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dalekowrites · 2 months ago

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What would your favourite choice of the games interactive stories be? Would you have a favourite type? Romance, Fantasy etc. and did any of the inspire you with the ones you are currently writing? 😁

Oh boy! This is going to be a long answer, brace yourself lol

Let me start by saying that I have a degree in English literature (in fact, I'm going to do a PhD on it), so reading, in general, is one of the core activities of my life.

As for text adventures, even if not from Choice of Games Ltd., I'd like to mention a few inspirations: my passion first came from the original Choose Your Own Adventure series, and I still remember which numbers obsessed me as a child: Mountain Survival #28, The Dragons' Den #33, and more than any other, Space Patrol #22! (The latter may have also fueled my unhealthy obsession with Star Trek TOS, actually). For those unfamiliar with this fantastic book series, the genres of the three books I mentioned are, respectively, adventure, fantasy, and sci-fi. This gives you an idea of how varied my tastes are...

Later on, I discovered interactive fictions and text adventures. Dude, it was a dream come true. I started with Adventure ('76, never finished it, of course) and Zork ('79, never finished that either… of course. How damn hard were they?!). Then Mystery Mansion ('78), Castle Adventure ('82), and too many, many others. I'm a sucker for Sorcery! from inkle, and I deeply loved Magium (RIP Chris, you won't be forgotten). For my Italian-speaking friends, I also really enjoyed the Fra Tenebra e Abisso series (although its current status is unknown).

But back to CoG-related things. I've read a lot, and I'd probably be faster telling you what I didn't like! As you may have figured out by now, I don't have any particular genre preferences as long as a story is well-written, though horror-thriller stories usually grab my attention more easily.

Important note: I've read a lot of stories and, with a few exceptions, I liked most of them. To avoid writing a too-long list, here are the published stories that really impressed me:

A Crown of Sorcery and Steel,

A Midsummer Night's Choice,

Blood for Poppies,

Blood Moon,

Broadway: 1849,

Choice of the Cat,

Choice of the Vampire,

Donor,

Doomsday on Demand (1 and 2),

Gilded Rails,

Golden Rose: Book One,

Jazz Age,

Lies Under Ice,

Life of a Mercenary,

Life of a Space Force Captain,

MetaHuman Inc.,

Noblesse Oblige,

Paradox Factor,

The Evertree Saga (all four books),

Rent-a-Vice,

Revolution Diabolique,

Siege of Treboulain,

Tally Ho,

The Daily Blackmail,

The Dragon and the Djinn,

The Fernweh Saga: Book One,

The Fog Knows Your Name,

The Gray Painter,

The Grim and I,

The Ghost and the Golem,

The Lost Heir,

The Midnight Saga: The Monster,

The Parenting Simulator,

The Play's the Thing,

The Soul Stone War (1 and 2),

The War for the West,

Tudor Intrigue,

Vampire Regent,

Vampire: The Masquerade (all of them),

Way Walkers: University (1 and 2),

Welcome to Moreytown,

Werewolves: Haven Raising,

Zombie Exodus,

Zombie Exodus: Safe Haven.

And now, onto works in progress! There aren’t that many because I barely have time to follow my own (heh…), so here, in alphabetical order, are the ones I'm following with the most interest:

Adoriel's Tears (@adoriels-tears-if),

A Father's Love (@kal-down),

Crown of Ashes and Flames (@coeluvr),

Dawn Chorus (@dawnchorus-if)

Disenchanted (@disenchantedif),

Dragon's Edged (@dragonedged-if),

Elysium (@elysiumcircusif),

Fallen Lights (@fallenlightsif),

For King and Country (@forkingandcountry-if),

From The Ashes We Rise (@kal-down),

Hubris (@hubris-the-if-game),

Kingdoms and Empires (@kingdoms-and-empires),

Return to Misty Cove (@fluorescent-if),

The Abyssal Song (@ri-writes-if),

The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes - An affair of the heart (@doriana-gray-games),

The Lonely Shore (@thelonelyshore-if),

The King's Hound (@the-kingshound),

The Reaper Watches Me (@thereaperwatchesme),

The Bureau (@thebureau),

The Unseelie (@theunseelieif),

Van Helsing (@vanhelsing-if),

When Life Gives You Lemons (@when-life-gives-you-lemons-if).

Okay, that was… a lot. As for direct inspirations, I don't have any direct ones, but I can say I felt like writing a post-apocalyptic story after reading Doomsday on Demand! Other than that, I guess the collection of narrative, text adventures, and interactive fiction I've read have led me to where I am now.

Damn, it took me hours to write this answer. I hope it's satisfying at least! Thanks for asking ☺

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macrolit · 1 year ago

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NYT's Notable Books of 2023

Each year, we pore over thousands of new books, seeking out the best novels, memoirs, biographies, poetry collections, stories and more. Here are the standouts, selected by the staff of The New York Times Book Review.

AFTER SAPPHO by Selby Wynn Schwartz

Inspired by Sappho’s work, Schwartz’s debut novel offers an alternate history of creativity at the turn of the 20th century, one that centers queer women artists, writers and intellectuals who refused to accept society’s boundaries.

ALL THE SINNERS BLEED by S.A. Cosby

In his earlier thrillers, Cosby worked the outlaw side of the crime genre. In his new one — about a Black sheriff in a rural Southern town, searching for a serial killer who tortures Black children — he’s written a crackling good police procedural.

THE BEE STING by Paul Murray

In Murray’s boisterous tragicomic novel, a once wealthy Irish family struggles with both the aftermath of the 2008 financial crash and their own inner demons.

BIOGRAPHY OF X by Catherine Lacey

Lacey rewrites 20th-century U.S. history through the audacious fictional life story of X, a polarizing female performance artist who made her way from the South to New York City’s downtown art scene.

BIRNAM WOOD by Eleanor Catton

In this action-packed novel from a Booker Prize winner, a collective of activist gardeners crosses paths with a billionaire doomsday prepper on land they each want for different purposes.

BLACKOUTS by Justin Torres

This lyrical, genre-defying novel — winner of the 2023 National Book Award — explores what it means to be erased and how to persist after being wiped away.

BRIGHT YOUNG WOMEN by Jessica Knoll

In her third and most assured novel, Knoll shifts readers’ attention away from a notorious serial killer, Ted Bundy, and onto the lives — and deaths — of the women he killed. Perhaps for the first time in fiction, Knoll pooh-poohs Bundy's much ballyhooed intelligence, celebrating the promise and perspicacity of his victims instead.

CHAIN-GANG ALL-STARS by Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah

This satire — in which prison inmates duel on TV for a chance at freedom — makes readers complicit with the bloodthirsty fans sitting ringside. The fight scenes are so well written they demonstrate how easy it might be to accept a world this sick.

THE COVENANT OF WATER by Abraham Verghese

Verghese’s first novel since “Cutting for Stone” follows generations of a family across 77 years in southwestern India as they contend with political strife and other troubles — capped by a shocking discovery made by the matriarch’s granddaughter, a doctor.

CROOK MANIFESTO by Colson Whitehead

Returning to the world of his novel “Harlem Shuffle,” Whitehead again uses a crime story to illuminate a singular neighborhood at a tipping point — here, Harlem in the 1970s.

THE DELUGE by Stephen Markley

Markley’s second novel confronts the scale and gravity of climate change, tracking a cadre of scientists and activists from the gathering storm of the Obama years to the super-typhoons of future decades. Immersive and ambitious, the book shows the range of its author’s gifts: polyphonic narration, silken sentences and elaborate world-building.

EASTBOUND by Maylis de Kerangal

In de Kerangal’s brief, lyrical novel, translated by Jessica Moore, a young Russian soldier on a trans-Siberian train decides to desert and turns to a civilian passenger, a Frenchwoman, for help.

EMILY WILDE’S ENCYCLOPAEDIA OF FAERIES by Heather Fawcett

The world-building in this tale of a woman documenting a new kind of faerie is exquisite, and the characters are just as textured and richly drawn. This is the kind of folkloric fantasy that remembers the old, blood-ribboned source material about sacrifices and stolen children, but adds a modern gloss.

ENTER GHOST by Isabella Hammad

In Hammad’s second novel, a British Palestinian actor returns to her hometown in Israel to recover from a breakup and spend time with her family. Instead, she’s talked into joining a staging of “Hamlet” in the West Bank, where she has a political awakening.

FORBIDDEN NOTEBOOK by Alba de Céspedes

A best-selling novelist and prominent anti-Fascist in her native Italy, de Céspedes has lately fallen into unjust obscurity. Translated by Ann Goldstein, this elegant novel from the 1950s tells the story of a married mother, Valeria, whose life is transformed when she begins keeping a secret diary.

THE FRAUD by Zadie Smith

Based on a celebrated 19th-century trial in which the defendant was accused of impersonating a nobleman, Smith’s novel offers a vast panoply of London and the English countryside, and successfully locates the social controversies of an era in a handful of characters.

FROM FROM by Monica Youn

In her fourth book of verse, a svelte, intrepid foray into American racism, Youn turns a knowing eye on society’s love-hate relationship with what it sees as the “other.”

A GUEST IN THE HOUSE by Emily Carroll

After a lonely young woman marries a mild-mannered widower and moves into his home, she begins to wonder how his first wife actually died. This graphic novel alternates between black-and-white and overwhelming colors as it explores the mundane and the horrific.

THE HEAVEN & EARTH GROCERY STORE by James McBride

McBride’s latest, an intimate, big-hearted tale of community, opens with a human skeleton found in a well in the 1970s, and then flashes back to the past, to the ’20s and ’30s, to explore the town’s Black, Jewish and immigrant history.

HELLO BEAUTIFUL by Ann Napolitano

In her radiant fourth novel, Napolitano puts a fresh spin on the classic tale of four sisters and the man who joins their family. Take “Little Women,” move it to modern-day Chicago, add more intrigue, lots of basketball and a different kind of boy next door and you’ve got the bones of this thoroughly original story.

A HISTORY OF BURNING by Janika Oza

This remarkable debut novel tells the story of an extended Indo-Ugandan family that is displaced, settled and displaced again.

HOLLY by Stephen King

The scrappy private detective Holly Gibney (who appeared in “The Outsider” and several other novels) returns, this time taking on a missing-persons case that — in typical King fashion — unfolds into a tale of Dickensian proportions.

A HOUSE FOR ALICE by Diana Evans

This polyphonic novel traces one family’s reckoning after the patriarch dies in a fire, as his widow, a Nigerian immigrant, considers returning to her home country and the entire family re-examines the circumstances of their lives.

THE ILIAD by Homer

Emily Wilson’s propulsive new translation of the “Iliad” is buoyant and expressive; she wants this version to be read aloud, and it would certainly be fun to perform.

INK BLOOD SISTER SCRIBE by Emma Törzs

The sisters in Törzs's delightful debut have been raised to protect a collection of magic books that allow their keepers to do incredible things. Their story accelerates like a fugue, ably conducted to a tender conclusion.

KAIROS by Jenny Erpenbeck

This tale of a torrid, yearslong relationship between a young woman and a much older married man — translated from the German by Michael Hofmann — is both profound and moving.

KANTIKA by Elizabeth Graver

Inspired by the life of Graver’s maternal grandmother, this exquisitely imagined family saga spans cultures and continents as it traces the migrations of a Sephardic Jewish girl from turn-of-the-20th-century Constantinople to Barcelona, Havana and, finally, Queens, N.Y.

LAND OF MILK AND HONEY by C Pam Zhang

Zhang’s lush, keenly intelligent novel follows a chef who’s hired to cook for an “elite research community” in the Italian Alps, in a not-so-distant future where industrial-agricultural experiments in America’s heartland have blanketed the globe in a crop-smothering smog.

LONE WOMEN by Victor LaValle

The year is 1915, and the narrator of LaValle’s horror-tinged western has arrived in Montana to cultivate an unforgiving homestead. She’s looking for a fresh start as a single Black woman in a sparsely populated state, but the locked trunk she has in stow holds a terrifying secret.

MONICA by Daniel Clowes

In Clowes’s luminous new work, the titular character, abandoned by her mother as a child, endures a life of calamities before resolving to learn about her origins and track down her parents.

THE MOST SECRET MEMORY OF MEN by Mohamed Mbougar Sarr

Based on a true story and translated by Lara Vergnaud, Sarr’s novel — about a Senegalese writer brought low by a plagiarism scandal — asks sharp questions about the state of African literature in the West.

THE NEW NATURALS by Gabriel Bump

In Bump’s engrossing new novel, a young Black couple, mourning the loss of their newborn daughter and disillusioned with the world, start a utopian society — but tensions both internal and external soon threaten their dreams.

NORTH WOODS by Daniel Mason

Mason’s novel looks at the occupants of a single house in Massachusetts over several centuries, from colonial times to present day. An apple farmer, an abolitionist, a wealthy manufacturer: The book follows these lives and many others, with detours into natural history and crime reportage.

NOT EVEN THE DEAD by Juan Gómez Bárcena

An ex-conquistador in Spanish-ruled, 16th-century Mexico is asked to hunt down an Indigenous prophet in this novel by a leading writer in Spain, splendidly translated by Katie Whittemore. The epic search stretches across much of the continent and, as the author bends time and history, lasts centuries.

THE NURSERY by Szilvia Molnar

“I used to be a translator and now I am a milk bar.” So begins Molnar’s brilliant novel about a new mother falling apart within the four walls of her apartment.

OUR SHARE OF NIGHT by Mariana Enriquez

This dazzling, epic narrative, translated from the Spanish by Megan McDowell, is a bewitching brew of mystery and myth, peopled by mediums who can summon “the Darkness” for a secret society of wealthy occultists seeking to preserve consciousness after death.

PINEAPPLE STREET by Jenny Jackson

Jackson’s smart, dishy debut novel embeds readers in an upper-crust Brooklyn Heights family — its real estate, its secrets, its just-like-you-and-me problems. Does money buy happiness? “Pineapple Street” asks a better question: Does it buy honesty?

THE REFORMATORY by Tananarive Due

Due’s latest — about a Black boy, Robert, who is wrongfully sentenced to a fictionalized version of Florida’s infamous and brutal Dozier School — is both an incisive examination of the lingering traumas of racism and a gripping, ghost-filled horror novel. “The novel’s extended, layered denouement is so heart-smashingly good, it made me late for work,” Randy Boyagoda wrote in his review. “I couldn’t stop reading.”

THE SAINT OF BRIGHT DOORS by Vajra Chandrasekera

Trained to kill by his mother and able to see demons, the protagonist of Chandrasekera’s stunning and lyrical novel flees his destiny as an assassin and winds up in a politically volatile metropolis.

SAME BED DIFFERENT DREAMS by Ed Park

Double agents, sinister corporations, slasher films, U.F.O.s — Park’s long-awaited second novel is packed to the gills with creative elements that enliven his acerbic, comedic and lyrical odyssey into Korean history and American paranoia.

TAKE WHAT YOU NEED by Idra Novey

This elegant novel resonates with implication beyond the taut contours of its central story line. In Novey’s deft hands, the complex relationship between a young woman and her former stepmother hints at the manifold divisions within America itself.

THIS OTHER EDEN by Paul Harding

In his latest novel, inspired by the true story of a devastating 1912 eviction in Maine that displaced an entire mixed-race fishing community, Harding turns that history into a lyrical tale about the fictional Apple Island on the cusp of destruction.

TOM LAKE by Ann Patchett

Locked down on the family’s northern Michigan cherry orchard, three sisters and their mother, a former actress whose long-ago summer fling went on to become a movie star, reflect on love and regret in Patchett’s quiet and reassuring Chekhovian novel.

THE UNSETTLED by Ayana Mathis

This novel follows three generations across time and place: a young mother trying to create a home for herself and her son in 1980s Philadelphia, and her mother, who is trying to save their Alabama hometown from white supremacists seeking to displace her from her land.

VICTORY CITY by Salman Rushdie

Rushdie’s new novel recounts the long life of Pampa Kampana, who creates an empire from magic seeds in 14th-century India. Her world is one of peace, where men and women are equal and all faiths welcome, but the story Rushdie tells is of a state that forever fails to live up to its ideals.

WE COULD BE SO GOOD by Cat Sebastian

This queer midcentury romance — about reporters who meet at work, become friends, move in together and fall in love — lingers on small, everyday acts like bringing home flowers with the groceries, things that loom large because they’re how we connect with others.

WESTERN LANE by Chetna Maroo

In this polished and disciplined debut novel, an 11-year-old Jain girl in London who has just lost her mother turns her attention to the game of squash — which in Maroo’s graceful telling becomes a way into the girl’s grief.

WITNESS by Jamel Brinkley

Set in Brooklyn, and featuring animal rescue workers, florists, volunteers, ghosts and UPS workers, Brinkley’s new collection meditates on what it means to see and be seen.

Y/N by Esther Yi

In this weird and wondrous novel, a bored young woman in thrall to a boy band buys a one-way ticket to Seoul.

YELLOWFACE by R.F. Kuang

Kuang’s first foray outside of the fantasy genre is a breezy and propulsive tale about a white woman who achieves tremendous literary success by stealing a manuscript from a recently deceased Asian friend and passing it off as her own.

#new york times #100 books #reading list #2023 #books #reading #have you read any of these titles?

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i-gotyou-dontworry · 10 days ago

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I hate how this is the one project we know nothing about 😂

The Drama: thriller, devouring all the bts so far

Euphoria: ……

Spider-Man: depressed man with superpowers I need it

Doomsday: the world is doomed might as well make a movie that goes along with it

Dune: sand Denis and Greg Fraser is all I need to know

American Speed: Tom in a racing suit..hot

Nolan: GIVE ME SOMETHING!!!!!!

the drama:we have content but I have no idea what it's going to be about beyond what we know, it's confusing 🙃

I like not knowing anything about Nolan's movie

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codenamesazanka · 6 months ago

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have only taken a peek at jtwitter so far but a lot of them (at least when compared to western fandom) think that mystery person could be spinner?? I don't think it is but i can't help but wonder how horikoshi would explain that. and just imagine being spinner that scenario. one minute you're passed out on a hospital floor, next minute you're quirkless, tied up in some stranger's house, and unaware that your boyfriend has been dead for two weeks. what a fate

WHAT A FATE. Went immediately from tragic romance in shonen adventure manga to escape-from-captivity (maybe seek revenge, afterwards...?) horror/mystery/thriller movie. What even.

For a few moments on leaks night, I had also thought maybe Mystery Person was Spinner. I was desperate and full of love for my guy. Also Mystery Person just looked so sad and pathetic. I believe - and love - that people think it's Spinner, because the character is so sad looking and also kinda pathetic. Sorta like Spinner during his hikikomori days.

Also maybe because of the hair, kinda. The length and texture of it?

(I had wondered like - why the hair color change? Maybe the pink hair was part of his quirk, so when he lost that, the pink coloring goes too? 😭

@robotlesbianjavert said "turns out being able to climb up walls was due to the heteromorph genetics but NOT the quirk factor. the quirk factor was the hair. and they fucking took it from him. his love interest coding. during pride month too……" 😭)

The theories seem to be:

1) After getting his Scalemail scales removed, Spinner also lost his other quirks/quirk factors. Then he escaped from the hospital. (But got captured...?)

2) Kurogiri managed to teleport Spinner away, and between then and now (two weeks(?) after the war), Spinner somehow managed to lose his quirks/quirk factors.

2.5) Spinner might have been given a quirk-erasing bullet to save him from the brain melting of extra quirks?

(Which might finally explain why that bizarre gun panel is in Chapter 372. @stillness-in-green pointed this out. But opens up a whole other list of questions. Who was holding the gun? Officer Gori? Present Mic? Mic's gloves would fit the hand holding the gun... Why would Heroes have a quirk-erasing bullet? Did they find one, after arresting the Doc, or from the remains of the lab after Jaku? Why use it on Spinner??? Actually, using it on the heteromorphic quirk spokesman kinda makes sense... in an extremely atrocious way—but why on earth not use it on AFO or Shigaraki? etc etc etc)

I don't think Mystery Person is Spinner either! (which, like, WOW. Taking away the heteromorphic quirk from a character who was just involved in a heteromorphic discrimination mini-arc, no matter how badly it was resolved... yikes; and in a story about accepting living in a society full of different quirks (pending any new quirk doomsday theory plot thing) - another ehhhhh) But we have three weeks so we all might as well go insane.

Thanks for the ask!

#Scissors-kun #Spinner #jfandom #asked #ask #answered #anon #anonymous #nalslastworkingbraincell

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nemospecific · 7 months ago

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The Doomsday Men by Kenneth Bulmer, 1965

In the future, detectives can connect to the brains of murder victims to find out who dun it. So let's find out if this is a thriller or a mystery!

#the doomsday machine #Kenneth bulmer #curtis books #Galaxy publishing

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horrororman · 2 years ago

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More #horror films released on March 14th...

#TheBat 1926(NYC, NY).

#TheWalkingDead 1936.

#Doomsday 2008(US & Canada). #thriller #scifi #sciencefiction

#TheCottage 2008(UK & Ireland).

#Pontypool 2009(SXSW Film Festival).

#horror #horror movies #horror movie #science fiction #scifi #thriller #The Bat #the walking dead #doomsday #the cottage #pontypool

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disabled-dragoon · 1 year ago

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Disability in Books: Spooky Edition! #1

[ID: A poster reading "Disability in Books: Spooky Edition" in black writing in the centre. A small, circular logo is in the top right corner. It is red with an open book in the middle, white leaves around the book, and the word "The Disability Archive" across the bottom. In the lower left corner, cartoonish clipart of a smiling Jack O Lantern, wearing a large pointy hat with a buckle. All of this is overlayed onto the disability pride flag. /end]

[ID: The same poster, edited. The writing has been removed and replaced by three book covers, with bulleted lists next to each. The images in both corners have been shrunken slightly. The book covers, from top to bottom, are:

"Bath Haus" by P. J. Vernon

The phrases "Addiction", "Adult", "Thriller, Mystery, Contemporary, Horror" and "LGBTQ+" are listed next to it in black writing.

"Bianca Torre is Afraid of Everything" by Justine Pucella Winans

The phrases "Anxiety", "Young Adult", "Thriller, Mystery, Contemporary" and "LGBTQ+" are listed next to it in black.

"Deathless Divide" by Justina Ireland

The phrases "Amputee", "Young Adult", "Horror, Historical", "Zombies" and "LGBTQ+" are listed next to it in black. /end]

[ID: The same poster, with three different book covers. The book covers, from top to bottom, are:

"Defying Doomsday" edited by Tsana Dolichva and Holly Kench

The phrases "Numerous Disabilities", "Young Adult", "Science Fiction, Apocalyptic" and "Short Story Anthology" are listed next to it in black.

"Even If We Break" by Marieke Nijkamp

The phrases "Autism", "Young Adult", "Thriller, Mystery, Contemporary, Horror" and "LGBTQ+" are listed next to it in black.

"The Final Girl Support Group" by Grady Hendrix

The phrases "Wheelchair User", "Adult", "Horror" and "Horror Movies" are listed next to it in black. /end]

[ID: The same poster, with three different book covers. The book covers, from top to bottom, are:

"Gideon the Ninth" by Tamsyn Muir

The phrases "Terminal Illness", "Adult", "Fantasy, Horror, Science Fiction" and "LGBTQ+" are listed next to it in black.

"Highway Bodies" by Alison Evans

The phrases "Anxiety, Facial Scarring, Amputation", "Young Adult", "Horror, Dystopia", "Zombies" and "LGBTQ+" are listed next to it in black.

"Into the Drowning Deep" by Mira Grant

The phrases "Hearing Impairment, Autism, Physical Disability", "Adult", "Horror, Science Fiction", "Mermaids" and "LGBTQ+" are listed next to it in black. /end]

🎃🎃🎃🎃🎃🎃🎃🎃🎃🎃 [10 Smiling Carved Pumpkin Emojis]

A collection of fiction books featuring disabled characters, across the horror, thriller, mystery and science fiction genres!

As it is Spooky Season, and the build-up to my favourite holiday of the year, I figured I'd do something to get into the spirit of it all.

(Get it? "Spirit". Hehehe)

Also, having read Gideon the Ninth myself, I can see why people might think the representation of terminal illness is a little iffy.

If you want more information on the disabilities in 'Defying Doomsday', check out @cannondisabledcharacters.

Book List:

'Bath Haus' by P. J. Vernon- Addiction

'Bianca Torre is Afraid of Everything' by Justine Pucella Winans- Anxiety

'Deathless Divide' by Justina Ireland- Amputee

'Defying Doomsday' edited by Tsana Dolichva and Holly Kench- Numerous

'Even If We Break' by Marieke Nijkamp- Autism

'The Final Girl Support Group' by Grady Hendrix- Wheelchair User

'Gideon the Ninth' by Tamsyn Muir- Terminal Illness

'Highway Bodies' by Alison Evans- Anxiety, Facial Scarring, Amputation

'Into the Drowning Deep' by Mira Grant- Hearing Impairment, Autism, Physical Disability

🎃🎃🎃🎃🎃🎃🎃🎃🎃🎃 [10 Smiling Carved Pumpkin Emojis]

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denimbex1986 · 10 months ago

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'It can be said that Christopher Nolan has always known how to end a movie. From Leonard Shelby concluding his journey where it began and asking “now where was I?” in Memento to the topper that wouldn’t stop spinning in Inception, this is a filmmaker who looks for the most potent image that will burrow its way into audiences’ heads.

Yet the final scene of his most ambitious film to date is something more impressive, if altogether disquieting. Oppenheimer definitely implants a grim idea in the viewer’s mind, but it does so by giving the uncanny impression that we are seeing it through J. Robert Oppenheimer’s eyes first. Standing by the duck pond that Albert Einstein (Tom Conti) has been consigned to by posterity, and where Oppie will be joining him in exile sooner than he realizes, the man credited with fathering the atomic bomb asks if Albert recalls Edward Teller’s theory about a nuclear explosion triggering the end of the world.

“I remember it well, what of it?” Einstein asks. “I believe we did,” Oppenheimer says while an IMAX camera plummets so deeply into Cillian Murphy’s blue eyes that the viewer feels like we are being left to drown in his despair—despair at the prospect of nuclear war, despair at self-annihilation, and the lingering, eternal despair that comes with the realization that for the rest of time on this planet, these weapons will be at humanity’s disposal. It’s a chilling signoff for a film that plumbs the ambiguities of Oppenheimer’s life without offering easy answers. While Nolan made a picture accessible to almost any viewer, he refused to provide any degree of comfort, reassurance, or easily memeable sentiment and message.

Which is one of the many reasons I’ve long been skeptical of the common criticism about Oppenheimer being too long or that “the trial” in the last hour dragged on and on. More than once, I’ve been told the movie could have ended after Trinity, the first successful detonation of a nuclear weapon on July 16, 1945 which is shot and edited with all the tension of a thriller in Nolan and Jennifer Lame’s hands. It should be noted that the Trinity test, and the exuberant satisfaction Oppenheimer briefly feels toward his accomplishment as fellow scientists hoist him on their shoulders before the American flag, occurs at exactly the two-hour mark in the film.

The implication, therefore, seems to be that Oppenheimer should have ended on a note of triumph—a disastrous choice, to put it mildly, for the story of engineering a doomsday weapon—or that the movie could have glossed over Oppenheimer’s later years. Why should we care if Oppenheimer’s security clearance with the Atomic Energy Commission (AEC) was revoked, or that the architect of his downfall, Lewis Strauss (Robert Downey Jr.), suffered his own public humiliation?

The answer, of course, is that it is these turns of events which elevate a riveting piece of biographic storytelling into a cinematic prophecy of doom that on its own will likely be with us for many years to come.

Living with the Bomb

The most crucial thing to understand about why Oppenheimer went on for a full third hour after World War II concluded in the shadow of a mushroom cloud is that there is no credible way to discuss this man without delving into the fact that the government which entrusted him to build the device also pillared and besmirched his name to the point of infamy.

During a panel with Meet the Press’ Chuck Todd on the 78th anniversary of the Trinity test, Nobel Prize Laureate and theoretical physicist Kip Thorne said he knew scientists early in his career who demurred from pursuing a public life in government service or policy-making because of how Oppenheimer was treated.

Said Thorne, “I was as much influenced by my father who dealt with McCarthyism as the chair of a faculty in Utah at the time. We had a governor who was dictating to the board of trustees to fire faculty with left wing tendencies. So I went through this in my own family.”

The implication that Oppenheimer was a traitor, or at least untrustworthy with American secrets due to his political leanings, sent a chill through academia and government institutions that lasted for generations. With a simple letter speciously raising doubts about Oppenheimer’s loyalty to his country, William L. Borden (who was working as a proxy for Strauss) was able to discredit and muzzle the most respected scientific mind of the 20th century in American life; the man who ended World War II and brought our boys home. If the far-right could do that to him because he expressed vocal opinions about the hydrogen bomb, no one was safe.

So any biopic about Oppenheimer legitimately needed to cover a life that eerily matched the arc of Greek tragedy to a tee. After all, historians Kai Bird and Martin Sherwin named their definitive biography on the man American Prometheus, and what is a Promethean tale if you skip the part where the gods condemn him to be chained to a rock so his guts will be pecked out each morning?

Oppenheimer dramatizes these elements, and does so with spectacular detail and specificity. Even biographer Bird remarked with astonishment at the same Trinity anniversary panel that Nolan did something he and Sherwin had not: he went through the transcript of Lewis Strauss’ failed confirmation hearing and discovered a surprise witness named Dr. David Hill (Rami Malek in the movie), who was called on to essentially smear an unprepared Strauss with the same kind of one-sided testimony Strauss used to decimate Oppenheimer in his security clearance hearing five years earlier. The dramatic irony that this was done as revenge by the scientific community against the political class’ most envious party was not lost on Nolan.

In fact, it creates one-half of the climactic crescendo wherein Strauss raves after his Cabinet post begins slipping away that “I gave [Oppenheimer] exactly what he wanted: to be remembered for Trinity! Not Hiroshima! Not Nagasaki! He should be thanking me!” Of course Strauss’ fury also articulates why the film is so much richer and, ultimately, ambiguous. It explores part and parcel the facts of Oppenheimer’s life, and in doing so invites you to descend down into the pits of Hades.

A Trial Without a Jury or a Verdict

The most powerful sequence in Oppenheimer arguably occurs at the top of the third hour. After an exhilarating taste of success and triumph, Oppenheimer is left out of the final, gruesome moments of World War II. Two nuclear bombs fell on the cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in the span of three days in August 1945. Two hundred twenty thousand lives were snuffed out in biblical fire or the lingering, years-long horror of radiation poisoning. And J. Robert learns about it just like every other American—by listening to the radio.

Then comes Nolan’s cinematic flourish. He lets you live in Oppie’s nightmare just as it is beginning to coalesce. While giving a patriotic speech crowing about the success of the nuclear weapons’ use on Japanese cities, Oppenheimer’s unconvincing stabs at jingoism fade away as he can only hear the sound of a woman screaming; then comes a bright light as the face of a young girl melts away. It is a new world for Oppenheimer, America, and the whole the human species. But only after he has let the genie out of the bottle does the film’s interpretation of Oppenheimer begin to seriously grapple with the long term ramifications of that release.

There is an argument to be made that Oppenheimer should have shown the nuclear holocaust inflicted on the Japanese people. I respect this opinion, although Nolan’s choice to trap you in Oppenheimer’s large, yet still limited, vantage point is the dramatically right one. It took this scientist years to come to terms with the horror of what he wrought on Japan, and the movie lets it slowly seep in.

There is also the uncomfortable fact that this story is bigger than just World War II. In the film, Oppenheimer considers the irony that his former tutor opined in the press that the nuclear bomb not so much ended World War II as it began what we now call the Cold War with the Soviet Union (which really happened). But the point of the Oppenheimer film is that what those scientists at Los Alamos did was bigger than just World War II or the Cold War—or even the 20th century itself.

Oppenheimer built, sharpened, and fastened a global Sword of Damocles above our collective heads, and it hangs there still. It will, in fact, hang there forever, unless one nation finally pushes the button and invites the inevitable response.

The last hour is about Oppenheimer, as a character and a film, coming to terms with that legacy. This is not a typical biopic about a great man, but a portrait of a soul damned by unspoken regrets and second-guesses that he never articulated to anyone. The film even posits Oppenheimer went through the humiliation of an unwinnable security clearance hearing as some form of penance for fathering the bomb.

“Did you think if you let them tar and feather you that the world will forgive you?” his wife Kitty (Emily Blunt) asks. “It won’t.”

“We’ll see” is Oppenheimer’s cryptic response. While we suspect Oppenheimer’s fight for political survival was not quite so history book-minded, the reality is he truly did tell the President of the United States “I have blood on my hands,” and spent the rest of his brief public life attempting to steer the United States away from the infinitely more deadly hydrogen bomb and the arms race it inevitably courted. He was then banished to the duck pond next to Einstein for his troubles.

Dramatically seeing that destruction is as cathartic as it is disturbing, with Jason Clarke’s government attorney Roger Robb embodying Zeus’ hungry eagle which is always eager to feast on Prometheus’ liver. It should be noted, this context also is what allows Kitty Oppenheimer, a brilliant woman whose mind is left to curdle by the oppressive expectations of her era, to finally speak candidly in one of the best scenes in the movie.

In the end though, the finale asks the audience to interrogate Oppenheimer the man. Can you forgive him? Should you even bother entertaining the idea? The real man never publicly admitted remorse over what happened in Japan, and whether he felt profound guilt or not, he still ushered in a nuclear age without end. There is no escape from the future Oppenheimer has wrought—not even for J. Robert Oppenheimer, who is professionally and spiritually destroyed by the legacy he pursued with wide open arms.

The last hour of Oppenheimer is not about the father of the atomic bomb; it’s about the father of our tomorrow and each and every one that will come after. Until one day, maybe it won’t.'

#Oppenheimer #Christopher Nolan #Cillian Murphy #Kitty #Emily Blunt #Einstein #Tom Conti #Memento #Inception #Edward Teller #Jennifer Lame #IMAX #Lewis Strauss #Robert Downey Jr.#Kai Bird #Martin J. Sherwin #American Prometheus #Jason Clarke #Roger Robb

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godivamalcolm · 8 months ago

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about me

roman

(he/it), transmasc bigender

writer, painter, and musician from texas

my main- @helterskeletors

twitter- @/jaybaumans

ao3- jaybaumans

main current projects

DOGMOUTH - a teenager with psychosis sets out to murder his childhood abuser. horror, drama. manuscript. READ HERE

LITTLE DEATH - a guardian angel becomes overwhelmed with lust for the man she's assigned to protect. horror, thriller. manuscript.

ACT OF GOD - following a devastating tornado, a famous writer returns to his hometown to find it shattered worse emotionally than physically. drama. screenplay.

PARTITION - a sudden move to Paris has a young tailor caught up in sex, murder, and the maddening world of his boss. thriller, comedy, romance. manuscript.

CAMISADO - in a post "The Exorcist" world, an actual exorcist has lost his faith- until he meets a woman who convinces him of a higher power. horror, romance. short story.

BABY BLUE MILK - an ice cream company is quietly exploited by a middle-aged lawyer who defended them in an E-coli lawsuit. based off the epic poem "Beowulf". comedy, thriller. short story.

KNUCKLE VELVET - a deeply traumatized surgical intern strikes up a friendship with her trainer, a mellow and mysterious chief surgeon. as the lines of their relationship blur, it's clear she knows more about him than she lets on. drama, thriller, romance. short story.

GIRL WITH A BASKET OF FLIES - college student Farley realizes the mistake of opening her shock site to visitor submissions the hard way. horror, drama. undecided.

RAPTURE - Brian Udara, a sheltered Christian boy, has his life turned upside down when he's abducted and probed by aliens. worse yet, he has to grieve his innocence in a town split on whether they believe his story. horror, drama. manuscript.

FIEND ANGELICAL - in this retelling of Romeo and Juliet, Juliet Capulet finds herself ripped apart by both her extortioner parents and the forbidden love of the local friar. drama, romance. stageplay.

AMERICAN TEENAGER - the prequel to PARTITION, in which a 19-year-old Edgar Wentz comes to age whilst in a tortured romance with her manager under the threat of a copycat serial killer. horror, drama, romance. manuscript.

INBRED - when a doomsday cult's prophecies are correct, Earth is left without a sun. in the eternal night, the daughter of the cult's leader, spared from their mass suicide due to her 'holy' status, is finally left to her own devices. as the world decays into madness and violence, she finds herself becoming a part of it. horror, drama. short story. READ HERE

TESTOSTERONE - Lindsey Goth, a straight community college student, struggles to feign attraction to his married, male history professor. dramedy. undecided.

CUPID AND THE CAGE DANCERS - two drag queens are recruited by the mob to keep their club afloat after their employer is murdered. comedy, thriller. stage play.

BROTHER PYRRHUS - 20 years after the events of DOGMOUTH, Solomon Conrad attempts to reconnect with his semi-estranged brother Martin, of whom, he's told, was once much different. drama. manuscript.

KUDZU COUNTY - an FBI agent travels to a small Texas town after hearing word of illegal alcohol production, but quickly becomes preoccupied when he finds an unidentified plant flourishing. horror, western. short story.

DOCTOR Z - as a part of a contract killer's training, the US government sends him to mysterious, maze-like barracks run by a man only known as Dr. Z. horror, sci-fi. short story.

FIVE EYES, BURGERS AND FRIES - thinking it better grounds to have him imprisoned, the Supreme Court tries Edward Snowden for apparent ‘theft’ of a cheeseburger, rather than espionage. comedy, horror, drama. short story.

notes

feel free to ask me anything!!!

i'm open for criticism, as long as it's in dms :3

this blog will mainly be for updates and discussion, as well as being silly and blabbing about my ocs

i write a lot of horror and nsfw content, please keep that in mind byf

#pinned post #writeblr #writers on tumblr #godivamalcolm

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