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hellsenthero · 5 months ago

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A Martyrs Hymn

Bucky X Reader

After being captured by Hydra, both you and Bucky are scared to lose the other, and close just isn't close enough.

Warnings/themes: Language, smut, angst, fluff.

MASTERLIST

-----

You were on your knees, hands behind your back. Like a good Christian, looking for absolution.

But you weren't. You were just looking to get out of this alive. But the zip ties around your wrists and the gun cocked, pressed up against the back of your head execution style suggested otherwise.

The cement floor dug into your knees. The smell of bleach was strong in the small room, no doubt from the cleaning of other victims.

You wondered how much bleach they'll use after they kill you. Would they need a lot-- to clean up your brains from the floor. Would your blood flow down the sloped floor into the drain? Or would it splatter across the walls like it did in those slasher movies?

"I'll ask you one more time. Where is our asset?"

You knew exactly who they meant, and you knew exactly where he was.

"I don't know." You answered.

"So be it."

You got little more than a second to pray that their asset remained safe and far away before a bang echoed out through the small room. The door, crushed inwards from the outside, flew open. You turned, as did the man behind you with the gun.

You gasped as a shot went off. Then one more.

The blood splattered, like it does in the slasher movies, before the man's body collapsed to the floor. Slowly, a pool of blood formed around the still warm body of your capture.

You were in enough shock that all you could think was—Both. Blood splatters and pools on the ground.

Hands grasped your face, your body, checking you over, moving you, freeing you. You looked up into the stormy blue eyes of the asset. Your lover, Bucky Barnes.

“Are you hurt?” Breathed Bucky.

“No.” You answered truthfully.

Bucky was quick to wrap his arms around you, squeezing your body tight to his own before he released you with a frown. “We need to go.”

You stood as Bucky did before following him out of the room. Through the cold cement hallways Bucky kept vigilant. His gaze swept your surroundings before finding you and leading you further through the twisting labyrinth that was Hydra’s strong hold.

Sunlight greeted you as you followed Bucky out of the building. You found yourself wondering if it was the same day, or even the same week as it was when you had been captured. But you couldn't be bothered to ask the date or time of day.

“Bruce is on the jet, he'll check you over, okay?”

“Okay.”

The jet was close by, and ten minutes later, Bruce gave you the all clear. You could tell the news relieved Bucky as he slumped down in his seat.

“I told you.” You chased him.

“I worry.” He argued.

You rested a gentle hand on Bucky's thigh. “I know you do. I'm sorry I worried you.”

Bucky leaned over in his seat to press a gentle kiss to the crown of your head. “‘s not your fault, baby.”

He never let go of you the whole flight. He fussed over you like a mother hen, getting even worse when Bruce told you that you still needed to go to medical and get checked out by a doctor.

You kept your own hand on his as well. He was your anchor just as much as you were his. After the scare that was you being captured, neither of you wanted to let go of that grounding connection.

The final check-in with Dr. Cho was shorter than expected. You got the all-clear to go back to your suite and rest before even attempting a report on your initial mission and capture. It was a temporary relief off of your shoulders.

Bucky kept an arm around you all the way back to your shared bedroom. His touch was firm but gentle. You knew it was reassuring for him to keep a hand on you after being captured by Hydra.

“I'm tired.” You admitted as you neared your door.

"We'll get you cleaned up and tucked into bed soon." Bucky promised. He made sure that once in your shared bedroom, you didn't have to lift a finger.

Bucky helped strip you of your clothes once in your shared bathroom. It wasn't sexual, the way he took you clothes off and looked at your body. You knew he was looking for cuts, bruises, anything that meant you'd been harmed. You were both glad when he found nothing more than a few bruises.

With gentle fingers, Bucky washed your body with your favourite body wash. Everywhere he touched, it was with a gentle, loving hand. It was different from the last shower you'd shared, where Bucky left bruises across your hips from his tight grip as he'd fucked you to completion.

In the bedroom, Bucky grabbed his softest shirt for you to wear. His scent wrapped around you like a hug, but still, it wasn't enough for you. And it certainly wasn't enough for him.

Bucky needed to hold you after what happened. He knew he was a selfish man when it came to you. Close was never close enough, especially after what happened today.

A whisper of your name in the dim bedroom had you turning around to face Bucky. One look at his face and you knew what he needed. It was the same thing you craved from him. You moved as one. Grasping and clinging on to the other for dear life. Your legs tangled with Bucky's as he rolled you over onto your back. His arms strained as he held himself above you. He nuzzled at your neck, kissing you, taking in your scent. His lips traveled along your body, mapping you out. His breathing was a hymn for your ears only. Your body was his temple and he was a martyr.

“Never again.” Bucky breathed as he sunk into you.

“Never again.” You promised.

#bucky x reader #bucky barnes #bucky #bucky x reader fic #james buchanan barnes #bucky x you #marvel fanfiction #bucky fucking barnes #bucky x reader fanfic #bucky fanfic #bucky x reader smut #bucky x genderfluid reader #bucky x gn!reader #bucky barnes x reader #bucky x female reader

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probablybadrpgideas · 2 months ago

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It's September! Here's what we did in August

Kept playtesting Forgotten Thicket, which is getting very close to completion! You can follow developement and generally natter about games, including ours, in the Pencil/Paper games Discord

Released the Probably Bad Podcast episodes "Undercover Paladin, Big Bad Boudoir, and Raccoon Day" and "Toad Time, Cookbook Rampage, and Ladvertising"

Released the patreon bonus content Reanimated Dragon Skin (5e homebrew), Christian Isekai (game), and "We Pitch the Next D&D Movie" (bonus episode)

And now that it's September there's a new short game at Pencil/Paper, called Reverse Isekai, which does exactly what it says on the tin: https://pencilpaper.itch.io/reverse-isekai

#not an idea

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thatsdemko · 1 year ago

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good riddance - m.verstappen

part one (the story of us)

masterlist

warnings: angst

a/n: oh I’m so sorry… but Taylor swift doesn’t always have happy endings!

—

the cameras, the microphones, the tape recorders, the iPhones, and many other devices were shoved in your face the second you stepped into the paddock. nobody seemed to care about Charles red pants or that Lewis was shirtless, everyone cared about you and max.

it’d been a week since your first win, and exactly two days since the article was released. you’d have a lot to talk about in your drivers meetings, and you dreaded that moment more than the cameras in your face.

an audible groan escapes your lips as fans and interviewers trip over your feet, you’re so lucky the Red Bull hospitality is just feet away from you. home sweet home, you could relax and watch them all flock around other drivers in the comfort of your inn.

however, you see those blond little hairs in the window. they seep out from under his hat, he’s throwing his head back most likely in laughter, and it pisses you off. how can he be laughing in such a serious time? why couldn’t he have just called instead of trying to turn your life into a nightmare.

walking up those steps you’re thankful the cameras don’t follow, because when you whip open that door a very noticeable silence falls to the room. suddenly, you don’t feel at home anymore.

you watch the eyes all fall on you, it’s like a slow motion scene from a movie. where the camera pans to the disgusted looks, and the new girl at school nervously looks around for a place to sit in the lunch room. that’s how it feels right now.

his eyes are the only ones that don’t move. they are glued to the Aussie in front of him who’s a good distraction.

you find an open table and take the seat throwing your things into the chair opposite of where you’re seated. the noise seems to pick up again, and your eyes search everywhere for a comforting face, maybe someone who will talk to you, but nobody budges. everyone must be on his side.

and it’s easy to figure why they are. he’s a two time world champion, and he’s a man. everyone you ever knew had turned against you in the matter of a week. well fuck that, you think to yourself, two can play this game.

you pick up your bags and storm out the hospitality going to a place you never thought you’d be.

“y/n?” he looks up from his computer, dark eyebrows furrowed with confusion, “darling, what can I do for you?”

“I want work with you,” you pause watching him cross his arms over his chest, he leans back into his chair nodding for you to continue, “I want to drive for Mercedes.”

—

no contracts were worked out just yet, things were still very under the radar with frequent texts and calls between Toto Wolff and others, but the head master of Red Bull, Christian Horner, had all of no clue. not until this morning.

“so can you confirm y/n is not staying with Red Bull?”

Christian’s face contorts, he laughs a little shaking his head, “no, we plan to keep y/n. we just told max he needs to get over himself and hopefully they will work things out. I know they will.”

Toto laughs into his microphone, “maybe if you had taken better care of y/n there wouldn’t be rumors of her departure.”

the room falls utterly silent. the other team principals are no longer of interest when the interviewer turns to the head hunch of Mercedes, “do you care to elaborate, Toto?”

“I think what I’m saying is obvious. we hope things work out, but if not? we’ll be waiting in the wings.”

—

the drivers conference is awfully uncomfortable. you’d found a seat in the corner of the room towards the back. yuki tsunoda is seated two seats away, his legs barely touching are an awful nice distraction to the world around you.

he’s seated with Charles and checo, his rumored new teammate. when he walked into the room, all the drivers congratulated him on his successful previous weekend, and not a soul even acknowledged your presence. this would be your falling out of formula one, all because max verstappen took everyone you ever loved and turned them against you.

why did he get to win? why did he force you into the corner? none of it was fair.

the room clears after the two hour long meeting. every inch of you is sore from the uncomfortable chairs as you stand up waiting to be the last one out.

“hey,” Charles moves from the line out of the building to where you stand, “congratulations on last weekend, you put a good fight.” he taps your arm gently and adds one more thing before he goes, “Mercedes is lucky to have you.”

the words perk his ears up. you can see the heat against the nape of his neck rise as he stops in his tracks and turns to face you, it’s the first time in two weeks since he’s looked you in the eyes.

you can feel all the words and air be lifted right out of you. his eyes are like title waves ready to meet land, and somehow it still makes your chest warm. he still makes your heart swell about ten sizes even if you haven’t spoken in what feels to be years.

“Mercedes?” he asks. the words feel so foreign and unfamiliar to his lips.

“well I’m not wanted at Red Bull anymore, so what’s the waste?”

he snorts out a laugh shaking his head. there you go again, he thinks to himself, trying to make him feel pitty towards you. well it certainly won’t work this time.

“well then go to Mercedes. I don’t want you as a teammate anymore if you’re just going to bail after one bad night.”

his bitterness was like a slap to the face. you can feel your heart ache, the pit of your stomach twisting as you swallow back the tears attempting to break through.

“then I don’t want you as a boyfriend anymore, because you can’t seem to apologize.”

“fine,” he says making his way to the door of the conference room, his hand rests on the handle just about to leave before he adds one more thing, “I never loved you in the first place, and I did want you gone so look at that, I guess I do win after all.”

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tmisource · 1 year ago

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Happy release day to 'Sword Catcher': Book Review + Exclusive Interview

Happy release day to Cassandra Clare and her debut adult fantasy novel Sword Catcher! We have come a long way since its first announcement in 2017 and I am thrilled to celebrate Cassie and her new book today. Sword Catcher is now available in bookstores and online as an ebook or audio book. The audio book is narrated by Christian Coulson (aka Tom Riddle in the second Harry Potter movie 😉 ) and…

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#book review #Cassandra Clare #exclusive interview #release day #Sword Catcher

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kirain · 1 year ago

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Saw your comment on a post about Sound of Freedom and I came here to say.....shame on you. Shame. On. You. Since when is child trafficking a political issue? Since when is calling pedophilia bad a political issue? If you have a problem with this movie then maybe YOU'RE the problem. No better than the big Disney fat cats who tried to suppress this movie and keep it shelved. Or theaters messing with the ac and saying seats are sold out when they're empty. Shame on you! God's children are not for sale!

I wish people would do a little more research on this topic. If Hollywood and the "powers that be" didn't want this movie being seen, it wouldn't have been released in over 3000 theatres countrywide. It's being shown in major and minor locations all across America and Canada, and the vast majority of those locations aren't having any problems.

Case and point, my own mother and her friend went to see it last week and everything was fine. No issues whatsoever and the seats were packed. The movie isn't being "suppressed". This is all a marketing gimmick from the production company Angel Studios, a Christian streaming service. The movie is jam-packed with lies and only serves to glorify Tim Ballard, the man the movie is based on, and Christianity as a whole. I truly wish this wasn't political, but it is. They made it political.

Tim Ballard has provably exaggerated or fabricated many, if not most of his "rescues", and his organisation, Operation Underground Railroad, has been widely criticised by professional anti-sex trafficking organizations (including other Christian-based ones) for years. He has accumulated millions of dollars for his so-called "non-profit" organisation, and he runs several for profit organisations on the side. Most of this money is presumably pocketed by Ballard and his cohorts, as millions is unaccounted for and only a sliver goes to OUR. It's not about "saving children", it's about money and spreading Ballard's religious ideology.

This is compounded by the fact that Ballard, before he left the CIA, was almost always the last officer to arrive on any scene where child sex trafficking was involved, yet he somehow has hundreds of stories where he's singlehandedly rescued children. In fact, the "true story" the film is based on, where Ballard apparently saved a five year old boy—who, by Ballard's own account, ran up to him, hugged him, and begged to be taken away—didn't even happen. According to court receipts from the arrest and trial of Earl Venton Buchanan (the pedophile in possession of the little boy), Ballard arrived at the scene long after the boy was rescued and taken into custody, and he was barely involved. The documents can easily be found online under the San Diego incident reports.

Ballard was also caught lying about saving one particular girl named Liliana, the literal poster child for OUR. As it turns out, Liliana rescued herself by escaping her captors when she was seventeen and being trafficked in New York. Even more egregious, every time Ballard told her story, he would lower her age to garner more sympathy ... as if her being seventeen wasn't sad enough. In one instance, he claimed she was 14. In another, he claimed she was 11. Ballard also exploited Liliana's story as a reason for needing stricter border patrols and a better wall, despite the fact that she was being abused in America. There is no evidence to suggest OUR had anything to do with her rescue.

Ballard and his "organisation" have even ruined entire legitimate rescue operations in other countries and put children at risk, like in the Dominican Republic, where he endangered the lives of 26 girls by playing vigilante, being followed around by a camera crew, and causing a shootout that effectively traumatised the children he used as a prop to lure in buyers. His response to the mishap and rightful criticism by the Dominican police was basically, "Well ... you win some, you lose some."

The children were released without receiving any therapy or rehabilitative care, and Anne Gallagher, the leading global expert on the international law on human trafficking, said that OUR has an "alarming lack of understanding about how sophisticated criminal trafficking networks must be approached and dismantled" and went on to call the work of OUR "arrogant, unethical, and illegal". Those children easily could've been shot and killed. This occurred in 2014, but Ballard still insists that his "rescues" be filmed, and he even pitched it as a reality TV show. His reasoning for this, he says, is to "spread awareness", but we all know it's because he loves the spotlight.

Entire law enforcement agencies have actually cut ties with or even condemned OUR, such as Washington State Law Enforcement, as a result of Ballard's proclivity to conflate child sex trafficking with consensual adult sex work. Ballard and OUR regularly set up sting operations and lambasted the men who showed up for kink play, publicly branding them as pedophiles, even though the men in question were under the impression that they were meeting for sex with consenting, adult women. This led to several lawsuits against OUR, all of which they rightfully lost.

Ballard's means of gathering intelligence is also questionable, as he, by his own admission, sometimes consults psychic mediums for information on missing children and asks where they're being held captive. I genuinely wish I was joking about that.

The main actor in Sound of Freedom, Jim Caviezel, also has ties to the Qanon movement, and Caviezel himself is a hardcore conspiracy theorist. He believes that Donald Trump is "the new Moses" and that "liberals [literally] drink the blood of children". This is ironic, considering Caviezel and Ballard both met Trump several times, yet never pressed him for information regarding Epstein's client list. Moreover, Caviezel and Ballard both donate to the Catholic Church, which funds the largest child sex trafficking ring on the southern border and has a history of rampant sexual abuse of children. Even more insane, Caviezel admitted to watching child porn, to apparently "get in character" for the movie. He claimed that if Ballard had to watch it, it only "made sense" that he'd have to watch it, too. To "motivate" him to fight child trafficking.

...Alright, bud.

Surprise, surprise, both men are also outspokenly anti-LGBTQ+, despite the fact that children/teens in that community are statistically more likely to be trafficked. The majority of child trafficking is not the result of random kidnappings, as the movie would have you believe. The majority of children are actually recruited into sexual exploitation by a family member or friend/boss. The majority of those children are also not generally passed around in Mexico, like this racist, white savior-oriented movie would have you believe, but they actually either stay in or end up in America. America is, in fact, the largest consumer of child porn and child sex slaves this side of the globe (and nearly the largest producer), yet the movie depicts almost every pedophile as Mexican or some other non-white race.

At the end of the movie, Ballard comes on screen and asks people to donate/buy tickets for others, so that the movie can spread awareness. This is why so many seats in certain theatres are empty, despite websites saying the seats are sold out. Whether or not Angel Studios is also shadow purchasing tickets to boost sales can't be proven, obviously, but I wouldn't put it past them. These "conspiracies" have all served to market the movie and boost ticket sales.

As for Disney trying to keep the movie shelved, that's also a lie. Yes, Disney did technically shelve the movie when they bought Fox, since it didn't exactly correspond with its family-friendly brand, but they had no problem with the movie being released under a different studio. The actual reason Sound of Freedom was in "production hell" for five years was because Tim Ballard kept trying to milk donations. Despite the fact that filming wrapped up in 2018, he kept asking for more and more and more. He used people's faith and understandably emotional response to something as wicked as pedophilia to rake in millions. That's what Ballard is really about, money and stardom. In the movie, there's even a post-credit message where Jim Caviezel says the movie was held back to "maximize its distribution and raise awareness about child sex trafficking".

Translation: Ballard greedy.

Ballard himself admitted the accuracy of this movie "isn't important", and that he just wanted to get the movie out to "spread the word". By that, he of course means the Christian word—but why should fighting child sex trafficking be tied to religion? At the end of the day, Sound of Freedom is a vanity project, and it spreads incredibly dangerous misinformation. Stranger still, Ballard left the OUR just prior to the debut of Sound of Freedom, a fact he's neglected to mention in every interview regarding the movie. It's not clear why he left, but it seems that he fled after an internal investigation into the organisation began. That's not too suspicious or anything. My guess is authorities are trying to find out were all that missing money went, and Ballard doesn't want to be there when they figure it out.

By the way, that final line you hit me with; "God's children are not for sale", the line from the movie that Ballard claims a fellow agent whispered to him while on a case, as well as the title of the movie, which another agent supposedly said to Ballard after a giant rescue operation—those were lies, too. No agents ever said that to him. The police reports for those cases, as well as the agents Ballard supposedly quoted, all said he was the last to arrive on the scene and those conversations never happened.

Ballard cannot be trusted and Sound of Freedom is based on a lie. It's a scam. Everything he does is a scam. All he cares about is spreading his ideology, making money, and looking like a superhero. And this is only the tip of the iceberg. Look into his other companies, and into the ex-military soldiers and police officers who left OUR because of how poorly trained their people are when it comes to rescue operations.

Every sane person knows pedophilia and human trafficking is wrong, but giving your money to Qanon-adjacent, right-wing leaning, LGBTQ+-hating, Catholic Church-sympathising, fame-chasing, money-hungry, perpetual liar Tim Ballard isn't going to help.

The best way to help out is learning about the signs of child trafficking. Keep an eye out for any children that might be getting abused. If you suspect something, report it, don't be a silent bystander. Volunteer within your community to make sure the children in your area have food and resources, support LGBTQ+ youth, and watch the other adults around you to ensure they're not acting inappropriately. You can also donate to social programs that create safe spaces for children and even apply for jobs that specialise in these fields. Don't go to see a movie just because it aligns with your religious beliefs, feel sad for a little while, then sit on your ass and let Tim Ballard handle everything.

#sound of freedom #tim ballard #jim caviezel #christianity #child trafficking #propaganda #angel studios #I can't believe you made me defend Disney

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artist-issues · 4 months ago

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idk anything about 21 pilots, but you talk about them a lot and they seem cool!! Who are they and what are they about and where do i get started in their music 😁

GIRL

These kinds of questions make me so happy. People who know me in real life organically ask me to talk about movies and stuff sometimes, but never bands, and when they find out I like twenty one pilots, never them 😂

Anyway,

Twenty one pilots is a roughly 15 year-old band led by Tyler Joseph, who used to be an intern at Five14 Church (New Albany Church) in Columbus, Ohio, and a rising basketball star in his schooling. Then, my understanding is, he taught himself how to play piano, got interested in/wrote songs during his senior year of high school, and then eventually dropped out of college to pursue making music full time. The band is named after a play by Arthur Miller called “All My Sons.” Tyler Joseph studied it in school—he was inspired by the plot of having to make a hard decision that ultimately costs lives…and you can hear through all the songs the sense of urgency, and the way the lead singer is convinced that every single choice you make can have dire consequences.

At the start of the band, it had him and two other members. Their first album is called “Twenty One Pilots,” and it has sick album art that everybody loves:

The band played local shows (like in literal houses and backyards and stuff) and were mostly performing songs from this album. My favorite twenty one pilots song is on this album: it’s called Addict With a Pen.

(Specifically, my favorite is this version of him performing it live several years after its release, which I saw after returning from the camp where I got saved.)

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In those early years, twenty one pilots performed songs off of Self-Titled. But they also did a few that Tyler Joseph wrote independently, the ones not featured on the album.

One of the songs that he wrote that isn’t on this album was written when he was in high school before he had a band. It’s called “Save.” He probably recorded it in the early 2000s, but if I don’t have my years mixed up, I didn’t hear that song until I was 14-turning-15 in the year 2011. And it, along with another song of his called “Clear,” played with it, was the first song I ever heard by twenty one pilots. I heard it the week I gave my life to Christ. Save is a gut-scream song about the need to be saved. It’s hard to listen to. But in the context I heard it in, I needed to be hearing the idea of “needing salvation” in that extreme and real of a voice. So I love it.

Clear is about Tyler Joseph’s struggle with trying to figure out if it’s better to get people thinking with cryptic lyrics about their need for a savior—OR should he just come out and say, “I’m a Christian, I believe Jesus Christ is what you need, please believe in Him like I did?” He winds up settling on the first option (sometimes I wish he hadn’t) and “telling the audience what he can,” and not pushing it on them when they “let him know when they’ve had enough.”

Clear planted the germs in my brain that led to me considering art, and then storytelling as a tool to deliver hard truth “under the eyes of watchful dragons.” He talks about the concept of Romans 7 using the philosophy of disguising his words, like in Clear, in this interview, which, when I saw the part at about 9 minutes, made me start paying attention to Tyler Joseph as a person instead of just listening to his music.

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Anyway. Back to the band.

One of these independent songs, NOT on the original album of the band, was called “Time to Say Goodbye,” and it has a pretty intense ‘cycle of knowing you’re messed up (like really messed up. suicide attempt and purposeless darkness levels of messed up) -> unable to fix it on your own -> trying anyway -> failing -> driven to accept Christ’s ability to kill the old you so you can live for something bigger than your messed-up self’ concept in the lyrics.

That whole progression, the “Romans 7 Progression,” I think of it as, winds up being one of the strongest recurring themes in every album afterward.

But I bring it up because the legend is, when performing that song, Time to Say Goodbye, at a little venue, Josh Dun, who already had some experience drumming in a different Christian band, saw twenty one pilots for the first time. And he thought the song and Tyler were brilliant. The current drummer of the band introduced him to Tyler, and when everybody in the band except Tyler quit, Josh Dun quit his job with no fallback plan and became the drummer of twenty one pilots. Since then, they have been a two-man band.

They have their own genre, because they’re both self-taught, and one of the identifying factors of the band is that both Josh Dun and Tyler Joseph are intensely opposed to giving in to the draw of “Fame” or “Success.” They stubbornly insist that they just make music they like. Whatever, that’s not unique, lots of bands are punk rock and go “fight the power, we don’t care what anybody thinks, etc.”

But then you listen to Tyler Joseph adding screamo and ukulele and rap over…like, church-piano, and you hear him say things like, “I just rap because I needed to fit a lot of words in, and also my brother likes fast rap.” and you go, “oh. They meant it. They don’t know how any of this works and they just do what they like.”

Especially in their early stuff.

I “got into” twenty one pilots in the year 2011. That’s the same year they signed to a record label. They produced what I think is their best album, “Vessel,” (nobody agrees with me.)

I could break down every song on the album but nobody wants that and nobody would read it, so I’ll just say; it has deeper exploration of the band’s same themes:

Be Introspective - All the time, the lead singer is writing lyrics that urgently explore the dark corners of his own fear, doubt, and insecurity—and then he flips it around and begs his listeners to be introspective, too, because “there’s something you desperately need.” It’s this idea of not running from your emotions, but letting them drive you to what you need. (He’s never clear about what that is, though, beyond the general word “faith.”)

Focus on Your Purpose - They insist that being introspective should lead to picking what you believe, and living it out to make the most of your time.

What Music Should Be For - The lyrics are all about how music should be used to fight darkness, because it can be exorcism of your inner demons, and a rallying cry to gather around and show you that you’re not the only person who has demons. With that in mind, the band is consistently opposed to “heartless,” “mindless” music that’s just there to make you dance or indulge.

Peace Wins, Fear Loses - This theme is where they usually get closest to their Christian roots. The pattern, like I said, is the Romans 7 Cycle: I’m afraid of who I am because the digger I deep, the darker and crazier I am…but I don’t have to act on that fear. I can just throw myself at the mercy of…._____ which brings peace. Peace wins, fear loses. (After signing to the record label, Tyler Joseph went full-on into the idea in Clear of never saying point-blank that Jesus is the answer. He hints and alludes. But from that moment on, he disguises Biblical principles in zombie-and-darkness metaphors. And he hasn’t stopped doing that since 2011.)

Doubt - A recurring theme that actually has nothing to do with the audience is “doubt.” Tyler Joseph exorcises his issues with not being able to physically see God, and doubting His existence (usually because of a lack of feeling), or doubting His ability to wash Tyler clean, in his songs. All the time. Just…constantly. He sings about it so often. Which, on the one hand, is cool, because many Christian artists sing about the resolve to have faith in the face of doubt. They don’t sing so much about the feeling and the addiction to doubt that comes with doubt. If that makes sense. But on the other hand, that’s not cool—because when you only talk about the fact that you have doubts, but you don’t ever resolve them, then what you’re doing is you’re constantly rolling around in the problem without ever introducing the solution.

It’s worth noting that I think their very best song of all time is on this album, and it’s “Holding Onto You.”

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It’s their full Romans 7 Cycle in a way that addresses doubt, too. The imagery is everything I love about twenty one pilots, which I would sum up as:

“Use dark imagery to prove how defeatable darkness can be.”

I like that kind of imagery for the same reasons I like Halloween.

People started noticing the band, mainstream, worldwide, in 2015, though. When they released “Blurryface.”

They did it in such a cool way. The band loves giving their fans a sense of “uncovering” what they’re doing next. That gives the fans a sense of ownership—like they’re a part of what the band is creating. And, it makes them want to investigate the concepts in the songs—which is one step closer to examining what they believe. Organically.

Anyway. They accomplished this before Blurryface, is I remember correctly, by making a Twitter account for this mysterious character. They’d livestream Tyler and Josh from the perspective of an unseen, loudly breathing third person. Or the feed would just be a dark shot of the woods. No explanations. At one point I think I remember “he” even started “hacking” popular fans’ accounts and making posts in-character. He always spells things in all caps, with words misspelled or smashed together. And he’d tease new songs that would be on the new album.

And then, BAM, Blurryface the album drops, and it’s a smash hit. Every single song. The band had never seen that level of success before, and all of it is very ironic, because the album concept is this: “Tyler Joseph puts a name to his Insecurities, who want him dead, and battles them.”

So the whole “album cycle,” and all through tour, Tyler Joseph wears inky black paint on his hands and throat, because anxiety gives him the feeling of suffocating. Red is also the signature color of the character representing his dark side, his insecurity: “Blurryface.”

Twenty one pilots have been very intentionally deciding what shirts they wear and what visuals they use from the beginning. Josh was always wearing something alien-associated, and Tyler was always something undead, for example. But this was a whole other level of performance art. During concerts, Tyler Joseph would start out wearing his black paint thick around his neck and hands. But as the live show went on, naturally because of sweat, the paint would get thinner and thinner. So by the end of the show, the feeling is that “Blurryface” has been defeated.

I made a huge post about ranking the Blurryface songs, if you ever have nothing to do for an absurd amount of time and feel like listening to the songs. But those songs are what most people know twenty one pilots by.

Then they took an intensely long hiatus, (I mean. One year of no public appearances.) after the success of Blurryface. I remember wondering if they were ever going to make music again, and thinking “maybe they’re the perfect band” because in my high-school-entering-college opinion, they’d never written a bad song or done anything remotely uncool or worth hating from 2009-2016, so if they never made music again they’d have gone out on top. Plus, at that point, Tyler had married, and, feeling a Christian kinship with him, I had a vague biased opinion that maybe he’d want to settle in with his family and quit the fame game.

But NO. They weren’t done! In 2018, the fans discovered this hidden website associated with the band, and you could read letters written by a new character named Clancy. They were about this whole new world Tyler Joseph created, called “Trench,” which consequently became the name of their next album. This was a full-blown concept album. It was a deeper exploration, not of the Romans 7 Cycle that always made me love their lyrics…but more like an exploration of “how do suicidal thoughts and self-focus captivate you, and what lies do they use…and can you ever really escape them?”

There was also a much tighter focus on suicide being the big idealogical villain, the antithesis, of the band. “Stay alive” and the topic of suicide were always discussed in the rest of the band’s songs. But the momentum of this album seemed very, very specifically targeted at the issue this time. There’s a whole song dedicated to it called Neon Gravestones in the smack middle of the album.

Which is great. I’m glad. It’s awesome. But it’s like…”what’s the answer?” Way back in “Time to Say Goodbye,” the answer is “replace physical life-taking with spiritual self-sacrifice and rebirth.” But Trench, and its whole concept, was specifically engineered to leave you with no clear answer to the problem presented.

Worst of all, Tyler Joseph mentioned, in his vague noncommittal way, that this album saw him flirting with the idea of “a world with no God” and “loss of faith.” But he never really said he wasn’t a Christian anymore, and songs like Morph seem to suggest the opposite.

Anyway. The album’s excellent “story,” with its notes of Shawshank Redemption and The Village and 1984 ended on a cliffhanger. The character Clancy kept trying to escape with the help of a rebellion, and kept getting captured, but he always had this sort of confused resolve to “keep going.”

The next album was weird. They flipped all of their usual imagery on it’s head, from marketing style choices to the literal clothes they wore to tiny things, like whether or not Tyler was standing on Josh’s left or Josh’s right in promotional material. And all of that was intentional. Which is why I’m obsessed with them.

I love this album because I love them and their intentionality. I don’t love it for any other reason; there’s nothing about this album that is “twenty one pilots” aside from what I just said; they are doing all of that reverse-psychology stuff intentionally. In-story, this is still a continuation of Trench; the idea is that Clancy has been captured and the whole album is propaganda from the villains. So that’s neat. But anyone who didn’t know that, and just remembered twenty one pilots from Stressed Out and punk rock were like, “what happened to twenty one pilots? What’s wrong with them?”

The album does this thing that they used to do a lot as like a meta-nod at music—they would make songs with upbeat melodies and happy sounds, but the lyrics would be about insecurity and darkness and doubt. They did that on purpose. But Scaled and Icy took that tongue-in-cheek style and made it the whole album. Plus, it released during COVID. So on top of all the chaos going on in the world, this band that usually releases music that slaps you upside the head and says, “THINK. THINK ABOUT HOW SELF-CONTRADICTORY YOU ARE. THINK ABOUT THE DARKNESS AND HOW TO GET OUT OF IT.” suddenly releases an album that’s more like, “Hey everything is fiiiine.”

This album is pretty godless. But again, this was also the album that has nothing to do with anything serious or real—on purpose—except in a reverse-psychology way. It was all on purpose.

Fast-forward to today. Clancy just released. It’s supposed to be the end of this “story” that started with Blurryface overtly, and the concepts that started in Vessel. Musically, concept-wise, it’s a return to form. They do that thing where they switch up the tempo when you’re not expecting it. You can’t pin it down to any one genre. There’s deep, dark imagery. And the story is back, not with hidden clues, but with in-your-face costumes and a music video for every song.

But the problem is, it won’t end. They said this was the end, and I thought, “if anything forces an artist to use clarity, it’s the end of a story. You have to commit to an ending. You have to say what you believe.” And that’s all I’ve been wishing would happen since 2017, when I started feeling less like “I relate to those dark thoughts and doubts,” and more like, “I’m worried about them.” Because clarity denotes security in what you believe. And the whole “battle” has been against insecurity. And to that extent, doubt.

It’s not happening, though. They released the last music video, and it really looks like the end of the story is, “and the cycle continues.” Now, there’s been hints that they’ll end the story after tour season, maybe by releasing an additional single, or some wishful thinkers are even saying “DELUXE ALBUM!!” But for now, it’s another cliffhanger-maybe-unsatisfying-ending.

The further away they’ve gotten from releasing the song “Clear,” the further away the focus seems to get from “darkness is defeatable.” And they left “it’s defeatable specifically by God” in the rear view mirror first.

And the thing is…I worry about that. Because it really looks like he’s just playing the field. That he started off with the intent to share Christ with people very genuinely, through the gift he was given in writing and music and even the gift he was given in struggling through darkness. And his strategy was, “I’ll use art to help people trust me, and then I’ll share what I’ve learned about the Truth (Jesus.)” But then…I mean, from the outside, it looks like they got popular. And they got popular by talking about their struggles. So how do I know he hasn’t just slipped into a cycle of doubting, then instead of letting brokenness and doubt drive him back to Christ, and pull others along with him, he sits in brokenness and doubt because he’s relying on the people who relate? He’s choosing to lean on crowds of people who feel the same way he does, cheering his songs back at him, as his support, when he used to lean on Christ?

And now he can’t even see his way back to what looked like (to me) the original intent—he says things like “I don’t think I’ll ever come out and say, ‘hey I found the answers, here they are, follow me,” in interviews. He skirts. He says, “stay alive, find your purpose, decide what you believe,” but he doesn’t say “here’s why you should stay alive, here’s what your purpose is, here’s what’s worth believing in, here’s where genuine life comes from.”

So now he gets to tell all his original (and several largely Christian) fans, “I haven’t abandoned Christ, I just struggle with doubt and I don’t want to alienate my friends (the point of the song Heathens.)” But he turns right around and says to his non-believing fan base, “I’m not telling you what to believe—in fact, maybe I’m not even sure of what I believe.”

And at some point, that stops being genuine. I think. I don’t think he’s reached the point where he’s not genuine yet. I don’t believe that of Tyler Joseph. I think he’s still not sure he wants to sing, with all the conviction it would take, about how Jesus is the ONLY way, when he himself feels like he struggles so much with doubt. How do you lead people where you’re imperfectly going? He has a handle on not committing suicide. So he leads them there, as far as he can. But…still. There’s life beyond this life. There’s EITHER life or death beyond this death. At some point, does he believe that, or not? Is he going to keep using his gift to supply bandaids to cannonball wounds, or not?

But I have basically been a nervous wreck whenever I think about them, the backing soundtrack of my growing years, since 2017.

I have enormous amounts of respect and this familial loyalty-feeling for both Tyler Joseph and Josh Dun (Tyler more so, because of his impact on me through his individually-released songs when I was in high school and then up through college.) I look at them on like, MTV and junk and have the same familiar, adoring, well-wishing feeling I did when a friend I knew went on to be moderately famous.

And all that to say, I love them, I don’t think any other band can do what they do or has done what they’ve done, and they’re my unmatched favorite. But I can acknowledge that there’s something that might be rotting in there, now. Something that didn’t used to be this way. And you just can’t keep going so long, claiming you’re talking about hope, without standing up for the Source of Hope. That’s all probably way more than you wanted to know. But thank you for letting me vent it all, even if you didn’t get to the bottom!

#twenty one pilots #top #tøp #Tyler Joseph #stressed out #music #my favorite band #the favorite band #five14 church #Columbus Ohio #bands #Clancy #meta #analysis #band history #Josh dun #Joshua William dun #Christianity #faith

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natsuki-bakery · 4 months ago

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⁎˚ ఎ Johnny Cage x Reader ໒ ˚⁎

Johnny Cage with a young adult reader who’s inexperienced in life hcs + one-shot

•Johnny takes on a protective role, seeing your inexperience as a chance to guide and mentor you. He’s always ensuring you don’t get into situations you’re not ready for

•He uses his sense of humor to teach you important life lessons. He believes learning should be fun, so he often shares his experiences through funny anecdotes and stories

•Cage is your biggest cheerleader, always encouraging you to try new things and step out of your comfort zone

•Johnny is patient with you, taking the time to explain things and never making you feel embarrassed about your lack of experience. He’s been through a lot himself and knows that everyone has to start somewhere

•Whether it’s landing your first job, learning to drive, or even small victories : he celebrates each step of your journey with enthusiasm !

You’re sitting in a quiet corner of a bustling café, nervously stirring your coffee. Johnny Cage, the ever-charismatic and energetic movie star, sits across from you, a reassuring smile on his face

"So, you’re about to start your first job, huh? That’s awesome!" Cage started the conversation between you two, releasing positive and comforting energy

"Yeah, but I’m kind of freaking out about it. I don’t really know what to expect..." you admitted, glancing down at the coffee you just ordered, with a sad look on your face

Johnny chuckles, leaning back in his chair. "Hey, everyone’s a rookie at some point. I remember my first big movie, terrified out of my mind! But look at me now. You’ll get the hang of it, trust me!"

"I just don’t want to mess up..." you responed

Johnny leans forward, his expression turning serious but kind : "Listen, mistakes are part of the deal. You learn from them, you get better. And you’ve got me in your corner. Anytime you need advice or just someone to talk to, I’m here ! " he quickly rassured.

"Thanks, Johnny. That means a lot" you smiled, feeling a bit more at ease

"No problem! Now, how about we celebrate this new chapter with a little training session? I’ll teach you some moves to boost that confidence of yours" he suggested

You laugh, the tension easing away. "Alright, let’s do it!" you replied with a grin

"That’s the spirit! And remember, I love seeing you grow and take on the world. It’s exciting, and I’m proud of you" Johnny respond to your enthusiasm

With that, Cage leads you out of the café, ready to help you tackle whatever comes next with his trademark enthusiasm and support

DNI: basic criteria, DSMP, vivziepop/h4zbin h0tel/h3lluva b0ss fans, Owl h0use fans, St4r butterfly fans, Ghibli fans, ddlg/abdl, nsfw/k!nk, anti-agere, anti Christians blogs

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cellarspider · 8 months ago

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30/30 One last thing.

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We have come to the end of Prometheus. But depending on how you’re feeling about death of the author right now, it’s not. Not quite yet.

Because Ridley Scott had some things to say after Prometheus came out.

Two months after the movie's release, Ridley Scott gave an interview. Its original home has succumbed to link rot, but it’s still available in a couple places, in the Internet Archive and within the corporate acquisition mass that is Fandango, featuring a weird note of brand revisionism in the relabeling of the interviewer’s affiliation.

Now. Let’s begin by saying this: A movie is a movie. The things around a movie are not the movie. This seems obvious, but it’s to say that a single creative work can be viewed entirely free of outside context, and in most cases it’s best to assume that it will. If a director comes out later and tells people what their intent was, then that’s not part of the movie.

…But it can still sit in your brain for years, leaping out to ambush unsuspecting passers-by.

So! This interview. Ohhh, this interview. I’d forgotten most of it, because the final lines of it just knocked the top of my head clean off, so we’ll be discovering bits of this together.

We start from the end of the movie, with the interviewer asking about the openness of the ending to a sequel. Scott, among other things, said:

“I’d love to explore where the hell [Dr. Shaw] goes next and what does she do when she gets there, because if it is paradise, paradise can not be what you think it is. Paradise has a connotation of being extremely sinister and ominous.”

This came across well in the movie, though it was festooned with the random bit of organic bigotry from Shaw toward David. A short answer won’t capture everything, so I still have no idea if Scott intended for that to be so brayingly insensitive, this is the guy who was fine with Joel Edgerton as Ramses II. In any case, Paradise might be ominous, but Shaw’s not bringing along ideas that will improve it by any means.

This isn’t really the film we eventually got from Alien: Covenant. Is that bad? Honestly, I don’t know that either. Shaw as a character did not have a lot of depth in this movie. Noomi Rapace ended up playing her hurt very well by the end of it, but if that’s your standard of quality in horror acting, then Josh Stewart’s leading role in the grungy Saw-adjacent movie The Collector (2009) will serve you well.

I think they could have built something out of her character, but they didn’t. David is definitely the stand-out character from Prometheus, and they do at least focus on him quite a lot. But I’ve yet to watch Covenant, partly because the structure of it does not interest me. Also, because I’ve heard about what David does when he shows up on the new planet, and bad things happening to crowds are one thing that can make my brain wig out something awful.

Speaking of the Engineers, Scott speaks about their character:

“they’re such aggressive f**kers … and who wouldn’t describe them that way, considering their brilliance in making dreadful devices and weapons that would make our chemical warfare look ridiculous? So I always had it in there that the God-like creature that you will see actually is not so nice, and is certainly not God.”

Again, we find ourselves at the casual gnosticism of the movie, in which the Engineers are kind of the demiurge in this context. Some christian-influenced people assume that if there is a true god, it must be omnibenevolent, and find the violent and threatening behavior depicted in the Old Testament to be at odds with their understanding of divinity. A lack of benevolence is seen as a sign that the figure depicted must be something else, something that may think that it is a god, but it is not truly, regardless of its role as a creator. Hence, the gnostic idea of the demiurge.

But Scott also seems to confirm my suspicion that he’s not aware he’s recreating gnostic cosmogony through Prometheus, because he doesn’t reach for any of the older sources or the language around him. He instead invokes a rather surface reading of Paradise Lost:

“ In a funny kind of way, if you look at the Engineers, they’re tall and elegant … they are dark angels. If you look at [John Milton’s] Paradise Lost, the guys who have the best time in the story are the dark angels, not God. He goes to all the best nightclubs, he’s better looking, and he gets all of the birds. [Laughs]”

Setting aside the fact that Paradise Lost ends with all the fallen angels having a bad time because God’s turned them into snakes, I will give Scott the tiniest bit of credit, there’s a bit of my brain that saw this and thought “this is a strong start”:

Scott eventually continues on the Engineers, and the sacrifice scene at the start:

“That could be anywhere. That could be a planet anywhere. All he’s doing is acting as a gardener in space. And the plant life, in fact, is the disintegration of himself. If you parallel that idea with other sacrificial elements in history – which are clearly illustrated with the Mayans and the Incas – he would live for one year as a prince, and at the end of that year, he would be taken and donated to the gods in hopes of improving what might happen next year, be it with crops or weather, etcetera.”

Scott is misremembering some things here, which is understandable given the off-the-cuff nature of the remark, but it’s still worth correcting. This is a misattribution of Aztec rituals that would involve the sacrifice of a “teixiptla” representative of a god (such as Xipe Totec, Tezcatlipoca, etc). The Inca didn’t carry out this ritual–they did engage in a human sacrifice ritual called qhapaq hucha, but its form and function was not the same. The Classical Maya also engaged in different human sacrifice rituals, but there was also an emphasis on non-fatal self-administered bloodletting–Maya nobility in particular were often depicted shedding their own blood for this purpose.

This also, to my memory, conflates stories of european human sacrifice rituals, where crop failures are sometimes linked to the sacrifice of kings, such as Dómaldr in the Ynglinga saga, and noted in the placement and treatment of certain bog bodies. The Aztecs did sacrifice to the god Tláloc for crop for good harvests, but the rituals involved were quite different.

It should be noted, of course, that Tláloc was later syncretized with the Christian god during the Spanish conquest, likely as a result of conceptually linking Tláloc’s sacrifices to the demand that Abraham sacrifice Isaac. And, y’know, that conquest was concurrent with the Spanish Inquisition, and the wider religious belief that a heretical witch army was being organized by Satan to stand against God to forestall the Second Coming of Christ, with crop failures being the most feared result of their rituals.

I’ve added all these details not because I want to say Scott is bad for misattributing this stuff, people make mistakes. I have several hours’ access to the internet, Scott did not. However, it is worth noting: How we frame an idea can say a lot about how we conceive of it. Variations on these behaviors are found throughout history, and across cultures. Sacrifices and martyrs are powerful symbols still invoked in western culture today. There’s a potential wandering back and forth between appreciation and exoticization that Scott’s engaging in.

Then Scott says something that made me get up from my chair to find a book to shake at my computer.

“I always think about how often we attribute what has happened to either our invention or memory. A lot of ideas evolve from past histories, but when you look so far back, you wonder, Really? Is there really a connection there?”

Yes.

Yes there is. Ancient peoples weren’t stupid. Ancient peoples didn’t even necessarily have less information to work with than any one modern human, they just had different information that kept them alive and finding solutions to their problems, be it “I need to find food” or “how do I meaningfully participate in my culture’s artistic and governmental traditions, and should they even be followed at all?”

If you want a great and thorough examination of that, check out the book I gesticulated with.

Highly recommended. Graeber was an anthropologist and Wengrow is an archaeologist, and the two of them together are a force to be reckoned with. There are definitely subjects covered in this book that I’ve seen from different angles before, and I feel like their interpretation pulls in more context than I’d gotten previously. Especially pertinent to this, the first part of The Dawn of Everything is spent examining the origins of modern western thought on “primitive” cultures and their character and capacity, and then digging into what evidence we actually have on the subject.

But the movie does not, fundamentally, engage with cultures outside of westernized, christian thinking. Not to any serious extent, anyway. It has a certain worldview, and that’s fine. That can be explored intelligently, although we’ve seen that I think it squanders that chance. It’s fundamentally a christian-centric movie.

And despite Scott’s protestations in the interview that they toned it down, quite a few readers have already guessed how far Scott originally intended to go on that.

“But if you look at it as an “our children are misbehaving down there” scenario, there are moments where it looks like we’ve gone out of control, running around with armor and skirts, which of course would be the Roman Empire. And they were given a long run. A thousand years before their disintegration actually started to happen. And you can say, “Lets’ send down one more of our emissaries to see if he can stop it.” Guess what? They crucified him.”

Yes. Jesus of Nazareth was actually Jesus of Space.

This is why the movie says the Engineer corpse died about 2000 years ago. This is why they decided to destroy humanity.

Presumably the original quote on the cross was “Father, forgive them, for they know not that we’ve got deadly black goo.” Engineer 23:34, I guess.

Now that the screams in the audience have hopefully settled down, AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAUGH.

Alright. So, this is bad. Let’s break down why, beyond the obvious questions about “why does nobody ever draw Jesus as bald, huge, and ripped.”

There’s a fake script circulating that actually has a decent interpretation of this: a human kid got zwooped up to be taught the ways of the Engineers, and sent back as an emissary. Why? Dunno. Also apparently the gospels that mention Mary and Joseph fleeing to Egypt with the baby Jesus were off the mark by a few lightyears.

This is laughable to christians, because “what if Jesus was an alien” is the sort of thing that twelve year olds come up with. It’s offensive if it’s taken seriously, because it says their literal god was actually a mortal critter from outer space. Ha! Your god is not all-powerful, or all-good. He’s not even All-Might.

But you know what’s almost worse? It implies that, sure, Christianity isn’t the inspired word of a deity. It also implies some level of exclusive factual accuracy to Jesus’ teachings, not shared with other religions. Jesus was a celestial emissary, endowed with the teachings that could save humanity, and his death doomed the Earth to the Last Judgment.

The Torah is insufficient, and all Rabbinic literature was produced following the rejection of the true way to salvation. The enlightenment of the Buddha counted for nothing, the Dao is not the way, Vishnu cannot defend or restore dharma, the Prophet Muhammad is only so valid as his acknowledgment of the Prophet Īsā ibn Maryam.

All other faiths are superfluous under this premise. If people had just listened to Jesus and accepted him as their savior, everything would’ve been fine!

This is the one point of alien contact with western canon in the entire setting, after the deep prehistory of Skye. Every other literate culture that was contacted got the Engineers’ message wrong. Or they didn’t listen. Only christians got it right.

That’s incalculably bad. That’s not even counting the fact that the wall o’ artifacts that Shaw and Holloway presented included a notable oversight: the only two artifacts further from Europe than the Middle East are chronologically impossible, based on the movie’s own timeline. It implies the rest of the world was thrown in as an afterthought.

This whole Jesus thing is a piece, a big, jagged piece of why this movie drives me so far up the wall that I’m now residing on the ceiling. It’s not, as far as I can tell, actively malicious. It’s just dumb. It wasn’t thought through the way it should’ve been. If they wanted to do a movie like this, they should’ve gone all-in. Really dig into the implications of what they’ve done.

And the movie seems wholly ignorant of it. There are basic questions presented to the audience, but there’s no deeper consideration that could make this respectful to anybody.

So, what are we left with?

A mess. A beautiful, stunted, confused mess that was poorly served by its script and lack of conviction.

The movie turned away from asking big questions, and focused instead on traditional horror. A genre that works best with good characterization to drive audience investment, but then it cut out most of the characterization, and what it left was scattershot. It gave us a flashback of Shaw’s childhood before we’d even really met her to understand why it was meaningful for her. The movie then failed to add any emotional weight to her.

The movie failed to give us characters with emotional weight or intelligence. It gave us a single, compelling character in David, driven largely by Michael Fassbender’s delivery and physical performance. It gave us a tactile, carefully constructed setting that was beautiful and often an accomplishment in filmmaking craft, but these spaces remained emotionally empty without a story that gave them meaning. It gave us the potential of something new, and then retreated to imitate the old.

I went into the theater in 2012 looking forward to a good film. I suppose this one has stuck with me more than a good film would have, but its primary value is as a flawed thing to critique, to learn from, and to put tooth marks on when the frustration gets to be too much.

Prometheus got one sort-of sequel in Alien: Covenant (2017), and it seems to have been abandoned. The first trailer for Alien: Romulus just came out the day I’m writing this, and it looks like it’s going to be just a monster movie.

If you want a good, modern Alien, play or watch Alien: Isolation (2014). Apparently its content was recut into a web series in 2019, though I can’t speak to the quality of that. For now, I’m done with the series. I’m not going to be rushing out to see anything new, because I don’t think it’s doing anything new. Prometheus could’ve been a chance to do that, but it failed.

Still. Writing this was fun, I will admit. My weird little obsession with this movie turned into a month and a half of writing and prepping this thing, totaling–Jesus E. Christ, over 82,000 words. I wish it could’ve been about something that hid more intellectual heft or careful thought than Prometheus did, but hey! There’s always next time.

And there will in all likelihood be a next time, as I’ve already started on another document. It won’t be for quite a while, though. This was a lot of fun, but a lot of work as well. I’ll be taking a break, and only releasing more stuff once I have it fully written ahead of time, as opposed to how I handled this one.

Thank you, brave readers, for making it this far.

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Citations for alt-text rambles:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2023%E2%80%932024_Sundhn%C3%BAkur_eruptions#Eruptions

https://tubitv.com/movies/314320/the-collector

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dettifoss

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Codex_Magliabechiano

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tollund_Man

https://youtu.be/nT2ueyFrVgk

https://www.deviantart.com/pretty--kittie/art/Prometheus-Engineer-407316113

https://nebula.tv/videos/hellofutureme-is-netflixs-avatar-any-good

Overflow Ramble 1

Hey, does anyone else remember Stephen Speilberg’s War of the Worlds (2005)? I saw that in the theater, and I cannot watch that thing again. Yes, I was younger, but the overall content of that movie absolutely shredded my nerves to pieces. Even though I’d grown up knowing the full H G Wells story and reading things like The Tripods book series as a kid, Spielberg managed to make a movie that felt so viscerally unpleasant to me that it gave me nightmares for years.

My main theory is this: You know in movies that the protagonist is almost certainly going to survive what happens, doubly so in War of the Worlds because it was goddamn Tom Cruise. But my brain did not treat Tom Cruise as my viewpoint character. Something in me says “well, I’m not Tom Cruise, I’m one of those other people around him, and they’re all gonna die horribly.”

This tends to happen with me in disaster films and similar stuff like that. I have to be real certain I want to be there if I watch a kaiju movie, for example. I can do Godzilla (2014), but I’m not so sure about Godzilla Minus One (2023). Shin Godzilla (2016) is off the table.

Horror movies have to hit a balance of giving people a rickety feeling of potential safety they want to preserve, rather than letting them feel too safe or too screwed. Too far either way and you lose people, either to apathy or just pure bad vibes. The paradox of enjoyable horror is that it can’t scare you too much.

Overflow Ramble 2

I personally don’t think the tone of Fede Álvarez’s horror fits with what I’m looking for in an Alien movie. The xenomorph life cycle worked best and most subversively when it was deliberately targeted, to take the sexual/reproductive menace usually placed on female characters in horror and forced it onto a male character instead. Álvarez has historically played that trope straight instead. From a horror perspective, that’s boring to me. The xenomorphs also appear to be aggressive monsters here rather than animals, more like Aliens than Alien. Not my favorite interpretation.

And to be honest, when I saw the trailer, my first thought was “Oh, it’s Sevastopol Station.” The setting looks exactly like Alien: Isolation, and there’s not a chance the movie’s going to outshine Isolation. That game’s only narrative sin was a bit of slow pacing toward the ending. Romulus’ trailer makes me think it’s going to go too far in the other direction.

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#Prometheus 2012 #Prometheus (2012)#IT IS DONE #I AM FREE

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ramblings-of-lola · 1 year ago

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Intro Post

Hello, I'm Lola and here's a little bit about me!

I'm a Christian and I post about my faith sometimes. I mainly post about the various fandoms I'm in. If you're curious about Christianity or have questions about it, you can ask. I may not be able to or feel comfortable answering everything, but I welcome you to ask anyway.

I'm not going to share my actual age but I'm an adult and I'm in college (do not be creepy, you will be reported and blocked).

Fun fact about me!

I have two types of synesthesia! One of them is color-grapheme synesthesia and I see letters, numbers, and words in different colors and the other is chromesthesia or sound-to-color synesthesia that makes me see sounds, like music, in colors and textures (if you're curious about this, feel free to reach out, I love talking about it)

I would prefer if NSFW blogs didn't follow / interact with this blog. If you fall into one of these categories, please don't follow this blog! This is not a space for hate.

I also don't keep my posts or reblogs spoiler-free unless it is related to a new release.

My best friend irl is @bellarose80 and I have her to thank for having a Tumblr blog. She also introduced me to The Lunar Chronicles, Once Upon a Time, and Stranger Things, so thank you bestie! Love you lots 💜

Feel free to tag me in things or ask random questions! I love getting asks as long as they aren't hateful.

Also, the vast majority of my posts are queued now, so if you see me reblogging or posting, I may not necessarily be online.

Main fandoms I'm in: Grishaverse, Riordanverse, The Hobbit + Lord of the Rings, Shades of Magic, The Umbrella Academy, Stranger Things, Merlin, The Lunar Chronicles, Lockwood and Co., Keeper of the Lost Cities, and Once Upon a Time.

Other pieces of media I love (this list is kind of long)

Books: The Maze Runner, Renegades, Ninth House (Alex Stern), Vicious + Vengeful, These Violent Delights (haven't read the other books yet), The Drowning Empire trilogy, Coffey & Hill, Perveen Mistry, The Darkest Minds, Binding of the Blade, The Penderwicks, Inkheart (I've only read the first book), The Gilded Wolves, Winnie the Horse Gentler, and the Cursebreakers Trilogy.

Movies: The Chronicles of Narnia, Pirates of the Caribbean, The Princess Diaries, Love Comes Softly, Anne of Green Gables (1980's version), The Mummy (1999), Pride & Prejudice, Sense & Sensibility, Gone With the Wind, It's a Wonderful Life, The Swan Princess, and The Sound of Music.

Shows: All in the Family, The Jeffersons, Maude, The Golden Girls, Little House on the Prairie, and Downton Abbey (I'm on s6)

Both adaptations and books: The Princess Bride, Harry Potter, Dune, A Good Girl's Guide to Murder, Disney's Descendants, and Little Women.

#intro post #lola's ramblings

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seoul-bros · 1 year ago

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Six marvelous months with Park Jimin

January 2023

The year started with the announcement that Jimin had been appointed as the Global Brand Ambassador for Christian Dior (17/01). The occasion was marked with six Awesome magazine covers and the Dior Fashion Show in Paris (20/01). The fashion establishment was blown away by the response to Jimin's participation in the show.

The same month Jimin released Vibe (13/01) , a dream collaboration with his long time musical hero Taeyang from Big Bang.

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This was both artists first solo hit on the Billboard Hot 100 at No. 76.

February 2023

Jimin did a live on 03/02 in which he confirmed that his solo music, although a little delayed, was likely to come out in March 2023.

On 21/02, Big Hit announced that FACE would be released on 24/03/23. The next day they published the countdown schedule and on the 23/02 the tracklist for the album.

March 2023

On 02/03, Jimin was named Ambassador for Tiffany & Co which he wore spectacularly in his photoshoot for Vogue that month.

On 06/03, Soundcloud super track Promise along with Jimin's yuletide gift to ARMY, Christmas Love were added to Jimin's Spotify profile. The era of streaming Jimin's profile had begun.

From then on, everything started speeding towards the release of FACE. The Hardware and Software images came out.

Set Me Free Pt 2 exploded into the world on 17/03. Nobody saw it coming and it caused a furore on social media. It was a clear statement of intent. I am here to stay and I am here to slay. It debuted at No.30 on the Billboard Hot 100.

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FACE was released on 24/03 along with the Like Crazy MV. Speaking for myself Like Crazy blew me away. Jimin set out to make a statement with that song and I will always be proud to be the fan of such an honest and brave artist.

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With the release of FACE we also discovered that hidden on the record was a very special song, Letter, in which Jungkook sings background vocals.

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That last week of March saw Jimin appeared on the Jimmy Fallon Show with a live performance of Like Crazy.

In the next 9 days, he gave comeback performances on MCountdown, Music Bank and Inkiagayo. He came live to thank ARMY for turning up to his shows. He won awards. He appeared on the radio, on the entertainment shows Beat Coin, Ddeun Ddeun and Pixid. He even did fan meetings.

April 2023

On 01/04 Jimin gave an unforgettable acoustic rendition of Like Crazy live on Lee Mujin Service April Fools Edition.

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And then on 03/04, Jimin made history. The first South Korean to ever make No.1 on the Billboard Hot 100 and the first Asian Artist to do so in 60 years. He came live in the early hours of the morning, clearly shellshocked but brimming over with gratitude to everyone who had supported the album and the song.

Then on 05/04 the promotions were over and Jimin once again expressed his happiness and thanks to ARMY for supporting FACE.

It had been a whirlwind and I think we, as well as Jimin, were caught off guard when the promotions ended so quickly. We had a beautiful album to savour but we wanted to continue to savour it with Jimin.

The focus returned to fashion when Jimin flew to New York at the end of April to attend the Tiffany & Co Landmark opening (28/04).

He attended Suga's concert in Newark on the 29/04 and headed back to South Korea later that week. But why didn't he fly straight back after the concert we wondered?

May 2023

It all soon became clear, he had been filming the MV for Angel Pt 1 from the Fast X movie. The song came out on the 19/05 and debuted at No. 65 on the Billboard Hot 100. This was Jimin's fourth chart entry in five months.

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At the end of the month, Jimin made a short trip to London and we are still speculating on what that was all about. He posted photos of his trip to HP World as soon as he got back to South Korea on 27/05.

June 2023

Festa 2023 soaked Seoul in purple for nearly three weeks at the beginning of June in celebration of BTS's ten years since debut. Jimin gifted fans with a live performance of Dear.ARMY on 07/06 and....

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,,,,,,on 13/06 BTS released this beautiful live version of Take Two with Jimin adding depth and colour to the song with his stunning vocals.

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But there was still more to come, on 15/06 Jimin came live in high spirits and spent quality time with ARMY. It was the same day as the release of Angel Part 2.

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On the 27/06 Jimin's solo profile appeared on Billboard and serves as a permanent reminder of everything that has happened in the short space of 6 months. It has been a roller coaster ride and I am still hopeful that we will still get more music from Jimin before he has to enlist. I wanted to make this post so that no one forgets what he has achieved and the permanent mark he has made on the global music industry since he took his first steps towards a solo career.

Post Date: 28/06/2023

#jimin #park jimin #bts solo careers #face #set me free part 2 #like crazy #vibe #taeyang #angel part 1 #angel part 2 #dear.ARMY #take two #jimin x tiffany & co #jimin x dior

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fuckyeaharthuriana · 2 months ago

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mordred through time (movies, tv shows, opera and musicals)

Part 2: From 1982 to 2002

Other Parts: Part 1: From 1949 to 1981 -> here Part 3: From 2002 to 2010 Part 4: From 2014 to 2017 Part 5: From 2018 to 2023

EDIT: There is a mistake in the video, Blind Guardian's Mordred's song was released in 1995 not 1989, so I corrected it in the description.

Complete list of part 2 media with extra information and some of my thoughs regarding the evolution of Mordred’s role is under cut.

We left part 1 with Mordred appearing only as a generic villain not related to Arthur until 1960 where White's novel is adapted into a musical. The musical follows the novel enough to introduce Mordred as Arthur's incestuous son with Morgause. Since then the "son" element has been kept in almost every single adaptation. We also have the first tv iteration of Mordred as Morgana's son instead of Morgause: Excalibur 1981.

This is not only the first time we see Morgana as his mother on tv, but also one of the first time ever. I made a list of the evolution of Mordred's mother in novels here.

You can see Morgause is pretty constant until 1980-1982. I have no idea what happened in those years but for the first time we have the 1980 novel "Firelord" by Parke Godwin itroducing Morgana as Mordred's mother instead of Morgause (in this case Morgause is completely eliminated). The 1981's movie Excalibur does something similar (Morgause is eliminated and Morgana absorbs her role), and I am pretty sure it could not have been influenced by "Firelord", given the two events happened so close in time (and less than a year is not usually sufficient to write and produce a movie). In 1982 Marion Zimmer Bradley published "The Mists of Avalon" which does something similar to Catherine Christian's "Pendragon": Morgause is still officially Mordred's mother by adoption.

From this point onwards you will see that Morgause ends up completely eliminated in her role as Mordred's mother from future movies and tv shows.

Full list for part 2 and more info:

1982 Camelot: I wrote a bit about the musical in part 1. This is a stage adaptation filmed live, so it retains all the songs (even Mordred's songs previously cut in the movie) and Richard Backus plays Mordred.

1984 Morte d'Arthur: A tv movie that probably was preserved thanks to Jeremy Brett's popularity as he played King Arthur. This movie is a strange adaptation of Morte d'Arthur, with the actors playing the scenes on a stage with no dialogue. A narrator tells the tale (and the dialogues themselves). Nickolas Grace played Mordred.

1985 Merlin and the Sword: Also known as "Arthur the King", this movie actually exists in two versions, the cut version missing some scenes (Arthur's funeral apparently!). The movie focuses mainly on Merlin, Arthur, Guinevere and Lancelot and Mordred plays the role of Arthur's son (from Morgana) and a kind of minor comedic fumbling villain. He was played by Joseph Blatchley.

1988 New Adventures of a Yankee in King Arthur's Court: One of the many adaptations of Mark Twain's novel, this one is a bizarre Ukranian (Soviet) movie that depicts Hank Morgan as a destructive force in Camelot. The movie is absolutely stunning, but being in Russian I could not understand the dialogue. Mordred plays a very minor role, he is Morgana's son and he is killed by Hank in a treacherous duel (Hank shoots him). His death is what leads Arthur and Morgana to ally to try and defear Hank Morgan. Mordred is played by Ukranian actor Mark Gres.

1989 Mordred's song by Blind Guardian: the correct date is 1995.

1989 A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court: This is without a doubt my favorite adaptation of Twain's novel. Here Hank Morgan is actually a little girl called Karen. Mordred is a comedic-like antagonist and the main antagonist of the movie, played by Hugo Blick (who is mainly known now as a movie director).

1989 Doctor Who Battlefield: This is a 4 episodes arc in the 26th season of Doctor Who, with the Seventh Doctor being revealed as Merlin. Later on it was adapted into a novel. The episodes are set in modern times, with Morgana and her son Mordred having survived Camlann and travelling through time. Mordred is mainly shown to hate a new knight called Ancelyn who also survived Camlann. Christopher Bowen played Mordred.

1995 Mordred's song by Blind Guardian: So I decided to add the few songs/album that acts like a "Mordred's point of view/as if he was singing" kind of media. The singer here is singing as Mordred. It was also used in this 2016 rap song!

1998 Merlin: Probably one of the most popular arthurian miniseries! It follows the life of Merlin, from his childhood to his elderly years and the second episode mainly focus on Camelot and Arthur. Mordred is Morgana and Arthur's son, magically aged (like we saw in Excalibur 1981) and he becomes the main villain of the story alongside Mab. He is played by Jason Done.

2001 The Mists of Avalon: This is a miniseries adaptation of Marion Zimmer Bradley's novel, focusing on Morgana, Arthur and Guinevere. In my opinion it makes the novel much more palatable and easier to digest. Mordred here appears once more as Morgana's son, but he is a adopted by Morgause and raised to hate Arthur. Mordred is the main antagonist in the second part, and his character here is turned into an almost sympathetic villain. Hans Matherson played adult Mordred (I was obsessed with that man 15 years ago).

2002 Justice League (and the 2004 sequel Justice League Unlimited): Justice League (two seasons) and Justice League Unlimited (3 seasons) are animated shows (for a younger audience) which adapts some stories from DC (both DC and Marvel have interations of Morgana and Mordred). Mordred is a kid (Morgana put a spell on him to keep him young) and immortal, both him and Morgana are villains who use magic. He is voiced by Soren Fulton.

A small note: All these movies here are for tv! Cinematic releases for arthurian movies in general do not seem to be as prominent. It is kind of heartbreaking noawadys to see the disappearance of cheap tv movies.

#mordred #camelot #morgause #morgana #doctor who #merlin #the mists of avalon #mists of avalon #morte d'arthur 1985 #camelot musical #characters through time #justice league #a connecticut yankee #connecticut yankee 1989 #mordred through time #mordredmother #Mordred through time #info #meta

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matoroblogs · 1 year ago

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LEGO Almost Went Bankrupt. These Heroes Saved Our Bricks.

How a brain tumor inspired Bionicle, one of the most popular toys of a generation.

BY DAVID LUMB PUBLISHED: JUN 21, 2020

The Platinum Avohkii mask, a rare one- of-a-kind piece made of solid platinum purchased by Andre Hurley, who has The Bionicle Archives collection

Courtesy Andre Hurley/The Bionicle Archives

In 2003, LEGO seemed to be riding high after shrewd licensing deals brought Star Wars and Harry Potter sets to the masses. But unbeknownst to many—even those inside the company—sales were plummeting, and there were only guesses as to why.

Some blamed poor strategic choices in the 1990s—Legoland theme parks, forays into digital products—for LEGO’s hemorrhaging. All that misguided development time slashed profitability, and even Star Wars and Harry Potter sales shriveled between movie releases. It’s hard to conceive of now, but at the turn of the millennium, beloved LEGO might have been headed toward a pitiful end.

During this fallow period, one product line stood apart with startling, consistent success: Bionicle, a series of buildable action figures backed by rich worldbuilding and cross-platform promotion. Inspired by co-creator Christian Faber’s battle with a tumor at the base of his brain, the toy warriors of Bionicle wouldn’t just conquer their fictional enemies. They’d pioneer innovations that would transform LEGO and rescue the company from possible doom.

Courtesy Andre Hurley/The Bionicle Archives

Today, Christian Faber looks a bit like a Danish Paul McCartney. His youthful smile pairs well with his genial nature, which one might mistake for meekness until he starts talking about his creative projects. The 54-year-old embodies the unchecked enthusiasm you’d expect from a 28-year veteran of LEGO projects. If Faber’s long-time illness dimmed his appetite for play, you wouldn’t know it.

In 1986, Faber began working for Advance, a Copenhagen- based marketing firm that partners with LEGO. But shortly after his career began, Faber’s vision began to falter. A doctor found a benign tumor inside Faber’s pituitary gland that was impeding his sight, a condition called prolactinoma. Doctors said the tumor was maybe in the least accessible spot in the body for surgery, so they prescribed Faber daily medication to keep the tumor from growing. Among the drugs’ side effects, however, were severe nausea and dehydration, effectively sidelining Faber from social activities.

Courtesy Christian Faber

“It was the strangest mix of feelings,” Faber says. “I was happy at the job, but faced the physical and mental strain of the medicine and a long-term illness.”

Faber’s side effects attacked him hardest in the mornings, so he found most of his energy for work at night. Early in his career, Faber designed brochures for LEGO toy lines. Exposure to the different products, including the undersea-based Aquazone and the sophisticated Technic series, gave him experience with LEGO’s standards and practices—a moving target in the mid- 90s, when the rise of computers and video games pressured LEGO to move from their traditional years-long R&D cycle toward what Faber calls ‘craze products,’ toys tuned to current market tastes with a planned one-year shelf life.

The craze-products movement was rife with experimentation for LEGO, and it materialized soon after a medical breakthrough for Faber. After 10 years of daily medication, Faber’s physicians moved him on to a new treatment which, in Faber’s own words, gave him his life back. The new treatment was a regular injection scheduled just once every two weeks, allowing Faber to engage with the world relatively free from side effects. He could chase higher ambitions than brochures, and he had an idea for a new kind of LEGO toy: a sort of Bionicle precursor called Cybots.

Courtesy The LEGO Group

“I was sitting with LEGO Technic and thought I would love to build a character instead of a car,” Faber says. “I thought of this biological thing: The human body is built from small parts into a functional body just like a model. What if you got a box full of spare parts and built a living thing?”

With his assistant graphic designer Jan Kjær, Faber pitched Cybots, a line of humanoid action figures with attachable limbs and ball-and-socket joints. LEGO didn’t furbish Cybots, but they would implement Faber’s concepts in craze products like Throwbots in 1999 and RoboRiders in 2000. By 2001, LEGO was testing a line called Bone Heads of Voodoo Island—masked robots with heads that could shoot off their bodies like Rock ‘Em Sock ‘Em Robots. Most of Bionicle’s look had been seeded: masks, buildable bodies, articulate limbs.

Courtesy Andre Hurley/The Bionicle Archives

Bone Heads of Voodoo Island was a bust—focus groups demonstrated kids didn’t respond well to detachable heads—so that same year, LEGO pivoted to focus on Bionicle. The plan was to take a more holistic design approach with these new toys than with craze products, but LEGO extended that comprehensiveness to the worldbuilding around the toys, too, a new strategy for the company. Faber and LEGO design manager Martin Riber Andersen were joined by former BBC film and TV executive Bob Thompson and writer Alastair Swinnerton to refine the Voodoo Island concept and pitch a new story. Faber, fresh from working on Star Wars LEGO sets, imagined something massive.

“After being on Star Wars, I was thinking that the only thing to do from here is our own stuff, but it should be as big as Star Wars,” Faber says. “It should be a big, full universe.”

For the storyline, Faber drew on his experience with prolactinoma. To him, his every-other-week injections seemed like sending in a new wave of protectors to battle his tumor with every dose. Faber imagined this group of disease-fighters arriving on an unknown beach with no memory. The story of these warriors would be called Bionicle, a portmanteau of ‘biological chronicle.’

Courtesy The LEGO Group/Christian Faber

“We took an episodic story line but chose not to play it out in any single medium,” Thompson told Kidscreen in 2003. “We would take that story and scatter it like a paper trail through different types of media.”

Bionicle’s in-world story evolved through comics and chapter books, written in large part by Greg Farshtey of LEGO’s promotional periodical LEGO MANIA Magazine (also known as LEGO Club Magazine, but now called LEGO Life Magazine). Farshtey followed Bionicle’s story bible from the original team, but as he began accounting for character changes correlating with new toy sets, he added his own takes. By the end of Bionicle’s run in 2010, he had interwoven the story with three feature films and shepherded the comic series that, at its peak, reached almost 2 million readers per month, making it the most widely circulated monthly comic on the planet.

Courtesy Andre Hurley/The Bionicle Archives

By all accounts, Bionicle was the hit LEGO needed. In 2001, its first year on the market, the line brought in over $160 million in sales, it was declared “Most Innovative Toy of the Year” by the Toy Association.

"Flat sales and profit decline made LEGO believe the brick was passé and it needed to move to digital and virtual toys to remain relevant,” David Robertson, author of LEGO history book Brick by Brick, told Popular Mechanics. “But as Bionicle became a success, LEGO learned the difference between sufficient and necessary. It wasn't sufficient to just offer customers another box of bricks, but it was necessary. If a LEGO toy didn't have interlocking plastic pieces, consumers didn't want it. But to succeed and grow, it was necessary to embed a story in that box of pieces and tell that story through comics, books, video games, movies, and events at the LEGO Stores."

Courtesy The LEGO Group

In other words, Bionicle had all the ingredients of a fun LEGO toy, but Faber’s inspiration was key to making it a smash. “[My condition] had a direct effect on my career, and especially on the creation of Bionicle,” he says, ticking off the allegories. “A biological robot attacked by ‘illness,’ waiting for the right ‘medicine’ to arrive. Even the canisters the Toa warriors arrived in resembled the medicine capsules I had to eat every day.”

Bionicle hit its stride just as LEGO’s financials were bottoming out. While LEGO flirted with bankruptcy in 2003, Bionicle accounted for 25 percent of the company’s total revenue and 100 percent of its profits. As LEGO slashed its workforce, reduced the number of pieces it produced, and increased its range of licensing deals, Bionicle continued to diversify. Partnerships spawned. There were Bionicle-branded Nike shoes, McDonald’s Happy Meal toys, even Colgate toothbrushes. The cross-promotion paid off: By the end of Bionicle’s initial run in 2010, it sold over 190 million toys.

All the newness shook up LEGO’s tried-and-true project structure. Bionicle’s multifaceted development process blended design, marketing and engineering teams to hash out new sets, ingest market feedback, receive directives from LEGO executives, and issue their own directives to subsequent narrative and design teams. Under the new dynamic structure, development time for a new toy line at LEGO accelerated from three years to less than one. The rapidity created an exciting energy.

“We broke a lot of new ground experimenting and pushing boundaries,” Bionicle co-founder and design manager Martin Riber Andersen says. “One of the key ethos of the core team was this is a shared collaboration: We stand together. We all believed it was so in contrast to ‘the normal LEGO company’ that we might as well direct our energy to the team instead of our individual career objectives.”

Courtesy The LEGO Group

Courtesy The LEGO Group/Christian Faber

From 2003 to 2005, Bionicle was the reported top-performing LEGO toy line, but after that, sales dipped below expectations. The decline continued to 2009, when LEGO handed down word it was time to end Bionicle. The creators wrapped up the narrative in 2010, but it was hard to let go. Farshtey wrote Bionicle stories on the now-defunct BIONICLEStory.com until 2011, fans dissected the line’s mythology on BZPower forums, and custom Bionicles continued to appear. In 2016, Faber wrote to series fans: “The stories we hear and the stories we tell shape who we are and what we do ... through almost 30 years [of my career in storytelling], no story has proved this stronger than Bionicle. The fans were, are, and will be the true heroes of this ... great adventure.”

These days, you still see Bionicle at toy conventions, and the r/bioniclelego subreddit is alive and well. In fact, the front page of Reddit was graced in November 2019 with an essential, timeless question: “What is the appropriate amount of time to wait before showing your new significant other your Bionicle collection?”

The toys’ invigorating combination of articulate LEGO figures and intricate, multimedia story resonated with the LEGO company as well as fans. The brickmakers use the business strategy they honed on Bionicle with lines like Ninjago today, to great success.

"It's hard to overstate how important the Bionicle line was for LEGO,” Brick by Brick author Robertson notes. “Without the sales and profits of Bionicle in 2003 and 2004, the company would not have survived. Bionicle taught LEGO that success depended on the ability to hook kids on characters and story, and LEGO was smart enough to spread those practices throughout the company."

Courtesy Andre Hurley/The Bionicle Archives

After Bionicle, Swinnerton moved on to write children’s books and TV scripts, Andersen took on a senior position

at a European consulting agency, and Thompson founded a media production and consultancy firm. Farshtey, meanwhile, still edits LEGO’s free fan magazine. All cite Bionicle as high points in their careers.

“We should all be proud of what we achieved individually,” Thompson says. “But in my view, more important is what we did collaboratively. After all, LEGO fans are still talking about what we did with Bionicle—after two decades.”

Faber moved on from his design job at Advance in 2014 after 28 years working on LEGO. His medical journey continues to inspire his creative work, including a post-apocalyptic world he’s designing filled with adventure, danger, and a pro- environmental bent. Looking back, Faber sees the impact his illness and treatment had on the stories and projects he’s touched. Almost 20 years after co-creating the action figures that sustained LEGO through one of the darkest times in its history, talking about Bionicle still makes him reflective.

“Biology is a balance more than a battle between good and bad,” he says. “Ever since Bionicle, balance has been my goal in the stories and pictures I create.”

Courtesy The LEGO Group/Christian Faber

article graphics faber bs01

#sunday paper #bionicle #2020 #article #faber

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