#and i could see studios starting to make this a harmful trope if they’re not careful

[patchodraws]

hmm… should i be worried about this becoming a trend

[shinidamachu]

You know what’s sad? I didn’t care for S*ssRin before Yashahime. I didn’t like it but I didn’t hate it. It’s these recent posts where people try to justify this ship with literal grooming tactics that’s seriously grossing me out. 😬

Hey there!

Yeah, I see where you’re coming from and even though I had a different experience, yours is totally understandable. In fact, many people in the fandom are in the same boat as you.

Personally, I first watched the anime when I was a little kid. Like, really young. I didn’t get to finish it then, probably because the TV channel stopped airing it or something like that. Growing up, the story was still on the back of my mind, but Inuyasha, Kagome and their romance were the only things I could remember. As an adult, I finally decided to rewatch the whole thing, start to finish.

That’s when I took notice of the other key characters, such as $esshomaru and R!n, that my young mind had forgotten. Because she was a child, it never occured to me to interpret their bond as romantic. And because he was her guardian, exerted authority over her from the moment they met and their relationship was strictly platonic during the whole show, I couldn’t help but see them as a Lilo & Stitch family: little and broken, but still good.

However, years and years of fandom had prepared me to the real possibility of  $esshomaru/R!n being a ship. My fears were confirmed when I joined Inutumblr. Was I still grossed out? Absolutely. But I couldn’t say I was surprised. As much as it hurts to say, the misogynist trope $esshomaru/R!n is based on is not unusual.

And so I hated this ship since I learned it was a thing. Hated its disgusting implications, hated that it defilled such a pure, familial form of unconditional love, hated how cheap and superficial it is. Hated how it strips R!n out of any agency whatsoever, hated that it downplays $esshomaru’s character development and it makes him out to be an absolute creep.

That’s why I did my level best to avoid interacting with shippers as much as I could. I can make friends with them, if they’re not invested in it enough to put it on my dash. And as much as it still makes me uncomfortable, I can look the other way if I’m reading Inukag fanfiction and these characters are portrayed as a couple, as long as they met when she was an adult and they’re not a huge part of it. It's not of my business what people ship, regardless of how unbelievably inappropriate and problematic I find it to be. They stayed in their lane. I stayed in mine. We lived in peace.

Until the sequel attacked and changed everything like some kind of Fire Nation shit.

You probably didn’t care about $essr!n because you didn’t have to. Inuyasha ended and it was a very definitive ending. We had our interpretation of what the finale represented for $essr!n. Shippers had their totally different idea. But there was no point in discussing it because nothing would change regarding the story. We were given what we were given and that was that. 

Or so we thought.

Suddenly Sunrise comes along with a sequel, in which $esshomaru had daughters. This statement brought brand new information that effectively shoots down one of the interpretations above: all Sunrise has to do is reveal the mother.

The thing is: if the “$esshomaru and R!n were family” interpretation is the one Yashah!me debunks, it means Sunrise is going to portray in a good light a relationship in which a grown man met a 8 years old child, protected her, gave her gifts, exerted authority over her, established himself as an adult she could trust after all the trauma she went through... only to impregnate her when she was old enough to bear his children. It also means Rumiko Takahashi allowed them to do so.

From this point on, it was impossible for me not to speak up against it. I couldn’t live with myself if I didn’t. It’s one thing for people to make fanarts and write fanfiction about it. These things can be tagged, filtered, searched for or avoided. Other completely different is the studio that owns Inuyasha turning the ship into official content and addressing it to children. 

To make matters worse, some shippers reacted to more that valid criticism by harassing people online and trying to justify why $essr!n is okay when it clearly isn’t. If you’re down with a problematic ship, that’s a you problem. You’re an adult. When you advocate for said ship to be represented in official children media, denying or knowing exactly how harmful it is to the children who are too young to have the same critical skills as you, that’s when I get vocal against it.

And I will be vocal because there are people out there actually believing the absurds some shippers say to try and normalize $essr!n, going as far as comparing it with perfectly acceptable ships or straight up creating their own “facts” to twist canon in their favor. I will be vocal because some of its supporters only ships it because a part of the fandom does it and never really thought about it. I will be vocal because I want this terrible trope to die. It’s more than enough time to kill it, in Inuyasha or any other TV show out there. We know better now. Let’s do better.

As for the shippers, I’m more than happy to ignore their existence, but it seems they are shooting themselves in the foot with how loud and obnoxious they are getting, especially after the infamous last preview, managing to annoy even the people who were staying out of it, such as yourself, anon. At least that’s what it looks like, here from my little bubble.

I’m sorry this whole thing makes you sad, pal. It makes me sad too. And I know if worse comes to worst, it will be hard for some of us to separate the sequel from the original, especially if you’re a $esshomaru stan, because it will be almost impossible to “escape” the damn thing, but hear me out: 

R!n can be the mother of the twins or not. However it goes, you don’t have to consider Yashah!me canon at all. I sure as hell won’t.

[struwwelzeter]

RZK: "90% of the time great music is created on drugs" - I do not like the sound of that. I think he would create good music without drugs just as fine. Its not greatness of the music, but his perception about what he thinks sounds ready. And when you are high a lot is more tolerable, even the previously soberly shitty music :) Please, i need your take on this.

Ah god. Difficult topic.

This ... might get longer?

There is a difference, I think, between writing on drugs, and then listening back to it on drugs. I think assuming that someone would preceive the outcome differently/as better on drugs than off them is tiny bit presumptuous. Not because it’s not possible, but because different drugs work differently, depending on who takes them and in what headspace. Acid for exemple is an entirely different beast than cocaine is, and both will work differently depending on how you feel when you take them to begin with.

Now going off that quote that I like so much; the drugs only helped me to get going, I have a feeling for him personally it’s not so much about the creative process itself but about energy levels. There is something about having more ideas than energy that is horribly restrictive and frustrating and that at least in my experience can even really block you because then you don’t know where to start. Add to that a fear of failure, that just gets perpetuated by not knowing where to start and you’re stuck, and it’s paralyzing. Coke or heroine in that circumstance are honestly only a logical temptation, because they boost self esteem and mental energy, and they don’t feel like you’re a different person. Why do you think so many students take Ritalin to get through studying for exams. For someone without ADHD Ritalin can almost be cocaine light, and it doesn’t feel like it does that much to your personality other than getting your brain to a place where it does what you ask of it. I don’t know if this is me reading into too little data, but I feel like all the people I know of that got into coke or heroine too much were the kind of hyper creative, high output people that Richard is like too. I think of Nikki Sixx especially, and the way he is described almost the same way, especially during his low points: overbearingly creative, controlling in the studio, hyper obsessive about his visions.

Then you have this huge amount of 70s psychedelic rock music written on acid, which is a completely different beast. I have zero personal experience with hallucinogens because they scare the shit out of me, but there is enough literature and science out there that basically proves that they change your perception of the world in general, make you feel more connected, and actually do help people understanding themselves and are a catalyst for discovery. I mean, alot of psychedelic and prog rock is pretty out there. There is something to be said about “would they have really dared to do all that without the drugs?” Think about all the self inflicted judgement and restrictions and rules we all carry around since childhood for psychology reasons - and then think of something that helps you switch off those controls and just “be”. You could argue alot of musical development would have never happened without the drugs. And if it did, it would have been made by artists with great self esteem, maybe.

Now, I don’t want to say that you can’t make great music without drugs, but I think it carries the question why artists do drugs to begin with. There are things that make creativity easier and things that make it harder. And yes, someone psychologically on top of it might pull it off greatly without them. But if you have low self esteem for exemple, which is a very common thing especially for perfectionists, and it cripples you, and cocaine makes that go away, it’s just an easier out than going through years of therapy first. Not to mention that you really need to be ready for therapy.

And then there is the next question which is “would someone really make the same art if they were that healthy psychologically that they aren’t tempted by the drugs as an easy out.” And I think the answer to that is “it depends.” I know we all want to get rid of romanticizing the suffering artist trope, but honestly... it’s just a fact that for many creatives (not all!!!) that is exactly how it works - no pain, no art. Can you really create something with the same level of empathy and shared anguish if you haven’t been there yourself? When we talk about the kind of art that touches us because it doesn’t leave us alone in our grief and in our pain, our insecurities and imperfections and failures? I personally honestly do not think so. It’s also just the fact that some people use creativity as therapy, as a vent. I think of Beth Hart who is diagnosed with BPD and has said that when she is doing well, she’s more interested in taking part in life with her loved ones and doesn’t even think of writing, but when she’s doing bad, she can’t even exist without that outlet. And then it can start that circle - I need to create something, so I need to make myself feel something, and it’s like self harm. I think I just made the point that being healthy mentally helps with creativity, so yes, you can make great art being happy, the problem is that for some of us the need disappears as soon as the happiness is present. I am not saying it’s like that for everyone. But honestly, as someone who has been through this too, I am getting a bit tired of the whole “people can do art just as well if they are happy.” Yes. Some can. Some can’t. Stop dismissing our experience, thank you.

So in conclusion I think the whole “can people do great art off drugs” is pretty closely connected to “do you have to suffer to make good art.” They’re connected, I think, because arguably, drugs are self medication and as such an indication for suffering. Not always. Or better said: sometimes someone really is happy and just wants to dance an entire 48 hrs, and the only way to do that is to pop some amphetamine. Drugs are a means to an end, to get yourself to a point where you can do something that without them you can’t do without a lot more effort. Until they’re not, because they also do fuck you up, they’re mostly a promise that is never kept. (Hallucinogens are a bit different but that’s another story.) Don’t take drugs, kids. I’m just saying, that initial motovation to take them after just curiosity, isn’t so much about the drug itself, it’s about what it helps you do. And yes, maybe it often does make you go “oohh this is actually pretty nice” even if you would look at it differently sober. The question is: would it then see the light of day? Or would it be left in a drawer for not being good enough.

This now reads entirely like a pro drugs rant. It’s not. I repeat: they fuck you up. Cocaine can make your heart short circuit and kill you in one go. Addcition means it won’t make you feel better oretty fast, it just starts making it feel normal again. All that, you have heard this before. But I do understand why people are tempted by them, why so many artists have taken them, and I would never judge someone for taking them either.

A lot of people have reported that getting back into song writing after quitting the drugs has been hard. We all know the skills they posess are the same with or without them. Maybe they’re even better without them. But what does that help if you’re experiencing your sense of failure wide awake? I think that’s what people mean when they say good art is made on drugs. It’s not about the skill, it’s about censorship of the self.

[ordinaryschmuck]

What I thought about WandaVision

Y'know, it's kind of crazy to think that it's been over a year since we've been given any content involving the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Marvel Studios announced so many great movies, on top of new TV shows that actually impact the story, way back in the summer of 2019. But then 2020 happened. Resulting in everything, and I mean everything, we were promised getting pushed back for another year. So, when it was finally announced that the series WandaVision was, at last, ready to be released, fans were both excited as well as skeptical. Because the first thing that would reintegrate us back into this franchise would be a show about how two Avengers are stuck in a sitcom. It might be new, long-awaited content, but it also doesn't sound all that interesting. Could a story involving two characters who have yet to stand on their own be enough to carry a brand new adventure? Well, for eight whole weeks, fans were given that answer. And personally, I will admit that WandaVision might have been better than anybody could have ever expected...for the most part.

(Final spoiler warning if you haven't seen the show yet)

WHAT I LIKE

It Just Goes: This is easily the best way the series could have started. We are given no context about what is going on. We're just shown that Wanda and Vision are currently stuck in a sitcom, and that's it. By making it a mystery, fans are given this sort of interaction with the series as they find clues and come up with theories about how and why this happened. Sure, some assumptions were more far fetched than others (did people think Mephisto was confirmed just because of one misinterpreted line involving the Devil?), but it still makes the show a ton of fun to watch. Plus, even when we're given answers, it's only tiny pieces of the puzzle. We're always given a chance to figure out the bigger picture, resulting in an image that is, I'll admit, somewhat satisfying to see. Just as long as you ignore the crybabies who get upset that their favorite theories turned out to be wrong.

The Homages are on Point: I also love how straight the cast and crew play with the idea of two superheroes being stuck in a series of sitcoms. Everything they use fits in the era each sitcom takes place in. With things like camerawork, set design, special effects, acting quality, tropes, and even theme songs, everything works as a proper homage than just having two episodes in black and white and the rest in color. Each new sitcom that Wanda and Vision are rebooted in feels so genuine, to the point where they seem like they could be actual shows that could have existed. Seriously, my dad showed me stuff like The Dick Van Dyke Show when I was a kid, so trust me when I say that the very first episode nails the style that it's honoring. Not only is it charming as all forms of hell, but it also works in making these moments when characters break from the spell (get it) all the more jarring and even disturbing at times. Because when you're so keen on watching what seems like a fun and cheesy sitcom, you feel a bit unsettled when a character suddenly acts in a way that's a tad foreboding. Still, it's fun to watch and is easily the central hook for what makes this show work.

The Comedy: The homages also nail the comedy that came from each type of sitcom. The jokes fit with each period, from the cheesy and charming 50s to the cynical and dry 90s and early 2000s. It's another thing the writers play straight with, and I think it works. The only jokes made by most stories like this are just pointing out that these serious characters are stuck in a silly sitcom. Instead, the writers tell jokes that work for the period it's in, and it is all genuinely funny if you're used to those types of goofs and gags. If you didn't laugh, that's because the comedy isn't trying to reach out to you. It's reaching out to the people who actually watched these types of sitcoms. Or, in my case, the type of people who had their parents show them these types of sitcoms. And even then, I still think there are these lines and deliveries that are still funny even if you don't get the joke. For example, there's this brief moment with Vision and a toy baby that got a genuine chuckle out of me for how absurd it was. I wasn't expecting to laugh that much, but on top of the many surprises this show gave, being funny was definitely one of them.

“My husband, and his indestructible forehead”: He...hehe...hehehehahahaHAHAHAHA! AH! HA! HA! HA! 

*Slowly starts sobbing*

>Squeaks<

I see what you did there.

Paul Bettany as “Vision,” “Vision,” and Vision: Can we give Paul Bettany a round of applause for basically playing three different characters, each with their own varying levels of emotions and purposes? Because goodness gracious, this man is a champion! I've seen tons of people praise Elizabeth Olson for her performance as Wanda, and to be fair, she does do a fantastic job...aside from one blatant issue (which I'll get into later). But as great as Olson is, Bettany still deserves some credit. Throughout most of the series, he has this level of comedic-timing that I didn't even know he was capable of, by going ham or just having a dry wit. Seriously, was someone going to tell me that Paul Bettany can be funny, or was I supposed to find that out for myself? On top of being hilarious, Bettany delivers such raw emotion that none of us would have ever expected from this character. That screaming match “Vision” has with Wanda shows the very first time that any version of him has ever been angry, and Bettany does a great job at making that moment as jarring as it needed to be. And that's just from playing one version of the character! I didn't even talk about how he nails the naive yet still wise Vision from the flashback in "Previously On" or the cold and robotic "Vision" from "The Series Finale." Bettany has range, and WandaVision is a great show that proves how. One just needs to have the right amount of vision to see it (HhhhhhhhhhhHA!)

Developing Wanda: But as great as Paul Bettany, and to a lesser extent, Vision, is, Wanda Maximoff is clearly the star of the show here (And yes, I know that it's Wanda who's the character and Elizabeth Olson is the actor, but...I'll get into it!). If WandaVision has taught me anything about these Disney+ shows, it's that we are finally going to get some long-awaited development to characters that are starved from it. And Wanda definitely needed it. Don't get me wrong, Wanda was great in past movies but wasn't that compelling of a character. Here, trust me when I say that the opposite is true. 

We are given a deep dive into not only Wanda's morality but also her psyche. The writers really play around with how scary Wanda can be. As well as questioning if Wanda has the capability of being evil. Because, yeah, what she did was not right. True, our "heroine" was going through some rough s**t, but that doesn't excuse the amount of torture Wanda put the people of Westview through, no matter how unwittingly. Just look at that scene where everyone grills Wanda about what she's doing to them, not only pleading for whatever compromise they can get and even begging for her to kill them instead. That is dark! That is the darkest concept the MCU has ever offered, and the ending of Avengers: Infinity War exists!

But, while it doesn't entirely excuse everything, there is a reason why Wanda did all of this. You see, throughout WandaVision, Wanda goes through the five stages of grief. It all starts with denial as she pretends to live in a sitcom that she created where Vision is alive, and they get to even have kids together. Soon comes anger when she destroys anything and physically harms anyone that tries to bring her back to reality. Next, there's bargaining as Wanda strengthens her hex and expands it to keep outsiders out and keep Vision in. This leads to depression as the weight of all of Wanda's actions finally sinks in, and she's forced to realize the damage she's causing. Until all of it ends with acceptance, as Wanda finally, finally, gets to say goodbye to Vision. Something she never really got when Thanos ripped the mind stone out of Vision's forehead. It's both incredible to watch as it is fascinating. Wanda, through the course of her own little spin-off series, just went from a decent character to one of the most intriguing to dissect in the MCU. And we have this show to thank for it.

The Commercials: These commercials offer three things.

They're more homages to classic television, each product and filming for each one honoring how commercials looked in each era.

They offer more of an insight into Wanda's psyche as we see how each commercial shows bits of her history, regrets, and deepest desires. You see all of the above in the Lagos' paper towel commercial.

There are neat bits of foreshadowing of what's to come, like how Hydra Soak ends by saying it's for "your inner goddess" or how the 90s commercial ends by saying Magic isn't meant for the weak.

With all of that, these commercials are as fun to analyze as they are disturbing as hell.

The Dinner Scene: This was the moment it was clear that WandaVision wasn’t going to just be fun and games. The second that "Mr. Heart" starts screaming at Wanda about why she and Vision came, it becomes clear that the whole wacky scenario our heroes are in isn't as harmless as we all thought. And when "Mrs. Heart" playfully tells her husband to stop it when “Mr. Heart” starts choking, only to desperately scream at Wanda to stop it, audiences begin to piece together that the people of Westview are prisoners--no--victims. As for Wanda? She's the unknowing dictator forcing them to do what she says. And it was this scene that I knew I was going to really enjoy this show.

The Blip Scene: And it was this scene that made WandaVision skyrocket into top-tier MCU territory! As much as I love Spider-Man: Far From Home, I will admit that making a joke with the concept of something like the blip might not have been the best move. But showing the chaos of everyone coming back all at once? On top of showing the confusion that a person would have from being told that a five-second nap was five years? Yeah, that's more in line with what we want.

Returning Characters: Not only was I surprised by the fact that these pretty minor characters in the MCU made a return at all, but I was also shocked to find out they work better in this series than they did in their respective movies. First, there's Monica. Not only is she reintroduced as a brand new hero (with, admittingly, confusing superpowers), but she also works as the anti-Wanda. Both characters had someone they care about dearly die without getting a chance to say goodbye. The difference is that Monica doesn't have the abilities Wanda does and is instead forced to quickly accept that her mom is dead and won't come back. She even admits that she would bring her mom back if she could. But that just makes Monica the perfect person that Wanda needs. A person that understands where she's coming from and tries to convince Wanda to do the right thing, no matter how hard it is. Monica's methods may have been a tad bit sloppy, but she is still ten times more intriguing than that little girl who screwed around with the color scheme on Captain Marvel’s suit.

Then there's Jimmy Woo, who is both funnier here than in Ant-Man and the Wasp, and actually shows signs of being a competent FBI agent. A step up, I might add, from the hilariously incompetent character we saw in his previous appearance.

And also, Darcie is here...and still slightly annoying...but at least she still has a couple funny lines here and there! Which is more than I can say with Thor and Thor: The Dark World.

In my opinion, it's a good move having these characters with pretty small roles in vastly different stories make a return. It shows that they are not limited to their one little corner of the MCU. And that they can branch off into taller tales that suit them perfectly. It's pretty cool, and it makes me wonder what other small characters could make a triumphant return.

Billy and Tommy: These two are...fine. Billy and Tommy give me Zach and Cody vibes sometimes, the kids playing them do a decent job, and they both offer some great emotional moments. The problem is that out of the list of characters that WandaVision introduces and reintroduces, there's not much to talk about with Billy and Tommy. Honestly, the only reason why I briefly mentioned that I like them is that I don't want dozens of people crucifying me for not saying anything about them. I don't hate them, but I don't much care for them either.

Evan Peters as Quicksilver: Although I would have loved it if it was Aaron Taylor-Johnson who made a return, seeing Evan Peters in a good Marvel movie again is more than worth it. He plays a much more fun version of Quicksilver while still nailing the sibling relationship the character has with Wanda. In a way, it's a lot like how Marvel cast J.K. Simmons as J Jonah Jameson at the end of Spider-Man: Far From Home. It's admitting that no one could have played the character better than this one actor and briefly making fans happy in the process. While also not doing something crazy like having it be the exact same Quicksilver from the X-Men movies. Only f**king idiots would believe something like that...

...

...But hypothetically speaking, let's say some people were stupid to believe that. While making an outrageous claim that the writers "lead them on to doing so." In which case, I will say the same thing that one would say when friend-zoning someone: "Nobody led you on to s**t. You were just too busy focusing on what you wanted to see instead of what you needed to see."

Because there was no evidence that it was the same Quicksilver other than the fact that it was the same actor. And, hypothetically speaking, if there were dozens of crybabies who were upset about it not being the same Quicksilver, then I have so much more respect for this character being nothing more than a boner joke. Because you did this to yourselves...hypothetically speaking.

Retconning Wanda’s Powers: ...I'm ok with this. Retcons happen all the time in the comics, as well as in movies and television. It's just a matter of making the retcon believable enough where there are few holes in what you're telling people. As for Wanda apparently having magic this entire time, but the mind stone amplified her powers? I can buy that. Besides, it's an acceptable excuse to make Wanda as powerful as she is in the comics (from what I've been told), so like I said, I'm ok with this.

“I can’t feel you…”: ...That's fine. I didn't need my heart anyway.

“Vision’s” Talk with “Vision”: Forget the horrible CGIed battles. I want more of this!

Now, I put both Visions in quotation marks because while they're both the same character, they're also...not the same. Which is, funnily enough, what this scene is: A philosophical discussion between two versions of the same android about what makes them both/neither the definitive version. One may look the same, and the other may be the same body, but neither "Vision" really is the true Vision. However, the fact that these two stop their fighting so they can have this discussion in the first place helps secure that while different, they are still the same. It's a thought-provoking discussion, and it is ten times more interesting to watch than Wanda and Agatha's CGI fight in the sky. Although it is kind of odd that White-Vision just peaces out the second Hex-Vision gives him a reboot. But hey, that's for the future movies to deal with.

“Thank you for choosing me to be your mom.”: >Deep inhale<...Girl.

Wanda Saying Goodbye to Vision: >DEEPER INHALE< HOOOOOOOOOOO BOY! I did not expect this much emotional turmoil from f**king WANDAVISION!

Joking aside, this is a well-handled scene. It's incredibly emotional to see these two characters say goodbye to each other as their arcs come to a close. "Vision" peacefully leaves knowing who he is in the world, and Wanda can finally start moving on as she gets to say goodbye to her one true love. It's as bittersweet as it is beautiful.

WHAT I DISLIKE

MCU logos flashing in every episode: You know how CinemaSins has this bulls**t excuse about how the MCU opening logo wastes time to get to the good stuff? This is the only instance where that's applicable. Because the opening logo was cool to see again for the first episode, but having it play in every single one after breaks the immersion when trying to binge the series. It's for a couple of seconds, sure, but after a while, it does get pretty annoying.

Elizabeth Olson as Scarlet Witch: Now, to be clear, I have no problems with Elizabeth Olson's acting ability in this series. She juggles being funny, heartbreaking, and threatening so well that I am likely to laugh and cry with her as I am to s**t my pants while in her presence. Elizabeth Olson does a great job with this character. The problem? Well, in the comics, Wanda Maximoff is Roma, and Elizabeth Olson...isn't. This means that WandaVision, and the MCU as a whole, has a bad case of white-washing.

I could go on about the issues this brings, but I am not as educated about this subject, and all I know is just stuff that seems like common sense. For instance, I believe it is more than reasonable to hire an actor of a specific race or ethnicity for a character who is of a that same race or ethnicity. But that is as far as my knowledge and personal stance goes, and to expand on it would be too much of a risk because I have no right to criticize the representation of something I am not a part of. So instead, I'm going to point you to @earnestdesire‘s blog and Jessica Reidy’s article on the subject. They do a great job at discussing the issues with Olson’s Wanda and pointing to the issues the MCU has in representing Wanda and Pietro's representation in the comics. And they do it in a far better way than I ever could have. So check them out to truly see why, despite doing a great job, Elizabeth Olson should not be the person donning the suit.

It Was Agatha All Along: AND I STILL F**KING HATE THAT!

I know, I know, I am in the minority on this one. And I still don't understand why! To me, Agatha has all of the problems that Hans has in Frozen. Sure, there are hints if you pay more attention during a few select scenes that are slightly questionable. Like how she refers to Wanda as "the star of the show" or coincidentally shows up with a dog house for Sparky. However, much like how Frozen didn't need a villain like Hans, WandaVision didn't need a comic book villain like Agatha. The story was perfectly passable as a personal conflict involving Wanda's grief where the only obstacle was the director of S.W.O.R.D. and his agents. There is nothing Agatha adds to that.

"But she helps Wanda find out what happens!" Yeah, but Monica could have done the same thing by actually breaking through to Wanda and calmly asking what happened. From then on, they could have worked things out together by having Wanda retrace events that transpired through the information that Monica knows as well.

"But Agatha helps Wanda realize what she's doing is wrong!" So could Vision! He could have shown up, did that mind-meld thing to the townspeople, and Wanda would finally learn what she was doing was wrong through the person she trusts the most.

"But Agatha helps Wanda learn that she's the Scarlet Witch!" Ok...but did that need to happen in this series? Because when you think about it, when the central conflict is all about exploring Wanda's grief, throwing in this narrative about becoming the Scarlet Witch has little to do with anything. Meaning that if you cut it from the story, little would change other than cutting a CGI battle that everyone agrees is the worst part of the series.

The most Agatha adds to the story is a secondary conflict that could easily be cut, and the overall quality would stay the same, if not better. And that is a problem. Agatha needs to add to the central conflict in a way that no other character could have. Like, give her a reason to be involved in Wanda’s life that goes beyond feeding off her magic and leading Wanda to her destiny. Because as is, even if you argue that Agatha is a good twist villain, she's a villain that really didn't need to be here.

Director Haywood: But as much as I don't like Agatha, I think we can all agree that Director Haywood is the worst villain in the MCU. Because one issue that Haywood has is a lack of motivation. For instance, why does he try so hard to write off Wanda as this supervillain? It was never explained, and for something so bizarre and crucial to his character, I feel like it needed to be. It would be passable if he was motivated out of fear and ignorance, but Haywood goes so far as to misedit security footage to prove his point. And I don't get why.

Is he sexist?

Did Wanda not show up at his kid's birthday party?

Did he secretly want to use Vision as a sexbot and didn't want Wanda to get between them?

I don't know, and I'll never know.

Plus, on top of having no motivation, Haywood is just forgettable. Agatha may piss me off to no end, but at least I'll remember her. I honestly forgot Haywood's name half the time, and I'm willing to bet that you did too. Case in point, his name isn't even Haywood. It's Hayward. And in the off chance that you didn't even know about that misspelling just proves my point about how forgettable Hayward is. While it's one thing to be hated, it's another to be forgotten. Because that just means that you left so little impact that you aren't even worth getting upset about.

------

And that is what I thought about WandaVision. If I had to base this off my usual score, I'd have to give the show the same 7/10 that everyone else gave it. Because there's a lot that I love, but the stuff that I hate is so problematic that it takes the WandaVision down on a couple of notches. It's still a fantastic series with a solid story, a great message, incredible acting, and phenomenal character development. It's just that not everyone is going to be willing to tune in as much as you might think.

[wombathos]

1.8 i robot... you jane

- this episode is so late nineties, it’s beautiful

- what is up with the starting scene where the pretty boy is asked to profess his love to the wrinkly moloch (the corruptor) demon 

- so i robot… you jane is a fun episode title (riffing off tarzan) (also asimov! specifically I’m guessing his robopsychologist stories got to admire the man’s commitment to cool scifi versions of psychology about positronic brains and stuff) and it’s not like those influences are entirely absent from the episode itself but… eh. the tarzan and jane stuff is there in the interactions between characters from different........ cultures, fine, I guess? and I suppose one form of a positronic brain would be some ancient demon consciousness as a machine, sure that’s what asimov had in mind

- the scanning magic words and thus letting the demon loose in the computer is admittedly a neat idea, playing off the whole ~power of the words themselves~ trope and trying to bring the magic and tech worlds together (though contrast with s4 episodes that just had unabashedly scifi villains like adam without needing to explicitly involve magic, iirc anyway). also like how the words disappear when they’re scanned - which reminds me of dark willow sucking those magic shop books dry, ~uploading~ them as a source of power

- bit of a tonal disconnect between a character going “I’m jacked in I’m jacked in I’m jacked in” but then in the next shot committing decidedly disturbing self harm

- “to read makes our speaking english good” is just a beautiful line

- one thing I appreciate about btvs episodes - as someone who gets really strong second hand embarrassment - is that even though main characters occasionally have to be idiots for plot purposes, they usually don’t go too far. willow does get suspicious pretty quickly when malcolm knows too much about buffy. and despite how it did tackle the whole ‘oh well you never know who you’re talking to on the internet!’ by going ‘it COULD be a robot/ancient demon’, which... well. it does at least devote some time to the students’ loneliness and why willow might want to believe that the internet guy is real

- “okay, for those in our studio audiences who are me?” nice fourth wall nudge by xander there

- the ‘suicide’ of the boy catches me unawares every single time I watch this episode. it’s such a jarringly dark moment. idk, it’s not like btvs doesn’t normally switch up tones and I can’t attest to how this would’ve played to audiences in the 90s, but I think where I struggle is that despite alluding to plenty of serious fears of technology, the actual plot is... really quite silly (especially the way the fritz character is written), but it doesn’t necessarily feel like the episode is acknowledging that in the same way other episodes might or even seem to be aware of it - so a lot of the dark stuff feels quite cheap and used only for shock value. hence the tonal disconnect

- the robot in the military facility gives it a proto-s4 vibe

- “the divine exists in cyberspace” ha

- about the technopagan thing - it is interesting as a s1-ism since after the early years there’s a lot of emphasis on magic and science as oppositional worlds, which is discussed a lot in relation to willow but isn’t exclusive to her either. like in a post-s2 world, they could’ve gone with willow continuing on with jenny’s path to find a sort of union of the two worlds, contrasting that with giles old-school approach, but they don’t, really. there’s moments where the two meet, like when willow uses magic to make a computer search go faster at some point in s6, but even for willow they mostly remain very separate? she’s adept in both, but in s4 it’s all about how she’s into all the ‘new age’ witch stuff now (not so much in love with those computers any more, she’s into that new trendy thing, get it, get it), then in s6 and in bits of s7, she tries to replace magic by going back to her computer skills. so there’s not really a lot of technopagan-ing going around (not really thought through the implications of this, but I feel like this could’ve been something interesting for her to explore in s7 when she’s trying to forge a new identity of sorts? then again, that would mean you’d need a concrete idea of what technopaganism constitutes beyond ‘using the computer to research stuff’ and ‘doing remote magic circles’ and the more I think about it, it does feel kinda gimmick-y. here it’s fine because it’s the contrast between new and old but… at most tech could be reintegrated into s7 in that faintly utopian noughties spirit of finding community through the internet and willow making her own way, reaching out to others like her, all that collective empowerment schtick) and WOW this is a tangent and a half, anyway

- this is an odd episode for cordelia to miss since it feels like she would’ve fit right into pushing the lonely nerds a little further in their loneliness and their ‘no one else understands me’ thing, except maybe given the dark turn of this episode, they felt like that’d make cordelia look a bit too bad/distract from the main plot

- speaking of lonely nerds, on the balance of s1 villains, the bullied do end up being the villains more often than the bullies, don’t they? for the former you get fritz, invisible girl, admittedly fake-out villain of puppet show. then while the nightmares kid isn’t bullied or a villain, he is abused and thus also a victim. for the latter, there’s the pack. other villains are a teacher, a coach and a mother - all authority figures - and then various vampires who don’t at all fit into the high school hierarchy. all in all, there’s a lot of characters using the supernatural to lash out at others, often their bullies, with sometimes more and sometimes less sympathy afforded to them. but then you also have the protagonists, who are themselves put-upon nerds but ones who don’t (yet) reach to supernatural solutions to dealing with their high school enemies, as well as the negative ways in which the figures at the top of the hierarchy, including cordelia, are portrayed throughout the season. so maybe there’s a fairly even split in how the supernatural is both used in tormenting the weak but also used by the weak to lash out in turn, reacting to their powerlessness (but not in a way the audience is meant to see as good or right)

- moloch telling willow “you are mine”, even robots are doing the male possessiveness thing these days

- “let’s face it. none of us are ever gonna have a happy, normal relationship” press f to pay respects

[dgcatanisiri]

I had the thought recently about how the idea of “canonical character interaction is antagonistic which leads to them being shipped” is DEFINITELY representative of heteronormative attitudes - We have, for good and for ill, been brought up to believe that “pulling pigtails” is a sure sign of attraction between little boys and little girls, and this is then transferred over into a same-sex pairing. As a trope, this goes back AT LEAST to Shakespeare and The Taming of the Shrew.

Problem is, that’s NOT the same-sex attraction experience. The same-sex attraction experience is that someone of the same-sex shows us the smallest ounce of decency and kindness, we will spend years following in their shadow and building an image in our head of them being our perfect example of love. 

*ahem* What, why are you looking at me like that?

Anyway, there are two particular examples in my mind that kinda emphasize just how this plays out when it comes to media and the fans reactions of same-sex pairings, at least on the M/M end. And they make a case for certain problems within fan communities, with the respective media they’re for reacting in different ways, and, in my personal opinion, show how the people running the shows and the fan responses don’t get the differences.

(Even though, yes, I realize, both of my examples are helmed by gay men - it’s not like their staffs were gay and the studios were not, so that is less of a thing for the purposes of what I’m trying to say here.)

So, example one: Glee. Glee is, rightfully, a dark period of time we are truly better off pretending never existed, but it’s useful for my point, so please bear with me. IN CANON, Kurt spent much of the first season hopelessly head over heels for Finn. This was an actual, ongoing subplot through the first season, up to the point it culminated in the mess it that it did we’re not here to go into that god I really could rant on Glee if I were going to...

Right. My point. Sorry. Glee does that to me.

Anyway, Kurt’s canonical attraction in season one was towards Finn, and, while we all knew it would never happen, that the intent was always going to be towards the heterosexual breeding pair of Finn and Rachel... At this point in time, when I was in the Glee fandom, the main pairing was Kurt and Puck. 

Puck, the guy whose INTRODUCTION was leading a pack of bullies in tossing Kurt in a dumpster. THAT was where the majority of the fanfics I came across at the time were looking towards. 

Fandom saw “bully and victim” and took it to “Puck is expressing his repressed feelings for Kurt by bullying him.” 

And stick a pin in the concept of “fandom” in general, I’m going to come back to it after the second example.

Now, and brace yourself, because I’m about to say something positive in regards to Glee, the response on the show was to turn around and, the following season, not only introduce a new bully for Kurt who WAS doing what fanon!Puck had been doing, which lead to Kurt actively refusing a relationship with him, while also getting a canonical boyfriend. Yes, I call that a positive.

Because while I was closeted throughout my time in public school, I was still bullied and mistreated by other students, if not due directly to my sexuality. It did not lead to crushes on those guys. Hell, there were a couple of guys who spent a good amount of time pretending to be my friends, and if it had been a few years later, that might have become a crush. Instead, though, they revealed themselves before that happened and I completely cut them out of my life when they revealed themselves. And I’ve never felt bad about that.

The gay experience is not crushing on your bullies. It’s crushing on your friends, on the people who you know will be there for you. You don’t see the bully as “disguising their feelings.” No, that you’re gonna take at face value, because the alternative may well be dangerous to you. At least if someone’s been kind to you, they’re more likely to keep up that behavior. But why would you EVER put your heart - and your LIFE - on the line by telling someone who has shown you nothing but disdain “I’m attracted to you”?

Now, for the second example. If Glee was the good one (because the law of averages say it had to happen), then Teen Wolf is the bad one.

See, we all know that Stiles and Derek (no I am NOT going to refer to it by the ship name, I do NOT need that drama showing up in my feed) were considered the fandom darling. 

BUT... They were the above “bully/victim” ship. Their interactions in season one were very distinctly antagonistic. Meanwhile, in terms of positive pairings that could be teased, there were a few - Scott/Stiles (bromantic best friends), Scott/Danny (Scott canonically cuts in between Danny and his Prom date so that he can hide the fact that he’s not supposed to be there by making Coach look homophobic), Scott/Derek (Derek talking about how they had a bond as pack), Stiles/Danny (”Am I attractive to gay guys?”). 

But no. It was Stiles and Derek that became the runaway darling in the fandom. To the point that, eventually, the show engaged actively in queerbaiting, throwing them together more and more often, but ultimately never doing more than teasing before throwing female characters at the both of them. 

(Granted, I also don’t think that any discussion of that particular ship is valid unless you also acknowledge the racism involved, considering that the ship itself features two white guys, while the other two characters I mentioned are, respectively, Latino and Hawaiian, very clearly not white - you will note that Scott and Jackson had a similar antagonistic relationship, and THAT pairing didn’t get much attention at all, despite not having any competition with the “main” ship. In particular, I think that it was entirely valid for Tyler Posey to have seen this reaction and condemned the ship, because it was basically people diminishing him and his character to focus on white guys, especially when you consider how often Scott’s traits ended up being transposed onto Stiles... Okay, this is starting to move beyond the scope I wanted for this.)

Now. back to the issue of “fandom.” Because you know... I don’t think the “fandom” of either of these pairings, Kurt and Puck and Stiles and Derek consisted heavily of actually gay fans - not that they weren’t out there, but I don’t think they were the bulk of the initial fans of the first season, only really coming on board after season two and the active queerbaiting. I think they were, at the time of the first season, heavily made up of teenage girls.

And I’m not saying this as part of the general habit that there is in media critique to just dismiss teenage girls as a demographic as cringey don’t-pay-attention-to-THAT-crowd. It’s just my observation that, for teenage girls, all the things we say about women in fandom exploring their sexualities are magnified - what’s the common observation, that women in fandom use M/M pairings to explore a “safe” dynamic that they can observe and play out harmlessly for themselves, something to that effect?

So that’s the awareness I’m coming into this with - those teenage girls (and I’m emphasizing teenage girls because we have high school dramas, where I’m fairly sure these are the primary audience) use the awareness that they had of “how relationships work” when it comes to heterosexual relationships and were simply applying it to their perceptions of the gay pairings they were looking at. That “pulling pigtails” is the trope this audience associated with attraction, and so it’s how they applied.

THIS IS NOT CONDEMNATION. I really feel I have to hammer this point - I am observing a trend, in the name of awareness and understanding, I am not trying to say that anyone who was doing this or is still doing this has done ANYTHING wrong here. I want that to be very clear. This is me having spotting this trend and wanting to give it some attention, because look at the age of the examples I’m offering - both these shows lasted for six seasons and have concluded their runs, I’m only looking at their first seasons here as is, we are not talking about recent stuff, just history of fandom. I could have looked at more and seen if there was a universal trend or just a trend of the times or what. While this certainly could be grounds for one, this is not me having done some massive research project consisting of multi-media examinations of fandom and queerness, I’m just connecting dots and trends that I have seen to look at this thing that, going forward, I would like to see us pay attention to and be aware of.

Because my point is (for the TL;DR summary) that same-sex attraction manifests DIFFERENTLY. To express attraction to the person who is mistreating you is to invite harm being inflicted. The gay experience is to pine from afar because they were nice to you. And, obviously, a straight person is not going to know this inherently - this is part of an experience that they don’t have. 

I’d just like to see this recognized in the future when it comes to how people respond to and react to the popular same-sex ships in fandom - are they being shipped by actual queer people, or is it prominently the straight fandom using their view of things and latching on to a ship, rather than being actual queer fans expressing themselves.

Like, that’s one of my big things - I often don’t feel very... I’m going to hedge this as “noticed,” rather than any other term, within fandom a lot of them time, as a queer man and queer creator. The big names in fandom, writing for the popular ships, still tend to be female creators, which... I’m not discounting the queer women who are writing and making art and all that featuring M/M pairings, but I do feel like they get elevated to a point where the queer men doing the same creation do not, which can seem like a problem, even if I recognize that it’s as much an issue of who even picks up the pen or opens the word processor or whatever as it is a matter of promotion - I do recognize that it may be as much that queer men aren’t creating as much as it is anything else, there is a complex ball of interconnected issues pushing and pulling on one another.. 

It’s just a frustrating feeling of not seeing your experiences being given your voice - it means you have to depend on others to speak your story. Which, surprise, surprise, is not exactly encouraging to gay people, who’dve thunk?

[cozy-possum]

So uhh reading @aquitainequeen post about daemon’s and the questions HDM universe brings up; I know one of the ever popular fan-fiction tropes for HDM crossovers is a “human shaped daemon” because apparently there’s nothing in book canon to suggest otherwise; either way I’m avoiding exam prep.

Support My Writing?

TW: Self-harm, dark themes

Summary: When does self-love become self-harm

Her parents never give her any warnings; no scoldings about how a proper daemon should behave; she is young and so is her Victor; they are allowed to be as children should.

When she comes in from the park crying, Victor trailing after her miming her father’s daemon’s form they laugh and joke about how she’s daddy’s little girl. They eat dinner and by the time her mother brings the dessert in Victor has changed his loyalties to their mother.

When she hides Victor under her coat, and he shrinks to a field mouse in her pocket; do they talk to her about the bullies who make fun; how the oldest had a daemon that settled into a hunting dog, which is practically a real wolf so everyone listens to him. Her parents don’t confront them, just harshly insist the school keep a better watch on their daughter as well as the other students tat are joined as the bullies gain numbers.

The dance studio and the teachers daemon’s move as one would expect, controlled but almost floating in their beauty. Her dance teacher has a swan Daemon and the number of goslings, ducklings and cygnets that bumble around class falling over their webbing outnumber the dancers own trips.

Her parents are busy with work; they don’t notice her slipping into the back garden with Victor; she claims she’s going to climb the tree; to be fair it starts out that way; but then Victor lights the idea that she could move out of the yard by jumping to the other tree. She does; and the excitement, the rush allows Victors form to shift into a bird; she quiet likes him as a mockingbird; a soft gentle thing that lets his beak sing how she can’t. She leaps farther into the expanse of forest, playing that she and Victor are squirrels; red and vibrant in the dulling sunset. It takes her three more trees to realize how far away they are. It takes her less than turning to realize how easily her feet slip from under her; how the wind feels and how there is no crunching sound of bone. it is replaced by just a shifting; a scrape of something that is not meant to move and a panicked scream that almost bubbles from her lips as she nervous stands herself up.

“Victor?” She calls out nervously and tries to step hesitating before she can feel the faint pressure of him on her shoulder. She steps twice more before the shift happens again, flowing over her leg and crushing her body back to the ground. She offers a strangled sort of sob before pushing herself half up.

“This is so bad.” She mumbles to herself struggling up and dragging herself to the tree closest barely able to see her house, unable to call out as her body is shaking too much for her to even call Victors name again.

“ ‘s’okay; s’okay.” She closes her eyes and can feel Victor pressing himself against her cheek. She’s shaking and swallowing trying not to cry and trying to stand fully; knowing she can’t and knowing the forest holds worst things than the biting wind.

“I’ll get help; it’ll be okay I just-” She shakes her head and Victor sighs. She can feel Victor moving and doesn’t open her eyes until she can feel a hand nudging her shoulder. She jerks her eyes open, shifting backwards cringing as her leg threatens to give way again as she meets a figure who tilts his head at her.

“Victor?”

“I can carry you.” He mumbles picking her up gently. She doesn’t argue as she feels him running back towards home.

Her parents don’t speak for two days about how Victor doesn’t seem to change his form. She doesn’t confess how it feels right, how safe she feels. Victor doesn’t either despite the coos and faint threats from both mother and father’s daemons.

School is far worse; Victor finding that the tether they share seems almost non existent uses it to his advantage. he manages to move without touching anyone for weeks until her parents agree to homeschool her. Victor drinks the school books and teachings up like a sponge.

Friends are not a problem; can’t have them if you’re not exposed. Victor reminds her fingers braiding her hair and drumming softly over her shoulder. Her parents don’t bring up how close they are; Victor is her soul; they shakily refer to him as their son in public company, not that that stretches beyond the occasional doctor or visiting teacher for lessons.

Both her and Victor grow into the routine they have; Victor sneaks out more often than not bringing in newspapers and books he’s bought with money their father had given. She writes poetry about everything in the books and he mumbles it back to her between nervously holding her hand.

She doesn’t talk about the feelings she has; the feelings she pushes onto Victor for fear of her becoming the soul. She doesn’t talk of her family ignoring her treating her as something shameful; that Victor is better, her soul their preference for the child they have now split in two choices. She confesses one night, her parents asleep in separate rooms after yelling at each other. She cries how she doesn’t want to be them; Victor is there like he always is, arms around her and fingers braiding her hair. Assuring her they never will become them; they’re too special; too understanding of one another.

Her parents are fighting again; over something Victor, she had done, they do not speak of them as separate anymore. When Victor snarls, snapping his teeth and swearing everything she’d confessed that night, words tumbling over his frothing lips do they take a step back nervously waiting for her to joke, to confess it some silly game they were playing. Victor simply pushes her behind him and glares.

Her parents attempt to nudge them away, but they way their stomachs recoil at touching Victor how he hisses and sneers has them hesitating. They send them to bed without supper.

Victor starts small; mumbling the childhood fears she’d forgotten; large trees, the dark, the way the stairs creaked when her father went to bed after work. She shrinks back towards him; he’d protected her in the forest he will protect her now. It doesn’t take long for her to agree that her parents idea of home school was the best idea for both of them; how the few friends she would write to are regretfully informed she has moved and left no forwarding address.

It’s Victor who grounds her; Victor who keeps her safe. He saved her in the forest; he saves her now. She repeats this as he guides her through town, the crowds jostling and moving far too fast; she’s overwhelmed once more and Victor ducks into an alley holding her head against his chest until she calms.

His fingers brush down her back sliding under the warm coat she wears. She jerks squealing at how cold his hands are and he grins; the couple in the park bench across smiling at them. She doesn’t smile back hands drifting to her lap where she stares at them. Victor grins pressing his cheek against hers watching the puff of breath unfurl on the air.

They leave from the house separately. They eat and work separately. No one questions the timid girl with the hidden mouse daemon; so fitting they coo. Victor never speaks to the other workers; simply keeping his head down and avoiding the looks the Daemons give him. They return to their shared room and shared bed and everyone comments how devoted they are to each other, how much they complement the other; how they make the other whole. Victor just nods and lets his fingers braid through her hair as she talks about her day.

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[sophieakatz]

Thursday Thoughts: Space Jews and Subverted Expectations

Major spoilers for Captain Marvel below the cut.

I cringed when Nick Fury referred to the Skrulls as “lizard people.”

That phrase was just the icing on the cake for what I’d feared – no, for what I’d known – that the Skrulls represented.

A race of shape-shifting lizard people who infiltrate other cultures by disguising themselves so well that we can’t tell the difference between them and normal people, and so they threaten the majority, secretly pulling the strings of the universe?

They’re Space Jews.

If you want to learn more about the antisemitic conspiracy theory which claims that Jewish people are alien lizards disguised as humans and secretly controlling the world, I recommend the following articles:

“‘Alien reptile’ and cloaked figure in Yair Netanyahu’s meme have old-new origins” by Times of Israel

“Your conspiracy theory is anti-Semitic” by Varsity

“The Alice Walker anti-Semitism controversy, explained” by Vox

But even if we drop the frankly bizarre “alien lizard” part of this propaganda, the Skrulls are unmistakably Jews, and for the first half of the movie they are presented in the antisemitic way that Jews often are in real life. They look like anyone else, but it’s just an act; you might trust them until you realize what they really are.

It’s an experience I’m all too familiar with, though it’s happened less often since I graduated high school – the moment I “out” myself as Jewish to someone, and their eyes go wide, and they say “Oh, I didn’t know,” and they keep their distance from that point onward. There is an assumption of untrustworthiness, of malice, of secret power and riches. I consider myself fortunate that keeping their distance is the reaction they usually chose, rather than being violent.

And I was ready to grit my teeth through yet another movie that used these tropes as though they were simply fantasy and had no real-world consequences. I was ready to watch the Skrulls go to their deaths without complexity, without sympathy, and without redemption. I was ready to be told to root against the sneaky scary Jews.

But that isn’t what happened. Instead, we learned more about the Skrulls.

We learned that they are a culture that refused to take on the way of life of the Kree majority, and that that is why they were deemed a threat. We learned that they are struggling to survive, that they are hunted wherever they go. We learned that they are scattered across the universe, that their families are in hiding, that they are desperately seeking a homeland.

And that changed everything. That’s when I began to fully enjoy the movie.

The Skrulls were still Jews. But they were no longer an antisemitic stereotype. They were sympathetic. They were real. And they were treated with dignity.

I looked at the Skrulls and I saw my people. I looked at the Kree and I saw our supremacist oppressors. And I looked at Carol Danvers and I saw something incredible – a repentant oppressor, who did not pat herself on the back for realizing that the oppressed were people too, but rather took the harm that she and her people had caused very seriously, and vowed to put all of her strength and resources into making concrete reparations. She defends the Skrull refugees with her life, and exits the film intending to destroy the Supreme Intelligence and help the Skrulls find a home.

It would have been so easy for this film’s writers, directors, editors, and actors to just keep the Skrulls as the bad guy. There are years of “aliens infiltrating human society” films that lead me to expect it to simply be the thing that just happens.

And even after they made the Skrulls sympathetic, it would have been just as easy to continue to torture them. I couldn’t help but look at the Skrulls hiding in Mar-Vell’s lab and think of Holocaust refugees. And if this were a different film – like Avengers: Infinity War, which also made use of Holocaust imagery, but in a reckless way – all or most of those Skrulls would have died a terrible, tragic death.

But Captain Marvel doesn’t take the easy way out. Instead, they set up the tropes, and then they show the rest of the story. Because in real life, when people talk about insidious lizard people, they’re actually talking about an oppressed diasporic community. The creators of Captain Marvel humanized that community, and then they gave it a champion. In this film, they show the world as it is, both the good and the bad parts of it, and then they show the world as it should be: better.

I don’t know if the creators of this film knew what they were doing. They might have. Anna Boden, one of the film’s two writer-directors, is Jewish – so it’s absolutely possible, and I would absolutely love to pick her brain about it. But even if antisemitism never once crossed her mind while creating this film, writing a story like this, instead of writing a story that’s like all the other stories, is a conscious choice.

And this isn’t the only subverted expectation to be found in Captain Marvel. It is overwhelmingly a surprising, positive story in which “the thing that just happens” does not happen.

Maria doesn’t die. Neither does Talos (though I was not at all surprised to see him shot during the escape). Nobody has a dead family to angst over, or a lost lover to pine over. Carol has some doubts about her own abilities midway through the story, but after a pep talk and hug from a female friend (all things that are still rare in media!), she never once doubts herself again. She doesn’t go on a journey to become a better person; instead she realizes that she always was that better person. She never makes any cheesy speeches about what it means to be human; the film trusts that the audience is smart enough to connect the dots. And when the villain demands a fair fight, she zaps him and says she owes him nothing. And then we see two of the most badass characters in Marvel Studios history joking around while washing the dishes.

I could write an entire article on any of these excellent subversions, intentional or not, that make Captain Marvel such an important story. At the very least, I’ve started with this one, which is particularly important for me as a Jew. This is the kind of story that the world needs, and the kind that I want to write.

[peachdoxie]

My official opinion of Ralph Breaks the Internet, with spoilers:

Ralph Breaks the Internet was an uninspired and predictable film whose attempts at originality failed to live up to the standards set by its predecessor and Disney's reputation. In short, I very much disliked it.

Before I begin, I will say that I did not expect much from this movie. Its trailers did not encourage me. And yet, somehow, Ralph Breaks the Internet was even less than I expected.

I will not say that Ralph Breaks the Internet was a bad movie. It had fairly decent animation, editing, cinematography, etc. Nothing spectacular, but nothing particularly horrible either, as I've come to expect from Walt Disney Animation Studios.

What made me dislike Ralph 2 was the fact that it was a conglomeration of cliches and stereotypes, none of which were handled well. Many of the jokes and plot elements relied on classism, ageism, cynicism, emotional immaturity, and/or unimaginative attempts at meta-analytical humor that ultimately fell flat. It attempted to be original and clever but instead felt like a low-budget Saturday morning cartoon by recycling the same jokes and plot devices instead of coming up with fresher and more creative ones.

Here are some of the many examples I am talking about and why I had an issue with them, in approximately chronological order:

After Sugar Rush is shut down, Felix and Calhoun take in the fifteen child racers. As soon as the racers are "adopted" by them, the racers instantly start wreaking havoc and breaking things, which is played for laughs. Instead of being grateful that they have a home after their game was unplugged, the racers were instead rude and destructive.

Later, in Tapper's bar, Felix comes across Ralph, who offers him Vanellope's root beer since she didn't show up. Felix claims that he has never drank root beer before, but decides to start because being a parent is too stressful. It's played for laughs, but the root beer is obviously a stand-in for actual alcohol. Normalizing alcohol and getting drunk as a solution to stressful parenting, anyone?

Any time a joke was made about Ralph's size could be taken as a metaphor for the world not being open to people whose bodies and accessibility issues fall outside the norm. However, since practically every instance of this was played for laughs, the movie instead presents Ralph's struggles with everything being too small as a thing to laugh at, instead of something to take as a serious issue.

The character of JP Spammly was subtly classist in presenting a lower class persona as inherently distrustworthy because they run a sketchy website.

During Vanellope and Shank's race, one of them brushes past a homeless man and knock his cup of coins out of his hand. This is, again, played for laughs, showing that we're supposed to find it funny that a(nother) misfortune fell a homeless person.

Practically all of the jokes about Ralph's lack of understanding regarding the internet were stereotypes of adults who don't understand the internet. This isn't really an issue like some of my other bullet points, but I'm just really sick of this stereotype, since there are many adults out there who understand the internet fine, of not better than young adults and teenagers currently.

The interaction between the male player of Slaughter Race and his offscreen grandmother is an ageist cliche. Two, actually: that the parent figure in the situation doesn't respect the teen's hobbies, and that the teen doesn't respect the parental figure's desires for family time.

Knowsmore was rude and condescending and unnecessarily so. Yes, I know he essentially works a customer service job, and it is canonically thankless. That does not give him the right to rudely badmouth customers after they are whisked away because they didn't thank him (they're computer avatars with limited communicability, so it seems) and it most certainly does NOT give him the right to condescendingly comment on a woman's weight. The customer in question was searching for size small tights and Knowsmore made a rude comment implying that she shouldn't be looking at small tights.

The scene with the princesses bothered me. Yes, it has been on the internet already and discussed at length. But it really frustrated me how it reduced all of the characters to basic stereotypes of themselves. I also figured out why the "does everyone assume that all your problems can be solved by a big, strong man?" comment has bothered me so much. It's inherently hypocritical: the way that it's presented is as a feminist statement that the princesses don't actually need a big strong man to save them, and yet that's what they're defined by, as everyone exclaims "she is a princess!" when Vanellope agrees with them.

Ralph finds the Buzztube comments, which are all extremely negative. I know it's a joke to not go on the comments on anything because they're always awful, but that's also not actually true. Most of the comments are just inane or showing support of something. It was obvious what was going to happen as soon as Ralph walked into the comments area. Yes, yes, the lesson of "don't get bogged down by the few bad things people say" could be relevant, but it wasn't presented that way because Yessss didn't point out any other comments or strongly try to encourage Ralph of the opposite. She just accepted that as fact.

There are more examples of this type of thing, these little moments that were ageist, classist, or just plain rude that made watching Ralph Breaks the Internet unenjoyable overall. The issue that I have with things like these are that they present small but harmful stereotypes as things to laugh at. People learn by example. That's basic human development stuff. And so if they see jokes in media that show harmful things as funny, they're going to replicate them and contribute to the same kinds of biases and hurtful behavior. The sheer number of these together make up one reason why I didn't like Ralph Breaks the Internet.

The second major reason why I didn't like Ralph 2 is that the entire emotional conflict between Ralph and Vanellope comes from a series of miscommunications that could have VERY EASILY been avoided if they had just TALKED TO EACH OTHER AND LISTENED. This is repeated multiple times in the movie. Ralph is afraid Vanellope will leave him for Slaughter Race and won't be his best friend anymore. Vanellope wants to find something new and exciting in her life but is afraid that Ralph will be upset. We also see the cliched trope of character A (Ralph) overhears character B (Vanellope) say something out of context that hurts character A's feelings. And here is the thing - instead of talking it out, both Ralph and Vanellope make assumptions about what the other wants and get upset and yell about it.

I. AM. SICK. AND. TIRED. OF. THIS. TROPE. All it does is show two emotionally immature people without good introspection skills hash out their problems in an unproductive and hurtful way. Yes, I am aware that Ralph in particular has insecurity issues, since they made an elaborate metaphor out of that as part of the film's climax. I'm not saying that's bad, necessarily. BUT. This type of thing happens over and over in media and it is, quite frankly, a lazy and unoriginal source of interpersonal conflict. Also, recall what I said earlier about humans mimicking behavior they see. Instead of showing problem solving after conflict based on miscommunication, why not just skip all the unnecessary drama and show the characters talking out their problems ahead of all that? It will save me the frustration and eye-rolling, that's for sure.

And my last major problem with the film is the ending. Vanellope abandons Sugar Rush for Slaughter Race. In what world is that a reasonable ending? Yes, there's the message about following your dreams and whatnot. But it is a very immature and selfish decision on Vanellope's part to abandon the game she came from, especially right after the game broke. It was expressed early on in the film that the players' favorite racer is Vanellope. What do you think they'll do when she's just suddenly not there? Do you think they'll play the game as much? Is pursuing your "dream" really worth risking your game being unplugged again, Vanellope? Is it worth it after all the pain and hardships Ralph went through to buy that replacement Sugar Rush steering wheel so that your game isn't unplugged? It was a lame ending that made an already frustrating movie thoroughly dislikeable.

I'm disappointed. I expect better from Disney, given their history of recent films. Frozen was better than Ralph Breaks the Internet. Heck, I like Moana better, and I was very critical of it. Honestly, Ralph Breaks the Internet suffered from the worst sequelitis I've ever seen and is not a worthy successor to Wreck-it Ralph in any way.

Also, if any of you come at me and say "it's just a movie calm down" I will block you because obviously you lack the critical thinking skills necessary to understand this post and I don't feel like being the one to educate you on something as basic as "media affects reality and human behavior".

[theconfusedartist]

Characters of Color: In Fandom and Media

Media Pet Peeves

So, I’m gonna be really honest with y’all here. I’ve been noticing a trend, and while I’ve seen it happen over and over again in fandom as well as the larger portion of fans that aren’t as far into the medium, but still care about it. What’s really taken me off guard however, is the fact that the people creating media as well as getting to put it out on a larger scale seem to following this same pattern. 

I, along with a bunch of other friends in college, noticed this but it seems that every time a character of color with dark brown/brown skin seems to have screen time, many negative tropes tend to surround them, and not always just in their writing as well as their portrayals. Black and brown characters in media, seem to always be categorized as; mean, slutty, angry, power hungry, and often seen as horrible people even in when in comparison they’re closer to saints than any villian that’s being majorly shown or interacted with in fandom.

It’s really frustrating that when you have black and brown characters, you have to worry about that character in particular always getting either; killed, suffering, losing happiness, getting pushed to the side or no development, or demonized by fandom and the show runners. And every time I’ve seen a big name show come out that had a prominent black or brown character in the spotlight or even in the main cast, it’s never ended well for those characters, sometimes even death would’ve been better than some of the endings they come out with.

Since this is something that’s been bothering me for a while, I’m not going to pretend like this is going to be my only reblog with this or my only post about the subject, as I have far more that I’d like to address than I’d want to put on one single post. So, for the sake of longevity and ease of reading, I’m going to make this one about something I’m sure we’ve all seen at one point: a character of color being lightwashed or whitewashed by the show or fandom, to the point that it’s more commonly associated with their character rather than their actually personalities. 

The first time I could ever really go and point out that this was happening came from an unexpected place, as I had long since given up on Berserk and Casca getting her happy ending, as it’s been a long time that it’s had any real updates. As of the time I’m writing this post (1/24/2019) Berserk has gotten a bit popular, but it’s certainly not a big thing, it has a smaller fandom, as it’s been going on for years and never seemed to pick up strides up until recently the author has started to put out more chapters, every once in a blue moon. But, I digress, Casca is the reason I was able to really put this into words and sadly proved the things I’d been saying before but had felt like I was just being too sensitive about. 

In media, I’ve seen that has brown characters they keep making their skin lighter or getting rid of any ethnic features into a cooky cutter shape. Casca had the worst of this, the 2016 reboot starting her out as a ghost until people made enough noise that they got the studio to change her skin tone back to it’s normal shade. But this was a problem long before the 2016 adaptation, as even in the movies, Casca’s skin tone was noticeably lighter than her manga or her original palette from the old anime and when I saw people bring it up, they were ridiculed, mocked, and had their judgement cast into question. Then the fanart came and while it wasn’t nearly as bad as some of the others I’ve seen, Casca started appearing lighter and lighter in fanart. Mind you, this was cut off with a quickness, as people started to flood her tag with pictures, gifsets, and other fan content with her skin the correct tone, they went in and fixed it and drove out the people who were trying to buy into the new wave of light Casca.

Like, for all the fandom posts I’ve seen, this little subject gets left out the most and it irks me. Like, it’s damn near impossible to find good fanfiction with your favorite non-white character, because no matter how dark their skin is, the best you’re usually gonna get is ‘dark tan’ or ‘peach’ as skin tone descriptions, and this isn’t even talking about the people that go out of their way to erase the canon skin tone. Like, is brown so hard to say? Is brown that hard to use as a skin palette? 

Like, another example, Atem from Yu-Gi-Oh! Atem is and was an ancient Egyptian pharaoh that ruled shortly during a time of chaos. He’s been brown, he’s always been brown, but when that fact came to light, suddenly Atem wasn’t the fan-favorite anymore, no it was yami-yuugi that became the fan fave, even though they’re supposed to be the same person, only Atem doesn’t have brown skin since he is in Yuugi’s body, Yuugi who has a different skin tone. But go into the fucking fanart or the tags and it’s not Atem who’s been marked up and made, it’s usually yami-yuugi but with the Atem tag on it. It’s so fucking insidious, so fucking insidous. Like, I promise you the people who tag it like that, know that anyone who’s searching is looking for Atem, not yami-yuugi, but the tags get flooded with this character that people used as a stand-in because they just couldn’t fucking stomach the fact that their fave wasn’t white anymore (not to mention, none of the ygo cast is white in the original, they’re japanese, but that’s a commonly ignored fact too. wonder why)

Another example: Clementine from the walking Dead Series. People brought up that she got lighter and the response was instead, ‘stop complaining about it!!’ but I mean I have to wade through 5k words on dick headcanons for fucking Kylo bitch-ass Ren, but god forbid someone notices some harmful shit pointing it out. That’s just crossing the fucking line I guess. I had a long drawn out essay that I was going to write out for this, but at the end of the day, if I keep going, I’m going to get pissed off and start ranting and losing focus for what I was getting at here. 

Consistently, fandom and media makers have placed more value on the lighter the skin tone of the character and will go out of their way to lighten or whitewash characters with darker skin because they absolutely refuse to see them as people so they just enable and restart the cycle of the same fucking shit I’ve been seeing the last seven years, so at this point, I’m fucking tired ok?

[drink-n-watch]

Genre : Action, fighting, supernatural

Episodes: 12

Studio: Platinum Vision

  Something has awakened. Something that’s been slumbering for a long time is beginning to stir and the shockwaves are being felt all over heaven and earth. Demons are getting restless and the attacks on innocent villages have become routine. Thankfully, the Sanzo party is here to protect the good people from the fiends that would do them harm. Never mind that they happen to be just as fiendish themselves. As long as you can pay for the services, you can trust them. Probably. After all, you have to be able to trust a venerable Sanzo monk now don’t you? He’s the one smoking and getting into a fist fight with his demon buddy while screaming obscenities. Yeah, this should work out just fine!

The journey for this little title to make it on my to watch list went something like this: this looks like an otome adaptation, it’s probably really stupid, I’m gonna watch it. a week later – yeah there’s plenty of stupid out there, maybe I don’t need this one, I’m going to flush it. Wait the summary says Yokai, I like Yokai, I’m going to keep it. OK, I guess I should really watch this at some point…

yeah…this is a smart way to start this post…

If you didn’t pick it up from my little skit there, I did not know what I was getting into but I sure thought I did. The production value for this show is decent. animation can get a bit visibly cheap with reused scenes and stills with offscreen battles but for the most part, everything is well done. Voice acting is quite good, colours stick to a signature palette, design and art is pretty.

Unfortunately, I think this pretty design and art is in fact doing Saiyuki Reload Blast a disservice. I took one look at those chiseled young men and their intricate costumes (all different and this is important) and I immediately thought, this is clearly an otome. At best it’s a poor man’s Touken Ranbu which remains one of the best cute boy shows I’ve ever seen and also only. The lack of a clear female lead was pushing me towards option number two but I was expecting some basic slice of life nonsense with historical flourishes thrown in for flavour. Some manservice and if they wanted to push it maybe a drop of hoyay suggestion.

look at all that…mancandy?

I judged it entirely on it’s cover I have to admit. I’m willing to bet I’m not the only one at that. That’s the problem you see. Those that are generally uninterested in those types of shows probably dismissed it offhand. I don’t blame them, the aesthetic is pretty glaring, and it’s not entirely wrong, the show is classified as Josei. But aside for a few scenes in the OP, there’s no fanservice at all (unless you count the lady monk with the super tight outfit) and none of the expected staples of the genre. Someone specifically looking for the show insinuated by those visuals, would be disappointed or at least, confused.

The narrative and execution of Saiyuri Reload Blast is closest to a rather traditional fighting shonen. If you had switched one of the main characters’ design to a sexy lady without changing anything else at all, you could have marketed it as such easily. The season is roughly separated into three arcs. The opening establishing arc plays out as a series of monster of the week episodes, with our main party going from one village to the next and saving them from demon attacks. It’s fine, a little dry but I’ve seen worse.

I said it was ok….

The second arc is a flashback to 500 years prior where the story starts to really from and the foundations are laid for the greater lore. It quickly became apparent the this show was basing itself on a Journey to the West, which is pretty awesome. It’s a very loose retelling but there were enough similarities for me to recognize it pretty easily, that made my appreciation for the series rise quite a bit.

This flashback arc was rich in references to classic Chinese folklore and filled with a tense atmosphere unmatched by the other episodes. I also found the flashback characters considerably more interesting. Despite how bloody and ultimately sad this arc was, it was by far my favorite part of the anime and I would have loved a season that explored just that story. The last arc brings us back to the present where past and future collide in an all out multiple episode battle.

After watching the show I found out that Saiyuri is an expansive franchise. Reload blast is only the latest in several anime incarnations, a whole series of OVAs, multiple rounds of manga, at least one movie and a stage play. This may in fact explain some of my gripes. You see, Saiyuri really plays up a lot of shonen tropes. The never ending battles, mid-fight monologues (this is so prevalent in fact that I think in the middle of battle is the only way we get an exposition), the best friend fisty cuffs, the super dramatic realization screams and the cathartic last minute saves.

Nantaku really needed more development mind you

They’re all there and all well done, except this is a 12 episode series. When you’re characters are going through this massive emotional struggle over what is a pretty silly situation in fact at episode 60, it works because you’ve grown to really know the characters and you accept their eccentricities. Also the stakes have been slowly rising so you got accustomed to it at your own pace before everything spilled over into ridiculous. Now you’re just kind of in for the ride. When the same thing happens at episode 4 you’re like, yo relax dude and this is kinda silly.

The low episode count and the need to fit in a fully realized three arc narrative with a centuries spanning background really condensed everything. To Saiyuri’s credit, the narrative was still pretty easy to follow and although the characters were pretty shallow, they weren’t completely 2 dimensional either. But the dramatic pacing is what really suffers here and ultimately will stop most people from engaging with what is at it’s core a decent, even interesting story.

mullets again…

If you happen to be interested in the Four Great Classical Novels of Chinese literature, I say give this anime a shot. It has some good moments and the parallels with Journey to the West are really fun to notice. If you like the character designs and are in the mood for a fighting anime that won’t make you commit to a high episode count, this could also be for you. Otherwise, it’s uneven and clumsy. There was enough there for me to be intrigued about the other anime seasons and-or manga but not enough for me to actively seek it out.

Also, in the very last episode we find out the jeep they have been driving in al along has a mind of its own and is in fact Hakuryuu which is Hakkai’s pet dragon. We find this out in the last 5 minutes of the last episode. Like wha??? OK, I’m done now. Oh no wait one last thing. There’s no Yokai. I mean the demons are technically yokai but they call them demons and they look like demons… this show has some failings is what I’m saying.

Favorite character: Field Marshal Tenpou (If there’s a season dedicated to the heaven’s arc – I will watch it!)

What this anime reminded me: This is the only way a monocle makes sense:

The problem with some people is that when they aren’t drunk they’re sober

Suggested drink: Berry Burbon Blast

Every time Sanzo is sleepy(ing)– take a sip

Every time Gojyo gets called a water sprite – take a sip of water

Every time Sanzo tells someone to shut up – take a sip

Every time we hear a stomach growl – get a snack

Every time Hakkai spouts random facts – humour him

Every time Gojyo’s chain scythe thingy appears out of nowhere – take a sip

Every time Nantaku gets hurt – take a sip

Every time Goku throws a fit – roll your eyes

Every time anyone smokes – take a breath

Every time there’s mid battle monologue – laugh, it’s all you can do at this point

Saiyuki Reload Blast – Journey to the Middle Genre : Action, fighting, supernatural Episodes: 12 Studio: Platinum Vision Something has awakened. Something that's been slumbering for a long time is beginning to stir and the shockwaves are being felt all over heaven and earth.

[foundcarcosa]

cccxxxviii.

List three people you’ve had crushes on. >> *shakes head slyly* Noooope! Have you ever been in love with someone that you watched from afar?: >> Yeah. How old were you when you started your period?: >> Eleven or twelve. Probably twelve. How old were you when you had your first crush?: >> Pssh, I don’t fuckin know. Like, ten. How old were you when you were first head over heels in love?: >> Thirteen, and it was with David Duchovny, and I stand by it, god dammit.

Has loving someone ever made you miserable?: >> Sure. How bad are your worst cramps on a scale of 1-10?: >> A fucking thirteen. Have you ever thrown up from cramps?: >> Yep. List three people you had a hard time forgiving. >> The people I had a hard time forgiving remain unforgiven, so. Is there someone you are currently struggling to forgive?: >> No, I’m not struggling. I’m not going to force it, what’s the point in that? Nothing requires my forgiveness. I don’t even regard it as a particularly important thing to give. What is the most physically painful thing you’ve ever experienced?: >> I don’t think anything I’ve experienced tops my worst cramps. Do you have an embarrassing period story? If so, what is it?: >> Not really any embarrassing stories. Like, I’ve bled through clothes and stuff before, but... meh, really. Mostly I was just mad that I ruined a pair of pants I liked. Have you ever had bad cramps in class?: >> Oh, yeah. Have you ever thrown up in school? If so, what happened?: >> Doubtful. Have you ever left school because of cramps?: >> Yeah, because I literally couldn’t stand up. Did your school allow you to have pain medicine on you?: >> I don’t know. I didn’t... like, realise I could take that and solve the problem. (I don’t know. I told y’all my development was skewed. But also, my dad never thought to buy me painkillers, either??? Hmm.) Did your school have a nurse?: >> Yeah. When was the last time you threw up?: >> A month ago or so. Have you ever tried to starve yourself in order to lose weight?: >> No. Do you ever comfort eat?: >> Occasionally. Have you ever thrown your phone across the room in anger?: >> Yeah. Raven (an ex) made me upset and I threw my phone across my studio apartment. Samsungs have always been tough, though. What was the name of your first crush?: >> Non-celebrity? Damned if I remember. Who was your first celebrity crush?: >> Matt Damon. How old were you when you lost your virginity?: >> Seventeen. If applicable, what form of birth control do you use?: >> Abstinence by default. What is your sexual orientation?: >> I’m oriented towards sex. Have you ever questioned your sexuality?: >> Sure. I was raised to believe that I had to be a straight female. At some point, I had to question that, because as you can see, it turned out to be fucking false. Are you happy with your gender?: >> I’m happy not having one, yes. What gender do you identify as?: >> I don’t. What gender were you born as?: >> I wasn’t born as a gender. But I get what you mean, and female is what I was assigned. Do you identify as “religious”?: >> Sure, just not in the way that most people do. Do you identify as “spiritual”?: >> I suppose. What spirituality are you?: >> I’m not “a” spirituality. That’s not how it works by my ken. Have you ever tried drugs?: >> Sure. Have you ever gotten high off a prescription medication?: >> I don’t think so. I tried hydrocodone and I didn’t feel any different. Have you ever been drunk?: >> Yeah. Have you ever smoked pot?: >> Yeah. Have you ever smoked a cigarette?: >> Yeah. What’s your favorite drug?: >> I don’t know anymore, lol. After these long-term effects started manifesting, my relationship with drugs changed drastically. I’m not even sure about trying anything new without a trip-sitter now, and I used to be perfectly fine without one. Going todash will fuck your perception and ability to self-regulate (regulate one’s connection with reality, I mean) way up. What’s your favorite alcoholic beverage?: >> Absinthe. How old are you?: >> 31. Do you drink regularly?: >> Sure. Are/were you abused?: >> Yeah. Do you have a significant other? If yes, are you happy in your current relationship? If not, are you happy being single right now?: >> I am happy with my current relationships, yes. Do you want a significant other?: >> I have significant others. Do I want another one? I’m not actively looking for another (especially not around fuckin here), but stranger things have happened. Do you take drugs or drink to numb your pain? >> No, I take them to eradicate my boredom. Who is your current crush?: >> I mean, I have all kinds of crushes. Who is your current friend crush?: >> I don’t have one. Has a friend ever broken your heart?: >> No, but trying to keep a friendship going has definitely made my life hell for a while until I realised it was pointless. Is your love life history tragic or magical?: >> Hm. Do you have regrets?: >> Nah. Do you prefer tampons or pads?: >> Pads. I mean, I don’t like them per se, but tampons exacerbate my cramps and I’m not crazy about the whole insertion process, so. Lesser evil. Have you ever used a tampon?: >> Mhm. What’s your bra size?: >> I don’t remember. A something-B. Do you have a hard time finding bras in your size?: >> No. Can you still wear clothes from the children’s section?: >> No. I might be small but I’m nowhere near narrow or straight-lined enough for children’s clothes. Are you lonely?: >> Often. Do you have allergies?: >> No. Are you in control?: >> Of what? Do you have a relationship with God?: >> I have a relationship with at least one god. What size pants do you wear?: >> Around a 30W. Do you wear girls, juniors, or women’s clothes more?: >> I don’t really know. I think I fit women’s sizes best, but mostly I don’t shop in stores that have sections of that nature, so. Do you HATE people who are controlling?: >> It can be tiresome. How old were you when you started to have acne?: >> Thirteen, more or less. Did your parents give you “the talk”?: >> No.  How old were you when your parents talked to you about puberty?: >> He... didn’t. Do you like going to the doctor?: >> Nope. Do you like going to the dentist?: >> Nope. What’s your favorite part of going to the dentist?: >> There isn’t one, the whole thing is no fun. Do you feel average?: >> No. Do you feel insecure?: >> About some things, but not most things. Do you feel alone?: >> No, because I’m literally never alone. Do you feel exhausted?: >> No. Do you feel depressed?: >> No. Do you feel anxious?: >> No. Are you haunted by your past?: >> No. Who’s your best friend?: >> Hm. How often do you pray?: >> I don’t. Sometimes I say things to Wednesday. Is that prayer??? I don’t even know how this shit works, I’m flying blind here. Do you keep a journal or diary?: >> Collectively, my dreamwidth, instagram, facebook, and tumblr all function as a multimedia cross-platform diary. Do you relate to the characters in books?: >> Sure, sometimes. Who’s your favorite Disney princess?: >> SHURI Do you think you are attractive?: >> Yeah, but I don’t think other people think I’m attractive. (I mean, I guess some people do. It’s hard to believe, and I think that has to do more with my whole thing about feeling sexually dysfunctional and incompatible than it has to do with what people actually think. Like, it’s this whole ball of really fucked-up yarn.) Are you happy with the way you look?: >> I suppose. Do you look more like your mom or your dad?: >> *shrug* How many siblings do you have?: >> Five. What song describes your life?: >> There isn’t one song that does. Do you cry a lot?: >> Nah. Are you sensitive?: >> In some fashion, but not necessarily in the fashion that people mean when they call someone sensitive. Do you take medication every day?: >> No. Do you take vitamins?: >> No. Are you a meat-eater, or are you vegan or vegetarian?: >> I’m somewhere in the middle, where it makes the most sense to be. What’s your favorite color?: >> Gold. Are you unique?: >> Sure. Do you feel blessed?: >> I’m not sure. Who is your favorite person?: >> ME ~*~*~ idfk, man. Has your favorite person ever hurt your feelings?: >> I hurt my own feelings all the time, that’s just how being a human is, mang Do you write in cursive or print more?: >> Print, because of legibility. Cursive is easier for me because of the flow, but the legibility is questionable. Do you like to write?: >> I love to write. Do you like to read?: >> Sure. What are your favorite types of books to read?: >> Nonfiction (science, philosophy, sociology, etc), science fiction, fantasy, horror, I don’t know. Do you have neat handwriting?: >> Ehh. It used to be a lot neater but now my muscles are unused to it. List three people you who you think are good role models. >> Hm. List three fashion trends you love. >> Hm. Are you a trendsetter?: >> Not on purpose. Do you like fashion?: >> I mean... I guess? I like clothes? Do you enjoy shopping?: >> No. I enjoy the obtaining of things I like, but not the process of obtaining it. What stereotype do you fit the most?: >> I don’t know. The Mystic/Psychotic? Is that a stereotype, or at least a trope? Because that’s how I see myself. Are you your own person?: >> I am not even a person, my guy. Are you a risk-taker?: >> Sometimes. Do you feel free to be yourself? If not, why?: >> Not all the time, but I try to focus on the times when I do. (I don’t always feel free to be myself because I often feel like a wild fey creature trying to play the part of a well-adjusted and mildly socially-acceptable construct, and I don’t believe that people in my life actually fully understand that about me. Like, I do my best to keep playing the part, but sometimes it chafes really hard, and I react to that sometimes. Do you like fantasy better than reality?: >> I don’t draw a line between the two. Never really have. Do you have “female problems”?: >> I have spider-god problems. Because they’re my problems, and I am a spider-god, therefore they are spider-god problems. What are you longing for?: >> A ride on Paul Bettany. (I just saw Solo, all right.) Have you ever contemplated suicide?: >> Yeah.

Have you ever self-harmed?: >> Yeah. How many people have you known who were suicidal?: >> Several. Do you get bullied constantly?: >> Not now. Are people jealous of you?: >> I don’t know? If you’re a worshipper, how do you worship?: >> Horizontally. How many tattoos do you have, and what are they of? Do your tattoos have personal meaning to you? If you don’t have any tattoos, do you want one?: >> I only have three small ones, because the money doesn’t flow like that around these parts. One is the number 19 in Roman numerals, one is the Mannaz rune, and one is “scully, it’s me”; and yes, they all have personal relevance to me. Do you have your ears pierced?: >> Yeah. Do you have any other piercings? If not, do you want any other piercings?: >> Septum. What is your first and middle name, and do you like them?: >> Logan Frey. Yeah, they’re good. What do you want to name your first daughter?: >> Hm. What would you name a son?: >> Hm. Do you dream about your wedding day?: >> No. What’s your favorite food?: >> A lot. Do you have a secret you want to tell someone?: >> No. Have you ever had a friend turn on you?: >> Yeah. List three friends who have turned on you. >> Hm. List three people who have bullied you. >> Why? Do you have anyone you can trust?: >> I guess. What country do you live in?: >> USA. What’s your favorite pain reliever?: >> Hmm. What do you do for cramps?: >> Take naproxen as soon as I feel them. Pray. Do you wear make-up?: >> Occasionally. Who has the cutest baby/babies you know?: >> Hm. Do you have a lot of people blocked on facebook?: >> I don’t know that I have anyone blocked on fb. What is your natural hair color?: >> Dark brown. Do you have a morning routine?: >> Not particularly.  

[thiyagaraja27]

First 10 Years of Filmmaking: The Worst.

A Self-Reflection on the Virtues of Failure.

I have been fighting to make movies in the past 10 years. I went to a college that was only worth it for the people I got to know there. I had the opportunity to work in some tiny corner of Hollywood’s indie circuit a bit, just a small taste of what could have been. Then I returned home to Malaysia so that I could perhaps explore another window of opportunities to further grow my oeuvre. By the way, the use of the word “oeuvre” - that’s how you know when a piece of shit thinks highly of themselves.

I fought for the conception of tasteful movies and for taste itself at the risk of being perceived as a snob. I am aware that my ego has taken centre stage in many occasions but it has come with a lot of sacrifices on my behalf. My main interests were always in writing and directing. Producing was just something I had to do to survive but I made my peace with it because it was still close enough to my passion. (another annoying word) People think they’re being smart when they say they’ll never work for a corporation or a movie studio - but they’re missing out in terms of really experiencing what an ugly and cutthroat world it is out there. You can’t shield yourself from harm forever. You gotta take some real risks to grow and advance. If not for learning the trade it is good for building character.

I fought for the movies I knew I could make - countless of sleepless nights spent in anxiety, depression, frustration, rage over scripts and projects that were moulded lovingly with the help of clever people I learned a lot from. So far I’ve written 9 complete scripts and countless stacks of unfinished ones. None of them saw the light of day. The pages are haunted. I found a way to deal with pain by building secret passages to my past and trapdoors to keep the insanity contained - majority of them of course dramatized for emotional resonance. I languished in personal tragedies thinking it would form a better foundation of character in me and meanwhile I tried to keep my eye on the prize for the most part. Now after 10 years I find myself with so many loose ends and some can only be tied up inside stories while I remain unresolved as a person in real life.

I may seem like a fighter but sometimes I succumb to mediocrity. People who know me may say that I’m an opportunist, I hardly ever turned down anything. I rushed into a movie twice when offered & both times I regretted it. I got fucked, fucked with, fucked upon, fucked over by so many people - who took advantage of my passion & naivety. And I knew too, for I didn’t care so as long as I was doing good work. Or any work. The reality of it is I became too blindsided and engrossed in whatever meaning I wanted to spin that I did not see the big picture at all. As a result of that, I must say I am mostly embarrassed by a vast majority of my own work. So that would explain the lack of self-promotion. The only consolation I take from them is the acknowledgement of my own weaknesses that could hopefully course-correct whichever wrong paths I’ve travelled down. 

I have fought for movies against conventional idealisms and old-age tropes. With a childhood of mostly worshipping at the altar of cinema I had selfishly abandoned all other worldly beliefs. Movies seemed much more spiritual than anything else. So my idealism gets the better of me sometimes. It may sound cheesy but I was always around to remind people the purest of intentions when the world of filmmaking becomes too overwhelming & business-oriented. At the same time I aimed to demystify their childish notions towards it. I always try my best to be practical because it was much more helpful than saying “Yes, you can do it!”. And I tried to practice pragmatism in anything I do. So I bid my time at times. I polished and nurtured my projects and constantly searched for like-minded people to collaborate with. Yet out there rages on a war between people who use artistic aspirations as a means to become rich, famous and powerful. Behind the thinly-veiled glitz and glamour of the movie world is a desperate Westworld-like kill-or-be-killed reality. I tried treading the minefield carefully in my navigation so it took me some time to find the right people to fight with. Because when you have the right people with you that makes any battle ten times more worth fighting.

I’ll keep fighting for the movies despite its deep influence by corporate interests. Making a movie is a gargantuan task you undertake at the risk of losing your soul and that in itself is taxing. But then you learn that all the decision-makers of the world pushed a pen over to a name or date and that’s that. A bunch of execs flipped a coin on your fate in-between smoke breaks while you’re out there jumping through rings of fire. How you find the balance and how much you compromise is a tale nobody is interested in indulging. Inspiration without realism sells better. 

I’m fighting still today, almost no difference than 10 years ago. The bridges I built - almost half of them rendered pointless due to countless ever-changing circumstances. I keep leaping from places to places every 3 to 4 years and everything resets. The older you grow the more you start to recognize that you are merely a victim of time. The universe is indifferent to your goals and ambitions. I have failed continuously for 10 years in a bid to be taken seriously as an ... whatever that is I’m trying to be taken serious for. I know if I keep this up most probably I would end up doing whatever I set out to do eventually. But then again none of that guarantees a catharsis, closure or compensation for this painfully mundane existence. Some would say “Hey, don’t beat yourself up so much. You’re actually lucky to be in the position that you are in.” To that I would say, “Winners don’t take consolation. Only adulation.”

Here’s hoping the next 10 years won’t be as bad.

“I may be in this ring, but inside I sing, so give me a stage, where this bull here can rage, And though I can fight, I'd much rather recite, because I'll go all-out for what I want, I'll never go blunt, For I wanna bring entertainment, and that's entertainment...”

If you don’t know where this quote is from please don’t make movies. Thank you.

[ciathyzareposts]

My 10 Most Controversial Opinions

            Counting down to my ten-year anniversary in February 2020, I offer this quick retrospective on my 10 most controversial opinions. I base this on the number of comments I’ve received arguing back at me when I’ve made certain statements, as well as what people have said about me on other web sites.

I was originally going to title this article “10 Reasons to Despise Me,” but I feel like we have enough invective slung back and forth about fairly trivial issues. Indeed, if you find yourself “despising” me for any of these opinions, I would suggest that you’re taking the entire subject too seriously.

          10. I think there’s a “right” way and a “wrong” way to play even single-player games.

         In my entry on “Cheats & Liars,” I used an analogy with crossword puzzles. The “point” of a crossword puzzle is not to fill in the blocks with letters; it’s to use your knowledge, intuition, and puzzle-solving skills to interpret the clues and derive the only possible answer. Thus, you are doing crossword puzzles wrong if you use a crossword puzzle dictionary or some other source to help you finish the puzzle. An unfinished puzzle is preferable to a puzzle that you finish by cheating, because at that point you’ve sacrificed the ability to ever finish it properly.            

No one disputes that people should follow the rules when it comes to competitive sports. I can’t ride a bicycle along the route of the Boston Marathon and expect the same recognition–or any recognition at all–when I have the fastest time. Nor is there any other aspect of life where we say that it’s okay to break the rules if no one else is watching. A practitioner of a religion, an alcoholic in recovery, or someone on a diet does not get to argue “but I was alone!” when he (respectively) neglected his morning prayers, drank himself under the table, or ate an entire cheesecake. 

         Playing single-player RPGs may be a solitary activity, but that doesn’t mean there are no rules. Sure, breaking them doesn’t harm anyone but you, but then neither does breaking your diet. That doesn’t mean it isn’t at least a little shameful when you do it.

         9. I wouldn’t mind if modern RPGs still made us take notes and make maps.

             The other night, I was playing GreedFall with Irene. Some NPC was giving instructions to a character about a potion, and she said something like “note the ingredients carefully.” Irene immediately reached for a piece of paper and a pen, and I laughed. I don’t care what the NPC said, I knew there was no way the game was going to make a player depend on an external note to properly finish the quest. I was right, of course.

But I wouldn’t have minded if the game had required us to write down the ingredients. I would have welcomed it. I miss the days of gaming with a notepad and graph paper by my side. Quest markers have ruined modern RPGs. Even “hardcore” modes generally don’t turn them off.           

Playing Might and Magic involved a lot of real work.

            8. I don’t like music playing during my games.

That’s not the same thing as saying “I don’t like game music.” I very often admire the compositions; I just don’t want them playing during the actual game. I think this is largely because I’m very music-oriented generally, and I see listening to music as an active experience. I only want it playing when my primary task is listening to music. To me, “background” music is like having someone constantly talking at you while you’re trying to focus on something else.

So I play my games with the music off. Sorry. I know–I miss so much.           7. I don’t like games about rape.

You wouldn’t think that one would be so controversial, but on at least one site it makes me a laughingstock.             6. I don’t like Japanese graphics.

I don’t know if it’s because I was born too early or because I never owned a Nintendo, but for whatever reason I missed out on the era where Japanese animation and tropes became normalized among American youth. I look at the result and I’m baffled. (There was a time when I would have said “disgusted,” so perhaps I’ve made a little progress.) Part of the issue is the artwork itself, perhaps more of it has to do with what the artist chooses to depict–and what players are apparently okay with. If I’m going to play a racing game, I want to race racecars, not goofy little go-karts piloted by mustachioed plumbers. If I’m going to pit monsters against each other in gladiatorial matches, I want them to look like monsters, not characters from the Island of Misfit Toys. And if I’m going to play an action-adventure, I want to play a classic hero, not an effete little elf with bare legs and a pointy hat.

I have a lot of readers that want me to play Chrono Trigger. I’ve watched videos of it. It looks like a bunch of children running around. If I was a fan of the game, I would not be clamoring for my review.

5. I think computer RPGs are superior to console RPGs.

The primary issue is the nature of the input. A controller naturally limits the possibilities of a game. You cannot offer the complexity of NetHack‘s or even Ultima‘s interface with a controller (at least, not without annoying nested menus), nor can you move, look, and click with the same precision as a keyboard and a mouse. Entire styles of gameplay, such as Ultima IV‘s keyword-based dialogue, or text-based inputs for adventure games, or even most point-and-click adventure games, become impossible on the console. Nowadays, because successful games must be offered on both computer and console platforms, these limitations functionally inhibit even computer RPGs.

Then again, I do occasionally like playing a game on the couch, with my wife, next to the fireplace. If a keyboard is better than a console controller, a console controller is better than any attempt I’ve ever seen to make a keyboard, mouse, and PC setup work from a comfortable position with a television. So there are situations in which the console is better than the computer. I just prefer action games in those situations.

              Even I admit: time for a console RPG.

           4. I don’t care about voiced dialogue–in fact, I wish it would go away.

I’m convinced that voiced dialogue, more than any other factor, is keeping modern games from greatness. The necessity of getting an actor into a studio to voice every possible line of dialogue is what prevents developers from creating more quest dependencies, creating alternate endings, fixing bugs, and including a lot more NPCs in games that feel very sparse without them. It also keeps the character’s chosen name from ever appearing meaningfully in the game.

The Infinity Engine games had the perfect balance. Key dialogues were recorded with voice actors, but most of the time the text was unvoiced. It shouldn’t have progressed beyond that.

3. I don’t mind about re-use of engines.

I mostly want new content, not an entirely new gameplay experience. I grant you that a few series have taken it too far–the Gold Box comes to mind–but in general I think developers should be getting a lot more use out of interfaces and mechanics already developed. It never bothered me for a second that Might and Magic VIII had basically the same interface as Might and Magic VI. I doubt any fan agrees that the “upgrade” in Might and Magic IX did the series any favors. I think it’s basically insane that developers only issue two or three expansions for titles like Fallout 4 or Dragon Age. I would pay as much as the original game for a new story set in the exact same world using the exact same locations. Surely, I can’t be the only one.

2. I don’t hate Bethesda–or, at least, I don’t hate them for the same reason you do.

I love nonlinear, open world games, and there’s no one that’s shown they can do them as well as Bethesda. I don’t mind if some of their other features are a little rough around the edges. Many, many years ago, in the midst of the most addictive period I spent with the game, I opined that Skyrim was “perhaps the best CRPG I have ever played.” That got quite a reaction from my own commenters and commenters on other sites.               

I later had reason to regret the statement; I was basically high when I wrote it. It was the equivalent of telling some guy you practically just met, “you’re my best friend, and I love you, man” when it’s 3:00 AM in a bar and you’ve both been drinking gimlets all night. But having qualified the original statement somewhat, I have to admit that it’s still one of the best CRPGs I’ve ever played. If that upsets you, I’m sorry. It gives me what I’m looking for.

That said, I do hate Bethesda a little. Not because of what they produce, but because of what they don’t. Skyrim sold over 3 million copies in its first two days. It won “game of the year” from practically every magazine and site that offers that award. It ultimately made over a billion dollars. What the hell kind of management decision delays the next game in the series for over ten years?! I’ve rarely seen a company that financially irresponsible with its intellectual property. George Lucas before he sold Star Wars to Disney comes to mind, but even he allowed a generous Expanded Universe.

Sometimes I wish I didn’t have my chibi hangup and I could be a fan of Pokémon or Zelda instead. Lovers of those franchises must lose track of all the main series games, expansions, off-shoots, and remakes. You know who knows how to run a brand? Marvel Studios. In a decade, they issued 23 films and 11 television shows, plus associated web series, comic books, and novels, and still none of its fans are complaining of “oversaturation.” Bethesda needs to sell to Disney, hire Brandon Sanderson, or otherwise do what it takes to get their heads out of their asses and start producing.

1. I not only think Fallout 4 is better than Fallout: New Vegas, I think it’s much better.

I say this believing that New Vegas is already an excellent game. But I listen to its fans describe how much better it is than Fallout 4 and I don’t know what they’re talking about. How can they argue that it has more factions, when 4 has essentially the same number? How can the argue about role-playing choices when all your choices in New Vegas collapse into the same battle at the same location? Do they honestly think that Boone and Cass and Gannon are more memorable than Nick and Cait and Deacon?

         One of the 10 best NPCs ever.

          Every time I get into an argument about this issue with someone, I offer basically the same list of why I think 4 is a better game:

             No ridiculously low level cap–no level cap at all, in fact

The ability to keep playing after the end of the main quest, with bonus content depending on what factions you went with 

A much larger, more open world with more locations to find; the game really rewards unfettered exploration

Boston is a huge, dense city rather than Vegas’s three buildings

The Settlement/building/settlement defense system

A perks system that actually encourages different character builds

Better item crafting

Much cooler power armor (with jetpacks!)

No invisible walls

An excellent “survival” mode; I can’t imagine playing without it

Flying around in vertibirds

Along with the jetpacks and vertibirds, just a more “vertical” game in general; there’s a lot to find on building tops and elevated highways

Behemoths and mirelurk queens

A gun that shoots actual cannonballs

The ability to call artillery salvos on enemy fortifications

Can blow off enemies’ individual body parts, allowing for more interesting combat tactics overall

               Against this, I accept the arguments that the dialogue system isn’t very good and that whoever nerfed the deathclaws ought to be fired. Beyond that, Fallout 4‘s superiority is so obvious to me that I feel like I must be living in another universe when I get into a discussion with most fans of the series.

So there we are: my 10 most controversial opinions. Everyone will probably be enraged at something. Even if you don’t agree with me, I hope you admire my honesty and the risk I’m taking with my Patreon account. 

Coming up: Ten years of upsetting people with more controversial opinions, starting with fans of the Arkania series.

source http://reposts.ciathyza.com/my-10-most-controversial-opinions/

[gregshawzw]

I’d rather have a goddam horse.  A horse is at least human, for God’s sake.  ~J.D. Salinger, The Catcher in the Rye

The Vagrants on a drawing (Coffee and Rusks) trip to Domboshava one January, long ago..

I needed to note the story of the horse. And the Vagrants.

It behoves me to commit it to pixels before the various elements of data are lost in the inevitable journey toward entropy, as some have done already.

The Vagrants were a wonderful group of young women and man who deserved a mention. They were kind, caring (except for not making Leah tea), generous and funny – all admirable qualities, it must be said, and they will always remain as such in my mind. This then, is a post remembering them and their idiosyncrasies, and a chance to elucidate the tail of the horse:

Here:

Tail of a Horse

Ultimately, it’s a shot into the wilderness of their existence to see how their future predictions are panning out according to their own schedule, created some time back, which I have furnished them with below for their convenience.

Possible Futures

It is the case that in all classes, certain trends and fashions come and go, and Vagrants were no exception. Not in order, and for varying periods of time, we had:

The Astronomical, Astrological and Lunar (Loony) Obsession (quite persistent):

Food (very persistent):

Flapjack-not-art making

Travel (as opportunities presented):

Lundun

Batman and Hats (extremely persistent):

Health (occasional):

And Horses (all-consuming):

The idea of the (a particular, or any) horse arose and persisted. And persisted. And persisted some more. Retrospectively, I believe it started with Leah’s IG coursework, based on said beast (specifically), and my continual imploring her to bring the animal to school, to “draw from first-hand s(h)ources”. It became an endless trope, unpacked often, whenever, wherever. Images pounded our phones, littered the studio (still do) and were etched into almost every lesson. Equestrian activity, apparently, is ubiquitous. Once consciousness has been raised in this regard, it is possible to note said interest in galleries, adverts, music videos, public art, private art, memes and media. Literally everywhere.

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It seemed inevitable that we would one day incorporate the animal into the class, and we held on to that possibility indefinitely. Until this day:

List of Things Not to Say to a Horse-Lover and Owner:

“I bought online, a keyring with a tiny live horse in it”.

Mentally, having reminded myself once again to think before unpacking bad-taste jokes, I moved on (in fact, I did what damage control I could, found some pertinent texts from The Prophet which I sent through to minimise the harm; forsooth, it was a terrible thing and I was feeling v. bad about it – the keyring and my joke). The horse-owner, Leah was herself lucky to remain in the group – we tried to delete her (not out of shame – that was later), I wrote her a poem, in time described as a “paucity attempt”. Christiaan did leave, I wrote him a poem too, which was received with greater enthusiasm.

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My poem, with commentary by Isobel

The ode to Christiaan, Part 1

The Ode to Christiaan, Part 2

Life moved on: Lisa and Natalie went to Bulawayo, pulled their tongues. Sophie created the first never-to-dry ink painting. Elsabe, Isobel and Betta went to Kariba, mixed it up with Lundun. Betta did better, went to London, found a horse. Leah covered her friend in flour. Ashleigh jumped in on the horse story with the Lundun crew (in collared shirt). Chloe tied up her boyfriend for an exam for a few days. Andrea went to Mauritius and took a picture of a snake:

Which leads me to the horse. There are some phrases which ring alarm bells; evoke a premonition of dark times ahead. “Sir, you’d better come see this…” is one, and it was with significant trepidation at the end of a very stressful year that I heard those words. There is, it seems, an inexhaustible list of possibilities one would rather not encounter on a school morning. What follows is a pictorial account of one of the most surprising and finest moments in any school, one on which my initials found themselves a real horses arse:

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I told you that they were a caring bunch. Indeed when I was discharged from the oncology ward forever, they were wonderfully happy on my behalf, tapped into their previous astrological obsession to create a groovy card that remains treasured in my collection.

  We furnished Esther with a heart

Esther pretends to be the Tin Man

And then they departed, leaving me with  a magnificent chair, another wonderful card and a photograph of them (Long ago, it must be…).

Although they have now moved on, and artistic endeavour only touches a few of them, it is well worth showing you some of their exceptional work – the Final Outcomes of their A2 Coursework.

I trust, wherever they are, irrespective of whether they have checked off any of their possible futures, they’re galloping around, “neighing and shit”.

Observations

When descending a hill such as Domboshava on a narrow trail and are yourself ahead of the pack, the act turning around and running back up the hill whilst screaming can create a general state of panic.

Studio One

Sunday will bring to a close about thirty-five hours of exams and give way to about an equal number of marking (for each of us) over the next two weeks. Challenging drawing topics for the Ones were met with some positive responses. The Threes were well prepared for their first long exam, but the verdict is still out for the Fours. The Whey and Barbarians Unleashed enjoyed Fifteen hour exams. Stress, tiredness and an absence of music characterised the occasion. Good work was evident.

Greg Shaw

4th July 2019

    Of Vagrants and Horses: Musings about the Departed I'd rather have a goddam horse.  A horse is at least human, for God's sake.  ~J.D. Salinger, The Catcher in the Rye…