#but instead we got the same stupid crap that we always see from second-rate animation companies

[frozenartscapes]

Well...I caved...

I saw the Emoji Movie.

Now I want to make things perfectly clear here: I did not give Sony any money for this. I found it on Kimcartoon, because I refuse to contribute to something so fucking awful. I knew this movie would be crap. I knew I wouldn’t like it. I have several free movies on my Scene card (a points-based rewards card for Cineplex theatres) but I knew this movie wasn’t even worth that because a) it would still register as someone who went to go see the movie and b) this movie isn’t worth the bus money I would have spent to get to the movie theatre. I want to make it clear that normally I would not torrent movies, and recommend actually going to see them in theatres or renting them or viewing them on a site where their creators actually get something in return. People work hard on movies and credit must be given where it’s due.

Speaking of that, to the animators of the Emoji Movie: you have my condolences. The one thing, and I mean one thing about this movie that I will say is good is the animation. You guys tried, and hey! It’s not half bad. It’s not...great, per se. But you tried. You get a gold star! (And at least you can say you’ve worked on a multi million dollar animated movie for your resumes when you want to apply to a much better movie company.) The animation in the Emoji Movie is... Like I said, it’s good. It’s certainly better than some other more notoriously bad animated movies, and this would be where it being a product of Sony helps it out. But keep in mind that when I talk about the “animation” I’m talking solely about how this thing looks on a visual level. Things like rendering, colour choices, character design... yeah, they’re ok. But other aspects that delve more into the actual storytelling aspect of animation, not so much. World-building wise it is painfully obvious they’re going for a Wreck It Ralph meets Inside Out kind of look. Dialogue and music scores? Yeah, pretty bad. And the moral? Oh boy, here we go.

The actual story of the Emoji Movie is one that you’ve all seen a thousand times. I’d say spoiler alert but it is literally the most cliched story in the book. Does this sound familiar to you? Meet our main character. He’s excited because it’s his first day at his new job. Except, he’s a bit of a weirdo. He doesn’t quite fit in to the status quo so everybody hates him. Sure enough, when he does start his new job after ten minutes of painful filler, the thing that makes him different gets in the way and he screws everything up. His boss makes it clear he’s fired, but then turns into a super villain out of no where because that’s what bosses are like. So now our main character is on the run with this other random loser he said, like, three lines to before everything went to shit. The two losers then enlist the help of a badass female character who purposely rebels against the status quo. They convince the female character to help them out by giving her something in return that will allow her to even further rebel against the status quo and our trio of protagonists set out on their quest. Along the way they get into some wacky hijinks that bring them all closer together. The main protagonist slowly falls in love with the female character. The idiot sidekick has exactly one moment of brilliance that somehow saves the day, but it’s not enough to excuse the number of other times he nearly fucked everything up. And the female character, with the “help” of the main protagonist, slowly breaks out of her cold exterior to reveal she’s only like that because she’s afraid of people getting to know the real her, who really is a soft and caring person but is afraid of conforming to the strict gender stereotypes thrust upon her because she’s a girl. They finally get to the end of their quest, but then a tragic misunderstanding due to the complicated love-related feelings our male and female protagonists have causes them to split up. Meanwhile, through some vaguely explained and half-assed reasoning, the whole world is about to be destroyed. And it turns out that it’s our two potential love interests who are the only ones who can stop it. And so our main character learns his lesson that it’s better to be yourself, no matter what other people think of you, because being yourself can save the world. Our female lead leans that it’s not about what you want, but more what your boyfriend wants to make him happy. And our loveable idiot sidekick learns nothing and continues to be a loud, self-absorbed moron. And then a dance number happens, because fuck any questions you might have about the plot: look at how much fun our characters are having!

If you think this sounds familiar, you’re right. This plot has been done to death by many a children’s show/movie before the Emoji Movie. But at least those shows/movies knew what they were doing. The Emoji Movie is just a bland, poorly written movie that was likely strung together by a series of board room members and focus groups, not actual writers. In some scenes you can practically hear the discussion amongst the middle-aged executives about what the kids think is cool and also which app developers have given them money and how they can shoehorn in a reference to them. 

It’s made even more frustrating because, and I can’t believe I’m saying this, some of these ideas could have actually worked. It’s kinda like Wreck It Ralph, and how each video game opened up a whole new world with different colour schemes, styles, characters, you name it. It made the universe of that movie seem really big, despite everything actually only taking place in one arcade. But in the Emoji Movie...it all seems really compressed. Each app is represented as a giant box on the “Wallpaper”, which is essentially the main area of the phone. It’s where our characters can go to access other apps. But when they do go into another app, it still feels like everything’s trapped inside a box. It’s like there are these invisible walls that keep the world from getting any bigger (and in some cases that is literally what happens) and as a result it just seems really limiting. They could have done some really interesting things with certain apps, or you know, things that are actually funny. They could have had a car chase in a racing game, or maybe entered a platformer game like Doodle Jump where the art style is entirely different. Instead, we got a series of ads for a number of different apps in premises that were neither funny nor exciting, and all it did was that it left me wondering why a teenage boy had an app for Just Dance on his phone in the first place. I’m not saying that a movie devoted solely to telling a story about emojis would be Pixar worthy or anything but it could have been at least a little more creative.

I’m not too mad about all of this though because I knew the second this movie was announced that it would be a pandering mess. I knew it’d be a huge pile of steaming bullshit, and speaking of that here’s one thing I didn’t expect: the voice actors. Patrick Stewart, Sir Patrick Stewart, plays a literal piece of shit. You’ve also got T.J. Miller as our main character, Gene (the “Meh” emoji), James Corden as the loveable idiot- I mean, sidekick, Anna Faris as the female love interest, and many others including Maya Rudolph, Steven Wright, Jennifer Coolidge, Christina Aguilera, Sofía Vergara, Rachael Ray, Sean Hayes, and Jake T. Austin. And the sad thing is: you can pretty much hear in most of these characters’ lines that these actors did this for the paycheque and not much else. The line delivery is really flat most of the time, but I don’t blame the actors too much for that because I bet they read the lines and realized that they weren’t worth their best delivery. Yeah, the lines were terrible. There wasn’t a single time I so much as smiled. I was literally the fucking “meh” emoji. Which, gotta say, that’s pretty awesome if that’s what Sony was going for. But it’s not what they were going for. Normally, even a bad animated movie will have at least one moment that will make me go “Hey, that’s kinda clever” but this one had nothing. It was just painful joke after painful joke, the setups for which could be seen from a mile away and anything that did come out of nowhere came from so far out of left field that they were basically out of breath when they got there.

The thing that angers me most about the Emoji Movie is the story. If you couldn’t tell from my plot summary, I’m pretty bitter about it. I could write a whole separate piece about the “be yourself” moral and my issues with it, but I’ll keep it short here. It is the kind of moral that can either be done right, like how it was handled in Wreck It Ralph, or it can be done wrong, like it was here. The thing about this type of moral is that it rarely works 100% in real life, and as a result it works best when it’s not presented as such. Instead of being yourself becoming some kind of deus ex machina that magically saves the whole world and as a result suddenly changes everything for the better, it’s a much better kind of moral when you come to accept who you are, that you are different, and that’s ok. Things might not exactly change the way you want, but you yourself are a better person, and that then often affects other things like how other people react to you. Think about how Wreck It Ralph ended: it didn’t end with the apartment dwellers in Fix It Felix Jr. deciding that he no longer was the bad guy and he no longer needed to play that role - Ralph still had to play that role, despite him coming home a hero. What changed was how they treated him, that they accepted him as he accepted himself. And in turn, they started treating him with the same respect they give to Felix and each other.

In the Emoji Movie, being yourself does everything. It saves the world. It gets you the girl. It brings parents on the verge of divorce back together. The only thing it doesn’t do is give the villain any closure (seriously, she just kinda...disappears). I take issue with this because of how the climax of this movie is set up. Gene, the Meh emoji, rather quickly falls head over heals with the female main character, Jailbreak. Jailbreak states several times throughout the movie that her intention is to get to the Cloud where she is free to be who she is. Gene initially starts out helping her get to the Cloud so she can get the source code to the phone and reprogram him so he is a true “meh” emoji, since he deems himself “a malfunction” because he can make multiple expressions. (I’m aware of the long-windedness of that statement. The explanation is like that in the movie, too). However, before this can happen, Gene confesses his feelings to Jailbreak while he still can and she doesn’t quite feel the same way. It’s obvious that there’s some connection there, but I think it was one of those things where the girl just wants a friendship while the guy wants a relationship. After that rejection, without much of an argument or anything, Gene becomes a Meh emoji without the use of the source code. Just like that. We have a character who was shit on by everybody, even his parents, was told he was a malfunction and needed to die to do any good in the world, and had to flee the only home he ever knew and live on the run with killer robots sent by his own people chasing him and it was the rejection of a girl he knew for maybe thirty minutes that changed his entire personality. He then leaves for home. Jailbreak, just as she’s about to achieve her own goals, is told what happened to Gene by comic relief character Hi-Five and promptly abandons everything she had been working on for years to go back and fix Gene. That’s right. Gene wins in the end because Jailbreak returns to tell him that she also cares for him. She doesn’t get anything back in return. Her goals have been cast into the wind. She’s now been thrown back into a life she left because she met a guy and fell in love. The male lead gets the moral that everything in life will work out if you be yourself. The female lead gets the moral that life will be wonderful and happy if you have a parter (preferably a romantic male partner) to share it with.

And that’s my problem with this movie. It’s like the Lego Movie without the irony. We’re following yet another male lead protagonist who gets everything he ever wanted by the end of the movie, becomes the damn hero of his world, and never has to change a single thing about himself. It’s everyone else who has to change, who has to move out of the way for his “development”. The female character obviously has to change the most, going from her own individualistic style to back into a somewhat conforming token girlfriend who is always happy because she found Love™. His “best friend” sidekick can continue to be lovable and stupid and slightly self absorbed, just not quite as self absorbed now because he has a best friend! Yay! And for everyone else...not much really changes. Which makes this movie worse than some of the other cliched movies out there. 

Normally what happens at the end of a Be Yourself movie is you have all the characters at the end doing just that: being themselves and not who they were when they were conforming to society’s rules at the beginning of the film. SPOILERS for anybody who still cares at this point, the way Gene saves the day is by creating an emoji gif of himself making various faces to express his teenage phone owner’s feelings about a girl the kid has a crush on. This somehow works just before the entire world is deleted and somehow the kid unplugs the phone and brings everything back without a single hint of major data loss, which is honestly the most unrealistic thing about this movie. (Added to the fact that the kid wanted to do a hard reset of the phone but had to go into a phone store to have that happen, telling me that the writers clearly don’t understand how smartphones work if that’s the case.) But, moving on: the final scene shows Gene and all the other emojis happily working at their job, dancing to a pop song and generally having a good time. The movie ends with Gene producing another gif emoji reaction and the credits start to role. What would have been interesting would be seeing some of the other emojis are now able to make different expressions as well. Like maybe Hi-Five can perform a number of different hand gestures (which would actually be pretty hilarious considering one hand gesture in particular). Or the frowny emoji can smile, or stick their tongue out. Anything, really. But nope! It’s just Gene who can change his expression. Everyone else is still a boring old, one expression emoji. I guess you can argue that they are still being themselves, but then what’s the fucking point of the movie? The Be Yourself moral generally is meant to say that you don’t have to be what society tells you to be, but then in terms of this movie, it gets a little messed up. Is it society telling these emojis what to be, or the code of the phone itself? What if the happy emoji really isn’t happy, but is unable to express it because of a god-like limitation enforced on all of them? There were even jokes about this at the beginning, like the sad emoji can never be happy even if he wins the lottery. And if the source code can be used to “fix” Gene, can it not be used in reverse to allow these other emoji’s to have different expressions? And, also, at one point toward the end of the film the villain states that emojis are meant to only have one emotion, so does that mean the film is agreeing with a villain’s statement by confirming that yes, all emojis except for that one weird one can only have one expression. Typically you use the conclusion to contradict a big statement by the movie’s villain, but I guess that’d be too much work to write/animate.

I’m probably looking too much into a movie I hate, but they even bring this up in the movie. Gene’s father, the original Meh emoji, is able to cry. The only slightly decent scene in the movie, might I add, has him and his wife meeting up in an instagram pic of Paris after having a fight. In it they have a touching heart to heart about their son whom they’re worried for, and the father reveals that Gene’s the way he is because the father can also produce multiple expressions. Now, that’s a great explanation of how Gene works and all, but why? Would it not have made more sense to say that every emoji is able to do this, and most of them are just much better at keeping things in one emotion/expression? To have it so that they literally can only make one expression seems almost cruel, and it takes away from the moral of being yourself when 99% of the population can’t physically be themselves fully. It only makes the decision to eradicate Gene more sensible, as he really is the only thing wrong in the phone, and because of him and his actions, he almost wiped out literally everything on the phone. He got insanely lucky at the end of the movie, and it’s still not great because how long is he going to be able to speak for his phone user before he misjudges the situation and things take a turn again? I gotta say, if I got the final text of the movie sent to me I’d be annoyed (which was just Gene making a series of faces set to music, but you have to remember that neither Alex the phone user nor the person he sent it to would be hearing said music, so it’d just be an emoji bouncing and changing faces for far too long and for no reason).

Ok, I’m going to wrap this up. This was a bad movie. It was nothing but ads for various apps with a half-assed story about accepting who you are or some shit thrown in. If you’re curious, like I said: Kimcartoon. Don’t give Sony any money for this shit. The more money they get, the more they’ll think it’s ok to keep making movies like this. Thank you for reading, and if we’re lucky we’ll all die in a fiery explosion before the Meme Movie gets released.

[imagine-loki]

Dear Diary

TITLE: Dear Diary

CHAPTER NO./ONE SHOT: Chapter 1 of 4 AUTHOR: Eclectica-posts ORIGINAL IMAGINE: Imagine Loki comforting you when you’re crying. He knows exactly what to do or say to help you through it. RATING: Maure, with a lot more mature in further chapters NOTES/WARNINGS:

THOR RAGNAROK SPOILERS

Smut, fluff and bad jokes.

The children of Asgard weren’t the only ones of that cliff in Norway.

Sophie recalls the events of Sakaar and Ragnarok from her point of view, as she found herself thrust into a Universe beyond her imagining, and meets a familiar face.

— This is Chapter 1, 3 more to be uploaded, smut starts from Chapter 2.

Canon compliant, it’s written with the same timeline and series of events as per Thor Ragnarok - like a story line that happened but didn’t make it into the film.

——————————–

Chapter 1 - The beginning 

Dear Diary,

Wow, those are words I haven’t typed for about 20 years, when I outgrew my 12 year old obsession with documenting my every moment. So, why now? Why the need to write this?

Maybe it’s because it might give me a way to actually understand and come to grips with what has happened over the last few weeks. It’s also because there are somethings that I definitely want to remember - which reminds me. If anyone else ever reads this I have to warn you there will be swearing and, let’s just say, things of a very very personal nature that occurred that I am going to write down in great detail. Because those things I definitely don’t want to forget about. I should also warn any readers that this isn’t a full account of what happened on Sakaar or the fall of Asgard. I wasn’t at all of it, and I’m no good at recounting battles or epic heroics I’m afraid. Luckily Asgardians are great at three things: feasting, drinking and writing sagas. Read those. They are also very good dressers, sort of like a celestial GAP look, all very colour coordinated.

Sorry, I digress. Anyway, the most important reason I’m writing this is that I don’t know what is going to happen tomorrow, and I’m scared that whatever ‘this’ is won’t be this when I tell him what I need to. He’s here now in the room with me, laying under the gold silk sheets as I write this at the desk nearby. Asleep he looks almost angelic, with a body that sets me so completely alight that I’m going to have to work hard not to become very distracted…

Ok, so to start this at the right point I’m going to give a bit of context about why I was in Norway standing on a clifftop in the first place. A few months before, although it seems a lifetime now, my ex decided to become my ex. He had decided that he ‘didn’t see a future for them going forward because she was too emotionally distant and could do with losing a few pounds’ but apparently did see a future in her size 6 ex-room mate he was now shagging. Emotionally distant of course because I was still grieving for my mother I had lost last year, spending months travelling down to Cornwall to support her through her cancer and working a crap job because it was the only thing I could get when we moved to Reading so my boyfriend could start his dream job. Although how anything counts as a dream job in sodding IT, I don’t know. I know I sound bitter, and I was. I was also sad, confused and desperately wanting to start over. So I’d finally made the trip to Norway, to honour my mother’s wishes and to rid my head, and heart, of my ex.

As to why I had to go to a random cliff in Norway? All I knew is that my mother had wanted me to go there, to understand about where I had come from. I loved that woman will all my heart but the one thing I regretted was that she never, ever spoke about my father and I never pushed because I didn’t want to hurt her, and so Norway was all I had.

The locals had told me the views from the cliffs were stunning, and they’d been right, so I hadn’t been surprised to realise I was sharing the panoramic views with another. Just ahead stood the figure of an old man wearing a slightly tatty linen suit, just staring into the distance. I’d sat on a nearby pile of rocks, nestled in the long grass from the breeze and hopefully giving him the solitude he perhaps wanted, and that I too had come for.

It sort of went a bit weird then because had been those rocks that only a few moments later I’d found myself hiding behind as, and this was the only phrase that seemed to make any sense at the time and now, “shit got weird” when two men had arrived through a circle of fire. When that sort of quieted down, I peeked over the top to see a woman in black with antlers appearing through a black storm cloud. At this point I have to admit, I’m not particularly heroic so I had crouched back down, ignoring the growing cramp in my legs, and hoped that they might just all go away.

Of course, that was the moment that I got dragged up a column of rainbow lights and then dumped on a completely different planet.

Things had then gone from bad to frightening when I woke up dazed on a rubbish tip being considered as a snack by extras from a Mad Max movie.It had only been good luck that I’d been picked up by one of the many small space ships circling through the air on the lookout for new arrivals. Grabbed by someone who smelt appallingly I’d been chained, stabbed in the neck with a big metal button and then manhandled into the vessel.

I hadn’t immediately noticed that there was another passenger, he was sitting silently, looking as at home as you could wearing chains and with someone threatening you with a gun. Although, to be fair, he is pretty used to being in chains.

I can still remember the slight smile on his face when he had glanced over at me as his gaze took in my denim shorts and ripped t-shirt. He then promptly ignored me, trying instead to engage our captor in polite conversation. Of course, I’d recognised him in an instant, he’d been there on the cliffs - not dressed the same, but I was pretty sure it was him, before I’d dived behind the rocks a second time. Yes, I know, not the most heroic of actions - but I’d got a huge fright when they had suddenly appeared out of ring of fire.

But what froze me in terror was that I had also recognised him from the news reports a couple years ago - Loki, God of Asgard. He wasn’t wearing those stupid horns, but almost every inhabitant of Earth had seen the news footage and read the stories about what he had done in Stuttgart and in New York and been horrified. The brutality, the obvious disdain for human life, and here he was, almost within touching distance. I put my head down but kept looking over at him, hoping like hell he wouldn’t notice. It was like finding a wild animal suddenly in your lounge, a wolf perhaps, I wasn’t sure if I wanted to stroke its beautiful fur or run away screaming.

And the truth was that he was beautiful - and it was completely unfair that I looked like someone who’d been dumped in a pile of crap and dragged through it, while his black and green leather clothes looked immaculate and tailored to his lean body. Seeing him in person, and while not in the middle of causing death and destruction, I had to admit that he was better looking in person and that he had a certain physical appeal - if you were into beautiful, magnetically attractive men. Who thought that ‘mortals’ were best placed on their knees, worshipping him. I felt my face redden and cursed myself for it. How could I even think of that?

The creature with the gun shouted something and my head was viciously yanked up by my hair, exposing my neck and the gold chain around it. The pain as it was torn from my neck was nothing compared to the instant devastation I felt.

“No, not that, please not that, take anything else but that. It was my mother’s “ I screamed, sobbing. She’d always worn it, a small golden rune on a chain. I had no idea what the symbol meant, except that it meant everything to me. The bastard just laughed and took it into the pilot to show him his trophy. After all the stuff that had happened to me, that was the one thing that nearly broke me. It sounds like such a little thing, but it kept her memory close to me and I was desolate.

“Stop your mewling! Rule One of survival - don’t show any weakness”. Loki paused. “Although as I expect you’re from Earth, that might be difficult given your innate nature as a race.”

That stopped my crying. I turned my head slowly and stared at him in disbelief. (just realising I feel like I should be footnoting this thing, because Loki now swears he was, sort of, trying to help. Not entirely convinced by that though. Sorry, as I was saying)

“What?” my tone was hard yet calm. It was the same tone of voice I had used when my ex boyfriend had told me that our three year relationship was over.

“Why don’t you shove your ‘advice’ up your arse, with that ridiculous horned thing you decided to wear when you unsuccessfully tried to invade my planet?” I continued, my previous despair replaced with righteous anger?

“So why don’t you fuck back off to Asgard, OH NO you can’t because you are in chains as WELL!!!”

At that point I decided to look intently out of the window on my side of the ship and watch the piles of waste and discarded bits of junk from everywhere in the Universe flash by underneath. I did hear something that sounded a little like a chuckle but I was determined not to gratify him with any more of my time.

So by the time we were presented to the ‘Grandmaster’ (seriously though, who calls themselves that?) Loki looked calm, in control and put on the charm and I stood there mute and angry. I was also overwhelmed by the vast size and sheer weird beauty of the building and people around me while I was looking like hell and definitely wishing I was wearing more clothes. Loki had ignored me on the way here, and I had ignored him, except for an occasional glance just to make sure that he was ignoring me as much as I was ignoring him. His mind was apparently elsewhere, trying to work the odds, find an angle to his advantage, I concluded.

I remember standing in front of the Grandmaster, trying to loosen the metal bands they had fitted around my wrists, staring at all very busy and beautiful people in the huge rooms around us. It was like being in the middle of a huge and very wonderful party, but not because I was in chains, and not in a good way. Given the reception and introduction we had been provided with, I knew that the Master must indeed be very powerful and scary but it was hard to take anyone seriously when they had on too much electric blue eyeliner and face paint.

I think I was very tired because it took all my effort to drag my attention back to the conversation that Loki and the Master had struck up, getting on famously. The only thing I was getting, I noticed, was withering looks from the Grandmaster’s grim female assistant who was holding a very ominous orange headed stick.

“And her…” Three sets of eyes descended on me. Oh fuck, they were talking about me.

“Did she come with you. Is this your pet then?” The Grandmaster asked Loki, gesturing languidly in my direction.

I looked at Loki who seemed to be considering an answer, his lips curling into either a grin or denial. The complete unfairness of the situation and the crap of the last few hours finally took their toll.

“His!?” I positively snarled at the Grandmaster who slightly recoiled at my vehemence.

“Like fuck I am. I’ve got better taste than that. He tried to invade Earth and make slaves of us all! I’d rather die. I’d rather cut out my heart with a spoon than have anything to do with the slimy git!”

“Apologies, she has a rather indelicate turn of phrase” said Loki, using a condescending tone that made me want to kick him really really hard.

“OOh feisty, we like feisty don’t we Topaz?” beamed the Grandmaster, although I was getting a bit worried about the way she seemed to be still pointing at me with the big orange headed stick.

“Feisty, I’ve give you fucking feisty!!” I desperately pulled against the two guards holding my arms, but stopped, a little unsure of wisdom of those last words as the Grandmaster seemed to be considering them as an actual option, well at least Topaz did. Loki on the other hand, looked amused by my outburst which did not improve my mood.

The Grandmaster smiled “ Loki, I have to say I like a man with ambition, even if it doesn’t quite succeed” He seemed to really like Loki, but his smile faded slightly as he turned back to me, and I got worried.

“but you young lady - while I appreciate your spirit and your desperation to end your wretched existence, death is such a boring thing, let’s make this fun.” He turned to his dour companion Topaz

“She’s got a bit of get up and go, let’s see if she’s a contender”. As I was dragged away, I looked back at Loki who shrugged almost apologetically and then gone back to his conversation with his new friend.

“Fucker” I may have growled.

Well, I had been wrong to worry about the inappropriate shortness of my shorts and tshirt- clothing wise things had only gotten worse, well, minimal was probably a more accurate term. I’d been thrown into a weird sort of circular cell and had my own clothes taken away so I was forced to wear what I supposed was some sort of gladiator outfit. The cell was already occupied by a couple of human sort of looking men, a rock man (Korg, love Korg), a sort of large slug like creature with knives for hands. And me. Dressed up in what could only described as like a really anti feminist pervy Wonder woman costume - if, given the smell and the stains, Wonder woman had been wearing something that had been rather obviously worn by at least 10 women before, all of whom had had boobs at least a cup size smaller than me. It came with a skirt, although the term was rather too generous for the three inches of fabric that made contact with the very tops of my thighs. It was mostly of tan leather, as were most of what the others were wearing. I looked like an extra from Spartus.

After a very uncomfortable night, due to a) not really having anywhere to sleep b) being quite aware that some of the other gladiators were a little too interested in me (although Korg did make himself my unofficial bodyguard), we went down to the arena area for ‘sparring practice and weapon stuff’. This mostly involved me picking through racks of weapons on the first day, with absolutely no idea of what to do with any of them. Some looked positively gruesome and too heavy to consider. Korg had tried to help and in the end I went for a battered sword I could at least lift and a small shield. He tried to teach me some decent blocks so I’d at least last a few seconds without losing my head, but lovely guy though he is, he can be a little downbeat and he seemed pretty pessimistic about my chances at survival.

Not that I could blame him. Any athletic prowess was due to about 5 crossfit classes I had attended over the last year and the occasional (slow) job around my local park. Given that my complete fighting knowledge came from watching late night Vikings and Game of Thrones box sets, I couldn’t blame Korg for his low estimate of my survival chances.

The next day we were told that we would fight in the evening, and that I’d have my own, personal 1 to 1 fight. Korg whistled softly when he heard this and looked even more concerned - well, as concerned as a face made out of granite can look I suppose.

“Wow man, that’s really unlucky” was all he would say really, and then patted me on the shoulder. Not only did that hurt, it also made me very worried. I later found out that most women who were gladiators got to do sort of group fights, more for the spectacle of women wearing not very many clothes manhandling each other to the delight of the crowd. Sort of mud wrestling but with no mud, and with a blunted sword. For some reason that wasn’t going to be my fate - the other team no longer had a female gladiator at all, so I was going to have a real fight against a guy, with a very sharp sword. Apparently the audience at these things liked to see women bleed as well.

I should have been panicking, crying, shitting myself in fear, but although I hated him for it, I knew Loki was right. Weakness wouldn’t get me through this.

On the afternoon before ‘kick-off’ we spent time getting ready in a holding area, which for some weird reason was beside a bar - taking the whole gladiator spectator sport to yet a new level. Unfortunately we seemed to draw quite a crowd as gamblers and punters tried to decide who would be a good bet. I noticed that I attracted a bit of interest as a novelty, but I could have laid bets I was being touted as a short-lived one.

“Nice outfit, very ….fetching..” I looked up from where I was sharpening my new sword to see him standing on the other side of the laser wires that separated the two areas.

To be honest, I had really tried not to think about him at all over the last few days. I had certainly not let myself consider whether I should have waited to hear his answer - and what would I would be doing now if he had said yes. I refused to acknowledge that I felt any attraction for him, although I had a horrible suspicion that my mind and body were of different opinions on this. I could feel my whole skin prickle when he was near and my breath catch in my chest. Meanwhile my mind that kept screaming that he was completely and utterly bad news -quite literally. Perhaps some of my reaction was fear - I was entirely justified in being afraid of him.

I’d watched CNN, seen the destruction, the terror and the utter contempt for human life. What was it that he had said in Germany? Oh, that was it, he thought that ‘mortals’ should kneel before him in submission. Fuck, that really didn’t help. Keeping my eyes firmly on his face, could feel my own face grow pinker. Yup, ok, that was definitely another thing not to think about…

“What do you want? Shouldn’t you be planning world domination, or doing whatever it is you are doing with the Grandmaster to stay alive?” I tried the sarcastic approach, and hoped he hadn’t noticed that he was getting to me.

“I’m having a short break. No, I thought I would come down, see what lovely new friends you were making… and of course give you that chance to beg for me to get you released ..” he drawled, with that cut glass almost upper class English accent he somehow had.

Never show weakness I thought as I tried a humourless chuckle and walked closer to the wires, our faces almost touching through the shimmering red lines.

“Fuck you” I said quietly.

“That is very much part of the plan, but first, I think the begging” his voice was soft as his eyes took a languid look over my body which I knew my leather outfit only accentuated. I felt myself blush deeper as I took in the intention behind his words. This wasn’t going well.

“ I never beg for anything” I replied, trying rid of my voice of any tremor.

“When you change your mind, and you will… I’ll be here” He laughed and started to walk away, but paused, then turned back to where I was still standing at the barrier. His smile and swagger had gone, this was a different Loki to the one just seconds ago.

“Take this” he slide a slim blade under the lazers and I picked it up. I’d never thought a knife could be beautiful before, but this one was. Narrow, with a curved smooth bit to hold it, it gleamed dark black, almost green. I’d never seen anything like it. I looked at him questioningly, confused as to why he was giving it to me.

“Put it inside your boot, you won’t be able to feel it, but when you reach for it, it will be there” I did as he told me, and he was right, I couldn’t feel any discomfort having it shoved down there - just a sense of security.

He’d completely flummoxed me, why was he being helpful?

“Rule 2: whenever possible - cheat. I’ve got a large wager on you tomorrow, try not to die” and then he left, and I just stood there watching him go and trying to work out whether I should feel grateful. I decided against it.

So, yeah, the fight. We were the red team, I knew this because slaves would come up and daub us with stripes of the colour, so I looked like Wonder woman but with red face paint. There were a few planned fights each tournament. Korg and Miekke went out for a group pitched battle - five of ours against five of theirs. Three returned, the last one bleeding heavily, he fell into back into our holding pen. I went to go over to help but Korg held me back.

“Nothing we can do but wait, chest wound, poor Doug” he said sadly

Two solo fights - firstly huge mountain of a man fighting a similar sized fighter from the blue team. We watched through the bars of the arena gates as he lost quickly and was dragged off. Nerves, fear, I’m not sure how to explain how I felt when I entered the arena.

I was deafened by the roar of the crowds above here, and almost paralyzed by the overwhelming spectacle of it all. Fear had turned to gut wrenching panic as I’d seen my opponent enter from the other side - it took all my will not to run screaming back to the gate through which I’d been pushed and beg to be let back in. I knew that was death, I’d get a sword to the back as soon as I turned, but how could I stand and face the alternative? The guy opposite me was huge, massive arms holding a sword twice the size of mine.

And then, well I really don’t remember much. Maybe ask Korg, he saw it. All I can recall, apart from small disjointed fragments is a clarity and stillness that I’d felt as my opponent had charged at me. I’d had the same feeling before, when I was in a car accident, skidding off an icy road on a sharp bend. Everything slowed down, everything became crystal clear. I can remember blocking his furious sword thrust and feeling like it was the most natural thing in the world when I spun and sliced through the back of his leather jerkin with my blade. It was like dancing, and I hadn’t realised I knew the steps.

At the end I found myself panting and bloody kneeling on the sand, the arena erupting into applause for “Red Red Red”, for me. I got up unsteadily, the come down from the adrenaline rush and exhaustion finally hitting me. Walking slowly back to the now open gate, I looked up to the Grandmaster’s box, with its long white couch and hordes of attendants standing behind. The Grandmaster was clapping excitedly, but at the far end I could see Loki, sitting, leaning forward, arms in his knees as he stared at me, his expression unreadable. I hoped he saw the middle finger I thrust into the air in his direction as I had limped off, clasping my hand to a cut my opponent had inflicted on my upper arm. I couldn’t look back as they dragged his body off the sand. I got into the pen and threw up until there was only bile left.

Weirdly though, that wasn’t the hardest thing emotionally I had to go through during my time on Sakaar. Worse was to come…

[rantsaboutponies]

My Little Pony: The Movie

Yes, this is the 2017 one I’m talking about. I’m not going to pull a switcheroo and review the 1986 one. Like I said, bad title.

If you want to read along while watching the movie, you may do so as long as you’re not in a theater. DO NOT LOOK AT YOUR PHONE IN THE THEATER. I don’t care if you turned the brightness down or if you hold it in your lap; EVERYONE CAN STILL SEE IT. YOU’RE BEING AN ASSHOLE.

Anyway, on with the review! Spoilers abound, so fair warning!

Oh, and this movie is rated PG for “mild action”. What the hell is wrong with you, MPAA?

Good lord, the absolute grandiosity of the title logo... All right, all right, I’m not going to nitpick something as minor as the logo. Calm down.

My thought process: “Hey, this synth bit sounds kinda like the intro to ‘We Got the Beat’ by The Go-Go’s. I wonder if they realize that.”

Two seconds later: “OH, FUCK, IT IS. IT IS THAT SONG. NO. STOP. STOP RIGHT NOW. RRRRRGGGGGHHHH.”

Well, THAT threw me for a loop! Holy shit, am I glad the show’s budget isn’t large enough to include covers of popular songs.

Ah, we’re showcasing the new animation with a flyover/through of Canterlot. I’m not going to be mentioning the animation quality every other paragraph (even though I could), so instead I’ll just say everything up front. I mentioned in an earlier post that it looked like the animators were suddenly unaware of how to use the program, as though they had all traded jobs or something. It turns out that wasn’t far off! According to sources, the animation software being used on this movie is Toon Boom Harmony, not Flash, so the animators working on this movie are either 1. the same animators using an unfamiliar program, or 2. different animators who are used to working with Harmony but are not used to animating this show. And if you look at the stuff they’ve worked on, they’re all either just 2D (The Simpsons, The Congress) or just 3D (The SpongeBob Movie: Sponge Out of Water), not anything that has attempted to integrate both. The opening shot of the ponies flying through the clouds and through Canterlot looks like 2D assets trying to move through a 3D environment! It doesn’t help that the 3D assets (like the buildings and the landscape) are all really, really cheap-looking, like they were resources saved from a movie from 10-20 years ago and never updated. Also, the 3D assets tend to move fluidly (like 3D assets do), whereas the 2D assets attached to the same figure move with a lower framerate (like 2D assets do), which is a little jarring.

And holy crap, look at those two characters walk towards the screen! That’s some first-year animation student work right there!

Okay, okay, I said I wasn’t going to harp on the animation the whole time. Fine. Instead, here’s a complaint I’m sure will sound familiar to regular readers: Wow, you really like your exposition dumps right out of the gate, don’t you, writers? Except this time, you don’t have the excuse of “Well, we only had 22 minutes, so we had to get all the information out there quickly!” This movie is 99 minutes long! That’s four-and-a-half times the length! At this point, it’s just sloppy!

Random pony: Princess Twilight is great under pressure!

Twilight: Oh, my goodness, I can’t handle this!

Trombone: Wah-wah!

Oh, goddamnit, are we bringing back the wah-wah jokes? Son of a...

GAH! That closeup shot of Twilight is just creepy! Adding more details just because you’re closer to a subject isn’t always the best idea!

“What’chu talkin’ ‘bout?” FUCK STOP FUCK STOP FUCK STOP FUCK

Still creepy! Why do her eyes look like that? This is unsettling! Please stop focusing on her face!

Ha, Pinkie Pie was blowing a balloon into the camera, and then she turned and revealed it’s actually a really long balloon, but we couldn’t see that because of the angle we were watching from! Ha ha ha! ...Was...was that meant to be a joke? Because I really can’t figure out what other reason you would have to show it that way. These new animators are bizarre.

Oh, hey, she was making Discord! He’s not actually in the movie, but, you know, fanservice!

All right, Angel dressed as a parrot made me chuckle, but why the hell would Fluttershy force him to do that?

“Faster if I do my Sonic Rainboom!” How? How would that help you complete this task any faster? What sense does that make? Oh, wait, don’t tell me...fanservice.

“Raised in a barn!” Yes, thank you. You have beaten that joke thoroughly into the ground by now. Please move on.

Ah, good, Pinkie Pie is continuing her trend of being loud, irritating, and making things worse by opening her stupid face. Some things haven’t changed.

Okay, this is two songs in the first eight minutes. Just how many are there?

“Eeyup!” HE SAID IT.

Yeah, you can show me Cheese Sandwich all you want. I know “Weird Al” isn’t in this movie.

Security guard #1: “Do you have visual on the buttercream?”

Security guard #2: “Visual confirmed, go for cleanup.”

...

Audience: *cough*

I mean, they left in a pause for laughter and everything. They were expecting that to get a laugh.

Balloon: *gets squished*

Random background pony: Bryan! Noooooo!

Me: 

I don’t...I’m not...are these...jokes? I’m...I...

You’d think they’d have heard of this villain. He seems like he has a wide sphere of influence.

“There’s one of you! And hundreds of us!” Yes, Luna, I’m sure they brought that giant airship because there’s only one of them. This is why you’re not in charge.

Wow, the, uh...the crystals forming over Cadence are, um...am I allowed to say anything more about the animation?

DURR HURR IT’S FUNNY BECAUSE THEY THOUGHT THEY GOT TWILIGHT BUT IT WAS ACTUALLY DERPY AND ANYTHING INVOLVING DERPY IS FUNNY. FAAAAAAANSERRRRRRVIIIIIIIIIICE.

Every word out of this minion’s mouth makes me want to punch him. It’s Michael Peña’s best role since CHiPs! Apparently he ad-libbed most of his dialogue. It shows.

“Yay.” SHE SAID IT.

“Boingy boingy boingy boingy!” UGH.

Pinkie Pie: “Anypony up for a game of I Spy?”

Everypony else: “UGH.”

See? SEE?! I’m not the only one! She’s even starting to annoy the other main characters by this point! What are you even doing?

So Tempest got...a phone call...except it’s not a phone call, it’s a potion that you pour into a brazier...but it still has a ringtone...and it sounds like a dial-up connection... How do they use it more than once? Also, FUCK YOU WITH YOUR STUPID FUCKING

Why does the Storm King’s emblem look like the Starcraft II logo?

“Sorry, bad spell service.” FUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU

Meanwhile, in the town from Assassin’s Creed...

“Hmm. Interesting.” Well, I know someone who’s getting a lot of furry fetish fanart made of him!

“I’ll take the picture of your sister!” Heh. Okay, movie. That’s two.

Wow, Taye Diggs’s voice does not fit that character design.

“...parts will fall off.” Did the guy immediately grab for his crotch when he said that? Wow, movie! Where’s your PG for “mild rude humor”?

Someone should tell the animators that Spike isn’t pursuing Rarity anymore. Since, like, Season 2.

Oh, god, don’t sing! I was kind of starting to like you, Capper! This doesn’t really seem in-character!

Why does it seem like this character would have been Discord if they hadn’t “redeemed” him like three times by this point?

Yes, Fluttershy is afraid of bats. Great knowledge of the character there, movie.

“Ooh! So many fun breakables!” Fuck you, Pinkie.

Good lord, Emily Blunt really could be intimidating if she weren’t undercut by Michael Peña at every fucking TURN! It’s the slugs from Epic all over again!

Yes, “The Girl from Ipanema”. A common song all throughout Equestria or the Badlands or whatever. The random popular songs interspersed throughout a movie (based on a show that does not HAVE them) that also has its own original songs really do not fit! They really don’t! Just because you can afford it now doesn’t mean you have to do it.

“WAIT!” *random cat noise* That...might have made sense if you didn’t play those two sounds at the same time. I’m not sure how he could talk and yowl simultaneously. Come on, sound editors.

Boy, how convenient that Tempest found them at that exact point, huh?

Y’know, showing Pinkie Pie grinning like an idiot as they’re all running for their lives doesn’t exactly endear me to her, animators.

Oh, no! Pinkie fell! What a tragedy! Maybe if you let her die, she wouldn’t keep fucking up your shit!

GOD, I HATE THIS FUCKING MINION.

Bird Guy: “We scar ‘em...”

Rarity: *gasp*

Bird Guy: “...emotionally!”

Fluttershy: *cries*

Pff... All right, you got me! That one was actually worth an audible laugh! That makes you three for...I don’t know, fifty?

I have a serious question. Was this supposed to be released in 3D, but then they dropped that for some reason? There seems to be a lot of “stuff coming straight toward the camera” action.

Are we seriously still doing the “people trying to kill each other stop when the shift whistle blows” joke? That was old 50 years ago!

I’m not sure I’ve seen a musical with songs this...out of nowhere. I mean, I’m sure worse examples exist, but none that I’m familiar with.

Are these pirates supposed to be...giant parrots (because, y’know, pirates and parrots)? Why does this world have giant parrots? Everything in the entire series is the size it is in the real world. Including the parrots we saw earlier in the movie! Why giant parrots?

Ah, good, Rainbow Dash is still a FUCKING IDIOT. Glad you’re keeping that change from the show, too!

So let me get this straight. Storm King is concerned about projecting an image of fearsomeness and strength...but he sells bobbleheads of himself as merchandise? You know, you don’t have to be this stupid, movie! You don’t! You really don’t!

GOD, they need to stop showing closeups of their faces. THEY’RE. SO. CREEPY.

“Oh, this is inteeeeeense!” WELL, IT MIGHT HAVE BEEN IF YOU HADN’T SAID THAT. LET A MOMENT LAND, MOVIE. LET. A MOMENT. FUCKING. LAND.

Oh, good, here’s where that terrifying shot from the trailer comes in.

And Rarity stopped to look at herself in the mirror while falling to her death. HURR HURR HURR.

Oh, look! Pinkie is about to get them killed again! GET RID OF HER.

“That’s it! I simply cannot even!” Oh, fuck off. Whoever wrote that line, fuck off.

“I hate epic adventures!” I’m sure starting to.

Wow, Twilight, you held your breath for, like, 10 seconds. Good job.

Well, here it is. We knew it was coming. Seaponies. Honestly, even though I should be annoyed (because FANSERVICE), they actually fit this world pretty well (way better than giant anthropomorphic cats or whatever the hell the inhabitants of that Badlands city were).

But then they turn the Mane Six into seaponies.

And I’m reminded of “The Crystal Empire (Part 2)”.

And you only introduced these characters to sell new toys of the Mane Six, didn’t you?

And fuck you.

“Yay.” SHE SAID IT. AGAIN.

Don’t sing. Please don’t sing. I think what makes these songs even more out-of-nowhere is the fact that all the other non-pony characters are immediately in on the song, no matter how they were feeling or what they were doing right before it started.

Um...Twilight’s not wrong, you guys! Everyone you’ve come across so far has tried to fuck you over! Including the seaponies! Why wouldn’t she just try to steal the thing?

But, of course, she wouldn’t get captured if everyone else didn’t leave her all alone to mark the act break. The rest of them are even seen sitting on a gray and dismal seashore afterwards! Jesus Christ, it’s like all the tropes from Scriptwriting for Children’s Movies 101 are in this thing! You are allowed to try harder than this, you know!

Twilight: Why are you doing this? You’re a pony, like me!

Me: I’m nothing like you!

Tempest: I’m nothing like you!

Me: Come on!

Oh, god, don’t sing. I can hear the lead-in. I can see you want to express your emotions and fill in your backstory so badly! Please don’t! Please don’t please don’t please don’t AGGGGGHHHHH

Man, I bet when the Ursa Major scratched her face, Tempest bled so! Ha! ...I’m sorry.

Are you kidding me? She has the same character motivation as Starlight Glimmer? Her friends (all two of them) left her in one particular incident, so now she’s sworn off friendship forever (instead of just, I don’t know, finding new friends? You had to have had more than two.)

Hold on, did Tempest...beam that flashback into Twilight’s head? Because otherwise, I don’t know how she would have gathered that information.

“Well, look what the cat dragged in! Himself!” Um...burn?

NO. BULLSHIT. HOW DID THEY ESCAPE? HOW? IT DOESN’T COUNT IF YOU DON’T SHOW IT. WHY WOULD YOU CUT OUT A POTENTIALLY AWESOME ACTION SCENE FOR THIS SHIT? NO. FUCK YOU.

Then again, there are only five pirates left. I guess the rest were slaughtered.

Honestly, the Storm King just looks like Tirek. They might as well have reused him.

Boy, I haven’t seen Liev Schreiber play such an nonthreatening villain since X-Men Origins: Wolverine. Blast from the past! I’m glad he’s been in the movie so much up to this point so that I actually give a shit about him being the main bad guy for the last 20 minutes!

Uh-huh. And where were the other two pirates hiding? Only three jumped out of that cake.

The guard was taken down by...cupcakes. Do you even care anymore?

HOLY FUCK PINKIE’S FACE IS TERRIFYING. NEVER SHOW ANYTHING LIKE THAT AGAIN. YOU ARE SERIOUSLY GOING TO GIVE CHILDREN NIGHTMARES.

And he’s using Spike like a flamethrower. He can’t...oh, whatever.

Why does she even need her horn restored? She seems pretty powerful as she is.

“Why are you saving me?” “Because this is what friends do.” No, this is what decent fucking people do! if you’re about to watch someone die and you can do something to prevent it, you don’t have to be their friend to do so! You just have to be not a sociopath!

Oh, no! Twilight flew off with the main villain! She’s dead for sure! Oh, what? She’s not? What a shock. Nice heavy-handed angelic imagery, by the way.

Couldn’t she have blasted the XBOX rock out of the way or grabbed it or something instead of letting it hit her?

“So...now what?” “Now we rebuild.” No, wait, that’s the ending from San Andreas. A much better movie, I might add.

OH, THE FIRST ONE THEY DECALCIFIED WAS DERPY. EVERYTHING IS DERPY. DERPY DERPY DERPY.

Okay, who the hell was the “Way to go, guys!” pony? That was very obviously supposed to be someone specific, but I am unaware of this behind-the-scenes tidbit.

So they unfroze everypony, but they still didn’t fix Tempest’s horn? What a bunch of dicks!

“You know, your horn is pretty powerful, just like the pony it belongs to.” Didn’t I say that? What the hell was the conflict here?

That’s what you end the movie on, eh? Pinkie Pie’s squealing? Okey dokey then.

AND DERPY’S IN THE CREDITS TOO HERF DERF WERF LERF

And, of course, no kids’ movie would be complete without LUKAS GRAAAAAAAHAM.

Wait, Rachel Platten sang that cover of “We Got the Beat”? The singer who gave us “Fight Song”? Well, no wonder it sucked!

Rating: 1/4 stars.

This movie had a review embargo on it on Rotten Tomatoes until the release date. That’s never a good sign.

I think maybe they thought that, by making the movie darker, it would make it more suitable for theatrical viewing. It doesn’t. It’s just...odd. Especially when they add really stupid jokes to lighten the tone.

I can say that you can probably see the movie without having seen the show, which is a positive. There aren’t any plot details that require outside information to understand, but WOW is there enough fanservice if that’s what you’re looking for. In fact, it might be better if you haven’t seen the show because boy, oh, boy, do they introduce a lot of characters that the ponies on the show would definitely be aware of if this made any sense. On that note, if this is set in the canon Equestria from the show, then holy shit are the ponies the most callous and/or oblivious sociopaths I’ve ever seen in a children’s program. Not only are they all apparently completely unaware of the fact that everything outside of Equestria is complete shit (aside from the fact that everywhere seems to be impoverished, they’re all totally oblivious to the fact that the Storm King has taken over THE REST OF THE WORLD), but they don’t actually fix that by the end! I guess the hippogriffs can come out of hiding now, and the Storm King’s faceless henchmen all seem to be good guys at the end since they’re all at the party, but for all we know, the badlands are still inhabited entirely by goblin monster things and their shady black market shit! We never saw what happened to them! And if the parrots are now all pirates instead of merchants, does that mean they’re going to start robbing everyone? Congratulations, Rainbow Dash! You’ve significantly increased the amount of crime across the entire world! Good job, you fucking idiot!

Twilight is ridiculously selfish, which is really odd considering we know she knows better by this point. Her moral in this movie is that she has to learn to rely on her friends and not just try to do everything based on her own effort and ideas. Y’know, AGAIN. How many fucking times has Twilight had to learn this lesson over and over and over again? And people say that Fluttershy’s episodes are repetitive.

I was hoping that at some point I would become used to the animation. For comparison, Fantastic Mr. Fox has a really ugly animation style, but you don’t really think anything of it after the first 20-30 minutes. That never happened with this movie. Every time I thought I was getting used to the animation style, someone would turn or move or make a face, and it would just look creepy or just plain awful again.

You know what’s kind of sad, though? Emily Blunt is really good in this. She’s really putting in a lot of effort for this character, and the design is pretty good, too! She’s actually kind of awesome, especially compared to Liev Schreiber (who so could not have given less of a shit about his role) and Michael Fucking Peña, who are just terrible. Even if I didn’t entirely understand her nonsensical motivation, Tempest was honestly the best part of the movie.

Boy, between this and Leap!, if an animated movie advertises that it “features an original song by Sia”, run!

[rollingtsuchinoko]

Sports day is always a big occasion in Japanese schools. Class schedules are shuffled weeks in advance to allow time to practice for the big event. Instead of studying, students practice cheering and the unusual events that encompass sports day. 体育の日 (taiiku no hi) isn’t just for school kids though. It is a national holiday. Many businesses and cities hold sports day festivals as well. October 9 is when the actual holiday falls, but many schools hold their sports day earlier so as not to interfere with mid-term tests which are quickly approaching. The holiday commemorates the 1964 Summer Olympics, held in Tokyo that year. Most of the sports at my high school’s sports day will not be seen at the actual Olympics, but hey, give it time. If skateboarding can be an Olympic sport, why not laundry pole relay races. The main goal of most events is to promote teamwork.

Towards the end of class today a couple of my senior girls were whispering back and forth to each other and occasionally glancing at me. They would whisper, look at me, go back to whispering and I thought to myself, here it comes. I’m going to get asked some off the wall question. It’s happened so many times before, I recognize the pattern. This never happens with a random, normal question. This behavior always prefaces an outlandish, usually personal question. One of them finally got up the courage to ask. “Teacher, do you hate children?” Even with the knowledge that the forthcoming question was going to be outside of the norm, this one surprised me. I just laughed and told them, “I like children just fine. They are great for 40 to 50-minute intervals, then it is time to go away. I don’t want them in my home.” This seemed to assuage their curiosity. Kids really do say the craziest things.

An Autumn-moon festival haiku.

Sumo wrestlers are huge. Not exactly breaking news, I understand. But it’s really hard to gauge their true size when you only see them on TV. I happened to be standing right next to this sumo while working out at my gym. I felt like a little kid next to this guy. But the interesting part, to me at least, of this mundane tale, is when another sumo wrestler showed up. I don’t know why, but I was hoping that there was some kind of secret sumo code that compelled sumo wrestling on the spot. I don’t know why I thought this. It’s not like I expect basketball players upon meeting in the street to play a game of one on one. In any case, I was disappointed that no sumoing took place.

A class had to write a short paper on the topic of free time. Most students complain that they have no free time. It is true that their time is very limited. They have homework, club activities, tests, cram schools, etc. However, I think there is a secret agenda behind keeping high school kids incredibly busy. The teen birth rate in Japan is the lowest in the developed world. 4 births per 1000 girls aged 15 to 19. Obviously, there are other factors behind this, actual parenting, cultural mores, (etc), but as they say, idle hands are the devil’s playthings.

It’s always fun to see how Western holidays are celebrated in Asian countries. Halloween in Japan is becoming quite popular. It shouldn’t come as a surprise that a holiday that involves dressing up in costumes would be popular in Japan. Teens and young adults have been involved in cosplay for years. If you go to Shibuya or Harajuku, you will see kids dressed up in fancy costumes based on popular anime. I don’t see it as much anymore, maybe cosplay is not so popular anymore. However, if you go to Shibuya on Halloween, you will see thousands of people dressed up and partying. I think one reason the holiday is so popular here is that there is no religion associated with the holiday. It’s just a time to dress up and party. Halloween is still two weeks away, but there are already Halloween decorations up around shopping malls and even some play areas for kids set up. The shopping mall that houses my local Starbucks even had a giant Jack-o-lantern bouncy castle for the kids. I’m not sure if kids to trick or treating. I suppose I will find out soon enough. Better go buy some candy just in case.

A Halloween tree?

The neighborhood is awash in laundry hanging to dry. The last week has seen nothing but steady rain. Every damn day, rain rain rain. Not to be too graphic, but I was getting down to the emergency backup underwear. Clothes dryers are a rarity in Japan so when there is a break in the weather, it’s all hands on deck. The morning sun woke me up this morning, so I immediately jumped out of bed, well got up off the floor actually, and put the socks and undies in the washing machine. Now I just hope the rain holds off for a few hours to allow my clothes to dry. Hmm, wonder if I can get my gym stuff washed today too? I’m sure my workout buddies would appreciate it.

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

I do not laugh when my students make a mistake in their English when I’m with them in the classroom, but when I’m marking work in private, that is a different case. Some of the mistakes in spelling or word usage are just too good not to laugh. Like I said, I would never laugh at my kids in class. I know how hard it is to learn a language and I do not want to shatter their confidence. But read this and tell me you didn’t chuckle a bit. If you say you didn’t, you are a liar.

Ok, now that you are done laughing, I’ll give you the background. The students were making a video about umami. This portion of the video talked about how a famous chef said he wanted to include umami in more food and introduce the flavor to the world. For some reason, chef turned into cook, which in turn changed to cock. How does this happen? Who knows? Too many chefs, or cocks, spoils the broth I suppose.

Super Typhoon Lan is currently knocking on my storm doors. The rain has been falling for the last couple of days, but it is really pounding down now or as the Japan Meteorological Agency scientifically puts it, tons of rain is falling. I wonder if school will get rained out again tomorrow. The town next to mine has started evacuating elderly residents who live in low-lying areas. Should make for an interesting night. The biggest complaint with my apartment is the metal storm doors. When the wind starts whipping, the doors rattle like the tail of a giant metal diamondback. If it is raining and windy then I get to listen to raindrops pinging off the metal all night. I’ve had a few sleepless nights in this place when the wind whistles through the Boso Peninsula.

Super Typhoon Lan

Tons of rain indeed.

Well, Super Typhoon Lan did arrive. A bit late and with a bit less rain than expected, at least in my area. That doesn’t mean we didn’t feel the effects of the Typhoon. The strong wind and heavy rain finally did hit around 5 am. The driving rain made it impossible to sleep as it pounded against my metal storm doors. Nothing like effective foreshadowing, eh? At 5:30 I had made the executive decision to not go to work that day. Making the 10-minute walk to the bus stop in that weather was a non-starter. I checked my email expecting a message from work that classes were canceled. Hmm, no such message. Well, give them another 30 minutes, I’m sure by then the powers that be will do the right thing. Nope. My plans of watching the Sunday Night Football game live were evaporating. Mostly because the clouds were doing the same thing. The rain was letting up and the wind had slowed to a slight breeze. Damn it.

So, I resign myself to the fact that I will have to work today, eat, shower, get dressed and get out the door at 9. At the bus stop, I see a few of my students. Hmm, they should have been at school at least half an hour ago. “What’s up?” I ask. “The trains are very late.” comes the reply. That would be the theme of the morning. Students were stranded all over the prefecture. Why the hell didn’t we cancel classes? We did it for a rainstorm earlier this month. A typhoon that everybody knew was coming doesn’t get the same consideration? Students arrived in dribs and drabs all morning. Classes didn’t begin until 11:00. We had four 30 minute classes and then Long Home Room for 50 minutes and that was it. Some students had club activities after school and most went home. What a stupid day. More than a few teachers grumbled about the situation. When you can get a Japanese person to complain, you know a huge mistake was made. I really need typhoon season to end, like right now.

I had a small Halloween party with my favorite class. I know teachers aren’t supposed to have favorites, but we are human after all. Although you may have a hard time convincing some students that is true. Most of my classes are huge. Thirty-six students is a small class. Most are forty-four to forty-eight. It’s hard to get to know the students. I see them once a week for 50 minutes so I don’t even know most of their names. But my favorite class to teach is small. It has seven students and I see them four times a week. I can actually get to know them a bit and yes, I even know all of their names. They are a fun bunch. They volunteered for the class, so there is some motivation to try to learn English, unlike my other classes where it is just part of the curriculum. A good majority of the students in my larger classes just aren’t that interested in English. But my magnificent seven really do try their hardest to come to class and speak English.

Our Halloween party wasn’t much of an affair. No costumes or decorations. But we did watch It’s The Great Pumpkin Charlie Brown. I don’t know how much they understood, even with the dodgy subtitles, which were pretty far off. I mean c’mon, YouTube, how the hell am I supposed to explain this to a bunch of high school students in a second language?

  It’s the pornographic pumpkin, Charlie Brown.

I just kind of played it off. Man, my job is hard enough. I don’t need this crap. After the show, we did some trick-or-treating in the classroom. I had them come to my desk and say the magic words. Now, remember, these are seniors in high school, but they were like little kids. I haven’t seen them smile this much all year. Teaching is a hard job and the pay sucks, but those are the times that make it worth it.

Wow, another month shot to hell. I’m sure when I go out tomorrow there will be signs that Christmas is on its way. Even in Japan, Christmas can’t come soon enough.

  October 2017 Sports day is always a big occasion in Japanese schools. Class schedules are shuffled weeks in advance to allow time to practice for the big event.