wish them success for s4 and whatever else, but i don’t think i will watch live, at least unless it gets really rave reviews about their treatment of Yasmina’s season. i mean they got s2 right, who knows? 

[badlydrawnmanic]

time for episode 5 because i’m bored as heck

• just thoughts during the theme song but i wish we got to see more of aleena • the extras in this opening scene look passable for mobians which is a surprise • sleet explains something to dingo while looking directly into the camera

• WHAT IS THIS CATERPILLAR DOG THING UGH • it’s a legal requirement for thief children to have wack hair • kjsdgsd max snapped • i think i remember some people shipping manic with this kid • what animal are any of these characters supposed to be • that bungee jump thing makes no sense at all which is terrible • who gave sonic a drivers liscence • sonic your whole thing is to help people and then some poor kid comes in your van like “help me” and you’re like “why should i” what is the truth • shit dude that van turns on a dime • nobody in this show knows how to drive do they • this little goblin dude juggling is kinda cute, his design ain’t bad. weird colors but that’s a given • what sleet turns dingo into reminds me of the koopalings right down to the voice • is manic older than max or does he just say “little bro” because max looks even shorter than manic does • manic: stealing’s wrong   max:

• max brings up a good point about like... how are they gonna survive without money from the shit they stole • i think i redesigned max at one point? i think i made him a xoloitzcuintli (those weird mexican hairless dogs)

• OH I DID, this was back when i mainly did lineless art (it was easier doing art like this rather than lined art with a mouse, i haven’t tried this style with my drawing tablet yet), i really like what i did here skjdgs small boy • there’s two background characters with names, there’s a girl named allegra with a huge nose and some pig looking gremlin critter named clifton, i think that’s interesting • is it like a cultural thing for all the thieves to have earrings or did the character designers just go “yeah only punks have piercings” • sonia’s being really mean about their music for no reason when it doesn’t sound awful, just let these kids play their accordions and violins in peace dude • manic is a gross boy and spits all over this girl to show off one of his little tricks, disgusting • the headcanons about dingo involved something about this episode i think, i’d have to go digging through dms to remember tho • there’s this bird character between allegra and clifton who looks depressed as shit • sleet looks ugly enough to be a passable spore creature and i might just try that if i have to look at his nasty face any longer • i understand what manic means when he’s like “haha this whole thing reminds me of when i was little and stole shit all the time” because i was a little kleptomaniac when i was a kid and like... getting away with it is fun as shit. of course i feel bad now but like... hey i get it • for once the siblings yelling out of surprise has some energy to it, though i wish it was less like “oh aah” and more like... y’know, actual startled sounds, it’s not super convincing • sleet is standing there with his gaping maw wide open pointing in one direction with no animation like a statue and it’s weird • swatbots are on the same level of aiming as storm troopers • what even are these lasers? are they lethal?? do they hurt??? i don’t think anyone’s gotten hit from what i remember so like what’s the danger • sonic just fucking... vaccums up all these children with wind from running, he’s gonna hurt someone, he’s so damn reckless • WHERE’D THEY GO • the little animation where manic takes out his drums doesn’t look half bad! it’s a pleasant surprise when bits of animation are higher quality than normal

• after saying that i realized his gloves disappeared in the shot i was just praising sndkgjds • how was the production of this show? did they color digitally or was this still in the time of hand-drawn animation cells? i wonder how rushed production was • is “amigas” proper spanish?   [googling]   yes it is nevermind   spanish class as a required class was pointless apparently because i don’t remember jack shit from it • dingo you aren’t allowed to steal the “main man” title from manic (my nickname in our discord server was “my main man, manic” for the longest time sjkdgbs)

• it’s kinda neat seeing where all these pics my boyfriend gave me when i was looking for refs came from • i’ve thought that a song was gonna play tiwce now so now i’m wondering when it’ll come in and if it’ll be plot relevant • bummer majores • i get the point of “aw man i can’t believe you have to give all this money to robotnik because he’s evil and demands taxes” but hey either tax the rich or eat them dude • this old man’s outfit is horrendous • sonic and sonia just hid behind behind a thing hanging on the wall and that just wouldn’t work • manic and max both like drums... ;v; • why are manic and dingo just throwing glass bottles and shit back and forth at each other, is this a game • DINGO YOU HURT THE BOY • god what are these masks • SONG TIME • again, manic’s just talking in the middle of the song, and i get it’s for plot but the visuals are, again, sickeningly distracting, i can’t tell what’s happening • how does nobody notice the drummers changing place in the middle of the performance? how is there not a gap in the drum/cymbal beats? • these poor children, wow dingo • it’s really sweet that this old man helped the thief kids find parents and homes to go back to, that’s very nice • manic has one (1) coin and everyone takes that as evidence that he robbed the old man of all his money when that also doesn’t make sense, yes he took it from the vault thing but he didn’t take the whole thing? • why does manic just let the robot handcuff him, i know he feels guilty but like he isn’t an idiot, he knows what’ll happen if he does that so why does he??? • why do sonic and sonia immediately believe what sleet says about manic, shouldn’t they be on guard whenever this fuck’s around and have some suspension of belief here • this man went from 0 to 100 real quick huh • SONG TIME??? • i forgot that the song already happened because of my confusion during the sequence and now i feel like an idiot • anyway the song was like a 5.5/10, it has the energy i think they were going for and it doesn’t sound awful, it’s a little better than alright, though i wish the scene was more coherent and easy to follow • sonia’s classist as hell damn • sonic’s faith in manic being honest is nice to see • the thief children didn’t get their homes after this?? i’m upset • two bros laughing manically in the sewer in front of a very small crowd of children, as you do • manic talking to himself in jail kinda reminds me of movie!sonic but like... slower and less interesting, also why do they just throw him in jail? doesn’t robotnik roboticize everyone? • that one kid dares to look in max’s direction and he’s like ShShHhH like your hushing is gonna get you caught dude not that kid • MAX IS THROWING METAL THINGS IN THE BACKGROUND WHY??? YOU WERE SHUSHING THAT KID FOR SAYING NOTHING • max should be like... directly in sleet’s line of sight rn • of course they gotta very clearly explain the plot directly to the audience • everyone’s so shitty to these poor kids, damn • you’d think that huge laser blast would have injured manic in the process of blowing a hole in the wall • why’s sonia so concerned about the police chasing them? aren’t the police chasing them all the time? • manic nyooms again when he gets out of the van • these robots aren’t observant at all are they • for once, reusing animation makes sense • yay the poor kids get homes now • as nice as this ending is, it isn’t easy to kick bad habits like thievery, especially when it’s like... part of your nature at that point? it’s odd

• god the perspective • also, this is exactly why i give everyone on this blog extended muzzles and more clear divides between their eyes when they’re looking to the side, otherwise they look cursed • IT’S TIME TO JUICE AND JAM

[arecomicsevengood]

Alan Moore’s WildC.A.T.S

I gotta wonder if Alan Moore is pretty happy about his nineties period of working for Image Comics, inasmuch as it’s out of print and no one asks him about it. Like, doing business with a person like Rob Liefeld, whose career is a series of shitty self-sabotaging business decisions, may be preferable to working with the people at DC Comics who know what they’re doing enough to continually screw a man over.

These WildC.A.T.S comics are not by any means great, but DC owns the rights to them but hasn’t kept them in print. The trades I have are from 1999, and Alan Moore’s name is not printed anywhere on the cover. This might be because there are way too many artists to credit alongside him. Travis Charest draws the covers to the trades, Homecoming and Gang War, and while he is easily the best artist represented within their pages, he definitely doesn’t draw the majority of the run. Charest’s style is fascinating. He must’ve been the best artist Wildstorm had at the time, and putting him on a book together with Moore could’ve been a real gunning-for-greatness move. He’s genuinely slick, in a way that reinforces how Jim Lee is comparatively noodling, with all this aggressive hatching and needless detail. He’s closer to John Cassaday, or latter-period Jae Lee. There’s a sense of a realism to anatomy and proportion, and this sense of dynamic lighting so that everything feels posed, like fashion photography or a movie poster, that gets configured into sequences which, while they don’t really work in terms of action sequences, are able to sell the melodrama of superhero comics, by virtue of looking cool. Maybe that’s overselling it: It’s more like, his figures definitely look like they’re posing all the time, but his staging is solid, and they end with more dignity, while the rest of the Homage Studios C-listers filling these books have a chaotic ineptness that makes action scenes feel exhausting to look at. He definitely possesses the major flaws associated with the Image artists, even if I’m saying he’s “better” than them: He doesn’t draw backgrounds if he can help it, and he is nowhere near fast enough to draw a monthly book. The best issue is split between Travis Charest and Kevin Nowlan. Kevin Nowlan’s pretty great, but he has such a weird career, and has drawn so little, it’s always unclear if it’s meant to be a big event when he turns up or if he’s being treated like a journeyman fill-in artist. He shows up here for one issue, but it’s an oversized anniversary issue, and he’s really good in it, and he letters his pages. Nowlan, of course, would work with Alan Moore on the Jack B. Quick strip in Tomorrow Stories, but there’s only a few of those, with my understanding for that being those were pretty challenging for Moore to write. While I might imagine a Moore/Charest/Nowlan superhero comic would be a perpetual seller, that wouldn’t have been hard to make happen, maybe none of the principal players would’ve been interested in that.

Moore’s storytelling here, moreso than on Supreme, is deliberately dumbed down to accommodate the Image style. What emerges is an object lesson in how something can be totally dumb but still basically work. To get around the fact that his artist cannot handle a monthly book, he splits the cast. Half of each issue takes place on Earth, the other half in space. The stuff in space upends the book’s status quo, but also feels like he’s fleshing out incredibly skeletal characters in a way that makes them, not well-rounded, but interesting enough for organic conflicts to emerge between them. Alan Moore has this backhanded compliment he gives Stan Lee in an interview somewhere, where he says that Stan made superheroes two-dimensional, whereas before they were one-dimensional, and here it seems like be’s basically doing the same thing. The stuff in space is largely about caste systems and political conflict: It’s genuinely interesting, and also seems like it was inherent within the premise of each character but just not worked out at all. It really seems like a smart way to write dumb characters, that is simplistic enough that, when the next writer comes on to the book who’s not as smart as Alan Moore, they should be able to keep rolling with it no problem, because a caste system is inherently simplistic and plainly fucked up, and therefore a source of simple conflict.

Most pages seem to have, on average, three panels apiece. He gives Charest an issue where like half of the pages are pin-ups of a character flying. It works pretty well at being stupid! The characters are dumb, the whole engine of the plot on Earth is that the characters are actively being manipulated into escalation of violence and conflict. The main new character he introduces is a violent cyborg who loves Trent Reznor. She’s named Ladytron, and I briefly thought the electroclash band was named after this character, which would’ve been insane, before Googling to realize the way more understandable truth, which is that both band and character are named after a Roxy Music song. She’s an example of this thing that also characterizes Warren Ellis’ Stormwatch run, where the creators seem encouraged to come up with new characters, but they also basically must feel like they need to, in order to come up with something they can actually write because what exists in the book’s history is this weird form of baggage where the preexisting characters in a book are just fundamentally empty. Ladytron is sort of astoundingly generic and of-her-time, a cyborg lady that just loves killing! kind of like Deadpool or Lobo but as a woman with eyebrow piercings! in a way where I actually do get on board and think, this is a cool character, a good addition to the WildC.A.T.S group dynamic. There’s a completely unearned revelation that she was sexually abused thrown out there at the end of the run which is maybe the most egregious example of Alan Moore putting sexual assault in his comics ever, notable even if you’re inclined to forgive it in most other instances.

Maybe it would’ve been okay if the book had been drawn consistently well? Because, after Moore reunites his bifurcated cast, Charest leaves the book, never to return, and goddamn does the book lose momentum. This coincides with the interjection of a linewide crossover, during which one of the main characters in the book gains some more backstory, and also happens around the same time the story is wrapping itself up and having its other plotline culminate. It’s funny, the book could’ve easily been a lot better, which wouldn’t have brought it up to great, but rather the standard of “readable junk,” but it also feels like no one involved was that interested in reaching that level with any regularity.

[derkastellan]

Musings: That fantasy show no one is making...

Fantasy is a genre of movie and television is a back and forth. Nobody talks about it for a while and then it’s back with something big. “Lord of the Rings”. “Game of Thrones��. And yet they fail to make the show I’d like to watch.

I’d say the fantasy genre is good at painting itself into corners. Or being painted into corners. Each success digs a hole it then falls in and vanishes for a while. The “Hobbit” movies were abysmal (compared to the “Lord of the Rings” movies) and had “money grab” written all over them. The prequel shows for “Game of Thrones” are basically cancelled. 

I wasn’t really a fan of “Buffy the Vampire Slayer” (and its spinoff “Angel”), or “Hercules” and “Xena”, but they did something right. (And so did “Highlander”.) They were successful ongoing stories about monster hunting. And they were doing fantasy in a way you could watch it every week, even if it was “urban fantasy” or ripping off Greek mythology and not “classic fantasy.”

Fantasy - in the sense of pseudo-medieval, wizards, druids, and shit - however has not been released in that format, really. Yet I think it would do really well. The problem, I think, are fantasy-themed movies defining the genre in the heads of television producers. 

In the 80s, fantasy met clear special effects limitations, but the stuff we got was “The Neverending Story”, “Willow”, and “The Dark Crystal”. Save-the-world plots. In two out of three you can see very clearly the limitations of their SFX possibilities. (Oh, and the astoundingly dark “The Black Cauldron” by Disney. Holy cow. And a first “Lord of the Rings” animated movie, showing the potential of animation to do fantasy.) 

Oh, and the Conan movies, especially the first one - a brillant piece of Sword & Sorcery, very nice, but that one - like He-Man and everything else in the 80s - fed the desire for larger-than-life action heroes - like Arnold became in many movies. It soon didn’t matter what these “heroes” did, as long as lots of extras died, their muscles showed, and you got a lot of bang for the buck.

In the 2000s we got the “Lord of the Rings” (saving the world, now including mass battle sequences) and the “Harry Potter” movies, the latter being a genre of their own (which found its own imitators, but I forget who is what.) People clearly like fantasy and it can draw audiences beyond genre fans if done right.

In the 2010s we got “Game of Thrones” (for example). Here we see that somebody adapted fantasy not revolving around a story that just meant getting the MacGuffin to save the world or similar. Power politics. Factions. Murder. Tits and ass, and lots of it. (And rape.) The show made sure that there were all kinds of “adult thrills” in it. (Hey, “It’s not porn, it’s HBO!”)

I out myself as a fan of Piers Anthony and his life-sized protagonists and their life-sized struggles. Or take Fritz Leiber’s Fafhrd and the Grey Mouser. There are plenty of stories that don’t need protagonists that save the whole world and then their story concludes.

The actual premise of D&D - go out, kill monsters, fight multiple villains, save villagers and what not - was obviously good enough for hundreds of video games. Why does it not show up on the “small screen?” Something like Leiber where our “heroes” are half-scoundrels making their living in a rough city. Dungeon explorers. Whatever.

The silly thing is that doing something like Lankhmar doesn’t need a huge SFX budget, the bane of many fantasy productions. Most antagonists can just be human. You can develop a core cast that can play off each other. This should be prime TV material, actually, especially in the age of Netflix. Just play it fucking straight for once! No quirky twists, no bizarre unique thing about your world. Even playing it straight would be novel by now because it hasn’t really been done.

Frankly, TV doesn’t have to be that original. How many crime and cop shows are out there that only slightly diverge in the disposition of their “asking the questions” cast? How many adaptations of Sherlock Holmes? A show like “Highlander” was solid TV (and definitely better than the 2nd movie). Fantasy has the possibility to be a TV staple. Just make the episodic format work.

I mean, now we have “The Witcher” this and that, but again, there’s a large plot moving around, and fate of nations. Where are the people that just make their own lives work? A fantasy party could be at times like “Friends” and it could do mystery and crime investigations. I sometimes joke to my players about “CSI: Woodrealm” when they ask questions about a mystery murder they could have gotten off of a cop show. The fantasy genre is versatile because we made it so. There’s a lot of ideas buried in modules written for role-playing games.

Once upon a time the “Star Wars RPG” not only preserved the “Star Wars” universe when the movies petered out, it also did the world-building that video games and comics and books then expanded upon, until we got more “Star Wars” movies (albeit mostly shitty ones) and TV shows. RPGs are notoriously good at creating worlds for basing stories in.

Think small. Or at least smaller. Make a decent fantasy TV show.

[nonbinarylatula]

Gunnerkrigg's Ether, the Hope and Rage aspects, and Kat's and Zimmy's classpects

Spoiler warnings for the webcomics Gunnerkrigg Court and Homestuck.

In the webcomic Gunnerkrigg Court, there are several characters who are literal deities from human mythology. They interact directly with humans, and are able to provide concrete proof that the myths about them are true. For example, Coyote created the stars, and is able to interact with celestial bodies by plucking them out of the sky. The main character Annie is even able to touch the moon when Coyote demonstrates this, permanently leaving her fingerprint there for anyone who observes it later in the comic. However, there are multiple myths about the creation of the stars, which can’t possibly all be true, and in addition to that, we have a character (Jones) who had existed since before the birth of life on Earth, and can vouch for the presence of the stars from the very beginning. We find out that these deities’ existence is sustained by the Ether, a force which reflects the collective belief of many humans at a time, and can put in place a kind of “dual truth.” I think this is a really cool cosmology, and many works of fiction which I really like use it to great effect. Two which I think are particularly cool are Niel Gaiman’s American Gods and the Tumblr blog @zuckerberg-for-president.

In Homestuck, reality is constructed from twelve aspects, which exist in six complementary/opposing pairs. One pair I find particularly interesting is Hope and Rage. They both deal with faith, truth, and the story’s relationship with the fact that it’s fictional. Hope, with it’s whole “believing hard enough makes it slightly less fake” thing, mirrors the phenomenon of suspension of disbelief. When humans are following a story, we get swept up in it. Even though intellectually we know it’s composed almost entirely of outright lies, we suspend our disbelief and can feel very real emotions about its characters, almost as if we knew them.

Bilbo Baggins is a hobbit. Bilbo Baggins is a human.

Both of these sentences are false. But by reading a story, or even absorbing secondhand cultural knowledge about it, we construct in our minds a universe where one of them has the ring of truth to it. And in Homestuck, the Hope aspect allows that imaginary truth to interact with the real (or, less imaginary?) truth. In Gunnerkrigg Court, the Ether serves the same function.

Zimmy has a unique connection to the Ether. She’s plagued by hallucinations, except that if they get bad enough, other people start to see them, too. And if they get even worse, they become real. As a Mage of Hope, this relationship she has to the Ether makes sense, as it gives her a unique understanding of the magical world, especially later in the comic. But, as a Mage, she of course has to suffer for her aspect.

(https://www.gunnerkrigg.com/?p=461)

The guiding/knowing classes are characterized by the narrative pushing them to the background. While they aren’t necessarily irrelevant characters, their biggest impacts will usually be actions taken by other characters. The Mage, though, is an active class, so there’s some tension there.

(https://www.gunnerkrigg.com/?p=2263)

This is very late in the comic, where she’s come to terms a bit with her role. She and Gamma, I think, are very similar to Sollux and Aradia in terms of their placement relative to the rest of the plot. They’re sort of just doing their own thing, only occasionally intersecting with our main narrative, but just begging for a spinoff that focuses on them. Zimmy and Sollux have a lot in common, actually, in terms of general mannerism, though that wasn’t the reason I originally pinned her as a Mage. Her conversation with Annies in the pages surrounding this is what made it click for me.

It’s actually pretty wild how well it all comes together in this conversation. I don’t think a Homestuck fan could possibly read something about the fakeness or realness of magic without getting flashbacks. It almost makes you wonder if it’s intentional.

For more Hope symbolism surrounding Zimmy, look no further than her biggest fan Jack. What a creep, am I right? One really, really big motif in Hope characters is romantic feelings, specifically those that go unrequited or turn sour. So a Mage of Hope, in being directly spoken to and given information by her aspect in a negative way, would only naturally have a stalker like Jack.

The aspect Hope is paired with Rage, as both its opposite and complement. Where Hope tries to fool you into thinking a story is real, Rage tries to remind you it’s fake. Its symbols and motifs include puppets, masks, clowns, face paint, stages and their curtains. All objects which signify what you’re watching is a farce, displayed for solely your amusement. If Hope is the suspension of disbelief, Rage is a Lampshade.

Kat Donlan is effectively the second main character of Gunnerkrigg Court. (Well, she was, until the main character Annie got split in two, taking up the first two spots instead of one.) And, like Zimmy, she has a very interesting relationship to the Ether which I think shows that she’s a Seer of Rage. This is first called to our attention when we visit the Realm of the Dead, and the comic shows it to us from her perspective instead of Annie’s.

(This is one of my favorite sequences in the comic. I’ve selected some more relevant pages in it, but I suggest you ready the whole thing, starting at https://www.gunnerkrigg.com/?p=1304 end ending at the end of the chapter.)

As Mort takes Annie to a massive, mystical library, populated by strange eldritch creatures and terrifying gatekeepers, Kat steps into a shitty haunted house filled with nonsensical beaurocracy and guys in half-assed Halloween costumes. Basically, in a place constructed entirely from this universe’s equivalent to Hope, Kat is perceiving it via the visual language of Rage. Later, when Annie is trying to free an Elf from a massive Etherial labyrinth, Kat is able to go in, see only Annie standing next to the elf locked in some handcuffs, and free him with nothing but an ordinary set of lockpicks. Meanwhile, Annie sees a massive, terrifying entity become part of the labyrinth’s landscape. She can’t even tell it’s not part of the structure at first.

(https://www.gunnerkrigg.com/?p=1756)

By the way, Zimmy sees Kat as a creature like that 24/7.

In the symbolic language of Gunnerkrigg Court, robots are associated with Rage. First, to enter the robot-only sector of the Court, Annie wears a pair of fake antennae as a disguise, and it works completely - so, by participating in a Rage-associated activity, she is seen as a part of the robots’ world. Second, much later in the comic, she and Kat find a secret basement with some of the first models of Court robots, who begin to fight each other when activated. But they quickly realize the fights are all choreographed, as part of a play designed by Diego - the creator of the robots and likely a Page of Rage - as some sort of wish-fulfillment fantasy. Third, while most robots have no faces, the King of the Robots has a blank plate which he draws on with a white board marker to display different emotional expressions. It’s definitely remeniscent of Rage’s symbols of masks and face paint, especially the two smiling and frowning masks of comedy and tragedy. Finally, Rage is the aspect in the comic most associated with religion, especially if it’s more cult-like, and the robots do form a sort of cult around Kat.

Kat has a great affinity for the Court’s robots. She understands them better than the Court itself, and can even read their language - one designed to be read by machines, which can’t physically be written on a 2-dimensional surface, and which humans shouldn’t even be able to comprehend.

Rage is associated with emotions, and Kat is probably the one who can tell Annie’s emotional state best. Even when Annie has physically splintered all her negative emotions off of herself, in the form of a fire monster, and is proceeding as though she’s completely fine, Kat can tell she isn’t.

When Red (in a fit of Rage) breaks ties with Annie, she justifies it with an unfair narrative which, while technically accurate, interprets all of Annie’s actions in the most uncharitable and bad-faith light imaginable. Kat sees this for what it is - bullshit.

Again, in the Realm of the Dead scene, it’s only because of what Kat can see that Annie and Mort find what they’re looking for.

Basically, Kat uses her knowledge of and unique ability to percieve the Rage aspect to help her friends and guide them to victory.

Please send me feedback, I’d love to hear what people think about this! 

[vastderp]

Okage: Shadow King is such a great little game.

been replaying Okage: Shadow King this past week or two and it’s both better and worse than I remember. worse in that oh my lord they released this game too early and it’s buggy as fuck. better as in HOLY SHIT WHAT A GREAT STORY. 

spoilers obviously.

like the part you play is fairly boilerplate RPG, but shit’s just... weird. the world is tiny, supposedly having been spared from a global catastrophe 300 years ago. roaming monsters all look like something a child would draw, except finished by a professional. There are monster paintings that are just crayon scribbles on a framed canvas. There is a floating anteater hanging from a party balloon. it has a scribbly checkered pattern that is only partly colored in, also with crayon. 

NPCs are not named, they’re “classified” by their roles in the story. every now and then a list comes from the King of all the new “classifications” for the inhabitants of the world, telling them what they are. So they’ll be called stuff like YOUNG MAN WHO BELIEVES IN JUSTICE (and who can never shut up about Justice) and SLEEPY TOWN MANAGER (who was merely drowsy until he got "classified” at which point he couldn’t stay awake anymore to do his job). 

the world is small and simplistic and the people are very limited, to the point of sometimes seeming to be sleepwalking. The NPC who watches over the nonfunctional train station is completely brain-fried, because there is no train and no purpose for him to fulfill but hey somebody needed a stationmaster for the train station scene. who is that guy? who was he before he was given his incredibly vague role? did it erase everything else about him? is that why he doesn’t know if he’s met me before?

half the people you talk to seem like fully realized individuals being mind controlled into playing a role. funny thing, that!

even the villains are just doing what a little voice told them. they got “classified” as an Evil King, and boom! evil powers! now the Hero has to go fight them! your character’s family are assholes who have sold your soul to the evil Shadow King (stan for short) in exchange for Stan reversing a pig latin curse on your older sister.

this matters because if your sister is forced to speak in pig latin, she will be “classified” (quotation marks are always around that word per game styling) as a comic relief girl and it will ruin her marriage prospects. we’re told “classifications” matter a lot in this world, as you will see for yourself later. something as simple as being “classified” as a different fictional character trope can and will result in your life and your actual personality changing to match it. It’s played for laughs, but imagine if you were a STRESSED-OUT SOPHOMORE and you went on a bad weekend pub crawl and got “classified” as a STUMBLING DRUNKARD three days from final exams.

anyway, your character has no “classification”. he’s so forgettable it just never happened, i guess? which makes him a perfect vessel for a power-drained demon king that needs to parasitize a person’s shadow to live. so, there you go. your job is to beat up the demons that stole Stan’s power, get him back to his full strength, and then... i dunno, watch your swordswoman companion and newly separated Stan fight to the death, probably. that’s what they plan on doing, anyway. and that’s what you’re told is the plot of the game. but nope, that’s just how you get to the plot. see, the fucked-upness of the world gets more and more apparent as you go. at first you can write it off as the gamemakers screwing up (this is a very rough game, so that is understandable) but it’s more than that.

after a while of truly lousy dungeons, hilarious dialogue and goofy monsters, there is a “joke” that you can hear from various NPCs. This joke is actually not a joke at all, but people can’t stop laughing long enough to tell the whole thing to you. the story is actually very sad, but because it’s “classified” as a joke, people are compelled to laugh at it and think of it as funny.

the story is about a parent turtle and its baby turtle. one day the baby turtle is playing in the safe little yard its parent made for it, and gets lost. while it’s looking for the baby, the parent comes across a pebble that looks like its baby, and takes it home all happy that it’s found its child. the real baby finds its way home, only to see the parent has replaced it with a damn rock. the parent turtle refuses to admit the pebble isn’t its real baby, because if it admits to its error, it would look stupid. deep down, the turtle knows the pebble isn’t really its child, that the real baby is out there somewhere alone because the parent can’t put aside its pride admit it’s been fooling itself all this time. 

that’s basically a fairy tale about a narcissistic parent, isn’t it? it’s also the story of the big bad of this game, who made your world into a toybox for his daughter to play in, until she disappeared into it. not to worry, he made a pebble doll that looks just like his missing child and enchanted it to seem alive. don’t remind him it’s not really her. just don’t.

so.

this game has been pretending up til now to be a cheeky parody of the RPG genre with weird details that makes no sense. now we find out another reason why things are this way: the shitty enemies, the dazed and “classified” NPCs, the weirdly non-threatening child’s drawing monsters, all of these things are the creations of the big bad, and they look this way because they’re meant to be safe, fun game pieces for a little kid to play with. 

“classification” is not just a winking acknowledgement of the genre, it’s an actual magical force used by the big bad to create roles for living human beings who are effectively mind controlled slaves. that’s some dark stuff right there, if you look past the cutesy video game storytelling for a sec and imagine what that must be like for the people. it’s a simple story, hidden inside the decoy RPG plot, but damn if it isn’t good.

so, about the the small world you can explore in the game: it used to be a lot bigger, but it’s been cut out of the much larger real world by magic and turned into a sort of childproofed playpen full of colorful NPCs specifically “classified” (presumably from the residents of the part of the world that got isolated) for the intended player to encounter on an adventure plot. 

You aren’t the intended player of the game, either. your protagonist is a random boring teenager who didn’t get “classified” at all, presumably because everyone, including the big bad, forgets he’s there. He was left off the list entirely, making him very useful to the opponent of the big bad, a former collaborator and “classification” worker who rebelled. this former collaborator is the same guy who originally spread the story of the turtle and the pebble to shame the big bad, by the way. to make the story go away, big bad tried to “classify” it as a joke. ok dude, you do you.

People who don’t get “classified” can act however they choose, it looks like. they don’t get stuck in the story like YOUNG MAN WHO BELIEVES IN JUSTICE, who can only stand on the sidewalk and talk about justice. somebody who wanted to fight the big bad, who’s always looking for gaps in the system to drive a wedge into, could really break the game if he could find someone who wasn’t “classified” to work through. he’s done it before (unsuccessfully) but this time around, your player character is that wedge. 

and what a wedge he is!

imagine Link running all those endless, thankless errands in all his endless, thankless incarnations. saving babies, fetching cheese, herding goats, getting no real say in things but always doing the hard work--that’s you. now imagine Link literally fades into invisibility from being ignored so hard. that is also you. as in, your character will disappear from existence at one point when the big bad decides you’re ruining his daughter’s RPG adventure (more like because you make him remember that she’s just a doll and not actually his missing daughter) and writes you out of the story. it’s easy to do because your character’s main trait is that people don’t really pay attention to him. even in the game itself, this character is just your vehicle to play Okage: Shadow King and enact the choices you make. (this game gets super meta and i love it.)

big bad just emphasizes your overshadowed (eh? ehhhh?) nature until you stop existing at all. 

while you’re invisible, you end up in the town of Triste, where ignored people gather. this whole sequence is just amazing--half the businesses are closed, or they’re open and you can hear music and smell food but no one is inside. a lot of people who are inside their homes won’t open the door and might yell at you to go away. some folks hang around outside and will talk to you. everyone is sad but happy to have this place to belong when no one else can see they exist. Triste is well-named (means “sad” in french). it’s basically the town of social anxiety, hesitation, longing and depression. and it’s amazing. 

you can find a closed up house where, when you knock, a guy inside yells “I HOPE IT BREAKS! THAT TINY WORLD OF YOURS!” like. someone’s extra mad at the big bad 0_0

and oh hey by the way, while you’re exploring this beautiful village of forgotten NPCs, you run into the voice of a certain princess who got lost in the world her father made for her to play in who knows how many hundreds of years ago. turns out this poor kid used to play all sorts of fun games in the world, but she ended up in Triste. while the doll version of her has adventures, she can watch through its eyes, so she knows you despite never having actually met. 

man, imagine being that poor baby turtle princess and having to wait around all alone in a town full of invisible sad people because your dad has replaced you, in his grief, with an enchanted doll. but now someone’s come to help her, someone who is also sad and alone because everyone’s forgotten them. your defining flaw as a character, your tendency to be neglected to the point of non-existence, is what allows you to connect with the lost princess. your sorrow brings you to a place where you can plan to make real change and fix your broken ass world. i fucking love that! 

first you have to get people to acknowledge you so you will stop being invisible, and then you have to confront the big bad’s weird grief-crazy reign of terror, bring the real princess back from Triste, and end the “classification” system that keeps the world isolated and its people enslaved. somewhere in all of this, you will also presumably need to deal with the fully-powered Shadow King, but eh. later for that. 

this is the ps4 version, so first i have to get the goddamn Q of Hearts for the platinum trophy. THEN we’ll deal with Stan.

[scribeofjiaal]

It’s the New Year

2019

[read more because I’m about to wax eloquent for seven paragraphs]

Since, like most, the events of my adolescent years have begun falling into the fog of memory, I often use the year to calculate just how long I’ve been working on these stories. Namely that I knew I wrote the first scene [a sequence that has remained by and large unchanged in the years hence, minus updates to the language I use and some character names] when I was in 7th grade. I graduated 2010, minus five to get us back to that school year brings us to 2005. 

The ideas of the world began percolating before then, I know that I first began drawing mage-marks on my hands in time for middle school orientation, but it wasn’t until a bit later that a mess of ideas became a scene and that scene was later handed to my 7th grade English teacher as I rode the mixed bag of elation and anxiety that came from feeling like I had done something important but not knowing what it was. I can say that the Empire of Jiaal has existed in some form in my head since the age of twelve, meaning sixteen years of work has gone into world-building and the Ehtmoph language, but the story itself began its shambling existence fourteen years ago, which neatly makes it exactly half of the years I’ve lived so far. 

For as long as I’ve been writing, this story has been part of my mental landscape in some shape or form. It’s always here, be it my main focus or floating on the edges. I’ve left it and come back again, it being the one thing I could never leave behind in the embarrassment of my teen years and my awkward growth as both a writer and a person. 

2018 saw a sea change as I began writing a new draft. After more than a decade of trying to find a delivery mechanism for the expansive world I created, my thinking had shifted and realized that the strength I’ve had as an author has always come from characters, not setting... and the characters I made were products of a child’s mind that, minus one favorite, had not grown since then. I’d put them into boxes, boxes I recognized as a child; the protagonist, the innocent, the love interest, the stoic, the warrior, the mature one-- and keeping those characters in those boxes limited who they could become as I grew up. Each one had remained hallow for years, more plot devices than persons. 

In 2018, that changed. 

So many things changed.

2018 might have seen some of the most stressful time of my life so far. I moved to an island in the middle of an ocean, I had to cope with a fresh long-term deployment while the US leadership seemed to make a game out of seeing how much sleep I could lose in a given week over their antics. I picked a home that was, admittedly, too big for one person despite knowing I would occupy it on my lonesome for an extended period of time while living here, expecting I’d make enough friends to put the space to use while entertaining... and forgetting that I’m kinda shite at meeting new people. There’s been more than a little financial hardship as hubby and I manage our debts along side the costs of traveling home to see the family once in a while. There’s the fact that both of our families are on the other side of the planet, so even the simple pleasure of calling home becomes stressful at times. 

2018 also saw certain joys, however. My marriage evolved this year, breaking down a major barrier of communication that had existed between myself and my husband for years as for the longest time we’d both struggled with something as simple as stating what we wanted out of our lives together. This has provoked growth in our partnership, and also led to a space where he’s been able to express just how much I do for him in the grand scheme of things, alleviating some of the anxiety I feel due to my monetary dependence on him. I’d begun to feel like I was using him, to an extent, but he’s helped me see the value in all the things I do... and reminded me that if there’s anyone else who is as invested as me in my creative work, it’s him. He’s never seen it as frivolous or a waste of time, and that is something so special to me it’s beyond words. 

Today is the first day of 2019, and I’ve taken it to reflect. I’ll still say this; 2018 was a shitty year, and I was happy to stay up till midnight last night as a symbolic gesture of watching it die... but in with the hardship were some truly special moments. 

Goodbye 2018. May I remember you as a painful transformation into something greater. 

Here’s to the coming year, -The Scribe

[emptymasks]

Everyone in This Cinema Hates Us

Pairing: James "Bucky" Barnes/Loki, Steve Rogers/Tony Stark (background)

Words: 2508

Rating: Teen And Up Audiences

Read on Ao3

Notes: I have this document filled with prompts I copied and pasted from Tumblr, and I was looking through it in the hopes of getting inspired to write a Lorca/Tyler fic, or maybe another thing for Baby Driver, but I saw this prompt and instantly thought of these two.

I know this isn’t a popular ship, but I’ve loved it for a while now and I’ve been wanting to write for them.

And I can’t believe it’s taken me this long to write about Loki. It’s been like five years since I’ve been making stuff up in my head about him. I guess before now I just didn’t really have the confidence to write stuff.

First time writing for these characters (and for anyone in the MCU) so I’d really love some feedback. :) 

Based on this prompt: “my friend dragged me to see this movie and it’s shit and you think so too so now we’re making snarky remarks and now everyone in the theater hates us” au

Prompt is taken from this list: http://aphrotdite.tumblr.com/post/124452012457/cinema-aus-nobody-asked-for

“I’m not going.” Loki leaned back against the doorframe that separated his apartment from the rest of the world.

He shifted his weight and crossed his arms.

“You promised you would get to know them better.” Thor looked almost forlorn as he gestured to where they stood at the end of the hall.

Thor had recently made some new friends: Korg and Miek. Loki still hadn’t managed to find out if those where their real names. He hoped they weren’t, what idiot would come up with those names, but that’s all they ever went by.

“You asked if I would spend some time with them, I said sure. That was hardly a promise.”

“Loki, when was the last time you spent time with anyone?”

“I don’t see how that’s any of your business,” Thor opened his mouth to argue, but Loki kept talking. “And anyway, Amora and I went out last week. I do have friends, Thor.”

“When was the last time you spent time with someone who wasn’t Amora?”

Loki didn’t answer. He stood up a little straighter and said nothing.

The two of them just stared at each other.

At least, they did until Thor moved into Loki’s apartment, knocking against Loki’s side.

“What are you doing?” Loki stalked after his brother.

Thor grabbed the black jacket hanging over Loki’s chair, and then walked past him to grab a pair of shoes.

“Here,” Thor threw the jacket at Loki and dumped the shoes at his feet. “Put these on.”

Loki walked back and flung the jacket back over the chair.

Thor sighed.

“It’ll be good for you, brother. And, I promise I won’t ask you to do this again if you hate their company.”

Loki walked back up to him and bent down to grab the shoes, then went into his bedroom.

“Loki, please-”

“I am not wearing those shoes, Thor, not with that jacket. Now, let me get changed.” Loki called through the partially closed door.

“So, you’re coming?”

It didn’t take Loki long to put on a different top and slip into a pair of boots.

“Obviously.” Loki reemerged, twirling his keys around his finger.

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

“Buck, you want anything?” Steve called from where he and Tony were ordering popcorn.

“No, I’m good.”

Bucky watched as Tony slipped his hand around Steve’s elbow.

This was going to be a long film.

Don’t get him wrong, Bucky was happy to see Steve happy with Tony, but today was meant to be just the two of them. And he liked Tony’s company, more than he thought be would, but it was going to awkward. Steve had mentioned they were going out and Tony asked to come, and Steve didn’t have the heart to say no. And he kept talking about how it would be fun for all three of them to go out. He didn’t realise it would make Bucky feel awkward. He didn’t realise that would make Bucky feel like a third-wheel.

But here they were. The two of them kept wrapping themselves around each other, which was… admittedly cute. But Bucky felt strange sitting with them. They were just going to ignore him, anyway.

“Hey Barnes, you coming?” Tony snapped Bucky out of his thoughts.

“Oh, yeah.” Bucky hoped his smile didn’t look like a grimace.

“Come on, I don’t want some spotty-faced kid hogging our seats.” Tony was still holding onto Steve’s arm.

“We can just ask them to move, Tony.” Steve smiled, fondly.

“Well, let’s at least just get in there before the film starts.”

Bucky snorted.

“Don’t worry, Stark. We’ll have twenty minutes of glorious commercials to sit through first.”

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

Bucky was almost missing those shitty commercials.

The film was one of those typical big budget, no substance action films, lead by some male hero with a tragic back story. Steve had picked it because it was one of the better options, and there was a romance subplot in there that looked semi-appealing.

And it wasn’t bad, it was just boring.

Bucky had let Steve and Tony sit together at the end of the row, while he was next to a group of friends who seemed far too excited about the film. The strange two on the end had somehow been enthralled by the commercials and had only stopped talking when the people on the row behind almost yelled at them.

The man next to him seemed to find the whole thing irritating and amusing.

He’d caught Bucky’s attention immediately when they’d entered. His dark hair and high cheekbones. Bucky was certain he’d have been caught staring, if the man wasn’t too busy having an argument with the man next to him. They hadn’t been yelling, rather whispering and hissing as loudly as they could, trying not to draw any attention to themselves.

The film was starting out with an intense action sequence, that kept cutting away to other shots so quickly Bucky was almost starting to feel queasy.

“I wouldn’t be surprised if there’s more cuts in this one scene, than there is actual plot in this whole film.”

It wasn’t said loudly, but Bucky could make out every word. He turned his gaze to the man next to him, who was staring at the screen in contempt.

Bucky turned back to the screen and wondered if he’d just imagined that. No one else had seemed to notice it, and it was a little weird how close that was to what he’d just been thinking.

“Of course none of the enemies can hit their target…”

Bucky glanced at the man again. He hoped he wasn’t imagining things because damn he had a gorgeous voice.

“Even though they’re clearly supposed to be highly traine-” The man stopped as the blonde next to him placed a hand on his arm.

“Brother, behave.” The man’s brother (why did Bucky feel relieved by that information) growled.

The man just smirked.

So Bucky wasn’t imagining things. Well, today just got a lot more interesting. This man might keep Bucky’s boredom levels from being fatal.

As long as the man’s brother, or anyone else in the cinema, didn’t get him kicked out.

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

The man had kept commenting and making snarky remarks and it was getting harder and harder for Bucky not to laugh.

The man could say anything right now, and Bucky would probably break.

“Seriously?”

That was it. That was hardly even a remark, and Bucky started to chuckle, which was a bad move seeing as he’d just started to have a drink.

He ripped the bottle away from his mouth and quickly swallowed. His quiet laughter turned into coughs, but he was proud at how quickly he regained his composure.

He glanced to the right and the man was looking at him. He was looking at Bucky as if he knew that was going to happen. As if he knew the effect he’d been having on Bucky this entire time. As if he’d been purposely waiting until Bucky was reaching for his bottle.

And Bucky had a hard time believing that the man didn’t, given how he was smirking.

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

They were about half way into the film when Bucky felt his will crumbling even more. He’d stopped trying to hide his smile and laughter when the man spoke. What was the point when the man knew Bucky was laughing on the inside anyway? Might as show it, use it as a way to thank the man for this entertainment.

But now the film was just getting more ridiculous and Bucky felt the urge to join in with the man’s comments.

The man wasn’t speaking too loudly so most people couldn’t hear him, but the people in the radius around them definitely could. Bucky was worried that if he joined in, Steve might not speak to him for a while.

“Now that was impossible. Look at how much blood he lost, and from a wound like that. He’d be in pain, and then he’d loose too much of his blood and collapse before he even reached the car.”

What the hell, Steve was too busy with Tony to speak to him anyway.

“Should I be worried about how you know that?” Bucky hoped his voice didn’t sound to rough after almost choking on his drink earlier.

He kept his eyes on the man’s face as the man raised his eyebrows. And Bucky kept eye contact with him as he smiled, softer than the smirk he’d shot at Bucky earlier.

“Perhaps.” And suddenly that voice was aimed directly at him and Bucky was glad it was dark in here because he could feel his face heating up.

The man leaned back in his chair, seemingly relaxed. Though Bucky could have sworn he moved in his seat so he was leaning closer to Bucky than he was to his brother.

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

Bucky couldn’t believe that he felt sad.

He and the man had kept sharing quips, and he was honestly really starting to enjoy his company.

But, the man had gotten up some minutes ago, to go to the toilet, or to get a drink, or… something. Bucky didn’t like how he felt almost vulnerable with the seat next to him empty.

What was he thinking? Sure, he’d been speaking with this man for over an hour, but he didn’t even know his name. Why was he starting to… why was he starting to fall for this man? For this stranger?

And they hadn’t even really been talking. Yes, Bucky was contributing to the torrent of snide comments now, but he’d still hardly said anything. Maybe if he said more, the man might be willing to talk with him after the film ended?

“Excuse me.” The voice has hardly apologetic, and Bucky saw Tony grumble as he moved to let the man past.

And Bucky should not be feeling so elated about his return.

Bucky stood up to let the man pass, and the man had plenty of room, he did not need to brush up against Bucky like that.

Bucky drew a shaky breath, trying to summon his confidence. He’d never had a problem talking to someone before, he was good at flirting, with women and men.

And if he wanted the man to like him he couldn’t just sit here and stay silent.

He twisted slightly in his seat to face the man, and placed his arm on the armrest between them.

“You couldn’t have stayed standing, could you doll? I’d much prefer looking at you than this garbage.” Bucky put on his signature smile, and was proud of how confident he’d sounded, given how he was actually scared of ruining whatever this thing was they’d started.

The man looked at him, then glanced away. And Bucky felt a sense of pride as the screen lit up with another unnecessary explosion that produced enough light for Bucky to see the man blushing.

“Loki” The man spoke, softly, and put his hand on the edge of the armrest.

“What?” That had sounded more articulate in his head.

The man smiled and pointed at himself.

“My name, it’s Loki” Oh, oh, so this was happening.

“I’m Bucky.” And the man, Loki, titled his head.

“Bucky?”

“Yeah,” Bucky winced. “Well, it’s James, but everyone calls me Bucky.”

“It’s a pleasure, James.”

And okay Bucky has never been bothered about people calling him James, but Loki lowered his voice as he said it and it may be the most beautiful sound he’s ever heard.

Then he felt his body lurch forward as the person behind him kicked the back of his seat.

Oh, right, they were in a cinema, watching a film, with other people.

“Do you mind?” Loki sat up straight, and god he was tall. “We’re trying to have a conversation here.”

And that was it. The person behind them couldn’t believe what he’d just heard and started spluttering, Loki’s brother had put his head in his hands, while his friends looked at them like they were the film, he could feel Steve and Tony’s eyes on him, and he couldn’t help it.

He just started laughing and he couldn’t stop.

People started staring at them, and a man on the row in front stood up and Bucky couldn’t tell what he said, but someone was grabbing his hand and forcing him up and pulling him past Steve and Tony and out of the room and into the hallway.

Bucky squinted as his eyes adjusted to the brightness and tried to remember how to breathe. He heard laughter next to him and looked over to see Loki leaning back against the wall, also out of breath.

As they both calmed down, Bucky noticed that Loki was still holding onto his hand. Bucky didn’t say anything to acknowledge it.

He leaned back against the wall next to Loki and finally got to have a good look at him. He was taller than Bucky, and thinner, especially his legs, which, damn, they were-

“Not to interrupt your… observations, but I feel as though I should apologise for getting you in hot water there.”

Bucky felt himself flush from being caught.

“You don’t have to apologise. I’m glad to be out of there. I’m not sure if either of us could have coped with whatever ending that film has.”

“True.” Loki smiled.

Bucky noted how confident Loki was when he smirked, but when he smiled he almost seemed shy.

“As for our conversation…”

Loki looked at him and raised an eyebrow.

“Well, I’m sure my friends are fine with me ditching them, they’ll be too busy making out by the end of the film to pay attention to me anyway, and it didn’t look like your brother was too pleased with you…”

“He was not.”

“So, we could also just go. I don’t know if you’ve had lunch yet…”

Loki looked at him in surprise and Bucky hoped he hadn’t misread the situation, but Loki was still holding onto his hand.

“I have not.”

“Well then, what do you say we go get lunch now, together?”

Bucky thought Loki looked like he was trying to figure out some difficult puzzle. As if he was trying to work out if Bucky had an ulterior motive for asking him out.

“I think I’d like that.”

Bucky grinned and accidently tightened hid grip on Loki’s hand.

“Oh, apologies, I didn’t realise I was still…” Loki looked down at their joined hands.

“Wasn’t complaining, princess.” Bucky grinned and noticed Loki blushing again.

Maybe he likes the pet-names?

Bucky held onto Loki’s hand and started to walk backwards, towards the exit of the cinema.

“You coming then?” Bucky slowed down as Loki hadn’t moved.

Loki laughed and shook his head in amusement. Bucky could get used to that laugh.

“Come on then, sweetheart.” Bucky waved his arm that was connecting him to Loki.

Oh yeah, it was definitely the pet names.

Loki started to move and Bucky pulled him forwards as he turned around, and the pair of them exited the cinema.

[fae-fucker]

Zenith: Chapter 6

We get some more hints about Dex’s and Andi’s past together.

Their last meeting hadn’t exactly gone over well, what with the whole, Andi soaring away with Dex’s ship, leaving him bleeding and dying on a fire moon thing.

Who edited this?

Update: Someone finally did, it seems, because this has been updated to:

Their last moments together hadn’t exactly gone well, what with the whole “Andi soaring away with Dex’ s ship, leaving him bleeding and dying on a barren moon” thing.

So uh. Better, I guess.

As with any shitty book with a STRONK FEMAIL CHARAKTOR, we must -- MUST -- wank on about how fucking amazing and hot she is, because she can’t just be brutal and off-putting and human, she has to be HOT while she’s doing physically exhausting shit that can both get bloody and sweaty, so let’s take a look at this garbage, shall we?

Godstars, she was magnificent, a creature that deserved to release her wrath on the world. It would be worth every drop of blood about to be shed to bring her to Cyprian’s feet.

So she’s so cool that ... she deserves to murder people, just because how cool she is? And capturing her is totes worth letting people get murdered?

I would maybe understand it if she was a massive threat to all intergalactic civilization and that throwing armies at her is the smaller price to pay, but she’s just one schmuck who does petty smuggling and escort jobs. Or does Dex just want his ex back and he’s ready to let people die for it? Because these are just space cops she’s killing and he’s ready to sacrifice, they’re just dudes doing their jobs.

What the fuck am I reading.

Update: This has been changed to:

Godstars, she was magnificent; a creature who had released her wrath on the world. It would be worth every drop of blood about to be shed to be the one who finally brought her to the general’s feet.

Oh, so now she already has released her wrath on the world, regardless of whether or not she deserved to? 

So Dex is happy to let other people die for him just so he can brag about capturing his ex? 

I’m glad we cleared that up. What a guy.

He hadn’t seen her in years, but he’d heard the rumors. He hadn’t truly known if she truly could wield those weapons with the a glory and grace that drew blood and split bones.

Why was he even questioning this? He’s been bragging about how he’s trained her and taught her everything she knows, and now he’s wondering if she could wield her own weapons?

Is Dex an idiot?

*looks at art* Forget I asked.

Gone was the girl young woman he’d once known, that shivering thing he’d found bruised and broken in the wilderness of Adhira in the markets of Uulveca.

In her place stood the warrior he’d trained and hardened and turned into something devilishly delicious.

He Dex reached for his gun as the Bloody Baroness attacked.

Devilishly. Delicious.

Shinsay. “Bloody Baroness” isn’t intimidating, alright? It’s not scary. Please stop this nonsense.

Andi and Dex have themselves a fight. Well, Andi kills a buncha dudes (+10 points to Gryffindor, Sasha managed to do what her hero SJM couldn’t, and that’s having her killer character actually kill someone on-screen) and Dex just kinda stands around in the background thinking about how hot she is.

We get a pointless POV switch.

The world slowed, but Andi moved like a flash of light.

Uh-huh.

“Take out her crew!” Dex shouted. “I want her alive.” 

“Take them out!” Dex shouted. “Save Androma for me.”

His words sent a spike of rage straight to through Andi’s heart.

Spike of rage.

A ball of white light shot past Andi’s shoulder. An enemy was blasted backward, already a corpse as he slammed into the door frame.

“Oh, that was a good shot,” Gilly said, giggling and brandishing her double-trigger gun.

Weren’t you just weeping and losing your shit four seconds ago?

I’m loving this mood dissonance. 

“I want the floor stained with their blood!” Andi yelled to her crew above the chaos.

This book is sending a blade of edge into my heart, I’ll tell ya that.

Update: If any of you were wondering where this comes from, this sequence has been updated to include Breck and her BULLETPROOF SKIN. The girls hide behind her and there’s emphasis on how USELESS the bullets are, because apparently these Patrolmen not only have Stormtrooper aim, they also haven’t heard of the concept of surrounding their target or moving a little bit to the side to get an angle on it. Or maybe Breck also has the ability to expand her physical form and encase her crewmates like a living hamster ball. 

Hey Shinsay. This doesn’t in any way justify your characters using swords and fists and whips in a fight. If anything, it just draws more attention to how fiking stupid it is. 

If you’re wondering how the fuck Andi survives this fight without being blown to bits while using katanas against dudes with guns, here’s where I admit and brag about the fact that I totally predicted that she’d deflect or slice through bullets, which yes, she actually does that.

Andi lashed out as a Patrolman shot at her, her sword barely cutting through the bullet before it could hammer itself into her throat.

You know, you’d think that Sasha, who supposedly reads a lot, would be aware of dumb shit like this and know not to do it, but alas.

This might work in anime or video games, but try to avoid this kind of garbage nonsense when you’re writing, because it’s so dumb that it takes the reader out of the experience. Unless you’re writing a comedy, just ... if you have someone slice through bullets, please reconsider.

Usually I’m not one to tell people not to do something, especially when it comes to writing, but sometimes you just gotta take a step back and look at the sins of humanity.

Also ... and I don’t know shit about physics, but if Andi has enough strength to cut through a fired bullet and her sword withstands this process without breaking, and the bullet clearly isn’t deflected but cut through, meaning its momentum is still carrying it forward and the impact of the sword didn’t slow it down, Andi just made two fucking bullets, or one bullet with its butt cut off.

She didn’t even deflect the thing.

She should be dead.

Oh my god.

Update: She now deflects the bullets with the cuffs on her wrists that “protect” her burned skin. So that’s why they were written in! This smells very much of Wonder Woman but it’s better than SLICING BULLETS IN HALF.

Seriously, Shinsay, did you read my snark? You’ve edited out all the best bits that I’ve complained about while leaving the bland and boring garbage intact. Why didn’t you hire ME as your editor? I could’ve made this GOOD. Or at least passable. But I’d charge you more than you could afford, because I’d have to rewrite the whole book for you.

“What’ s wrong, Dex? You don’t want to come out and play with me?” Andi said, her voice a dangerous purr.

Dex chuckled, his mahogany hair falling across one brown eye as he stepped forth to meet her gaze. “You were always one for theatrics, Androma. My little bitter ballerina.”

Dex’s hair color has been changed from “midnight” to “mahogany”. What, did SJM call you and told you to tone down the Rhys if you wanted her to pretend to like your book in public?

Also, bitter ballerina? Really? Who the fuck talks like this?

“These three can live,” she said, nodding her head at the final Patrolmen. “It’s you I want a fight with, Dextro.”

Yes, his name is actually Dextro. At least the book admits it’s fucking silly.

With a crackle of her swords, she lunged forward and cut off three heads in one scissoring slice.

#edgy

Still better than Sardines tho. Andi actually DOES SHIT.

Zenith is officially better than Throne of Glass.

After a bunch of nonsense fighting that I can’t even be assed to keep track of, Andi walks into Dex’s trap. His trap is basically even more dudes with guns, except this time Andi can’t fight them, for some reason, despite doing it just now, no problem.

Plot!

Update: Breck isn’t there anymore, so I guess it makes slightly more sense this time.

Dex notices the cuffs on Andi’s wrists, just so he can give the reader some info about them, I spose:

They were unbreakable, just like her swords. But the cuffs weren’t just an accessory. They held together the burned flesh on her wrists from an accident long ago. She didn’t have the privilege of seeing a doctor at the time, so her skin had become damaged beyond repair.

Without Dex’ s gift, she wouldn’t have the full function of her wrists and forearms—likely wouldn’t have the strength to lift those swords she was so fond of.

It gave him a sick kind of pleasure to know she still had the cuffs, a reminder of his kindness to her when she was at her weakest. A part of him she could never shed from herself.

So you’re telling me that ... Not only are her wounds still open under those cuffs, but that installing those cuffs was somehow faster and less expensive than finding a doctor who could patch them up for you? 

Or that they “healed,” and then, instead of paying for surgery, Dex paid for some GLASS CUFFS to slap on the wounds instead? 

And that Andi, during all this time and after presumably getting some money, hasn’t had her fucked-up wrists fixed, and instead keeps these cuffs on her still-fucked wrists even as they remind her of Dex Dogtective?

The wording implies that she physically cannot remove those cuffs without reopening the wounds.

Why did she have ABSOLUTELY POINTLESS METAL PLATES ON HER CHEEKS INSTALLED, WHEN SHE HAS AN ACTUAL WOUND THAT SEEMS A BIT MORE URGENT? Wouldn’t fixing a burn be cheaper in this hyper-tech world than grafting fucking metal into your flesh?

WHY ISN’T SHE IN IMMENSE PAIN AT ALL TIMES WITH THOSE GLASS CUFFS ON HER BURN WOUNDS. HOW FUCKING BADLY WERE HER WRISTS DAMAGED IF SHE CAN STILL BREAK PEOPLE’S NECKS AND WIELD HER SWORDS NO PROBLEM?!

HOW EXACTLY ARE THOSE GLASS CUFFS ATTACHED THAT THEY SOMEHOW HOLD HER SKIN TOGETHER BUT ALSO ALLOW HER WRISTS FULL MOBILITY?!

AHFSJFHGDKFJHGDSKFJHGSDKJFHGDSKJHF

“If they move, my guards will shoot.” Dex waved a hand, and half the men angled their light rifles upwards, where toward Andi’s motionless crew stood motionless.

The blue-skinned pilot from Adhira, the giantess beside her. And that psychopathic red-headed child, glaring down at Dex with the cold calculation of a seasoned killer.

Dex just waves a hand. Not his own hand, just a random hand he found on the floor.

I just remembered that their crew is literally just four people and I’m so tired.

Dex Dogtective takes Andi to some room on the Marauder to talk to somebody.

Cold calculation flashed in [Andi’s] eyes.

Oh, just like the cold calculation in Gilly’s eyes barely half a page ago?

Who edited this?

Update: "Cold calculation” has been changed to “disgust.”

Also, this is in reaction to Dex telling Andi to sit. When she refuses, he’s super impressed.

Instead, she stood with her back up against the wall, her gray eyes roving left and right.

Dex had taught her well.

Did you teach her not to sit on command, like the opposite of a dog trick?

I would not expect anything less from Dex Dogtective. 

For the first time today, despite everything Dex had thrown at her, she actually looked stricken. Shocked. Pained.

“Hello, Androma,” the man on the screen said. “I’ve been searching for you a very, very long time.”

The drama!

[bronsonthurman]

Review: Netflix’s Death Note

Recently Netflix released its version of Death Note, one of several anime adaptations in the works by major American studio. While it credits the Weekly Shonen Jump manga series as its source, it likely benefits far more from awareness of the 2006 anime adaptation. American viewers of that series surely featured prominently in the calculus of producing this movie, providing a ready made market. Unfortunately this movie is a vapid attempt to exploit the premise as American teen horror and just looks that much worse for its comparison to the unique psychological thriller that was the anime.

Aside from the requisite spoiler alert, I would advise readers who haven’t seen either of these productions to immediately watch the anime. The Netflix adaptation will spoil its surprises without delivering any rewards. The anime is only 37 episodes in self-contained entirely and though it occasionally detours into the ridiculous and convoluted, as anime is wont to do, its characters and plot are fresh, engaging, and thought provoking..

If it were not for the superior source material the movie might have seemed like just more mediocre teen targeted commercialism instead of an outright dumpster fire. Protagonist Light Turner (Nat Wolff) is a troubled, brilliant teen making extra cash by selling homework and creepily staring--oops, I mean longing for--beautiful cheerleader Mia Sutton (Margaret Qualley). We are supposed to believe he is good at heart because he tries to defend her against a generic male bully, but the audience can’t help but notice he only gets involved after she has the courage to intervene; Light butts in with an outburst of machismo he tries to back up by being a ineffectual smart ass. All in all the introduction brings to mind school shooting tragedies in a manner that only adds ick, not substance. It preps the viewer to feel wary of what they’ve gotten into, and rightfully so.

Into the hands of this unfortunate protagonist falls the titular premise, the Death Note, really a Death Notebook wherein owners can write names, dates, and manners of death for people they wish to kill. Hot on its heels Light is visited by the prickly, hunched demon Ryuk, who is served well by darkly lit computer animation and proves that Willem Dafoe is enjoyable even when he’s taking it easy, if not exactly just phoning it in. Ryuk serves as an unpersuasive argument that the devil made Light do it. Luckily for the viewer there is only one bully ready to be a target of Light’s wrath, who is decapitated gruesomely. The two-dimensional cruelty presented as justification does nothing to avoid the disturbing appearance of a shitty person in desperate need of psychological help getting bloodily murdered instead.

In better hands Death Note could have been a shocking and significant co-option of the property to explore a decent-at-heart kid pushed to the edge of good and evil by youthful callousness and falling into an abyss of high school violence. Director Adam Windgard, perhaps recognizing his own limitations, giving us instead exactly what we should expect from a director of mediocre horror like the Blair Witch reboot, V/H/S, and You’re Next: more flimsy, forgettable horror. Windgard tries to make Death Note into Final Destination with a few improbable and modestly gory set pieces, strung together with music videos with terrible soundtracks, in between trying to establish conflict between mysterious FBI consultant L and a cringe inducing loser-gets-the-girl teen romance. Sad to say this sub-plot’s only redeeming quality is being perfunctory and it only gets worse when Mia’s motives take a sinister turn.

There is a meaningful discussion overdue on female capacity for vengeful judgmentalness, violence by proxy, and vileness typically relegated to men. These subjects are hinted at, but this film is no place for something so nuanced, so the betrayals and come uppance we are subjected to feel like the cinematic equivalent of a basic bro screaming “that’s what you get bitch!” Whether coming from the screenplay by Charley and Vlas Parlapanides or from director Wingard one of them should have realized how it would reflect on the men behind the film. It just feels gross.

Efforts to weave plots around the endless rules included in the Death Note may appeal to some devoted hobbyist geeks, but even a casual hobbyist geek like me was underwhelmed. The only respite comes from the fact that Dafoe has a great voice and Lakeith Stanfield gives a competent performance as L that seems aware of what made the anime equivalent of his character interesting. Mentioning the acting in this movie feels spiteful--the actors are hardly to blame, going through motions as they were surely expected and giving basically the appropriate emotional cues to support the dialog, such as it is. That Qualley’s flat performance as Mia seemed fitting is not so much a complement to her, but rather another strike for the subtle stink of chauvinism exuded by her role and plots.

Eventually there are confrontations, a chase action sequence that doesn’t contribute anything or know when to quit, something like a climax, and an attempt at a twist ending. Attempts to redeem Light Turner ring hollow and false. None of it matters or convinces, none of it draws the viewer in. Even the guilty pleasure of really tearing apart something awful wouldn’t have kept the movie on for its full running time if I weren’t penning an article--I walked away only minutes in before deciding I couldn’t suitably insult it if I hadn’t sat through it all.

The degree of animosity here is not entirely due to the film in isolation. Alone it wouldn’t merit a full viewing and I would have left feeling mildly resentful that I had wasted 15 minutes on a teen horror movie that really was intended for teens. It speaks to its target audience in a cynical, exploitative way, not in a Buffy-the-Vampire-Slayer-will-appeal-to-your-inner-adolescent way. Sometimes that’s still passable, pressing the intended viewer’s buttons just how they want them to be pressed by a particular genre. But this movie takes deeply interesting source material and uses it to compel me and countless others to sit through it for 101 minutes. That it was free with my subscription makes it worse, not better, because if I had to pay for a theater ticket to see it, I wouldn’t have, just as I didn’t see Ghost in the Shell, an adaptation of a franchise I am much more personally attached to. This pops up on Netflix as if to say “you liked Death Note, right? We have more Death Note for you,” only to insult me by abusing its source so badly.

This is the cause of angry reddits, comment section tirades, bad user reviews, and poor returns. Hollywood doesn’t understand the genre. Whitewashing it a big part of it; stories are products of cultures, infused with those experiences and values. Its not just the race of the actor that matters, though racism under the guise as marketability is truly an ugly reality that deprives many fine actors of work and us of their performances. In the case of anime adaptations the whole story is being whitewashed to force it to fit Hollywood’s limited realm of cinematic experience. This robs of us of fine stories that are highly original, at least from our cultural norm.

This adaptation robs us of Light Yagami, a model Japanese youth with a bright future ahead of him, diligent, conscientious of his responsibilities in a distinctly Asian way. When this fine young man becomes convinced that he should use the Death Note to make the world better by eliminating criminals, we believe him, at least at first. He matches wits against his opposite, the misanthropic but just L, sacrificing his rationales of justness bit by bit along the way. The audience takes a gripping psychological trip to the realization that our protagonist is the villain. His crazy girlfriend isn’t just a bitch, she’s an outright obsessive who is perversely the subject of obsession herself as a teen idol. The police are bastions of mundanity, trying to bring sanity back to a world split by public knowledge that this grim god of vengeance exists. The chase alternates between methodical procedure and inspired drama. The series is anything but a formulaic rehash of a genre which American audiences already have in excess.

Ultimately that’s all Netflix’s Death Note is. It adds nothing, and it sacrifices much. It wastes the viewers time and insults fans drawn in by the licensed property. It subjects the viewer to some of the tackiest songs I’ve ever heard in a soundtrack. It’s sure to disappear from Netflix suggestions soon, in line with their strategy of producing as many things as possible by scatter shot and just being quiet about the failures. Don’t bother searching for it.

[theworthofhollin]

SHITTY MOVIE REC OF THE WEEK: 

Nick Powell's OUTCAST (2014) starring Hayden Christensen, Yifei Liu, and Nicholas Cage. 

(i know. i know. bear with me here.)

Dudes. First things first: this is Hayden Christensen's perfect come-back film. like sure this is not a Great Film but I honestly forgot how good Christensen was as a physical actor??? and DAMN. with the physicality of this role...he is so good. (and what’s so great about this is watching it immediately following the clone wars tv show is PERFECT because its the same form of Anakin we see there: a killer, but war-torn, hungry, dynamic.) 

No, really. This is, I shit you not, the ultimate Anakin Skywalker AU Redemption Arc. But with more mohawks and stunning fight choreography and crazy good scenery and also did i mention mohawks. hayden christensen has a mohawk. anyways. if that alone doesnt make any sw fan want to watch this movie [on US Netflix too!!!] then 1. have fun living ur boring ass life??? 2. look at this photo, is that not rots skywalker to a t and 3. keep reading.

SO. Set in what we can assume is the late 1200s, early 1300s?? Hayden Christensen plays a Jedi Knight, sorry, TEMPLAR KNIGHT, named Anakin-- I MEAN JAKOB, who is fighting alongside his Master, Obi Wan Kenobi-- no, sorry, his MENTOR, NIC CAGE, in the Clone Wars, sorry, i mean THE CRUSADES. classic mix up.

SIDENOTE: If the guy who wrote this movie doesnt also have a secret ao3 account dedicated to his star wars prequel au fanfic collection that he’s been cultivating since high school then ill eat my fucking shoe. 

(also idk what Cage’s character’s actual name is considering I, like everyone else in the world, can only refer to him as Nic Cage in any role ever. But back to the point.) 

[spoilers ahead]

Alright. so. 

Somewhere In The Middle East, Nic-Wan Kenobi witnesses his protégé's bloodlust in a battle that results in the deaths of a temple full of innocent women and children, (THE YOUNGLINGS... ANAKIN....) and naturally he goes awol, while Jakob/Anakin spirals down a guilt-driven descent into opium, believing himself to be Damned, Capital D, for his actions. 

SIDE NOTE: Hayden looks especially good in this movie, but particularly when he’s PISSED OFF and EXTRA SAD. i dont want to use to the term smad but damn. smad is...a good look here. 

i digress. 

(serious spoilers below:)

Here's where we enter fix-it fic mode: 3 years after the Crusades have ended, (and in true Kenobi style, Nic Cage has disappeared into the vast eastern wilderness with only his patchy grief-beard and an extra robe he’ll probably lose) a Chinese King is dying, and wishes to make his heir his gentle-hearted 13-year-old son. His elder son, a brutal war-monger, says FUCK U DAD, kills him and takes the throne, but not before their sister LIAN, played by the lovely YIFEI LIU, escapes with both her younger brother and the seal to the kingdom under the cover of night.

(this is basically TPM with shittier gender roles, but otherwise a pretty obvious parallel to the sw Naboo Invasion) And its EXTRA interesting to me because in the sw universe, Naboo court regalia is canonically based off of ancient chinese imperial robes, with aspects of certain japanese and mongolian formalwear as well. AND most of the jedi philosophies are bastardized variations of asian iconography and medieval knights errant, so its fun to see that played out on screen and it lets me draw parallels wherever i want which is always a major plus.

(SIDENOTE: during the escape, her little bro is all decked out in black clothes with dark accersories for night camouflage etc etc while Lian shows up looking hella fine in hand embroidered white silk like. bitch??? u thought i’d downplay my aesthetic for my own HEALTH and SAFETY?anyways what a gift and if im being honest that moment alone made me go, shit, fuck, padme. love of my life.)

(she’s been running hard road for 2 days and just LOOK at her, jesus.) 

but back to the plot. 

While on the run from the SITH, I mean, the evil brother’s Black Guard, they happen to stumble into a cantina in the lower mountains, where they meet a drugged up, super smad Jakob pulling an Solo in the back of the bar. 

( HELP ME... JAKOB.... WHOEVER THE FUCK U ARE--)

The Black Guard then tries to take his LIGHTSABER, I mean, his special, holy, papal blessed broadsword, which ends up being a really bad move. (It's interesting how they play the scene as well: from under the brim of his hat, they make sure his eyes glow bright angry yellow in the reflection of the candles around the table. like. they switch angles and everything just so you’ll notice. It's all very Vader-esque. 

[MUFFLED ‘VADER’S THEME’ PLAYING IN THE DISTANCE]

Also immediately after this he pulls a Complete Anakin and flips a fucking table so people will pay attention to him, i love this boy, oh my god, he then proceeds to murder everybody in the bar, which is just. wildly satisfying.)

SIDENOTE: its important to acknowledge the fact that first time director Nick Powell is also a well known fight choreographer and has been a hardcore stuntman for most of his career, so the real highlights in this movie are the GLORIOUS action scenes. Honestly, the sword fights in this movie are some of the best ive ever seen onscreen. and Hayden is absolutely magnetic. 10/10 would recommend just for that alone.

ANOTHER SIDENOTE: Lian also knifes a dude in the neck here w/ her jeweled hairpin. So thats #neat

coincidentally, this also happens to be the moment where both Jakob and I fell in love. also #neat

(AND. this star wars concept art from ROTS and these shots of lian and jakob. discuss:)

(im the guy silently sweating in the back)

ANYWAY.

After witnessing Vader, I mean, Jakob, utterly destroy a full contingent of bad guys, Padme, I mean, LIAN, asks him to help get them to Xing Yuan, a city several days ride away that holds their father's army generals, who will support them and help them take back the throne. Jakob agrees, and then there's lots of exciting action sequences and Anakin and Padme falling in love (SIDENOTE: TRUE TO FORM, ANAKIN IS TERRIBLE @ FLIRTING IN LITERALLY ANY UNIVERSE. GOD BLESS.) 

BUT beyond that human disaster, this movie is so underrated. paralleling the sw plotline, the boy king gets his own little padawan training lessons, we get some crazy acrobatic swordfights here and there, they run into obi wan where he’s been hiding in the woods for a decade (#consistency) and its all very dramatic and on ridiculously shaky historical ground but who cares guys thats not why ur watching it in the first place. 

We all know why ur watching it in the first place.

the plot. you’re watching it for the plot.