#but it also represents the willingness of the audience to go along with all of the awful things he is saying

[asurrogateblog]

sometimes I start thinking the psychological torture over performing that led to the Spit of '77 was just a roger problem but then I remember that one time a live chicken wandered on stage at an alice cooper concert and when they threw the chicken to the audience (mistakenly believing chickens could fly) the crowd enthusiastically tore it to pieces with their bare hands so actually yah maybe roger had a point

[omnitheist27]

@the-ravenclaw-werewolf and @purplemochi20055

The 40 - A traumatic revelation

Hey ya'll I'm back with the next fan comic I promise you all!

Oh ho, drawing this fan comic of The 40's reaction to the ending of Death Note was a challenging one due to the lack of motivation and anticipation of the final chapter of Main Character Syndrome. And I got to say, it came out pretty good...for the most part.

Now, oh my gosh, the ending to Death Note regarding Light getting shot by Matsuda and nearly killed was quite a dramatic climax when I first watched it back in middle or high school. Then, I stumbled upon The_Ravenclaw_Werewolf's fanfic and became hooked on the possible reactions to the forty chosen anime of the main characters. I have to tell ya, emotions would be flying high for many of our anime audience as they watched Light Yagami's descent into madness and saw him stoop to many lows unimaginable for them.

But the one low I really would like to see The 40's reaction to Light is how he calls his own deceased father a "fool" whose idealism would only be inefficient in his new world, where it might as well registered to any sane person's mind that Light is saying that Soichiro deserves to die even though that probably wasn't his intention. That particular moment would be the trigger for those in The 40 with really bad Daddy Issues and probably go as far as hallucinating themselves in Matsuda's shoes opening fire on Light afterward.

----

For L, I know that he's the world's greatest detective in Death Note and saw plenty of nasty crimes committed by the most heinous serial killers while growing up, along with him being very stoic and cool-headed as a result of his own "quirks" and the desensitization of seeing death bodies to deal with the obvious high stress that comes with the job. However, emotions are not rational and I wouldn't put it past him to have an anxiety attack from witnessing something really bad (e.g. his scared reaction upon the mention of Shinigami for the first time in the manga), and obviously, L would be triggered in his own way after witnessing his own death and Watari's, the growing hatred he'll gain for Light, and to his own surprise when seeing himself in Matsuda's place as a result of his emotional imbalance and frankly, having enough of Light's bullshit. When drawing the hallucination L, I looked up the character art from the bad ending of The Boogyman regarding Keith Baring aiming a gun at the villain with his blood as tears coming down his eyes, which represents Keith's unresolved grief and guilt from being unable to cry from the death of his son.

For Edward, it's very obvious that he's got a deep-seated grudge against Hohenheim for his abandonment of him, his brother, and their mother (even if it was for good reason). But Edward witnessed Light's madness and willingness to endanger his own family for his delusions of godhood will, not if, earned him a spot on his hatred and would override any hate he has for his estranged father. Also, Edward has shown a very humanist approach as a State Alchemist by refusing to kill others, and he'll likely advocate for Light's imprisonment despite his hatred for him. Of course, it would come as a shock for Edward to see himself in Matsuda's place shooting Light multiple times before being readied to execute him with a headshot, showing that he's not ok, and ironically, jump-starting his resolve to reconcile with Hohenheim. When drawing the hallucination of Edward, I just included his tendency for dramatic facial expressions.

For Tohru, oh bless her kind heart, but I had to draw her reaction for the finale to Death Note. I don't know much about Fruits Basket but I have read the broad strokes from the TV Tropes page of it. Apparently, in the past Tohru once had a hatred for her late father due to his death causing her mother to neglect her for a time and almost commit suicide, though even then she recognizes it's wrong to feel that way. Seeing Light's father dying due to Light's actions, even on the possibility that Light actually feels guilty about it, would slowly bring that part of Tohru's personality back to the surface and the obvious guilt that'll come with it, and god forbid her breaking point upon witnessing Light calling his late father an "idealistic fool". Never mind that Light Yagami is going to be one of the many people that even an all-loving girl like Tohru would hate with all her heart in my opinion. Also, there's the cultural significance of Tohru seeing herself wielding a gun against Light in Matsuda's place. In Japan, there are very, very strict laws regarding citizens owning firearms, with only the police and military being allowed to own them. For a minor to be seen as willing to hold a gun is unthinkable given the whole "children are innocent" angle in Japanese culture and how every child in Japan is expected to have obedient and quiet deferential behavior toward authority figures. Plus, in Japanese culture, killing someone, even in self-defense no matter how justified, will always be seen as "murder". So unlike L (a detective) and Edward (a soldier hailing from a culture similar to Germany), the hallucination!Tohru holding a gun and being readied to fire upon a now defenseless Light, even if he did deserve to die, would really highlight to a native Japanese audience just how bad Tohru's sanity has taken a dive and the obvious shock she would have to the core. When drawing the hallucination Tohru, I took inspiration from Winery's design as she pulls a gun at Scar upon overhearing that he murdered her parents, because it was just perfect in my opinion and there were obviously weren't many images of Tohru having a "mad face" that would be appropriate for the climatic moment in the Death Note viewing.

For Rin, it'll be obvious for him to also hate Light Yagami, especially with how his actions killed his father, who had always wished that his son isn't Kira. Upon seeing his hallucination, Rin would be shocked and horrified to see himself as a demonic shadowy being damning Light for taking to his father for granted and it'll be a foreshadowing of what's to come when The 40 will view Blue Exorcist. When drawing the hallucination of Rin, I just decided to go with a silhouette to represent a "shadow archetype" of Rin due to his troubled childhood of being perceived as a demon child, along with Rin not seeing what would happen to his adoptive father, Shiro, in the viewing yet.

----

In conclusion, what are your thoughts on this fan comic and how accurate do you believe I drew the character's reactions to the finale of Death Note?

P.S. The next fan comic I'll be planning for The 40 will be in celebration of the recent release of chapter 3 for Poppy Playtime and Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League.

[365sylviaplath]

Week of 8/5-8/11

astrology forecast + collective tarot card for the week

Card for this week: Ace of Pentacles (reversed) - generally represents missed opportunities or fewer/slower moving opportunities. delays, plans falling through and a general feeling of Being Out of Control (welcome mercury retrograde!). you might want to put some more effort into preparing for delays or needing a follow-up plan, but accept that you will not be able to control everything. things will go wrong, but you will always be able to find your way out! be cautious to not allow your fears of things not working out/scarcity mindset push you too far into being stingy/miserly. you could be dipping into savings a bit, but you will bounce back! you do not have to identify with the periods of financial lows. creating a budget for yourself never requires you to call yourself broke!

Transits/Astro forecast: boy are we in the retrogrades.... as a reminder, we now have 5 simultaneous retrogrades (chiron, saturn, neptune, pluto and now mercury). keeping these time frames from last week's post: the lessons from past retrogrades will be coming back for our re-evaluation: mercury asks us to look back on April 2024 and the rest are asking us broadly to look back on last summer (2023) - what remains to be addressed?

august is cooking along, we've just had the new moon in leo (personal to me, as it was at the same exact degree as my own leo moon) (yes, i made a collage of pictures of myself), we are really ready to launch this creative new chapter! but don't worry..... we still have to answer to our old patterns. in order to get where we're going, we have to remember where we've been. finding your joy requires a willingness to let some things end! creativity gets pretty stymied when you never take the trash out. it's the intermingling of "Dreaming Of The New" and "Remembering" that will encourage us to meaningfully launch.

this mercury retrograde, expect the classic things: (i.e. technology screwing up, communication mixups, so on), but also be extra mindful of power dynamics in your relationships! misunderstandings might be more likely to escalate at this time, don't let anyone rob you of your power. if you're feeling unappreciated or somehow lesser than, take a step back before responding. be aware of others' projections - distortions will be pretty common. Wednesday August 7th will have the sun sextiling jupiter and mercury retrograde conjoining with venus - both kind of asking Optimist + Lover from the audience! what holds you back from your carefree lover era? what would it take to see yourself as romantic? are you able to recognize that you have the capacity/ability to inspire others? as you remind yourself of your own personal power this week, brainstorm on how the most empowered version of yourself wants to love and be loved in all relationships.

[sinceileftyoublog]

Pearl Jam Live Show Review: 8/29, Wrigley Field, Chicago

BY JORDAN MAINZER

Even when Pearl Jam have released a new record that happens to be arguably their best of the millennium so far, the band's priority when playing live is putting on a show. And when the venue represents a hometown return for Eddie Vedder, at the hallowed grounds of the Friendly Confines? Forget it. Last Thursday, Pearl Jam performed their first song from April's Dark Matter (Monkeywrench/Republic) 8 (!) tunes into their set. Wanting to ease in the crowd in, and perhaps themselves, the Seattle quintet opened with Ten closer "Release", whose slow-burn-to-shout-along pipeline has long made for a perfect introduction to the band's notoriously anthemic concerts. Ensconced in silhouetted light, they embarked on the tune's swaying melody, and at the point Vedder and the audience simultaneously shouted, "Release me!", a blue light came over Wrigley Field, as if to say that we were, for a moment, all on this Earth together.

Indeed, Pearl Jam has a way of uniting a crowd due to their willingness to play both rarities and favorites, appealing to newbies and die-hards alike. On Thursday, the sneaky "Of The Girl" gave way to campfire slice of life "Elderly Woman Behind the Counter in a Small Town"; acoustic choogle "Off He Goes", a fan request, was followed by cascading Vitalogy favorite "Immortality". The band also provides moments new to even those who know their early 90s albums by heart. "Why Go" forewent its studio version's urgent thwack for a more patient industrial thump, while drummer Matt Cameron sped up "Even Flow", only for Mike McCready to steal the show with a behind-the-head guitar solo.

I also, though, have to give props to Vedder for continuing to never shy away from waxing on what he believes to be moral and just. The day before the show, I was working on my laptop in a restaurant and overheard a father, his daughter in hand, mention to the bartender that he was going to see Pearl Jam but hates when Vedder "talks politics." Okay, I realize Howard Zinn, to whom Vedder dedicated "Down", may not align with the majority of Pearl Jam's fan base, and few folks nonetheless are going to concerts to discuss political theory. But during "Daughter", when he included a tag from Pink Floyd's "Another Brick in the Wall, Pt. 2", he spoke about abortion rights. Singing, "We don't need no thought control" alone is easy--mental gymnasts from across the political spectrum can choose to interpret that line as in alignment with their beliefs--but his amendment of, "Teacher leave our bodies alone," left no mystery as to what Vedder was talking about: the right to choose. I couldn't help but think about whether the dad from the restaurant was momentarily pissed off and how many more like him were in the crowd; it made me appreciate Vedder's outspokenness even more.

As for Dark Matter, it really is an album meant to be heard live. It's the first to feature contributions from touring and session member Josh Klinghoffer, and unlike the band's previous record Gigaton, it was banged out by the band in studio, a much more spontaneous-sounding effort than many of their recent releases. "Scared of Fear", a punk rock barnburner, sports huge guitar solos and virtuosic tempo changes. The chiming guitars and shouted vocals of "Waiting for Stevie", a song the band wrote while waiting for hours upon hours for Stevie Wonder to show up to a recording session, encompassed the upper decks of Wrigley, Vedder's declaration that, "You can be loved by everyone," an affirmation for the ages. "Dark Matter" was Cameron's time to shine, one-upping the studio version's mammoth beats alongside pulsating keyboards and guitars. Vedder invited a crowd member, Abby, to sing with him on "Won't Tell", which may as well have been planned considering it features a chorus practically meant for harmonies or a duet. "Wreckage", the album's best song, was a Petty-esque serving of heartland rock, containing the catchiest pre-chorus melody Pearl Jam has written in some time.

At first, I was a little skeptical of the band's inclusion of Dark Matter closer "Setting Sun" in the encore, a drawn-out song at the end of a particularly sticky night. But its build-up segued perfectly into "Alive", a song I've heard more times than I've told my wife I loved her, no thanks to its inclusion on classic rock radio rotation. At the moment Vedder launched into the final rousing chorus, the lights went on at Wrigley and stayed that way throughout the cliché but undeniable move of inviting the opening band on stage to help cover Neil Young's "Rockin' in the Free World". With Vedder donning a glittery Cubs hat and uniform over his Walter Payton shirt, and multiple Ian Happ jerseys adorning the stage (one said "Happer", so you know Vedder and Happ are buddies), even the most cynical, jaded music lover and baseball fanatic couldn't help but be persuaded into fist-pumping along. It's a testament to Pearl Jam that they can continue to inspire, three and a half decades in.

[renegadewangs]

Van Zieks - the Examination, Part 1

Warnings: SPOILERS for The Great Ace Attorney: Chronicles. Additional warning for racist sentiments uttered by fictional characters (and screencaps to show these sentiments).

Disclaimer: These posts are not meant to be taken as fact. Everything I'm outlining stems from my own views and experiences. I am a 30-something European woman, and therefore may not view the matter from certain angles. That said, I'm always open to more input from others. If you believe that I've missed or misinterpreted something, please let me know so I can edit the post accordingly. If we can make this a team effort, I would love that.

The purpose of these posts is an analysis, nothing more. Please do not come into these posts expecting me to either defend Barok van Zieks from haters, nor expecting me to encourage the hatred. I am of the firm belief that characters are no more than a tool created to serve a narrative purpose, therefore the question I'm posing is whether or not Barok van Zieks serves this purpose. That's all I'm doing here.

I'm using the Western release of The Great Ace Attorney Chronicles for these posts, but may refer to the original Japanese dialogue of Dai Gyakuten Saiban if needed to compare what's said. This also means I’m using the localized names and localized romanization of the names to stay consistent.

It doesn't matter one bit to me whether you like Barok van Zieks or dislike him. He's not real anyway, so he can't suffer from it. However, I will ask that everyone who comments refrains from attacking real, actual people. If you know you're morally in the right, there should be no need for insults to begin with. Let's keep this conversation civil and constructive! As the first post in a series, let’s first start by examining the expectations we would have for a character like this. The purpose he was meant to serve.

1: Expectations

As I said in a different Barok-related essay, the main prosecutor of any Ace Attorney game has been, and always will be, an antagonistic force. Not a villain, not even necessarily someone who exhibits immoral traits. (Hi Klavier!) Just someone who impedes the protag’s goal of getting a not-guilty verdict. In order to have an effective antagonist, they need to mirror the protag's weaknesses back at them. Ace Attorney does this quite well, as the prosecutors represent the obstacle/turmoil that the defense needs to overcome. Often times, the prosecutor is also tied to a pivotal moment in the attorney's past, making sure the strife is quite personal.

Considering the game's plot and settings, it would've been difficult for Barok to be tied to Ryunosuke's past. (He is tied to Asogi's past, funnily enough, but that's a matter I also addressed in that other Barok essay.) So instead, Barok represents Ryunosuke's struggle in more of a figurehead capacity. I've seen people dub him the 'CEO of Racism', and I'm not gonna lie, in a way that's correct. Barok was designed to be the mouthpiece of the harmful sentiments Japanese exchange students would have encountered in the 1900s. By extension, since Ryunosuke is an exchange student unfamiliar with the British courts (or even courts in general), the prosecutor would target the fact that Ryunosuke 'does not understand how things are done here'. Which he does- a lot. This makes it all the more satisfying when Ryunosuke proves him wrong by outsmarting him and using Britain's own laws (such as the closing argument) against him. So yes, you may hate Barok for uttering racist sentiments and dismissing Ryunosuke's abilities, but the ultimate goal here is that Barok's defeat is made sweeter as a result. The narrative end-game is Ryunosuke's triumph and validation in the courtroom.

Was there a different personal struggle Barok could have represented? Yes, but also no. Sure, his vendetta could have been strictly with the Asogi family and Ryunosuke could have admitted to carrying Asogi's resolve, not knowing what it meant. Though that would’ve implied very early that Asogi had a history of sorts in Britain and would’ve destroyed some of the surprise we experience in game 2. Alternatively, there was also the 'parallel' antagonist angle. The sort of villain who says the line “we're not so different, you and I.” The antagonist who shows what happens when someone with the same skills or motivations follows the wrong path, which emphasizes the right path for the protagonist. However, I can't see that working in the plot of this game.

A purposeful decision was made by the writers to have prejudice be a central theme of the plot. This is the matter that hits the hardest in an emotional sense. Therefore, having Barok be the centerpiece of this prejudice ensures he leaves the biggest narrative impact.

---

However, another long-running aspect of the AA prosecutor is the redemption arc, so let's turn our attention to that!

I'm not going to put too much effort into explaining this, I just want to talk about the requirements of a redemption arc. We all know these types of arcs, a lot of Ace Attorney prosecutors have them. We see them in fiction all over. Noteworthy examples of redemption arcs done well include Zuko from The Last Airbender, Michael from The Good Place... For argument's sake, let's toss Edgeworth in there too. I'm not saying Edgeworth's arc is done well, but at the very least it is accepted by most as something that served its intended purpose. I've never seen anyone question Edgeworth's transformation.

See, what we have here is a bit of a misnomer when it comes to what people expect to get out of these types of arcs. Redemption in itself is only 'deliverance from sin' or 'being saved from evil'. It's the thought that a horrible person can still see the error of their ways before it's 'too late'. However, when it comes to absorbing media, often a character gaining knowledge that they were in the wrong isn't enough to satisfy the audience. Would Edgeworth have had a satisfying redemption arc if he'd acknowledged his arrogance and dirty tactics, only to retire as a prosecutor? No way. We needed him to return in the following games to give us an update on his status. Standing in court as a defense attorney, at the risk of damaging his reputation, was the moment we knew he'd grown for the better.

What we require for the arc to come to a good conclusion is atonement. The character in question must not only apologize for their actions, but repent in a more active manner to show that they've changed their ways. Following that, the atonement must be acknowledged by others. So for example, Zuko joins the ATLA gang to help them in any way that he can until even the most skeptical of the group, Katara, acknowledges his transformation into a better person. Now add to this the notion that the character's atonement must be virtuous and sincere. The Good Place is a fascinating look into the debate of 'is it ever too late for a person to change?' and the moral complications of changing in the first place. If you're only doing good things because you want to be saved from damnation, are you being a good person or are you being selfish? There's such a thing as corrupt motivation; only doing good because it is expected. For example, does sponsoring a library make Magnus McGilded a good person? It does not, since he's only doing it to boost his own reputation and have people believe he's selfless.

As a final note, I want to ask: Does a redemption arc require a backstory to justify the character's immoral ways? Personally, I don't think that it does. It's good to have, since it allows an audience to empathize with the character and give them more of a reason to root for them. It turns the redemption arc into a tale about overcoming past trauma. However, it can backfire when done badly and lead to frustration. (I'm looking at you, live action Disney movies!) Some characters are evil just for the sake of being evil and even then, they can turn over a new leaf because they realize it is just so much more rewarding to be good. Just look at Michael from The Good Place.

What's more effective than a backstory, in my opinion, is smaller details to humanize a character. Humanization can also lead to empathy, perhaps even relatability, and helps us believe that they're capable of change. We need to be told that a character has their own fears, their own flaws, their own odd little habits which deviate from the norm... Again, I'll point to Michael from The Good Place for this. Another humanization tactic, which we see employed often in Ace Attorney, is to display a prosecutor's likes and hobbies outside the courtroom. Edgeworth's fanboying over the Steel Samurai, Blackquill's love for birds, Nahyuta's willingness to stand in line for hours to get his hands on a delicious burger... I've feel ya, Nahyuta. This tactic is more readily employed in Ace Attorney because it's difficult to place a prosecutor in a position of weakness before the final showdown. You can show them tending to hobbies during Investigation segments, but you can't show them waking up from a nightmare or wondering whether their father loves them. Well, not until case 5 of that game, anyway. By then, it's too late to serve as the sole humanization factor. Did Van Zieks need to be redeemed at all? The way I see it, the only correct answer is yes. What do we want to see in our world? Do we want people who hold racist prejudice to acknowledge their faults and become better, or do we want them to die clinging to their shitty moral compass? Do we want a world where everyone learns to get along, or do we want a world where people continue to be in the wrong and act like assholes until they inevitably get punished by law for something or another? Van Zieks needed to be redeemed in order to teach that valuable lesson that it’s never too late to be a good person and that it pays to be a good person.

So to summarize, what we needed from Barok van Zieks was the following:

1) Present an antagonistic (possibly immoral) force who personifies Ryunosuke's biggest personal obstacle/weakness, in this case racial prejudice. 2) Humanizing traits begin to show. OPTIONAL: A backstory to justify any immorality he has. 3) Over time, Barok has his realization and sees the error of his ways. 4) Barok atones for his immorality, not simply through apology but by taking decisive steps. 5) The cast around him acknowledges his efforts and forgives him.

This leaves us with the question: Does the game deliver on these points? Well, let's boot it up and find out! Stay tuned for The Adventure of the Runaway Room! (as a warning, it’s gonna be LONG)

[mc-critical]

[2/2] i was reading one of your posts about dilruba & something about it made me wish dilruba had more screen time because she’s the only princesses who was extremely dutiful towards her mother & brother but also managed to achieve her own happiness through her marriage. also, one more thing which i wish was done with her character... so like we all know how safiye sultan practically worships hurrem, w/ always remembering her, showing her ring off etc. the way she talks about hurrem is very exaggerated, “hurrem sultan was head to toe power.” which is true but at the same time, the show really didn’t show her full & complete power like it was historically and we all know 2 seasons of hurrem went in being immature & not really regal or completely power [& she was still constantly overshadowed by the sultanas of blood]. however, hurrem was still almost like a goddess type figure in mc:k and despite safiye’s strained relations w/ nurbanu, she still praised her a lot. basically, the two figures of the sow & the ring holders from the first show are remember in the second show. but what about mihrimah? she was a vital figure in history & in mustafa’s downfall & in the last season of the show even though she didn’t receive the ring to signify her as a part of the sow. what i wished for is dilruba idolising mihrimah, aspiring to be a protector of her brother like she was & exaggerating her power like safiye did w/ hurrem. this way, mihrimah could also be remember. also, dilruba’s character was more of what i had imagined for mihrimah. i didn’t imagine her to love rustem like dilruba loved davut but i expected mihrimah to be more powerful & dutiful towards her mother [more compared to dilruba but ofc also not to the extent of wanting to kill kids who were part of the dynasty]. anyhow, dilruba could’ve really taken mihrimah as her idol imo as her, halime & davut were a parallel of mihrimah, hurrem & rustem. sorry for the long post! but this is something i wish mc:k had done. [worth nothing that rustem & davut were also similar villanish type guys who’s only redeeming qualities could be their toxic love for their sultanas & their loyalties towards hurrem & halime, though rustem did waver in his loyalty whilst halime sold davut like the dog he is lol]

Dilruba's character development was truly very condensed in these 9 episodes, so there was never going to be enough of her, from whichever angle you look at it. I kinda cut the writers slack, because I know the ratings played a considerable part in MCK's script and they had a lot to do and a lot to rush (whereas in MC they could practically do whatever they wanted, because their ratings were perfect, I guess that's why they had so many concubine arcs hehe), but I love Dilruba and I would've loved more screentime with her. The time we spent with her could feel so minimal to the point we get the impression that we got to know little Dilruba a bit more than the older Dilruba. (the opposite case of little Mihrimah, who was almost a completely different character with a different thematic set-up, her childish love for Bali Bey aside. The older Mihrimah went on a completely different path as a character.) This isn't a bad thing, per say, because little Dilruba had already set the foundation of the character as a whole and we didn't need much more context for her actions than what we already got, but this little amount of screentime could limit her role to a simple, a bit flanderized antagonist to Kösem, which is honestly a trend for all of Kösem's antagonists in S01.

{Safiye's cult for Hürrem is one of the most interesting things about her as a character, but it is over exaggerated for the reasons you mentioned just as it simply isn't real. Safiye has never met Hürrem in person and even if MCK didn't call back to that, Mihrimah actually played an important part in establishing that cult in her training of Safiye. Safiye knows of this powerful S04 Hürrem who makes everyone tremble before her and considers "survival of the fittest". (MCK Safiye shares the exact same philosophy) What she worships in Hürrem is rather a picture she has formed in her head, the figure from Mihrimah's stories. This aspect of Safiye's character is used to form her own path in the evolution of power in the SOW, so we could see symbolically how much of what Hürrem represents has she moulded to her own agenda, it's indeed not presented as the actual truth. It also brings the question and perspective of what fragment of Hürrem Mihrihah herself sets as an example for herself and others, knowing that she does not completely idealize her own mother in the show. She was perfectly able to call out Hürrem's own flaws as much as she could openly take Hürrem's judgement.}

That worshipping of Hürrem in MCK truly sounded far too ideal and almost god-like, but in reality, not so many people in the show actually practice it. The only person who actively does, is Safiye, a main antagonist. Ahmet only mentions Hürrem when he gave her crown to Kösem. The references to the MC characters and especially the SOW in MCK is fascinating because you can see how you get only the accomplishments of people you've only heard narratives on, but never their actual stories, their actual struggles. People who were actually around the worshipped people and knew them personally obviously have a clearer understanding of who they truly were, like how Safiye called Nurbanu the most beautiful but also the cruelest sultana she's ever known, which makes perfect sense, knowing their rivalry and enmity. Nurbanu is inspired by Hürrem, but still stood against her with all her might. The people who have heard only basic facts of the more unrealistically idealized sides of those they worship praise merely the symbols of these people, what they were known to represent. Ahmet wants to be as accomplished as Süleiman, but we, as audience, know of Süleiman's detrimental flaws as a person and a padişah and we see that, he isn't exactly a person to be praised, let alone worshipped. It's interesting how the SOW call each other back in different ways, but it's all the more interesting that neither Kösem, nor Turhan call back to their predecessors. Is it because they've known each other closer than any of the worship? Is it simply because their characters have a different purpose? Is it because the theme of letting go of the past reached its fullest peak? I definetly can't say for sure.

That said, MC Mihrimah isn't from the SOW in the show both symbolically and arc-wise, but having a character that is not from the SOW (Dilruba) worship another character from the other show that also isn't from the SOW (Mihrimah) would be intriguing, judging by their similarities. However, these exact similarities prevent me from assessing this idea entirely, because I don't think it would do the show many favors. It could add even more depth to Dilruba: her willingness to protect Mustafa at all costs would be even more understandable then, knowing how the person she worships did the exact same thing in her eyes - it would turn not into a necessity, but into an ideal to live by, something that not only she has to do, but considers as honorable to do and loves it. But Dilruba is close enough to Mihrimah along with the traits and conceptual differences that set both of them apart - having the parralel be "addressed" in-universe through a direct worship would remind the audience even more that Dilruba is similar to Mihrimah and that may prevent endearment to her character. There are people that consider MCK so similar to MC already, that would be the last nail of the coffin. It may have been a risky move because of the ratings? Safiye worships Hürrem, but Safiye has a different narrative role than Hürrem and a more distinct personality, while Dilruba is a more obvious and open parallel. Not to the point of repetition, of course, but it's still close enough for a possible worship for Mihrimah in the show itself to be a dealbreaker for some. I wouldn't mind such a thing for Dilruba at all, but I can see why it possibly wasn't the case.

I'm satisfied with what we got with MC Mihrimah, but I can understand why you would want more power and agency from her. She could be very clueless sometimes which contrasted with her moments of perceptiveness. That was a solid character flaw of hers, but it could be very annoying. But then again, I also get why Mihrimah was the way she was, because MC put the personal motives of a character before any kind of power (or a character wants power for personal motives). Dilruba was perhaps way more ruthless, because MCK itself was more ruthless and it built on the MC themes. Power was already for the sake of power, the time period was more ruthless, everything was happening instantly and there wasn't a place to breathe. While with Mihrimah we got a deeper exploration where we saw more vulnerable sides, Dilruba had both her screentime and this ruthlessness stopping her from developing more and letting her be who she is. I guess both characters had their reasons to be who they were thematically, but writing improvements could still be made, of course.

[beatriceeagle]

I'm more of a fantasy than sci-fi person, but consider my interest piqued. Why should I watch farscape?

Okay, the thing is, every Farscape fan’s pitch on Why You, Yes You, Should Watch Farscape ends up sounding very similar, and that’s because Farscape is a black hole that sucks you in and does things to your brain, and after you’ve watched it you are never, ever the same, which incidentally is basically the plot of Farscape.

I would summarize the basic plot for you, but that’s work, and luckily, the show’s credits sequence includes a handy summary that I will provide instead of doing that work: “My name is John Crichton, an astronaut. A radiation wave hit, and I got shot through a wormhole. Now I’m lost in some distant part of the universe on a ship, a living ship, full of strange alien life forms. Help me. Listen, please. Is there anybody out there who can hear me? I’m being hunted by an insane military commander. Doing everything I can. I’m just looking for a way home.“

So let me break down that monologue into its component reasons you should watch Farscape.

1) Some of the strange alien life forms are Muppets.

Farscape a co-production with the Jim Henson Company, and while there are many aliens played by humans in make-up, there are also a considerable number (including two of the regular crew) who are Muppets. By which I do not mean Kermit. I mean really gorgeous, elaborate works of art.

Also, even a lot of the humans-in-makeup aliens just look cool, and incredibly weird. Here’s an alien who appears in a single episode of season 1:

Not that there aren’t, you know, occasional Star Trek-style “these guys are just humans with weird hair,” or whatever, but in general, the aliens on Farscape look really alien. And that’s more than an aesthetic choice; it’s Farscape’s driving narrative principle. The aliens look alien, they act alien, they have alien values.

You know how a lot of sci-fi shows will have a stand-in for “fuck,” like Battlestar Galactica has “frak”? Well, Farscape has “frell.” And also “dren.” And yotz, hezmana, mivonks, loomas, tralk, snurch, eema, drannit, dench, biznak, arn, drad, fahrbot, narl. Some of those are swear words, but some of them are just words, never explicitly translated, that the alien characters will pepper into their speech, because, well, why should translator microbes be able to completely translate all the nuances of an alien culture? You’ll pick it up from context. One time, in passing, a character mentions that he’s familiar with the concept of suicide, but there’s no word for it in his language. I cannot emphasize to you enough how fleeting this moment is; the episode is not about suicide, we’re not having a great exchange of cultural ideas—at the time, the characters are running down a corridor in a crisis, as they are about 70 percent of the time—it’s just that the subject got brought up, and this character needed to talk around the fact that he literally didn’t have a word, in that moment. Things like that happen all the time, on Farscape.

Because more than anything else, Farscape is a show about culture shock. John Crichton is this straight, white Southern guy, at the top of his game—he’s an astronaut! he’s incredibly high status!—and then he ends up on the other side of the galaxy, where none of his cultural markers of privilege hold any meaning, where he doesn’t know the rules, where he literally can’t even open the doors. And he has to unlearn the idea that humanity is central, that he is the norm.

2) John Crichton, an astronaut, is pretty great.

A show that’s about a straight white guy with high status having to learn that he’s not the center of the universe could easily be centered around a really insufferable person, but one of the subtle things that makes Farscape so wonderful is that Crichton is, for the most part, pretty excellent. He has a lot of presumptions to unlearn because almost anyone in his cultural position would, but he’s also just a stand-up guy: compassionate, intelligent, open-minded, decent, forgiving, brave, hopeful.

And the galaxy tries to kick a whole lot of that out of him. It doesn’t succeed, mostly, but if Farscape is about anything other than culture shock, it’s about the lasting effects of trauma. How you can go through a wormhole one person, and experience things that turn you into someone you don’t recognize.

That’s kind of grim-sounding, but ultimately, what I’m trying to say is that Farscape is almost fanatically devoted to character work. Crichton is not the only character who sounds like he should be one thing and ends up being another. All of the characters—all of them, all of them, even the annoying ones—are complicated wonders. And you don’t have to wonder whether the events of the episode you’re watching are going to matter. They will. Everything that happens to the characters leaves a mark. Everything leaves them forever changed. Whether it’s mentioned explicitly or not—and often enough, it’s not explicit—the characters remember what has happened to them.

3) The living ship houses a lot of excellent women, among them the ship itself.

Ah, the women of Farscape, thou art the loves of my fucking life.

There’s Aeryn Sun, former Peacekeeper (that’s the military that the “insane military commander” hails from) now fugitive, currently learning the meaning of the word “compassion” (literally). She will break your fingers and also your heart. John/Aeryn is the main canon romantic ship.

There’s Pa’u Zhoto Zhaan, a priestess of the ninth level, current pacifist, former anarchist. Sorry, leading anarchist. She orgasms in bright light! (Oh my god, Farscape.)

There’s Chiana, my fucking bestie, a teenage(ish? ages in Farscape are weird) fugitive on the run from a repressive authoritarian state. Chiana is like a seductress con artist grifter thief who mostly just wants to survive so that she can have fun, damn it. Characters on Farscape do not really discuss sexualities (sex, yes, sexualities, no) and it would be fair to say that several of them do not fall along human sexuality lines generally, but I’m gonna go ahead and say that Chiana is canonically not straight.

Then there’s Moya, the ship herself, and it’s hard to get a straight read on Moya’s personality, since she mostly can’t speak. But she definitely has opinions, and things and people she cares about. And she moves the plot, though that gets into spoiler territory.

Past first season, further excellent women show up: Jool (controversial, but I like her), Sikozu (I once saw a Tumblr meme where someone had marked down that Sikozu would lose her shit when someone pronounced “gif” wrong, and that’s absolutely correct, and it’s why I love her), and Noranti (who is incredibly weird, and incredibly hard to summarize, but man, you gotta love her willingness to just show up and do her thing). Plus, there’s a recurring female villain, Grayza, who I could write probably multiple essays about. (I don’t know how you will feel about Grayza, as not everyone loves her, but I think she’s fucking fascinating, especially because she’s not actually the only recurring female villain. We also get Ahkna!)

(Side note: I should mention, here, that the cast of Farscape is really, really white. There is one cast member of color, Lani Tupu, but he pretty much represents the entirety of even, like, incidental diversity in casting for the series.)

Anyway, Farscape is full of awesome women, and also awesome and unexpected men, and it really enjoys playing with audience expectations of gender roles, generally. Literal entire books have been written about the way that Farscape fucks around with sex, sexuality, and gender. It’s a little weird because it was the late 90s/early 2000s, and sometimes that does come through, but Farscape’s guiding principle was always to try not to present American culture of the time as the norm, so like. It is not.

(An aside on Farscape and sex: Literally every character on Farscape has sexual tension with every other character. If you are a shipper, this is a Good Show, because no matter who you ship, there will not only be subtext, you will get a Moment of some kind. Multiple characters kiss the Muppet. Farscape is dedicated to getting into the nitty-gritty of the galaxy—I like to think of it as showing the guts of the universe—so a lot of the show is kind of squishy. They live on a biomechanoid ship, instead of androids there are “bioloids,” there’s a lot of focus on strange alien biologies, and lots of weird glowing fluids and things. I think the sex thing is kind of part and parcel of the larger biology focus: Farscape is really fascinated with how we all eat and evolve and live and die and, well, fuck. Which is in turn, kind of part of its focus on making everything really alien.)

4) Other stuff you should know.

Farscape as a whole is excellent, but it was kind of the product of creative anarchy—an Australian/American coproduction (oh yeah, everyone except Crichton speaks with an Australian accent) that was also partnered with the Henson company, whose showrunners were based in America but whose actual production all took place in Australia, and who was just constantly trying new things. So individual episodes can vary wildly in quality. It really takes off in the back half of season one, but no season is without a few off episodes.

It is extraordinarily funny, and I really think I haven’t stressed that enough. It’s one of the shows I want to quote the most in my daily life, but almost all of its humor is really context-dependent, and if you just wander around going, “Hey Stark? What’s black and white, and black and white, and black and white?” people look at you really funny.

It’s very conversant with pop culture generally (although obviously sci-fi  specifically, and Star Trek most specifically of all) and really enjoys deconstructing tropes, often to the effect of, “Well, Crichton really does not know what to do here, does he?” but sometimes just to be interesting.

There are also a lot of themes about science, and its uses and misuses.

The whole thing is fucking epic, and if you get invested at all, will take you on an emotional ride.

This show is weird. I know that that’s probably come across by now, but I think it’s worth reiterating as its own point: Farscape is so weird. Like, proudly, unabashedly, trying its hardest, weird. An amazing kind of weird.

If you’re into fantasy, you should know that there’s a recurring villain who’s just a wizard. Like, they don’t bother to explain it any more than that, he’s just a fucking wizard.

In summary: You should watch Farscape because it is a weird, wild, emotional, epic romance/drama/action/allegory full of Muppets and leather and one-liners and emotional gut punches and love, and if you let it, it will worm its way into you and never let go, which, now that I think of it, is another Farscape plot.

Send me meta prompts to distract me from my migraine!

[anhed-nia]

BLOGTOBER 10/7/2020

I missed THE GOLDEN GLOVE at Fantastic Fest last year. It was one of my only regrets of the whole experience, but it was basically mandatory since the available screenings were opposite the much-hyped PARASITE. As annoying as that sounds, it was actually a major compliment, since what could possibly serve as a consolation prize for the most hotly anticipated movie of the year? Needless to say, I heard great things, but I could never have imagined what it was actually like. I'm still wrapping my mind around it.

Between 1970 and 1975, an exceptionally depraved serial killer named Fritz Honka murdered at least four prostitutes in Hamburg's red light district. Today, we tend to think of the archetypal serial killer in terms of ironic contradictions: The public is attracted by Ted Bundy's dashing looks and suave manner, and John Wayne Gayce's dual careers as politician and party clown. Lacking anything so remarkable, we associate psychopathy with Norman Bates' boy-next-door charm, and repeat "It's always the quiet ones" with a smirk whenever a new Jeffrey Dahmer or Dennis Nilsen is exposed to the public. The popular conception of a bloodthirsty maniac is not the fairytale monster of yore, but a wolf in sheep's clothing, whose hygienic appearance and lifestyle belie his twisted desires. In our post-everything world, the ironic surprise has become the rule. In this light, THE GOLDEN GLOVE represents a refreshing return to naked truth.

To say that writer-director Fatih Akin's version of the Fritz Honka story is shocking, repulsive, and utterly degenerated would be a gross understatement. We first meet the killer frantically trying to dispose of a corpse in his filthy flat, wallpapered with porno pinups, strewn with broken toys, and virtually projecting smell lines off of the screen. One's sense of embodiment is oppressive, even claustrophobic, as the petite Honka tries and fails to collapse the full dead weight of a human corpse into a garbage bag, before giving up and dismembering it, with nearly equal difficulty. The scene is appalling, utterly debased, and yet nothing is as shocking as the killer's visage. When he finally turns to look into the camera, it's hard to believe he's even human: the rolling glass eye, the smashed and inflated nose, the tombstone teeth and cratered skin, are almost too extreme to bear. Actually, suffering from a touch of facial blindness, I had to stare intently at Honka's face for nearly half the movie before I could fully convince myself that I was, in fact, looking at an elaborate prosthetic operation used to transform 23 year old boy band candidate Jonas Dassler into the disfigured 35 year old serial murderer.

Though West Germany remained on a steady economic upturn beginning in the 1950s and throughout the 1970s, you wouldn't know it from THE GOLDEN GLOVE. If Honka's outsides match his insides, they are further matched by his stomping grounds in the Reeperbahn, a dirty, violent, booze-soaked repository for the dregs of humanity. Though its denizens may come from different walks of life, one thing is certain: Whoever winds up there, belongs there. Honka was the child of a communist and grew up in a concentration camp, yet he swills vodka side by side with an ex-SS officer, among other societal rejects, in a crumbling dive called The Golden Glove. The scene is an excellent source of hopeless prostitutes at the end of their career, who are Honka's prime victims, as he is too frightful-looking to ensnare an attractive young girl. These pitiful women all display a peculiarly hypnotic willingness to go along with Honka, no matter how sadistic he becomes; this seems to have less to do with money, which rarely comes up, and more to do with their shared awareness that for them, and for Honka too, it's been all over, for a long time.

Not to reduce someone’s performance to their physical appearance, but ???

To call Dassler's portrayal of Honka "sympathetic" would be a bridge too far, but it is undeniably compelling. He supports the startling impact of his facial prostheses with a performance of rare intensity, a full-body transformation into a person in so much pain that a normal life will never become an option. His physical vocabulary reminded me of the stage version of The Elephant Man, in which the lead actor wears no makeup, but conveys John Merrick's deformities using his body alone. Although there is an abundance of makeup in THE GOLDEN GLOVE, Dassler's silhouette and agonized movements would be recognizable from a mile away. In spite of his near-constant screaming rage, the actor manages to craft a rich and convincing persona. During a chapter in which Honka experiments with sobriety, we find a stunning image of him hunched in the corner of his ordinarily chaotic flat, now deathly still, his eyes gazing at nothing as cigarette smoke seeps from his pores, having no idea what to do with himself when he isn't in a rolling alcoholic rampage. The moment is brief but haunting in its contrast to the rest of the film, having everything to do with Dassler's quietly vibrating anxiety.

Performances are roundly excellent here, not that least of which are from Honka's victims. The cast of middle-aged actresses looking their most disastrous is hugely responsible for the film's impact. These are the kinds of performances people call "brave", which is a euphemism for making audiences uncomfortable with an uncompromising presentation of one's own self, unvarnished by any masturbatory solicitation. Among these women is Margarete Tiesel, herself no stranger to difficult cinema: She was the star of 2012's PARADISE: LOVE, a harrowing drama about a woman who copes with her midlife crisis by pursuing sex tourism in Kenya. Her brilliant, instinctive performance as one of Honka's only survivors--though she nearly meets a fate worse than death--makes her the leading lady of a movie that was never meant to have one.

So, what does all this unpleasantness add up to, you might be asking? It's hard to say. THE GOLDEN GLOVE is a film of enormous power, but it can be difficult to explain what the point of it is, in a world where most people feel that the purpose of art is to produce some form of pleasure. This is the challenge faced by difficult movies throughout history, like THE GOLDEN GLOVE's obvious ancestors, HENRY: PORTRAIT OF A SERIAL KILLER, MANIAC and THE TEXAS CHAIN SAW MASSACRE. Describing unremitting cruelty with relentless realism is not considered a worthy endeavor by many, even if there is real artistry in your execution; some people will even mistake you for advocating and enjoying violence and despair, as we live in a world where huge amount of movie and TV production is devoted to aspirational subjects. (The fact that people won't turn away from the Marvel Cinematic Universe movies, no matter how monotonous and condescending they become, should tell you something) How do you justify to such people, that you want to make or see work that portrays ugliness and evil with as much commitment as other movies seek to portray love, beauty, and family values? Why isn't it enough to say that these things exist, and their existence alone makes them worth contemplation?

A rare, perhaps exclusive “beautiful image” in THE GOLDEN GLOVE, from Fritz Honka’s absurd fantasies.

You may detect that I have attempted to have this frustrating conversation with many people, strangers, enemies, and friends I love and respect. I find that for some, it is simply too hard to divorce themselves from the pleasure principle. I don't say this to demean them; some hold the philosophy that art be reserved for beauty, and others have a more literary feeling that it's ok to show characters in grim circumstances, as long as the ultimate goal is to uplift the human spirit. Even I draw the line somewhere; I appreciate the punk rebellion of Troma movies as a cultural force, but I do not enjoy watching them, because I dislike what I perceive as contempt for the audience and the aestheticization of laziness--making something shitty more or less on purpose. A step or three up from that, you land in Todd Solondz territory, where you find materially gorgeous movies whose explicit statement is that our collective reverence for a quality called "humanity" is based on nothing. I like some of those movies, and sometimes I even like them when I don't like them, because I'm entranced by Solondz's technical proficiency...and maybe, deep down, I'm not completely convinced about "humanity", either. However, I don't fight very hard in arguments about him; I understand the objections. Still, I've been surprised by peers who I think of as bright and tasteful, who absolutely hated movies I thought were unassailable, like OLDBOY and WE NEED TO TALK ABOUT KEVIN. In both cases, the ultimate objection was that they accuse humans of being pretentious and self-deceptive, aspiring to heroism or bemoaning their victimhood while wallowing in their own cowardice and perversity. Ok, I get it...but, not really. Why isn't it ever wholly acceptable to discuss, honestly, what we do not like about ourselves?

The beguiling thing about THE GOLDEN GLOVE is that, although it is instantly horrifying, is it also an impeccable production. The director can't help showing you crime scene photos during the ending credits, and I can't really blame him, when his crew worked so hard to bring us a vision of Fritz Honka's world that approaches virtual reality. But it isn't just slavishly realistic; it is vivid, immersive, an experience of total sensory overload. Not a square inch of this movie has been left to chance, and the product of all this graceful control is totally spellbinding. I started to think to myself that, when you've achieved this level of artifice, what really differentiates a movie like THE GOLDEN GLOVE from something like THE RED SHOES? I mean, aside from their obvious narrative differences. Both films plunge the viewer into a world that is complete beyond imagination, crafted with a rigor and sincerity that is rarely paralleled. And, I will dare to say, both films penetrate to the depths of the human soul. What Fatih Akin finds there is not the same as what Powell and Pressburger found, of course, but I don't think that makes it any less real. Akin's film is adapted from a novel by Heinz Strunk, and apparently, some critics have accused Akin of leaving behind the depth and nuance of the book, to focus instead on all that is gruesome about it. This may be true, on some level; I wouldn't know. For now, I can only insist that on watching THE GOLDEN GLOVE, for all its grotesquerie, I still got the message.

[existtoforget]

FAME AND THE FAMOUS

Pain without reason was something Charles Bukowski (1920-1994) learned quickly. Born in Germany but raised in Los Angeles, his unfiltered view on life stemmed from the hardships he endured as a child, establishing his crude view of the world at an early age. Writing was Bukowski’s attempt to control his environment and a space to work through painful emotions. In “An Almost Made Up Poem,” Bukowski’s vulnerability authentically captures the stages of relationships and warns others to be wary of concerning the public with private life scenarios. The stream of consciousness narrative represents the thoughts and memories rushing frantically through his head after learning about the death of someone he loved, and his raw but straightforward writing style challenges readers to question aspects of their own lives condemned in his writing.

The ballad-like verses are exhausted and drawn out, expressing his tiredness, and the long sentences structure the poem in place of clearly defined stanzas. The changes in agency throughout the poem - from “I” to “you” and occasionally “we” - alter the meaning and tone of each fragment of his thoughts, creating an emotional curve that is divisible by the sentences. Proper nouns, “I,” and “ANGELS AND GOD” are the only words capitalized in the poem, a reference to her writing and his perception of his worldly position. Bukowski reminisces on her “insane” poems that were “all in upper-case” with a respectable tone, and the capitalization of “ANGELS AND GOD” is a reference to her work. Going so far as to claim that she was “one of the best female poets,” paired with the adjectives used to describe her, Bukowski makes his admiration for the young writer apparent. However, it is curious that “you,” “we,” “if,” and “so” are lowercase despite being the first words of sentences.

Bukowski takes readers through his memories of the relationship’s emotional stages and the feelings they evoke after her suicide. The poetic arrangement of his memories, sparked by grief, starts with their last correspondence: their unique love story’s final moment. It isn’t until the end of the poem that we realize the first sentence depicts what is going through his head when learning of her suicide. “That last letter” was the last chapter of their private life together, but Bukowski goes on to illustrate the phases before and his perceptions after. As he begins delving into his memories of her writing and their interactions, he, at first, focuses on shortcomings: specifically, her inability to eliminate wealth and fame’s control over her life. This superior attitude and perspective are confirmed when he writes that “of course,” the “beautiful young girl” eventually realizes there is a necessity to finding security beyond superficial things. He denotes his view on her lack of regard for his life experiences as being foolish, exemplifying a common stage in the process of grief: blame. Part of which is placed on “fame” and the “famous,” her failure to listen, and his inability to convince her. His repetition and negative framing of the two words mirror his views on public life interfering with private, placing further blame for her death on society’s tendency to put a price on love and criticize aspects of other people’s lives.

“An Almost Made Up Poem” is a unique arrangement of life because, at the time, it was uncommon for people who had never met to be in love, the letter-writing indicating this is not a recent love story. This type of unconventional relationship is more relatable today than it was when Bukowski wrote the poem. Technological advancements foster relationships with few to no constraints imposed by geography, and as a result, it has become increasingly common for a couple to have never physically met. Because of this, pleasure can be obtained by a vast demographic, specifically the youth, and their ability to relate to relationships that don’t fit within the typical constraints set by society. Bukowski thinks it may have been “best like this” so that neither would have had the opportunity to be “unfair” to one another, but he is unsure. His cynical view on relationships is that “all lovers betray,” and in this instance, death may have been the inevitable form of heartbreak, considering he never rolled a cigarette while listening to her pee.

Beginning with the end enables a full circle and clear connection to be drawn to the stages of emotions about his memories and her suicide. “Your letters got sadder” indicates a significant shift in the tone of the poem, the emotions provoked by his memories, and her mental state. Throughout the poem, he expresses both his mixed feelings and hers: relaying her realizations about fame and his indecisiveness on who is to blame. Apparent hatred of fame remains consistent, as does his love, yet he criticizes her ethics and questions the possibility of a different outcome had she heeded his warnings. Their relationship and life were arranged in his imagination and writing before her death because they never met. However, their perspective on and arrangement in life were divided throughout their relationship because of her inability to separate public and private life. The framing of the famous is where he sees a divide between them. In Bukowski’s mind, this is why their love story and life together were arranged solely on paper - it may have failed if it left to anything but the imagination and their poetry.

The woman’s description at the fountain in France and the immediate repetition paints a pleasant picture of Bukowski’s imagination in the readers’ mind. He retracts his initial statement that she is tiny, and an abrupt “no” prompts readers to stop and adjust their perception with him. It also serves to correct the poem’s first claim, “I see,” reinforcing the narrative’s structure in the mental realm. This first scene is aesthetically pleasing to visualize and draws readers into his stream of consciousness. He sacrifices his vulnerability to teach and relate to the reader; this transparency permits his love to be declared before he explicitly claims to have loved her. The author’s descriptive adjectives for her - small, beautiful, young, mad, magic - promote dramatic, angelic perceptions of her appearance and attitude. Pleasure and reassurance are conjured from the imagery, along with his argument that true love can exist outside societal constraints. For some, his dark and hopeless view of love are relatable, while others experience soothing contentment from the author’s depiction of something beautiful. He argues that despite the romantic aspects of love, the idealistic, corrupt components will reign supreme, and someone will always get betrayed in the end. At the risk of seeming selfish, he implies her suicide betrayed him. While dark, it is a relatable emotion that exemplifies the emptiness stage many go through after losing a loved one.

Bukowski’s intention behind the long sentences was for the poem to feel like his stream of thoughts after learning of his love’s death: dramatic and anxiety-ridden. The symbolic and literal presence of God throughout the first half of the poem disappears with a rare change in agency (to “we” - one of the few times he references them together) and his statement “we know God is dead, they’ told us.” He says that her writing persuades him to doubt God’s death, illustrated by references to a higher realm/power present only in the first half. Magnificent “upper case” writing was the only thing that made him feel like God could be present in the world, but it seems their perceptions were incongruous. The “fame” and the “famous,” and their entrapment between“ANGELS AND GOD” shows an inability to break free from greed and their difference in opinion of objects worthy of worship. She associated higher power with her famous lovers and even shifted the subject of her writing to encapsulate them. Bukowski attributes part of the blame for her death on this failure to find security outside of superficiality.

The anger and confusion felt after her suicide, expressed honestly and bluntly, serves to warn youth of love’s dangers. Bukowski’s letter to his unrequited, and now dead, love elicits a response from his audience with antagonistic word choices and his willingness to open himself to criticism from others. He is mad she didn’t listen to him but also blames himself for failing to stop her. The poem is arranged by “if”s and “so”s because that is life at its simplest, and his way of understanding the sequence of events that unfolded while simultaneously questioning if their lives could have, or should have, gone differently—prompting readers to question their relationship with “fame” and the “famous” and warning of the intoxicating powers that claimed her life. “She’ mad but she’ magic. there’ no lie in her fire.” was Bukowski’s way of saying the young writer was unapologetic of her strange perspectives and true to her heart, but only in her writing. Her authenticity and brilliance were a brave expression of the magical madness within each of us, her passion allowing for truths to be shared and adding an unmistakable presence to the world. Perception is not always reality, and Charles Bukowski’s struggle with this and raw view on life is exemplified in his arrangement of imagination and life in “An Almost Made Up Poem.” The conclusion that “it was best like this” reflects Bukowski’s relationship with death, reinforcing that this experience with love, and all others, warrant a cynical analysis.

AN ALMOST MADE UP POEM - CHARLES BUKOWSKI (1920-1994)

I see you drinking at a fountain with tiny

blue hands, no, your hands are not tiny

they are small, and the fountain is in France

where you wrote me that last letter and

I answered and never heard from you again.

you used to write insane poems about

ANGELS AND GOD, all in upper case, and you

knew famous artists and most of them

were your lovers, and I wrote back, it’ all right,

go ahead, enter their lives, I’ not jealous

because we’ never met. we got close once in

New Orleans, one half block, but never met, never

touched.

so you went with the famous and wrote

about the famous, and, of course, what you found out

is that the famous are worried about

their fame –– not the beautiful young girl in bed

with them, who gives them that, and then awakens

in the morning to write upper case poems about

ANGELS AND GOD.

we know God is dead, they’ told

us, but listening to you I wasn’ sure. maybe

it was the upper case.

you were one of the best female poets and I told the publishers,

editors, “ her, print her, she’ mad but she’

magic. there’ no lie in her fire.”

I loved you like a man loves a woman he never touches, only

writes to, keeps little photographs of.

I would have loved you more if I had sat in a small room rolling a

cigarette and listened to you piss in the bathroom,

but that didn’ happen. your letters got sadder.

your lovers betrayed you.

kid, I wrote back, all lovers betray.

it didn’ help.

you said you had a crying bench and it was by a bridge and

the bridge was over a river and you sat on the crying

bench every night and wept for the lovers who had

hurt and forgotten you.

I wrote back but never heard again. a friend wrote me of your suicide 3 or 4 months after it happened.

if I had met you I would probably have been unfair to you or you to me. it was best like this.

[wazafam]

Rarely has there been a show with a protagonist as divisive as Dexter. The titular character isn’t supposed to be a stereotypical “good guy,” as he is a killer who takes the lives of other killers. As one would expect, this got Dexter landed in a number of situations where his role as the protagonist was under question.

RELATED: Dexter: 10 Things That Need To Happen In The Revival

What all is said and done, Dexter comes out looking just as unsympathetic as he might be sympathetic. This is due to many of his actions being fueled by personal desire, yet he displayed a discernible level of positive character development along the way.

10 Not Sympathetic: His Satisfaction With Framing Doakes For His Own Crimes

Doakes’ pursuit of Dexter is one of the show’s best storylines. Sadly, though, the payoff was against Doakes’ favor, as he was posthumously framed as the Bay Harbor Butcher. Dexter, while feeling Doakes’ death was a shame, was satisfied with being off the hook.

Doakes had been a loose cannon, but he by no means deserved to be remembered for the murders that Dexter had committed. Rather than do anything to absolve Doakes of being branded a criminal, Dexter was glad he managed to pull off this great escape and could continue his killing activities.

9 Sympathetic: He Genuinely Loved Rita

While there are still unresolved questions about Dexter, it was confirmed that he did grow to genuinely love Rita. He realized this after her death made him distraught, as Dexter felt remorse for inadvertently causing her demise.

He may have started their relationship to use Rita as a cover for his mask of normalcy, but Dexter ended up loving her for real. For this reason, his sadness at losing her shouldn’t be doubted since Dexter truly was hurt at losing his wife.

8 Not Sympathetic: His Dismissal Of The Dark Passenger

Dexter’s sudden decision to rule out his Dark Passenger is a mistake the revival needs to avoid. It was when he figured he didn’t have a Dark Passenger and simply liked killing that his sympathetic factor took a huge hit.

After all, Dexter going on to kill anyone whom he thought to be in his way not only went against his code but also left little to separate him from other killers. It became clear here that Dexter was a protagonist mainly due to the audience following his point of view. Otherwise, he was an antagonist when seen from an objective perspective.

7 Sympathetic: He Went Into Hiding To Protect His Family

Dexter seemed on the verge of death at the end of the series when he took his boat straight into the heart of the storm. This wasn’t just to cover his tracks but to ensure that anyone who might be affected by being connected to him would be safe. Of course, he didn't die and the show revealed that he went into hiding as a lumberjack.

RELATED: 10 Movies To Watch If You Love Dexter

In his own way, Dexter was selfless in this regard, as he hoped that any potential enemies he’d made would leave his family alone if Dexter’s “death” was public knowledge.

6 Not Sympathetic: Continuing To Kill Even After Killing The Wrong People

Dexter was shown to feel remorse when he killed someone who didn’t fit his code. However, the sympathy one would feel for him ebbed away over time since he continued to kill anyway.

There wasn’t any point to the code if he simply moved on from his mistakes. That's not to mention the fact that certain people like Rankin were killed simply because Dexter was angry, meaning he broke his code and didn’t even bother to ponder over it.

5 Sympathetic: He Only Became A Killer Due To Harry's Guidance

The manifestation of Harry is key as he represented Dexter’s conscience. All things considered, it was Harry who had guided Dexter to become a killer, as he felt that Dexter would have become a murderer regardless.

To this end, Harry is the one to blame for whatever Dexter did, as the latter followed the mantra left by his father. There’s also the fact that Harry had told the young Dexter to kill Juan Ryness and justified it as a way of doling out justice. This means that Dexter had the capacity to not be a killer had he been given a better guide.

4 Not Sympathetic: Arguing He's Helping Justice When He Really Just Wants To Kill

No matter what way Dexter tried to spin it, there’s no doubt that he ultimately killed people because he liked it. Upon capturing Doakes, Dexter claimed his method of killing other killers was better than the police as it meant criminals couldn’t walk free in the future.

However, it was shown that Dexter had the urge to kill without regard to seeking justice. This was confirmed when he tried to kill the innocent Laguerta after she found his truth. Dexter had come to the conclusion that he had to take her down to save his skin, rather than agree that he should be arrested for his crimes.

3 Sympathetic: His Willingness To Grow As A Person

Dexter can’t be accused of staying the same over time. Dexter came to the realization that he was indeed a killer, but one who wanted to change. He even went so far as to open himself up to the concept of faith.

RELATED: The 15 Best TV Shows Based On Books (According To IMDb)

At the beginning of the series, he had no intention of indulging in human emotions. However, Dexter had grown to care for his family and friends, with none of this being a front.

2 Not Sympathetic: His Problems Were His Own Doing

Dexter ended up getting worse and worse as the series went on, as the majority of problems that took place happened because of him. His refusal to kill Arthur Mitchell and Oliver Saxon led to Rita and Debra’s death, along with his recruitment of Miguel Prado evolving the latter to become a merciless killer.

All in all, Dexter didn’t have anyone to blame but himself as his own decisions led to tragedy and ruin. This extended to pretty much everyone around him, meaning Dexter was responsible for the characters’ lives constantly being in jeopardy.

1 Sympathetic: He Ended Up Somewhat Paying For His Crimes

For all the criticism it received, the series finale has aged pretty well. One of the points to be noted is that Dexter paid for the bad things he did. In a way, he was trapped in his form of purgatory, forced to live a reclusive existence with nobody to love him.

Due to this, one has to feel for Dexter to forego the life he could have had with Hannah and Harrison for penance for his sins. His past caught up to him in the end and he chose to live with the consequences, thereby absolving him to an extent.

NEXT: Dexter: 10 Unpopular Opinions (According To Reddit)

Dexter: 5 Ways Dexter Morgan Is A Sympathetic Character (& 5 Ways He Isn’t) from https://ift.tt/3tivLWY

[fanbun]

Seuss Tales: From Page To Screen

Below the cut is an essay I wrote about Dr. Seuss adaptations after I was inspired by watching Green Eggs and Ham on Netflix. In the essay I examine the changes that adaptations have made to the original stories and how they have evolved over time. If you’re interested, please give it a read! :D

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The tone of a Dr. Seuss book has proven particularly difficult to reproduce in any lengthened retelling. It is much like attempting to expand a poem into a novel. Somewhere during development, the original form will fall away to fit the new medium. And while artifacts of the original may still be present in the final product, such as a line or two, it is likely that those artifacts will feel disconnected from the product as a whole. In terms of Seuss, this is usually classic rhymes from the original stories that the audience expects to be included in the adaptation. Even if an audience member has had little exposure to the source material, they can usually identify these moments when a character starts rhyming for no particular reason. Of course, it must be said that some adaptations mimic the original tone better than others, and in those cases the product feels much more cohesive.

Since it is so difficult to expand a short story, the safest decision when making an adaptation is simply to be faithful. In the past, Seuss adaptations stuck much closer to the source material. How The Grinch Stole Christmas (1966) set the standard for the many Seuss TV specials that came after it. These specials utilized a narrator that would read the book nearly word-for-word and had an animation style that stuck as close to the original illustrations as possible. Where padding was necessary to extend the run-time, it was usually done by including songs and extra animation sequences. This form of padding didn’t typically disrupt the flow of the story since the songs featured rhyming in them as well, and the added animations were used to bring Seuss’s world to life. Dr. Seuss himself even wrote the lyrics to many of the songs. Thus these first Seuss TV specials were as close to direct adaptations as the public was ever given.

So when did the trend change? Well Seuss died in 1991 and in the year 2000, a live action comedy film starring Jim Carrey was released based off of How The Grinch Stole Christmas. Ironically, the very same title that started the initial animated Seuss renaissance. It was not only the first feature length film based on a Dr. Seuss property, but it was also a major financial success as it offered a new take on the familiar story. After all, the original animated special was already so beloved. The producers had to try something new to entice people to go see it. So what was created was a movie about the character of the Grinch, that followed the general story of the Grinch, but was entirely divorced from the classic tone and presentation of a Dr. Seuss book. Additionally, it made alterations to the characters and plot in an attempt to add depth and expand upon the story. This live action Seuss trend didn’t last for long, however, and it came to an end after The Cat in The Hat (2003) left a poor taste in the public’s mouth.

Jim Carrey would later return to voice the quirky titular elephant of Blue Sky’s Horton Hears a Who in 2008. This time animation was back in the form of trendy CG. The humor was modern but not quite as edgy as in the live action movies, and the trailers promised a more authentic Seuss experience for the youth at the time. Though the age of CG animated movies was an attempt to return to form, they couldn’t escape the adaptational dilemma of trying to stretch short stories into full movies. Horton Hears a Who (2008) remained faithful to the book’s plot but was padded with plenty of gags that tended to outstay their welcome. In contrast, Illumination’s The Lorax (2012) padded its run-time by expanding on the Onceler’s character and introducing new characters, including an all new antagonist. This, although showing clear ambition, ended up being a controversial decision as many viewed it as obscuring the book’s intended message.

Interestingly, Netflix’s Green Eggs and Ham series (2019) is mostly padding. In fact, there is hardly anything in the show that resembles the original book aside from the two main characters, Sam-I-Am and “Guy”, and the aforementioned Sam’s affinity for green eggs and ham. And yet it manages to feel more like a Seuss story than many of the adaptations that have come before it. No doubt this is partly due to its traditional 2D animation style, though the inclusion of many Seussian creatures and contraptions should not be overlooked as an important factor. It is terrible as a direct adaptation, but as an expanded retelling it is brilliant. The writers were given a book so simplistic, with such a straightforward moral, that they only needed to follow it loosely to deliver on its message. They took a couple characters, a handful of words, and rewrote it almost entirely. And really, that was the only smart choice for a series that spans 6 1/2 hours in total.

One of the most drastic departures from the book was the decision to make the plot revolve around Guy and Sam smuggling an exotic animal (named Mr. Jenkins) in a briefcase to return it to the wild. This concept alone turns it into a completely different story. So much so that I’d argue the title of “Green Eggs and Ham” hardly fits as a descriptor. Still, the theme of animal protection is entirely in line with the types of morals found in Dr. Seuss books. This recurring message is made even more evident since the villains work for a serial animal abuser who keeps live animals on display as status symbols. I could have easily imagined that a separate Dr. Seuss story existed with this same plot.

But what is perhaps most interesting to me about the rewrite is that, along with convincingly portraying a story based on Dr. Seuss, it also adds its own modern sensibilities into the mix. Not merely by way of adding humor and references like some adaptations before it, but through the story’s structure itself. First of all, it is a multi-episode animated series with emphasis on continuity. Secondly, it fleshes out the personalities and backstories of the characters over time. And thirdly, it at once represents and transforms the source material in something of a metatextual exercise. The narrator’s tendency of breaking the fourth wall is a perfect example of this. He even acts as an audience stand-in at times, commenting that he wasn’t expecting to see the events that occur during the opening scene from a Seuss adaptation. Or at another point humorously asking “Was this in the book?” This brand of meta comedy made me take note of the more daring writing choices like the shocking reveals about Sam and the B.A.D.G.U.Y.S. toward the end of the season. Once again, the writers deliberately added complexity where there was originally very little.

Crucially for fans of the book, the rewrite doesn’t betray the original moral of Green Eggs and Ham. Rather it adds a layer of depth to that moral’s execution. In the book, the plate of green eggs and ham represents the characters’ willingness to try new things. It is the same in the series, however the unexpected journey the two leads embark on is what is given the most narrative focus. After leaving his comfort zone, Guy’s emotional attachment to Sam is what makes him finally try the green eggs and ham. It is a symbolic gesture of how far his character has come from the beginning of the show. He initially wanted nothing to do with Sam or Mr. Jenkins, but then he got to know them and discovered how much he cared.

So although it is risky to create an adaptation that changes much of the source material, it can absolutely be worth the risk. There is boundless creative potential to be found in transformative works, and that potential may be realized if given the right amount of passion and dedication. Sure, it might upset the purist in us, but the original already exists. Why not make something new out of it? Cut up pieces of the poem. Rearrange the words and add a new perspective. Some people will always consider doing so to be ruining a classic, but others might view it as a masterpiece all on its own. In the end it is up to personal opinion whether an adaptation is good or not, but nonetheless I think we should celebrate the cultural significance of these stories that leads us to recreate and retell them time and time again.

[smacsporrancap]

CHRIS OFILI

Chris Ofili is a British Turner Prize-winning painter, born in 1968. He is famously known for incorporating elephant dung into his paintings, which is very un-conventional and exciting for the UK and painting in general. He combines this with a wide variety of other materials such as, resin, beads, oils, glitter and cut outs from porno magazines. In 2005 Ofili moved his working life to Trinidad for a fresh perspective in order to keep his art and life moving along and stay inspired by his surroundings. 

He paints with a range of vibrant colours and textures to explore the contemporary and historical black experience. Ofili takes inspiration from many different topics, sometimes conflicting ones. He references the betrayal of Jesus by Judas in the bible whilst also painting Pimps and Prostitutes as well as including cut outs of sex scenes. He’s heavily inspired by 90’s culture, specifically hip-hop and musicians such as Snoop Dogg. It’s clear that he likes to make a statement with his work whilst also having a lot of fun with all the possible directions It could lead in. 

Ofili caused massive controversy in the late 90s with a painting titled ‘The Holy Virgin Mary’ which depicts the black mother of Christ, created with a mixture of elephant dung and cut outs from porno mags (as well as the usual paint, glitter and resin). Many members of the Catholic church were very offended by this piece, one man attempted to deface it - however gallery staff were able to restore the painting in full. A series of critics described it as ‘blasphemous’ and ‘emblematic of everything that is ridiculous about contemporary art’, Ofili said that she is the ‘Hip-Hop’ version of the Virgin Mary. Either way, the painting toured the world and sold for millions. 

The Holy Virgin Mary - 1996

The raising of Lazarus - 2007

This piece is a combination of oils and charcoal, taking its name from a biblical painting. By breaking down into more simplistic shapes, bold colours, themes of nature and female figure he is able to reach a wider audience with this piece. This shows his diversity and ability to adapt as a painter as well as his willingness to do so. 

Double Captain Shit and the Legend of the Black Stars - 1997

Here we’ve got ‘Captain shit’ the superhero -from Ofilis time going through comic books- with elephant dung above him and on his belt. Ofili began including elephant dung in his work after a research trip to Zimbabwe in 1992 where he was interested in how it’s used as a way of tracking the wild animals. He said it’s ‘a way of raising the paintings up from the ground and giving them a feeling that they’ve come from the earth rather than simply being hung on a wall’. He often props his paintings up piles of dung. On that same trip Ofili took inspiration from the Matobo hills’ San Cave paintings where they would build up hundreds of small dots. He began using this technique on captain shit’s suit and continued using from then on. The black stars in the background are said to represent the stories of black people and black culture that go untold, he’s giving them a platform here. 

No Woman No Cry - 1998

This is a tribute to Doreen Lawrence, the mother of Steven Lawrence who was brutally murdered in a un-provoked racial attack in 1993. The painting is of his mother crying tears with small collaged pictures of Stevens face within them. The background is built up with a range of abstract patterns, her skin and hair are made from a series of dark brown dots. Her chest is bright orange and red with what look like flames. It was fully Ofili’s intention to make this a picture of heartbreak in order to respect the tragedy of what happened to her son. Throughout the investigation into his death it was found that the police efforts were in fact tainted with institutional racism. 

[firecrackrred]

Psychology of Gender Concepts in Steven Universe

(for my Psych of Gender Class)

In the show “Steven Universe” there are lots of concepts that the writers of the show try to convey. The creator of the show, Rebecca Sugar, is part of the LGBT community and wanted the show to have a lot of diversity and character. There are lots of messages that she tries to give to her audience that relates back to LGBT life. Like I said, this show has a lot of concepts, but I will be talking about how Steven Universe applies to some concepts from psychology of gender.

For some background: The Crystal Gems are a group of magical beings that are based off of gems found here on earth. Garnet, Amethyst, and Pearl helped raise Steven on Earth. Steven was born between his father, Greg, and the Crystal Gems’ leader, Rose Quartz. Because the Crystal Gems are not human, the only way for Steven to be born was for Rose to let go of her physical form in order for him to use her gem for life. Together, they take on mysterious monsters and take care of anything magical or dangerous on Earth. 

The term “social learning theory” is pretty much what it sounds like: children learn about social roles through observing the people they are around. This applies to Steven when it comes to the odd way in which he grew up. Being only half human he is primarily raised by the Crystal Gems in order to figure out his powers, although, his father, Greg, was still part of his childhood in learning how to be human. 

While Steven is a boy, having three female-presenting figures to raise him, he has definitely shown more feminine thoughts and behaviors than masculine. Luckily, since there are four parental figures for him to rely on, there’s a lot of diverse thinking within the group. Generally, when Steven interacts with male characters that are more aligned with stereotypical men he has a hard time relating to them. Meaning, while stereo-typically, men are closed off emotionally because that is what they are taught, Steven is very open about his emotions and shows that he cares about his friends very deeply and outwardly. 

In the gif above is a character named Lars. He works at the doughnut shop in Steven’s home town. He has a coworker/friend named Sadie and their relationship at the beginning of this series shows Lars having some implicit stereotypes of Sadie. Although, they eventually work past it. Implicit stereotype meaning, Lars does not know he holds these stereotypical values of women.

Sadie is a pretty quite person who has a hard time sticking up for herself unless pushed too far. She is a very nice and kind person overall. In the beginning of this show it was apparent that Sadie had a crush on Lars and that Lars was too focused on being cool around his friends to notice. So when it came to Lars’ opinion of Sadie, it was a bit harsh. He always though that she was a push-over and that she was a great worker at the doughnut shop because she’s a girl. there were many instances of Sadie continually proving to Lars that just because she is a girl doesn’t mean she isn’t tough and strong, or can’t being mean. Also, just because he is a guy doesn’t automatically make him cooler or stronger than her.

this is evident in this episode where Steven, Lars, and Sadie get trapped on an island. Typically, it would be seen that the man would hunt for food while the woman would cook. In this case Lars tried to get fish but ended up being unable to while Sadie was doing it almost flawlessly. So, reluctant at first, Lars “switched roles” with Sadie. It is instances like this where Lars’ implicit sexism is challenged. Many more happen throughout the series. 

Staying within the area of stereotypes, the reason Rose Quartz, Garnet, Amethyst and Pearl are on earth are due to Prescriptive Stereotypes from their home planet (which is just called Home World). Home World has very strict expectations of what each gem should be, just like how prescriptive stereotypes are stereotypes people hold of how other should be. Thus, Rose and Pearl found other outcast gems and formed the Crystal Gems, then starting the rebellion against Home World. 

In this case, each of the three Crystal Gems remaining struggle throughout the series with what kind of identity was made for them based on what kind of gem they are. In our case, relating it back to gender, even though their perceived genders are all she, their gems will represent gender. 

for Garnet, she is actually a fusion between two gems, Ruby and Sapphire. Fusion between gems is when two or more gems combine to become one being, which then combines their weapons and powers. 

Each power and weapon is unique to each gem. Ruby, when alone, has the weapon of a gauntlet (which only appears on her hand where her gem is). While, Sapphire has the power to see possibilities of the future. Combined they exhibit both Sapphire’s powers and two of Ruby’s gauntlets. 

On Home World, it is forbidden to have two different gems fuse. Rubies are only seen as body guards for important gems and are even seen as stupid to higher class gems. While Sapphires are used for advising in the Home World’s royal council of Diamonds. the reason Garnet is part of the Crystal Gems is because Ruby and Sapphire wanted to be together as Garnet. The only way for them to do so was to leave Home World. Due to the prescriptive stereotypes of Home World, Garnet struggled to exist on her own planet. If they had stayed, they would have been shattered (execution for gems). 

Amethyst, another one of the Crystal Gems, also faces the problem of dealing with Home World’s stereotypes of her gem. Even though she is not from Home World.

Amethyst was made on Earth in order to aid Home World in conquering other planets. The thing that makes Amethyst of the Crystal Gems so special, however, is the fact that she is much smaller than the other Amethysts or even other “sister” gems that were made on Earth. As evidence by this:

While Amethyst is not from Home World, she has been reminded a lot by listening to the history of the rebellion led by Rose that she is not the same as other gems of her kind. As well as seeing the other spots where other gems came out of on Earth

Although the other Crystal Gems do not outwardly express that she is smaller and therefore seen as not as strong, she has instances of showing insecurity due to this; because she is not what other’s say she should be.

Last but not least, there’s Pearl, the gem that was by the side of Rose during the entire rebellion.

Pearls on Home World are strictly seen as hand maidens of sorts to high class gems. when Rose started her rebellion against the Diamonds, she had her own Pearl. Pearl of the Crystal Gems was seen for the first time by Rose as something more than just a decoration or a servant. This was due to Pearl’s affinity for combat, which was not something Pearls were meant for on Home World. Along with having her own personality, compared to other Pearls where they typically mirror their master’s personality, and willingness to fuse with other gems makes Pearl a prime candidate for going against prescriptive stereotypes from Home World. 

Overall, the entirety of the Crystal Gems are what go against the Prescriptive Stereotypes the Home World has. 

There is another character in this series that shows instances of Benevolent Sexism and Hostile Sexism. His name is Kevin.

Although a minor character, Kevin is a wealthy, healthy, young guy that lives in Steven’s town. Steven’s first interaction with Kevin was when he was fused with his friend Connie. While fusing has always been known to happen between two or more gems, Steven’s powers and his strong relationship with Connie allowed them to become one being named Stevonnie (who is canonically considered intersex).

Anyway, Stevonnie’s first time meeting Kevin was a rough one. They went out to a club to dance since they looked like an adult and met Kevin, who proceeded to call Stevonnie an Angel and told them that as a couple they were perfect together since they are both beautiful. Overall, harassing Sevonnie until they would dance with him. Even calling Stevonnie crazy at one point for refusing to dance with him. (I’m sure if this wasn’t a kids show he’d probably call them some derogatory names) 

This stems more from Kevin having Benevolent Sexism toward women and since Stevonnie, who is female presenting, doesn’t meet his expectations of what a woman should do, that then turns into Hostile Sexism. Benevolent sexism is when someone holds sexist ideals or attitudes toward a specific gender that are typically seen as positive traits but end up being harmful toward that gender. While Hostile Sexism is inherently negative ideals and attitudes toward a specific gender. 

[norristownnews]

What Is the Cheapest Way to Get Into the Legal Profession?

"What is the Cheapest way to get into law? " Entering the legal profession is without doubt one of the most expensive job options apart from becoming an airline pilot. It involves investing thousands of pounds in education that may or would possibly not lead to a position at the end of the road. Unfortunately there is no simple answer to which is the cheapest way to get in because there are actually all sorts of implications as to the different paths you choose to go down. The Legal Executive route is the cheapest option. Several people go down this particular route following on from an undergraduate degree, whether law or otherwise, or upright out of school. The Legal Executive route in terms of monetary cost is considerably cheaper than the Graduate Stage in Law/LLB degree and the Legal Practice Course (the solicitor route). We did a bit of research along with the current cost in 2013 to complete both parts of the Legal Executive training (Part 3 and A part 6) is about £6, 500 (course fees, exam fees etc .. ) The current cost of the Legal Exercise Course at the University of Law is £11, 000-£13, 000. If you combine the Graduate Diploma with Law (GDL) and the Legal Practice Court (LPC) the overall cost is about £18, 000-£20, 000. If you blend the Legal Practice Course with the cost of completing a law degree then the usual overall charge is around £25, 000 to £30, 000, which is gradually creeping up to around the £40, 000 mark since law schools start to capitalise on the willingness and ability of potential lawyers to pay. In the past people are generally down the vocational course route or alternatively the New York Attorney route, but these are options which were now in the past because, as we understand it, the Law Society still require you to complete the LPC and a exercising contract or training contract equivalent, which makes it senseless to plan to do either of these two in order to become a legal representative. So if you look at the different options, the cheapest one by far is the route through the Institute of Legal Executives and to become chartered legal executive before then either moving on to being a solicitor simply remaining a legal account manager. The various borders between all the different types of lawyer (legal executive, paralegal, solicitor and Barrister) are becoming distinctly unreadable. Solicitors can now do work that was exclusively reserved for barristers. Barristers can see clients directly. Legal middle management can gain the Rights of Audience that solicitors and barristers previously exclusively enjoyed. Legal Middle management can now become partners of law firms and so can barristers. Solicitors can practice as Advocates without truly needing to take instructions from clients themselves. However one thing remains very clear and that is that in the minds involving lawyers themselves there is still a hierarchy in terms of both fee income and status. At the bottom of the pack is a paralegal and this is very unlikely to change for a good few years yet simply because paralegals have no rights in any respect in terms of advocacy, and similarly cannot practice on their own without another type of lawyer being with them. Second in the bin are Legal Executives who are starting to enjoy more status in recent times but similarly hold lesser standing inside legal profession as a whole than solicitors and barristers. It is partly because of the old-fashioned view that most people who have end up legal executives are former secretaries trying to work their way up. this is still very much the case for a lot of and perfectly understandable as a very easy way in. After all, being a solicitor requires you to do quite a bit of instructional study at some point or other whereas becoming a legal executive is mostly something you can do on the job with a few times a week at night school or weekends at doing distance learning spread over a considerable length of time. Second from the prime are solicitors. Make no mistake, in the legal professional solicitors are definitely considered second rate by just about absolutely everyone including themselves, even when they are commercial lawyers earning considerable sums of money and more than the Barristers people instruct. Solicitors are seen more as wheeler-dealers and go-getters than actual lawyers, and the profession itself after a while has determined effectively that solicitors are the monkeys to barristers' organ grinders. At the top of the pile are definitely the barristers. The vast majority of barristers I suspect would class themselves as upper class. They are often very sharp, really intelligent, usually residing in exclusive villages or streets reserved for premier league footballers, doctors and older businessmen and with cars to match. Barristers see solicitors as a necessary evil as traditionally the solicitors get hold of clients for the barristers and the barristers did their best for them even though they usually have not met the client before the day of their first hearing and have absolutely no interest at all in their welfare or personal situation. Barristers are 100 % pure law at the end of the day and are not interested (quite understandably) in their clients' welfare or wellbeing. These are typically traditional views on the legal profession and the way it is structured. How you choose to interpret the above article can be a matter for yourself, but it is based on my own experiences in law, whether as a lay person undertaking cases average joe or as a qualified solicitor working with barristers and other solicitors. The reason I put this level of detail straight into this article is to show you that if you decide to go in the cheapest way into the legal profession there is always a catch, together with at the moment the catch is that your status for the remainder of your time in the profession will be diminished by the decision you cash in on now. Once a legal executive always a legal executive. The lawyers recruiting you at the moment are constantly "pure" solicitors. They will hold your status as a legal executive against you and probably for the the rest of your career. Your salary will often be affected as solicitors traditionally believe that legal executives are worth less of your budget than qualified solicitors. I would estimate that over the time of your career remaining you will lose around £5, 000 to £10, 000 per year at the very least through your decision to go down the Legal Executives route, at the least up until you have been in a solicitors job for 5 years min. Furthermore, certain doors will be closed to you from then start. If you qualify as a legal executive you very often have to qualify into a space where legal executives are used and practice. This invariably means debt recovery, some types of employment -- usually contentious, crime, family, conveyancing, wills and probate and sometimes commercial property. Whilst some of these may not be known to be too bad in the long term - commercial property and wills and probate are not too badly payed off at the moment - it does mean that the majority of commercial law for example is going to be outside your remit. It is very difficult to advance from one field to another once you have specialised in one particular area of law. So for example if you qualify as a suitable executive undertaking crime work and have 5 years' experience you cannot then use your legal executive condition (or indeed your solicitor status) to move across and practice in corporate finance. If you are an able scholar or graduate with excellent grades then you should almost always make an effort to go down the solicitor or barrister journey. Going down the solicitor route is not as expensive as people think it is. For example you do not need to pay the College associated with Law or BPP to do the Legal Practice Course or the Graduate Diploma in Law. There are actually far cheaper alternatives and regardless of what the more elite institutions tell you, the vast majority of law firms don't care two hoots where you do your LPC because most qualified lawyers view these courses as burning hoops to help you jump through in order to qualify than any sign of your ability. Employers are always interested in your basic degree. For the rest of your career. Forever! They are also interested in your A level grades. Forever! This plus your A- Level grades will determine whether you are a student or graduate with excellent academics. If you have straight A's at A Level or AAB or possibly ABB then you will be an excellent student to come into law. If you have some sort of 2: 1 Degree in anything other than pop music or country dancing (my first degree has been pop music), then you stand a very good chance of training and becoming a qualified solicitor. If you have less than this then this life as a lawyer will be considerably harder to start out with. The Legal profession do not view 2: some degrees as being something that entitles you to practice as a lawyer. It will go against you for the remainder of your position and there is no way round it. I suspect that if you are sat there reading this with a 2: a pair of degree you have been badly misinformed by anyone who has told you to go into the legal profession. It is not impossible - I have trained and coached many students and graduates who have 2: 2 degrees (sometimes even a 3rd) and they have gone onto enjoy rewarding careers as lawyers in some capacity. However , their road towards law has been considerably harder as a result of their inability to obtain a 2: 1 degree. So getting back to this statement that if you have excellent academics you should always consider becoming a solicitor so as not to damage your career in the long term just by going down the Legal Executive route. If you do not have excellent academics then you should always consider alternative options then one of these will be to go down the legal executive route. However I would not recommend paying to undertake a genuine executive course until you have legal work experience, you are able to use in the longer term to secure yourself a superb legal career. By this I mean that if you are a student or graduate you should definitely not go straight down to the Institute of Legal Executives and sign up for any legal executive course. If you are going down a nonconventional route into law then academic study once you have completed an undergraduate degree or your A-Levels is utterly immaterial. Experience is what matters and nothing else will do. Legal work experience is the key so that you can gaining a successful start into law. You cannot skip this, circumvent or navigate round it as a lot of people try every year. This is why academic institutions have been bought out by overseas companies looking to make a quick money. There are a lot of people out there undertaking postgraduate and undergraduate courses with no hope at all of ever finding a occupation in the profession they are going into. Furthermore, there are lots of people out there who have the academic qualifications but lack any succeed experience or activities or interests who similarly are very unlikely to ever get ahead in regulation or get through the easy way. No careers adviser will give you this advice, but the main thing to do to get into law may be to get experience, more experience and even more experience. This may cost money in itself, and you may say that I have your fees to pay and I have to live. This gets me to my point that if you want to invest in your job then spending money on academic qualifications is not the way to go. Getting experience is and this in itself will cost you money. To give you a simple example, as I write this a vacancy has come in from one of our central London law firms. They are buying fee earner to go and assist for a month or two with a load of admin work. They will pay properly for this, and it is a job probably most suited for an LPC graduate. I have one in mind. It is not an LPC masteral with a 2: 1 law degree or good A levels. It is not an LPC graduate with an LLM from a good university or some sort of summer school academic qualification. It is an LPC graduate with corresponding experience to that the firm are seeking. The firm will not give two hoots what the LPC scholar has in terms of additional qualifications but they will study the LPC graduate's work experience to date to decide with certainty if to take them on for this particular role. It is so important to understand this that when somebody says what is the cheaper way into law that there is no easy answer. You cannot just take a decision now that will affect the rest to your career simply on the basis that it may cost one or two thousand pounds more to go one way into the lawful profession rather than another. You will notice that so far I have not mentioned anything about barristers. This is because in my experience guidance to be a barrister is almost always a complete waste of your money and time. You would probably be shocked to hear the following and perhaps put it down to my natural bias against barristers having been a solicitor myself. I would grudgingly accept that probably I am a little biased against barristers having run around courts for them, I've taken care of some pretty awful ones over the years (as well as some absolutely fantastic ones) but the barristers' follicle of the profession is pretty much tied up and it is very important to understand this. The word nepotism could almost have been devised for this part of the profession. Let me give you an example. Back many years ago when I had just qualified as a solicitor our practice used a local chambers which had a very good reputation in the area and was probably the top number of barristers by a considerable distance. I cannot remember any of their barristers being unsuited or incompetent and a lot of being incredibly talented advocates. At some stage in my first year after training I remember that they advertised for two scholar barristers to join them. There were a considerable number of applications, as you would expect because this was a top quality set of chambers, superior reputation with quality work coming in, in an area where there are not many barristers' chambers. I do not have a clue how the recruitment process occurred but I do know that the two pupils selected were children of one of the person barristers in chambers and one of the more junior barristers. I am afraid that the barristers' profession can discuss diversity and equal opportunity to their hearts content but when recruitment like this occurs in a chambers of this size it is completely irrelevant. It is always going to be the case that if chambers at that level recruit their own personal then anyone else will either have to set up rival chambers or alternatively work for a lesser standard of chambers. It may be that the two children of the barristers already in practice were the best suited for the role, and Seen they went on to be absolutely outstanding barristers but the point is these two people gained their pupillages using chambers to which they were already affiliated through their parents. Without any sort or recruitment process that will eliminates this (and after all why should it - I would have done exactly the same myself as a barrister when my children wanted to practice as barristers! ) then this is not a strand of the profession to go directly into unless you have family or extremely good friends who are able to assist you in your search or pupillage. The vast majority of people who comprehensive the Bar Professional Training Course do not end up as barristers. They end up working as paralegals or non-qualified attorneys with a views to taking the Legal Practice Course at a future point in their career, costing much more money. This is a false economy because the cost of completing the Bar Professional Training Course and the Legal Put into practice Course is verging on the ridiculous for the returns that you will get at a later stage in your career. So summing up I recommend anyone coming into the profession to do one of two things. 1 . If you have excellent academics and the ability to increase legal work experience to your CV to bolster this then go and try and qualify as a lawyer. Do not go down any other route. 2 . If you do not have excellent academics do not go down the route of determining to be a solicitor. You can go and get work experience and prove me wrong (and I hope you do) but you would be better suited to a life as a legal executive with a view to cross-qualifying at a in the future stage by competing the Legal Practice Course or simply being happy doing what you are doing for a legal executive. Always think - why are you going into law? What do you want to get out of it? How much how about to earn in order to get what you want out of life?

[mysmashplaythroughs]

Mario Playthrough

Fighter: Mario

Game: Super Mario 64 DS. Wii U virtual console (DS). First Released on November 21st 2004.

Fighter Bio.

Mario is a plumber from the Mushroom Kingdom. Over the years he has taken on many jobs and gone on many adventures, most often fighting Bowser and his minions who seek to take over the Mushroom Kingdom. This however, is very much an understatement of who Mario is, a character who not only represents Nintendo as a whole, but arguably gaming itself in a manner similar to how Mickey Mouse could be argued to represent western animation. There is only one other character I would argue possibly is iconic enough to represent gaming as a whole as much as Mario, who we will get to down the line, but unlike that character, Mario has been a consistent presence on the gaming landscape since his debut.

Mario started off as a carpenter called Jumpman who had to chase his escaped angry pet gorilla, a certain ape that we’ll get to later, up a construction site to rescue his then girlfriend Pauline from his clutches. Following this, Mario did many different jobs such as working on a demolitions crew, at a cement factory, as a soldier, as a golfer and then as a plumber. It was after this Mario would first appear in the world he’s now best known from, the Mushroom Kingdom. There’s no canon timeline or anything really with regards to this, in the past in some countries such as America, it was said that Mario and his brother Luigi travelled to the Mushroom Kingdom from Earth down a warp pipe, and with Super Mario Odyssey it seems to be implied recently that the earlier games in Mario’s life before Super Mario Bros might have taken place in New Donk City. Either way, in Super Mario Bros, Mario took down Bowser for the first time saving the Mushroom Kingdom and became its protector, a role he’s carried on to this day, fighting not just Bowser but a variety of different villains and groups over the years and travelling all around his world and beyond to other worlds. Mario’s best strength is that he is so adaptable, not being the strongest, the fastest or able to jump the highest, but still being capable in all those areas. Mario is often the most well-rounded character in every game he’s in, being a good character for beginners to use to learn how to play various games, but also still useable by those who are more experienced.

His personality, similar to other characters we’ll get to, has been purposefully left fairly bland in order for him to be able to fit into many different roles over the years. This does not mean he has none however and over the years he has been portrayed often as excitable, energetic and in some cases with a bit of an ego and over competitive element, a contrast to his brother Luigi who tends to be somewhat quieter and more nervous. Personally, I feel whilst Mario can be summed up as bland, he still is a fun character that deserves his place as the main mascot of Nintendo and due to his vast interesting history and countless great games, his place as a gaming icon.

Friends: Mario has had many friends over the years, the most immediately apparent being his brother Luigi and Princess Peach. Given how long Mario has been around and how many characters he’s teamed up with on various adventures, listing every single one would be a tough task, from the obvious ones such as Toad and Yoshi to the characters who appear more in group events such as Rosalina, Princess Daisy and Diddy Kong, to the more seldom seen such as Geno, Goombella, to finally the very obscure such as Wanda the fairy. There’s a reason he’s seen as the superstar of the Mushroom Kingdom beyond simply saving the world various times after all, Mario tends to be willing to help all sorts of people with all manner of small problems. As such even when he is in a place that’s unfamiliar with him, he manages to build a reputation fairly quickly.

Enemies/Rivals: Mario of course has also amassed many enemies and rivals through his willingness to always stand against those plotting to do wrong, from invading lands, stealing things to kidnapping people. It would take some time to go over every enemy Mario has ever made similarly to how many friends he’s made over the years, but the most obvious enemy of Mario’s is King Bowser Koopa who whilst not his oldest enemy (although, they did battle as babies long ago) is his longest running one. Bowser’s minions also share the sentiment in most cases, especially when it comes to his son Bowser Jr and the Koopalings who have assisted Bowser in his plans many times over the years coming into conflict with Mario numerous times. Bowser’s soldiers have less of a vendetta against Mario in most cases and are more seeking to see Bowser’s will is done. In some cases, they can be quite civil with Mario and in others they can be decidedly not. Some such as Piranha Plants often seem to simply be creatures who wish to devour whatever comes close, Mario often being in their path.

When it comes to rivals, Wario has always been more of an annoyance to Mario than a full-on enemy, often trying to one-up him at various sports and only in his debut appearance ever being anything like a true enemy to Mario, taking control of his Castle. Donkey Kong has a fairly complicated relationship with Mario, the original Donkey Kong that Mario fought in his very first game is now an older ape called Cranky Kong, and the current Donkey Kong is either the son or grandson of Cranky (it’s not very clear to anyone it seems). He had a somewhat more friendly relationship with Mario than Cranky, however his impulsiveness has brought them into conflict which led to the Mario vs Donkey Kong series. Even in that series however, when DK calms down, he often reconciles with Mario and the two have often helped each other out in various spinoff games. Diddy Kong has never had any conflict with Mario only really meeting with him in various sports games and other spinoffs, not helping Donkey Kong in his occasional feuds against Mario. There was one small case of another crossover with the two but I will detail that more in Diddy’s own entry down the line.

Crossovers with other Smash characters: Mario being as prolific as he is has crossed over with many other gaming characters outside of Smash Bros. For the sake of this not getting any longer, I will only detail cases where this has happened in games rather than cases such as Megaman appearing in German Club Nintendo comics alongside Mario, even though I do love that there are such obscure appearances. Down the line I might mention crossovers in animated series for other characters, but despite numerous tv series Mario never actually crossed over with other characters in animation (well, beyond an extremely obscure Mario and Kirby learning video which didn’t really cross them over so much as they both had segments on the same video) I also will only mention appearances in person rather than things such as costumes in Super Mario Maker (which would be practically every character in Smash) or Kirby having a poster in Mario and Luigi Superstar Saga.

Anyway, outside of characters from Mario’s own series such as Donkey Kong, Mario has met Samus and Link (A Link to the Past’s incarnation most likely) for brief cameos in Super Mario RPG. Mario appeared in Kirby Super Star in the audience for both the Megaton Punch minigame and Kirby’s Battle in the Boxing arena with King Dedede. This is a little bit of a cheat but it’s fairly notable, in Mario Kart 8 there was a Mii costume for Captain Falcon, along with the Blue Falcon as a kart and two F-Zero tracks. In Mario Kart 8 Deluxe, there is also Link in both his Skyward Sword and Breath of the Wild incarnations as well as both default Inklings, two human Animal Crossing Villagers and Isabelle who are playable. Mr Game & Watch is an interesting case as not only did he specifically cross over with Mario in the Game & Watch Gallery series, he technically has been Mario in the original Game & Watch versions of various games such as Mario’s Cement Factory. I will go more into this in Game & Watch’s post. Pit actually had a small cameo crossover with Mario and various other characters back on the NES in Tetris, where he would appear playing a harp alongside characters such as Mario, Samus, Link and Donkey Kong.  Next up is probably the biggest crossover for Mario, his past rival from another console Sonic. Sonic and Mario, besides in Smash, only crossover in person in one series being the Mario and Sonic at the Olympic Games series. Olimar brings up a somewhat sad example as the only cameo where he crossed over and met Mario is one that never happened. It was found in the files for Mario and Luigi Superstar Saga on GBA that Olimar, Toon Link, Wario, Fox McCloud, Samus Aran and an Excitebiker were originally planned to appear for short cameos giving Mario and Luigi various special items in the Starbean Café for blending new drinks alongside Professor E Gadd. E Gadd was the only one who appeared in the actual game. This would have been Olimar and Toon Link’s only direct crossover with Mario. Little Mac and Mario had quite a big crossover, as Mario was the referee for Little Mac’s matches in the NES version of Punch-out. He also appeared in the audience to watch the boxer in the arcade versions of Punch-Out. Pac-Man has crossed over with Mario in the arcade Mario Kart GP series which really feels more of a crossover than specifically a Mario Kart game. Whilst Mario has never directly crossed over with any of the Hero characters from Dragon Quest, many of the Fortune Street games have featured crossovers with the Dragon Quest and Mario series, with many other Dragon Quest characters interacting with Mario. Whilst Banjo had many links to Donkey Kong, he did not have any official crossover with Mario, although interestingly if you over analyse the Mario franchise as I do, an argument could be made that Banjo is technically part of it, still I’ll leave that for when we get to the Bear and Bird’s own post.

As you can tell, Mario has crossed over with a lot of franchises over the years. I doubt any other character coming up will have as many examples as this, so hopefully there shouldn’t be as much to say. I think now it’s time to move onto the main event.

Why this game?

Super Mario 64 is the definitive 3D Mario title. Does that mean I think it’s the best 3D Mario title? Personally, I don’t think it’s the best of all of them, but I do still feel that doesn’t mean it can’t be the definitive one, similar to how I would rank Super Mario Bros 3 as the definitive 2D Mario game. Super Mario 64 defined many of the staples for Mario going forward as well as 3D platformers in general, with large 3D worlds to explore, a hub world leading to the various levels, and many other features which were fairly new at the time, even if perhaps it wasn’t the first to do many of them, it was the game that popularised them. Every other 3D Mario game that would come later would aim to have a specific “gimmick” (I dislike that term but it’s the best I can think of currently) to set it apart, Sunshine had F.L.U.D.D. the Galaxy games had the gravity system, 3D Land and World tried more to directly translate the gameplay of 2D Mario games to 3D and Odyssey had its capture mechanic along with other things. This leaves Mario 64 as the Mario game that was more straightforward in being about Mario in 3D. This, alongside a lot of other things I will detail in the later section regarding specific aspects of the game relating to Smash, is why I chose to play this game to represent Mario. You have likely noticed at this point I have repeatedly talked about Super Mario 64, not Super Mario 64 DS.

Super Mario 64 DS was a launch game with the new DS system, and in order to show off the capabilities of the DS to handle 3D games, I assume Nintendo again wanted to use Super Mario 64 similar to how they used it originally to demonstrate the abilities of the Nintendo 64. Super Mario 64 DS in my opinion is a great game, however it does not replace the original. It changed a lot of the models updating them to closer resemble the artwork for the Mario series at the time, closer reflecting all sorts of characters looks. The game also featured three other playable characters, Yoshi, Wario and Luigi. I will not go too into detail regarding these characters as they will have their own posts later and this is mostly meant to be Mario’s entry.

The controls however were the most often cited issue with the game. The DS did not have a control stick, and as such there were two main options to play the game, the first being to use the Dpad to move around. Due to the lack of a control stick to pick up on the sensitivity with which players wished to move their characters, the game instead had it so you had to hold the Y button to run and would just walk quickly otherwise, something which was often not seen to be as satisfying as the original controls for the N64 version. The second option which was more popular than the Dpad was using a thumb strap on the touch screen to recreate the controls of a joystick, I believe this is used in some phone games. (I admit I’m not that familiar with mobile phone platformers that use these controls) The issue with this however is unlike a joystick there’s not a physical object you can feel and get feedback from, so it can be hard to control as precisely as when using one. With the 3DS having the circle pad, and the Wii U virtual console having a control stick, I feel that playing Mario 64 DS on these systems is a big improvement over the originals and that is why I wanted to play through that version of the game for this. With that said, you still have to hold the Y button to run on these systems, which is still an issue people have with the game.

My past with this game.

It’s probably a thing that’s been repeated countless times by others, but when I first played Super Mario 64 as a kid and was in Peach’s Castle grounds, it truly felt like the largest area I had ever seen in a videogame. Running around the grass I thought I’d get lost. It’s bizarre now as even back then after a couple of days of playing I was more aware of the actual size of the garden, but that first time playing was just an experience which I will never have again I think, which is fine as I don’t need to, it was amazing to be able to experience something like that for the first time rather than growing up with it being the norm for games. The rest of the game was a truly incredible experience, exploring the castle, entering the paintings, exploring areas such as Bob-omb battlefield, taking on the King Bob-omb on the summit, taking on Bowser for the first time, it’s something no other game will be able to match in some ways. The greatest strength for Mario 64 however is that even to this day it is still a very enjoyable game to go back to. It’s not a hard game (although not without its challenge, especially when playing it for the first time) but it’s still got a lot of content in it, to the point I’d say it’s one of those games that’s perfect to just play through to 100 percent completion from time to time.

The game also due to its more simplistic style to many other later games has always had a bit of a mysterious air to it. I remember as a child often being a little creeped out in Peach’s Castle as it felt so empty that I could believe Bowser was constantly watching me. There were also plenty of rumours surrounding the game, one of the biggest of which was the absence of Luigi, with various fake ways to ‘unlock Luigi’ floating around the playground and even in some cases done as a joke in gaming magazines, which back then were the main way I would get my gaming info. Beyond this legacy, if you frequent youtube a lot you’ve likely seen just how many speedruns and intense analyses of this game there are, finding all sorts of tricks and secrets, ways to do all sorts of incredible things in the game. Even if I again might personally prefer some of the other 3D Mario games, this game is still an absolutely important and amazing game that deserves the place it often finds on people’s greatest games of all-time lists.

When it comes to Super Mario 64 DS and my personal history with it, I remember being extremely excited for this game. The initial trailers made it seem like the game would let you play through the game in a co-operative multiplayer, which sadly it seems didn’t pan out, but I was still very much excited to play through the game I loved with characters who weren’t in the original, the biggest to me being Luigi who’s absence from the original game led to all sorts of urban legends regarding how to unlock him. When I got the game, I loved it. Now, as we go through these posts, you will all probably come to realise I am notoriously easy to please, to the point it’s fairly rare that I will full on hate a game, therefore whilst I definitely got where people were coming from with the controls, personally I still really enjoyed the game and found I could adapt to the controls to the point they were mostly not a problem to me. As I’ve said before, I do not feel this remake replaces the original game and I still feel there is plenty of reason to go back to the original version again. I personally feel Super Mario 64 DS has its own good points, with a lot of new content, models changed to fit better with the general look the series has nowadays and the additional three characters being some examples. Whilst I wouldn’t rank it as highly as the original game, I still really enjoyed it and was excited to see it come to Wii U virtual console, meaning I can play it on the big screen for the first time. It’s a shame the graphics for DS games don’t look too great on a tv screen, but beyond that I’d say either the Wii U VC version or playing the DS game on 3DS are the best ways to play it.

My Smash Playthrough.

So, returning to this game again how did it go? Well, one of the key aspects of this specific playthrough, is it was the start of this whole project I’d set myself on. As such, it was the game where my initial false start took place. It’s hard to remember now as I believe I beat the game in 2017, but I had started it and my list much earlier, possibly in 2016. It’s interesting as this began some time after Corrin and Bayonetta finished off Smash 4’s DLC but before Ultimate was revealed, although I believe it was somewhat known at the time there would be a Smash Brothers game on Switch, just not officially at this point. Also 2017 brought something else with it which motivated me, the closing of Miiverse. Due to this, I realised if I didn’t get a move on, I would miss out on using it to get screenshots as I had hoped to do, many of which I am using in this specific post you’re reading. With this motivation I decided it was time to truly commit to this goal I had and in order to do it properly from what I remember, I restarted Super Mario 64 DS from scratch rather than continue my original run.

It’s hard to bring up things specific to my playthrough seeing as it was a few years ago now, however I am able to remember some aspects of that playthrough. It was my first time playing through the game on Wii U to 100% completion as I had wanted to save doing so for when I really wanted to go through with this project. As said before, this made two things apparent, firstly that 3D DS games don’t look good blown up on a bigger screen, secondly with the screen a bigger size to what it would have been on the DS, it made differences between the control in the N64 game and DS game clearer, sometimes being somewhat harder to make precise moves. This could make some of the tougher challenges a bit more irritating in some cases, but I still mostly had a lot of fun replaying the game, which was part of the reason I decided I wanted to 100% the game even though that was and is not my plan for every game.

I haven’t played through Super Mario 64 from start to finish many times, but I have returned to my completed files on the game many times before. So seeing the various small events again when playing from the start always gave me a nice nostalgic feeling, such as Bowser’s laugh when you arrive in the castle for the first time, and having the power of the stars you’ve found unlock each door for the first time. The levels were as fun to go through as always, from the simple ones like Bob-omb Battlefield to later stages such as Tall Tall Mountain. Regarding the most difficult stages, I’d say Tick Tock Clock didn’t give me as much trouble as I expected and that the stage I had the biggest issue with was Hazy Maze Cave. I believe even now I remember having gotten roughly 99 coins a couple of times just to get killed there and have to start again from scratch. Notable standouts in that level that stick in my mind are the poisonous gas in the cave as well as the arrow platforms that you had to use to find the red coins, which I remember having a fair bit of trouble with. On this note, the 100-coin stars were as always some of the most irritating ones as nothing in the game is worse than reaching around 90 coins and making a mistake getting killed meaning I have to start from scratch.

The bosses were fairly fun although in a lot of cases fairly simplistic. This is a strength with the DS remake I would say as it added some content including new bosses in new stages which were how you unlock the other playable characters. Of these new bosses, Goomboss is probably my favourite as it was so unexpected (and still is) seeing anything from Paper Mario make its way into another game in the Mario series, the Goomboss being clearly inspired by the Goomba King from the very first Paper Mario game. The star of the show when it comes to iconic bosses in Super Mario 64 however has to be Bowser, with this being definitely one of the top Bowser boss battles in the series. All three boss fights with him are fun, but the music and atmosphere in the final battle make him amongst my favourite Final Bosses in gaming. One of my favourite aspects is that you actually fight Bowser rather than having to trick him into breaking the floor under him, or hitting a switch to drop him off a bridge, with you grabbing him and swinging him by the tail. Whilst the model used for Bowser here looks very nice and definitely matches his more standard appearance, I’ll admit the original N64 model probably looked more intimidating, despite its obvious simplicity.

Then we get to the ending of the game, probably one of my favourite game endings of all time, from Mario (or in the remake Yoshi) looking up into the sky before heading in for the celebrations, the music to the shots of every stage you’ve been through it’s the perfect send off to the adventure and to this day still leaves me with a happy if somewhat melancholy feeling. (which is something I always feel with endings, even if obviously this was far from the end of the Mario series by any stretch of the imagination.) Ending on the final shot of the cake and Mario thanking you for playing his game. Overall this was a fantastic game to start off with and definitely eased me in for what was to come.

Specific aspects about the game relating to Mario in Smash.

Now, this section is where I would mostly go over specific equipment, setups and character choices I made based on the way Super Smash Brothers portrays the character, however in this case Mario doesn’t really get any equipment in the game, with the closest thing to it being he can lose his hat, which obviously I made sure to keep hold of through the game. What exactly does Mario take from this game then? Well, a lot. Most of Mario’s basic attacks, movements and jumps in Super Smash Bros are based on his moves in this game, with specific examples being his standard punch, his punch punch kick combo, jump kick attack, sweep kick, slide kick, and various jumps. What’s interesting is that Mario would never use the majority of these moves in later games, instead relying more on jumping and a straight forward spin attack in most cases. One final inspiration in his moveset that Mario took from this game is from the boss fights with Bowser where Mario will grab him by his tail, swing him around in circles before letting go flinging Bowser forward, a move that Mario uses in some of his throws in the Super Smash Bros series. Finally Mario’s entrance in Smash Bros mirrors his appearance at the beginning of this game, with a pipe appearing from the ground, Mario jumping out and the pipe then descending again. In future I will not tend to go into details on the origin of the majority of a character’s moves, but this is a special case as so much from this game specifically became part of Mario’s overall moveset and there wasn’t really ‘equipment’ to go over for him this time.

Credits.

For information on this game including dates of releases I must give credit to Super Mario Wiki.

The screenshots in this post are taken by me using Miiverse before it shut down.

[leepace71]

The Political Avenger: Chris Evans Takes on Trump, Tom Brady, Anxiety and Those Retirement Rumors

Ahead of 'Avengers: Endgame,' the progressive Captain America actor and Twitter firebrand says he's ready to retire his Marvel hero for directing gigs, a new Apple show and the fight against the "dumb s—" president: “I’d be disappointed in myself if I didn’t speak up.”

It's a Friday afternoon in February, and the view from Chris Evans' house in the Hollywood Hills consists mostly of fog. He bought this place for $3.2 million in 2013, back when he was two hit movies into his seven-film stint as Marvel Studios' Captain America; there's a Zen-ish garden inside the front gate, and a stone Buddha sits by the door. Evans banishes his dog, Dodger, to the guest room, shuts off the TV in the family room (CNN on mute), cracks a can of Modelo, and takes a seat on the couch. His arms are insane, as thick as thighs.

Evans has a movie coming out in a few months — an intimate little passion project called Avengers: Endgame (April 26). It's the sequel to last year's Avengers: Infinity War, which raked in $2 billion worldwide and ended with Thanos (Josh Brolin) disintegrating half of Earth's population, including the still-bankable likes of Black Panther and Spider-Man. The moody trailers for Endgame are designed to reveal even less than usual, but it's safe to assume that Captain America rallies Earth's mightiest surviving heroes for a rematch with the mad god who finger-snapped their friends and loved ones into oblivion, which means this will be the first of the four Avengers movies to depict actual avenging.

Evans — who made $15 million for the past two Avengers films, up from $300,000 for his first stint as Captain America — has said he's done playing the character after this. It's been reported that he intends to retire from acting entirely. And yet the announcements of new work keep coming. He's in Rian Johnson's crowded-house murder mystery Knives Out, due in November. He's playing the father of a teenager accused of murder in Apple's forthcoming limited series Defending Jacob. He's in talks to star in Antoine Fuqua's Infinite as a presumably Chris Evans-ish guy who can recall his past lives. It's a crowded dance card for a newly retired 37-year-old actor, and when I bring this up, Evans gets as annoyed as he'll get all afternoon.

"I never said the word 'retire,'" he says. "It's a really obnoxious notion for an actor to say they're going to retire — it's not something you retire from."

All he said — back in 2014, as the end of his obligation to Marvel loomed on the horizon — was that he was hoping to get behind the camera more, and that he'd told one of his CAA agents, "We are turning a corner." Cut to 5,080,000 Google hits for "Chris Evans retiring."

So, for the record: He's not retiring. He'd love to direct more, but the way he talks about it makes it sound more like a five-year plan. He's been looking for a good script, except the problem with good scripts is that they tend to go to great directors, which is not a weight class Evans would put himself in, not yet. He's directed one film, the slight-but-not-embarrassing indie romance Before We Go, which grossed $37,151 in theaters in 2014, or roughly 0.01 percent of what Infinity War made on its opening weekend. When that project is faintly praised in his presence — he also starred in it, opposite Alice Eve — he waves this off, saying it mainly taught him how much he didn't know. "I'm OK with making mistakes," he says, "and I learned a lot from that one."

Once he's done helping Marvel hype Endgame, he's going to take advantage of the security provided by nearly 10 years of huge superhero movies by letting the next phase of his career unfold at a more leisurely pace. "Momentum is a real fallacy, in my opinion," he says. "But it has a really strong hold on a lot of actors' mentalities. You really believe that while the ball's rolling, you gotta keep it rolling. I could be wrong, but to me — I just don't believe in that. I don't think that's real."

I guess we'll find out.

Evans laughs. "My last cover interview."

Here are some things we learned about Chris Evans, from what may or may not be his last cover interview:

He uses the word "pretentious" a lot, usually because he's worried something he's just said sounds pretentious, which it rarely does.

He will talk at length and in detail about himself, and his neuroses, and the conversations he has with himself about his neuroses.

He keeps it closer to the vest about other people. He mentions in passing that Justin Timberlake lives around here — "I think" — without mentioning that Timberlake lives around here with his wife, Jessica Biel, who was once Evans' girlfriend. Nor does he mention his former girlfriend Jenny Slate by name, although he occasionally says things about what it's like to hang out with a bunch of comedians, something he clearly knows because he dated Slate, on and off, for a while. They are off again, per the gossip pages; on Valentine's Day, a few weeks after we meet, Evans will tweet a picture of himself nuzzling Dodger and wish the best to his 10.6 million followers "from this pair of dysfunctional codependents."

When asked how he functions in relationships, he says: "I'm the one who fears being enveloped. I was always a really autonomous guy my whole life. Camping by myself is one of my favorite things. I really like to be with someone who also has their own thing to do as well, you know? If I'm with someone who just kind of adopts my life, that can feel a bit suffocating."

Evans and actress-comedian Jenny Slate, in 2016. At her urging, he read a collection of feminist essays, The Mother of All Questions. "You have to understand that you don’t understand," he says.

When he's not working or camping by himself, you can find Evans camped out on Twitter. He is extremely online in a way that actors who headline ultra-mainstream movie franchises tend not to be; on any given day, you can find @ChrisEvans quoting Idiocracy to mock President Trump's McDonald's buffet for the Clemson Tigers, signal-boosting tweets about gay purges in Chechnya, or addressing Sen. Lindsey Graham as "Smithers."

He worries about doing too much of this sort of thing, about it seeming performative or becoming white noise — Chris Evans, back on his bullshit. He does not worry about saying something online that might inspire MAGA-minded fans to microwave their Captain America action figures. And for what it's worth, he says, "Marvel has never said anything. On the contrary — when I bump into Kevin Feige the first thing out of his mouth is 'Man, I love what you're doing [on Twitter].'"

"I don't see it as trash-talking," says Feige, Marvel's president. "I see it as very astute, very honorable, very noble, very Cap-like. Commentary and questioning. I've said to him, 'You're merging! You and the character are merging!'"

"I’d be disappointed in myself if I didn’t speak up. Especially for fear of some monetary repercussion or career damage — that just feels really gross to me."

Evans campaigned for Hillary Clinton in 2016; and while he has not decided on his 2020 candidate, his crusading use of his platform has made him a real-life superhero to a certain segment of the online #Resistance. Days after we talk, he pops up on Capitol Hill to do some bipartisan grip-and-grins with Senate Democrats Brian Schatz, Chris Coons and Jeff Merkley and Republican Lisa Murkowski. In March, he does the same at the House of Representatives. It turns out he's conducting interviews for A Starting Point, a politics website whose mission is "to create informed, responsible and empathetic citizens." He's a co-founder, along with the actor Mark Kassen and entrepreneur Joe Kiani; the launch date has yet to be announced.

While he's only visiting Congress for now, everyone jokes about him getting a job there someday. There's familial precedent; his uncle is former Massachusetts Representative Mike Capuano (who lost a hard-fought race to Ayanna Pressley, a progressive city councilwoman, in September). For now, Evans feels obligated to do what he can, even if it turns his social media mentions into a garbage fire.

"You don't want to alienate half your audience," says Evans. "But I'd be disappointed in myself if I didn't speak up. Especially for fear of some monetary repercussion or career damage — that just feels really gross to me."

His willingness to call bullshit on anyone abetting the disintegration of our republic extends to his home state's favorite sons. When we talk, Tom Brady is two days away from leading the New England Patriots to a sixth Super Bowl win; when I ask if the chance to play Brady in a biopic would bring him out of non-retirement retirement, he looks grim.

"I don't know," he says. "I really hope he's not a Trump supporter. I'm just hoping he's one of those guys that maybe supported him and now regrets it. Maybe he thought it was going to be different — and even that bothers me — but maybe there's a chance now he just thinks Trump's an absolute dumb shit, which he is. If he doesn't, if he's still on that Trump train, I might have to cut ties. It's really tough."

"I think maybe a couple of years ago," he continues, "I might have tried to pull some, like, mental gymnastics to compartmentalize, but I don't know if I can anymore. So I'm just hoping he's woken up."

Evans has a platform and he's using it. But like a lot of straight white men seeking to consciously and conscientiously navigate a tumultuous moment in the history of straight white male-dom, he's learned that shutting up is important, too. At Slate's urging, he read Rebecca Solnit's The Mother of All Questions, a collection of essays about the insidious side effects of patriarchy, and took away a great deal. "You have to understand that you don't understand," he says. It's not the most action-heroish way to look at things — but that may be the secret of his appeal as a movie star.

"At the root of it, he has true humility," says Robert Downey Jr., who's played Tony Stark against Evans five times. "I think it's the reason he was able to kind of come to the front and be our team leader in the Avengers. I think a lot of his theater experience helped, too. Because it was like, 'OK, I'm going to dress up, I'm going to go out, and I'm going to tell the truth.' It's very kind of old-school Spencer Tracy. Although I guarantee you Spencer Tracy never would've put on that getup."

Unsurprisingly, Evans blows off discussion of his own goodness. "The characters I play do a lot of that heavy lifting. If people knew me — I'm just an asshole."

He seems a little uncomfortable. I change the subject by asking him to tell me what happens at the end of Avengers: Endgame. Evans laughs. "Yeah," he says. "I wish I could. Uh, it's — I mean — it's a good one. It's a real good one. I saw, like, the first hour of it."

So you watched it up to the point where Cap dies?

"Right, exactly," Evans says. "After I die by Tony's hand, I just said, You know what? I can't watch this."

I should make it clear that this is a joke, even if it feels like the kind of joke that could turn out to be true. "I can't believe they even cut together a trailer," he says, "because so much of it is a visual spoiler. You'll see. A lot of the characters have"—

He stops, covering his mouth.

"Probably shouldn't have even said that," he says.

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