#first of all he's Fi defined like. obviously

[inbarfink]

Honestly, first time noticing the names in Simon's contact list I was just like 'haha cute references' and didn't pay it much mind. But looking at them again, and really thinking about them. The Implications here, like Most Things About Simon's Life Right Now, are pretty tragic....

Like, Abracadaniel and Lady Island and Gunter (and BMO if you take into consideration the comic's continuity) are not Simon Petrikov's friends, they were Ice King's friends.

You know, like, yeah, everyone except Marcy knew Ice King way way before they got to know Simon. But at least with folks like Finn, finding out about Simon is a huge reason why he started being kinder and friendlier to him. And Bubblegum probably is only fond of Simon know in spite of him being Ice King.

But Abracadaniel and Lady Island liked Ice King without having any frame-of-reference or concept of 'Simon Petrikov' in their heads. They were Ice King's friends.

And Simon's phone is pretty distinctly, like, a realistic early 2000's cellphone. A total contrast to all the magical/sci-fi/cobbled-together looking cellphones everyone else in Ooo uses

And Ice King himself, I'm pretty sure we've only ever seen him use either a normal-looking landline or the Bananaphone

Not this ordinary Nokia-looking flip-phone, definitely.

So I'm assuming this phone was maybe found buried somewhere in the Past Room, or maybe was unearthed while they were preparing for that '20th Century Man' exhibition and Simon also takes it along for personal use. But either way, Simon had to deliberately put those numbers of Friends of the Ice King in his contact list.

It might be something as simple as having transferred the data from some of Ice King's old communication devices and then just... despite it all Simon just doesn't have the heart to delete these names. The same way you or I might not have it in us to the delete the numbers of friends of ages past or increasingly-distant acquaintances or dead relatives.

Or maybe Simon did try and preserve their friendship at first. Or maybe the friends did. And obviously it didn't work out.

I mean, I can kinda see maybe Simon getting along fine with Lady Island because IK was relatively Grounded interacting with her so maybe the change to Simon won't be that much of a difference to her. ....But that can also create problems if she has a hard time seeing the difference between Simon Petrikov and Ice King, that would really make him uncomfortable.

But there really is zero chance Simon managed to keep things going normal with Abracadaniel. A Wizard who originally bonded with Ice King because he saw him as a cool Wizard. Not to mention Gunter is currently a living incarnation of the very Crown that cursed Simon in the first place and a manifestation of Gunter's love of Ice King

so... yeah, I think in Simon's current state any interaction he had with those two was unbearably awkward and just another thing that will make him miss being Ice King in a twisted way.

And yet... despite wanting so badly to define himself as distinctive and different from Ice King ("I didn't write those! Ice King wrote those!") and to not be reminded of him.... Simon still keeps all these people in his contact list.

[communistkenobi]

Hi, genuine good faith question if you'd like! How is TOS racist? It was my understanding that the OG Series was like, huge for equality in media?

I’m speaking primarily about the content of TOS itself, not its historical impact - I understand it had various historic firsts in terms of having characters of colour in respectable roles, which I’m not dismissing. My experience with the discourse on here surrounding the show is that people front-load these character representations as emblematic of the show’s progressive politics. Which, if we want to go that route, TOS was contemporary to the US civil rights movement, which provides us with a handy measuring stick to see how TOS actually grapples with race, not just the presence of characters of colour themselves. I'm going to be kind of defensive in this explanation, not towards you specifically, but because I have had this conversation with people online many, many, many times, and so any defensiveness on my part is in anticipation of arguments I know will come up as a result of making the basic claim that a show made in America in the 1960s is racist. I'm also going to be copy + pasting from an older post I've made on the subject since it's been a while now since I've watched TOS so some of the details are fuzzy.

Like okay, the premise of TOS is that the Enterprise, as an ambassador of Starfleet/the Federation, is seeking out new alien life to study. The Prime Directive prohibits the Enterprise crew from interfering with the development of any alien culture or people while they do this, so the research they collect needs to be done in an unobtrusive way. I think this is the first point at which people balk at the argument that TOS is racist or has a colonial conception of the world - the Enterprise’s mission is premised on non-interference, and I think when people hear ‘colonial’ as a descriptor they (understandably, obviously) assume it is describing active conquest, genocide, and dispossession. Even setting aside all the times where Kirk does directly interfere with the “development” of a people or culture (usually because they’ve “stagnated” culturally, because a culture "without conflict" cannot evolve or “develop” beyond its current presumed capacity - he is pretty explicitly imposing his own values onto another culture in order to force them to change in a particular way), or the times when the Enterprise is actually looking to extract resources from a given planet or people, I’m not exactly making this claim, or rather, that’s not the only thing I’m describing when calling TOS racist/colonial.

The show's presentation of scientific discovery and inquiry is anthropological - the “object” of analysis is alien/foreign culture, meaning that when the Enterprise crew comes into contact with a new being or person, this person is always read first and foremost through the level of (the Enterprise’s understanding of) culture. Their behaviour, beliefs, dress, way of speaking, appearance, and so on are always reflective of their culture as a whole, and more importantly, that their racial or phenotypic characteristics define the boundaries of their culture. Put another way, culture is interpreted, navigated, and bound racially - the show presents aliens as a Species, but these species are racially homogeneous, flattening race to a natural, biological difference that is always physically apparent and presented through the lens of scientific objectivity, as "species" is a unit of biological taxonomy. Basically species is a shorthand for race. This is the standard of most sci-fi/fantasy genre work, so this is not a sin unique to Star Trek.

Because of this however, Kirk and Co are never really interacting with individuals, they are interacting with components of a (foreign, exotic, fundamentally different) culture, the same way we understand that a biologist can generalize about a species using the example of an individual 'specimen'. And when the Enterprise interacts with these cultures, they very frequently measure them using a universalized scale of development - they have a teleological (which is to say, evolutionary) view of culture, ie, that all cultures go from savage to rational, primitive to advanced, economically simple to economically complex (ie, to capitalist modes of production). And the metrics they are judging these cultures by are fundamentally Western ones, always emphasising to the audience that the final destination of all cultures (that are worthy of advancing beyond their current limited/“primitive” stages) is a culture identical to the Federation, a culture that can itself engage in this anthropological mission to catalogue all life as fitting within a universal set of practices and racial similarities they call “culture.”

This is a western, colonial understanding of culture - racially and spatially homogeneous people comprise the organs of a social totality, ie, a society, which can then be analysed as an “object,” as a “phenomenon,” by the scientists in order to extract information from them to produce and advance state (ie Federation) knowledge. The Enterprise crew are allowed to be individuals, are allowed to be subjects with a capacity for reason, contradiction, emotion, compassion, and even moments of savagery or violence, without those things being assigned to their “race” or “culture” as a whole, but the people they interact with are only components of a whole which are “discovered” by the Enterprise as opportunities to expand and refine the Federation’s body of knowledge.

Spock is actually a good example of what I'm talking about, because he is an exception to this rule - unlike the others in the crew, his behaviour is always read as a symptom of his innate Vulcan-ness, where his human and Vulcan halves war for dominance in his mind and character. Bones (the doctor, one of the main cast) constantly comments on Spock's inability to feel things, that he is callous and unsympathetic, ruled by Vulcan logic to such an extreme that his rationality is a form of irrationality, as his Vulcan blood prohibits him from tempering logic with human emotion and intuition. Now you can argue that Bones is a stand-in for the racists of the world, that Spock proves Bones wrong in that he is able to feel but merely keeps it under wraps, that Vulcans are not biologically incapable of emotion but merely live in a socially repressive culture, but this still engages in the racial logic of the show - Vulcans are a racially-bound species with a single monolithic culture, and Spock's ability to express and feel 'human emotions' is the metric by which he is granted human subjectivity and sympathy.

And on the flip side you have the Klingons - a “race” that is uniformly savage, backward, violent, and dangerous. In the episode Day of the Dove, where Klingons board the Enterprise along with an alien cloud that makes everyone suddenly aggressive and racist (this show is insane lol), the Enterprise crew begins acting violent and racist, but the Klingons don’t change. They aren’t more violent than before (because they already were fundamentally violent and racist), and they don’t become less violent when the cloud eventually leaves (because they are never able to emerge from their violence and savagery as a social condition or external imposition - they simply are that way). Klingons are racially, behaviourally, psychologically, and culturally homogeneous, universally violent and immune to reason, and their racial characteristics are both physical manifestations of this universal violence as well as the origin of it. The writers and creators of TOS are explicitly invoking the orientalist idea of the “Mongolian horde,” representing both the American fear of Soviet global takeover as well as blatantly racist fears about “Asiatics” (a word used in the show, particularly in The Omega Glory where a fear of racialised communist takeover is made explicit) dominating the world.

This is colonial thinking! Like, fundamentally, at its core, this is colonial white supremacist thinking. Now this is not because TOS invents these tropes or is the origin of them, it is not individually responsible for these racial and colonial logics - these conceptions are endemic to Western thought, and I am not expecting a television show to navigate its way outside of this current colonial paradigm of scientific knowledge. I’m also not expecting an average person watching this to pick out all the intricacies of this and link it to the colonial history of Europe or the colonial history of western philosophy/thought. But this base premise of Star Trek is why the show is fundamentally colonial - even if it was the case that the crew never intervened in any alien conflict, never extracted any material resources from other people, this would still be colonial logic and colonial thinking. The show has a fundamentally colonial imagination when it comes to exploration, discovery, and culture.

I think a good place to end is the opening sequence. The show's first line is always "Space! The final frontier." I do not think the word frontier is meant metaphorically or poetically - I think the show is being honest about its conception of space as an infinitely vast, infinitely exotic frontier from which a globally Western civilisation (which the Enterprise is an emblem of) can extract resources, be they material or epistemic

[felassan]

this post is under a cut in case anyone would consider it to be DA:D spoilers, as the things it mentions came from the leak a year ago (spoiler warning for link) that included screenshots and a gif of the game. (the things this post mentions are therefore not new information and this does not reference a new leak)

I'm just thinking again about Rook (which seems to be the PC's name or title) and the imagery conjured by the name. ◕‿◕ this post is just speculation and overanalyzing for fun. also this post is a now-finished draft from my draft section from a while back.

I think it would work as a surname (like "Hawke") or a codename (think Leliana's spies and contacts such as "Butler", "Farrier", "Butcher", "Charter", etc although these are all professions that end in "-er" or "or" iirc). it could also be a title (like Warden, Hero, Champion, Inquisitor, Herald) or a nickname - like maybe it's short for "Rookie", it's a Varric-assigned nickname and it references how the DA:D PC is the newest member of the team after he recruits them?

I think it sounds catchy, and cool - it's snappy and short, Hawke-like in this way. and it sounds like the kind of name a spy or secret agent might have in a fantasy, superhero or sci-fi-type setting.

a rook is a black bird, Corvus frugilegus, a member of the corvid family. rooks have been perceived as vermin and nuisances by people in the past, and persecuted due to this. they bear a resemblance to their crow and raven relatives, both birds which have a large cultural footprint and lots of symbolism in areas such as folklore and art. Hawke obviously also had a bird motif going on from their surname and associated art pieces. corvids also bring to mind the Antivan Crows (assassins, thieves, & spies), reminding of the stuff about how in this game the PC may be trying to operate under the radar, and the reporting on a previous iteration of DA:D which had the game concept as being focused on spies and heists. rook plumage is inky black, bringing to mind darkness and shadow.

from the bird angle, a "rook" sounds neat opposite a "wolf" imo. wolves are obviously another animal that have large footprints in culture, myth and folklore. in the natural world there is symbiosis sometimes between wolves and corvids when hunting/feeding. there are lots of photos of wolves and corvids together.

a colony of rooks is called a rookery. of course, the fortress of Skyhold has a rookery. it's from there that Inquisition Spymaster Leliana operates (operated) sending her black birds on missions with letters and messages to her many agents and spies throughout Thedas. what if Rook is one of Leliana's... "rooks"? a spy or agent of the remnants of the Inquisition.

A rook is also defined as "A cheat or swindler; someone who betrays" [noun], "mist, fog" [noun] and "to cheat or swindle" [verb]. it's also a type of trick-taking card game. these sorts of things bring to mind a rogueish, stealthy aspect, and the shady, shadowy dealings and card-game played in Minrathous Shadows.

a rook is also a chess piece. they're castle-like (since "rook" can also mean a castle or fortification) and usually have their top in the shape of a battlement. they can move in any direction along a rank or file on a chessboard on which they stand (horizontal/vertical, not diagonal). they can also do the "castling" move. in history, rooks have also been called towers, castles, rectors and marquesses. in chess, each player starts the game with two rooks at opposite ends of the first rank. chess itself is a game of strategy and tactics. "the chessmaster" as a trope is a character type who manipulates events, tugging on strings and moving 'pieces' into place on a metaphorical chessboard. [Solas' DA:I dialogue about his past, like the one he has with Sera about cells of spies/agents, hark to this]

in the castling move,

"Castling is a move in chess. It consists of moving the king two squares toward a rook on the same rank and then moving the rook to the square that the king passed over. Castling is permitted only if neither the king nor the rook has previously moved; the squares between the king and the rook are vacant; and the king does not leave, cross over, or finish on a square attacked by an enemy piece. Castling is the only move in chess in which two pieces are moved at once."

castling rules often cause confusion, even occasionally among high-level players. historically the move has its roots in the "king's leap", of which there were two forms and which arose in part it seems due to increasing importance of king safety as other pieces were given increased powers through time as the game developed. "the king would move once like a knight, or the king would move two squares on its first move. The knight move might be used early in the game to get the king to safety or later in the game to escape a threat." basically it moves the king away to safety and the rook to a more active position. there is also kingside castling and queenside castling. I wonder, symbolically.. is Rook more the king's rook, or the queen's rook? (reminds me of the Left Hand and Right Hands of the Divine hh). who or what is the king in this hypothetical analogy? the World of Thedas itself? as a castle or fortress.. Rook is the bulwark against what's to come? [over-thinking ik ik, tis just for fun hh].

by now we're all familiar with the chess game Solas plays in banter dialogue with Iron Bull during DA:I. in the in-world chess game, rooks are called towers. Solas moves his right-hand tower once. at a later point in the game, Iron Bull's "Arishok" piece takes Solas' left-hand tower, getting a check and leaving him feeling triumphant. Bull asks Solas wth he is doing as Bull takes Solas' remaining tower. "Your last tower, by the way". Bull, a spy and liar himself, bears down on Solas' pieces "with his full army", thinking a win is in sight. Undeterred, Solas executes a few moves in a sneaky plan and entraps Bull in a checkmate, winning the game after sacrificing various pieces to enact his plan.

rook also brings to mind the Tower tarot card and its meanings. it's associated with sudden, disruptive revelation and potentially destructive change. it connotes danger, crisis, sudden change, destruction, higher learning, and liberation, as well as adversity, calamity, deception, ruin and unforeseen catastrophe. reversed, it connotes things such as negligence, carelessness, apathy and vanity (vanity.. pride). in this depiction of the Tower tarot, lightning strikes from the sky, striking a crown (hubris) off the top of a tower and setting it alight as people fall from the tower to their doom. this imagery and the upright meanings of the card bring to mind the sudden massive change Solas seeks to bring about (destroying the Veil), the revelations and liberation for some that it might bring, his identity as Fen'Harel Lord of Tricksters (deception) as well as the destruction he seems to think the Veil destroying action will cause ("as the world burns in the raw chaos"...). the 'Tower scene' has also already played out once before in Thedosian history, when Solas created the Veil and sealed the Evanuris away, leading to the fall of Arlathan and its wonders. in modern Thedas, Morrigan and Flemeth (as well as possibly some side 'prophecy' type things) both allude to a big change coming to the world.

in DA:I, the Tower tarot card is ofc none other than Solas' ending card, if he is not romanced. in the DA:I version of the card, we see Solas, cloaked in a dark robe and holding a mage staff under a half-moon or eclipse. darkness seeps from his shadow, stark against the orange sky, and blends with the giant black Dread Wolf, looming ominously and open-mouthed above him with its many eyes. (the Tower tarot card Solas scene is later referenced in DA:D promotional art and DA:D-era in-world murals). it makes sense to have assigned this to Solas given the above discussed meanings of the Tower tarot card, but it's a verrry inchresting choice imo to then give "Rook" as a name/title for the DA:D PC.

and most inchrestingly, there's the symbol from the front of Mark Darrah's mysterious Red Book. this mysterious red book shows "a flaming rook" on the cover. the book was an internal guide for developer and publisher eyes only that summarized the vision for DA:D, in its Joplin iteration. we know that the Joplin project has since been revised to an extent that it was the newly codenamed Morrison instead, but the red book is known to still contain plenty of ideas likely to appear in DA:D. most pages of the book remain highly classified. it's the symbol on the front that's of most interest to us though for the purposes of this post. there is a castle, tower, or rook, like a fortress or the chess piece. above the tower, a fire burns, reminding us of the burning tower from the Tower tarot card imagery and what that symbolizes, as well as Solas' "world burning in the raw chaos" line from Trespasser. inside the fire is a wolf, the Dread Wolf, in a now very-familiar and repeated motif in DA:D art, merch, murals, teasers etc. whatever else "rook" may connote, it feels like it's not an accident at all that the PC's name is apparently "Rook", given this depiction of a fiery rook and the Dread Wolf together.

what do you think? ^^

[cl0wncakez]

Say whatever you want about the black and white anime, but the one thing i will always stand by is that IRIS AND CILAN WERE NEVER PART OF THE PROBLEM!!!!

i did a full watch of the bw series a few weeks back, and the main 2 complaints i had about it were ash’s pokemon (he caught too many and most of them didn’t get enough screentime as a result) and team rocket (they were like barely there and didn’t even do the blasting off gag until the last season i think)

but for me the best parts of it were iris and cilan!!! i was kinda expecting them to be annoying cuz of all the hate they got, but i was pleasantly surprised at how enjoyable they were.

first off, i am the number 1 iris defender. all the posts i see that complain about her say the same thing everytime: “all iris does is say that ash is a little kid!”

well, as someone who’s binged the entire unova anime in like a week and a half, i can say that there is so much more to her. but for one, she doesn’t even say that ash is a kid as often as you might think. she mostly says it in the first few episodes when she first met ash. for the rest of the series, she’ll occasionally say it in passing, but it is not her one defining trait. while there are a few instances where i thought that it wasn’t warranted, there are plenty more times where ash was being big dummy and deserved it.

what people seem to forget about iris is that at the start of ash’s unova journey, iris is practically a new trainer. her axew is at most only a few weeks old, and her excadrill, while strong, hasn’t battled for who knows how long after being brutally defeated by drayden’s haxorous, leaving it in a state of shock. so obviously, she isn’t going to be the most experienced trainer out there.

iris grew up in the village of dragons, which as the name suggests, is a village inhabited by various dragon type pokemon. having spent her whole life surrounded by dragon types, iris has made it her dream to become a dragon type master. while at the beginning of her journey, she’s just with her axew, she over time has several encounters with dragon type pokemon, all of which help her better understand how to communicate with dragon types.

in one episode, she helped a druddigon out from a trap set by team rocket, while everyone else assumed it was rampaging out of anger. in another, the gang were helping out at a pokemon daycare, and in it was a deino, who was extremely shy. it’s trainer hadn’t returned for days after they said they would (the trainer ended up getting lost in a cave) and it was beginning to refuse to eat due to its anxiety. and what did iris do? she stayed with the deino the whole night, helping it relax in a place it wasn’t familiar with. it’s episodes like these that show that she’s not a one dimensional character, and like the rest of ash’s companions, she has character development.

but what helped fully flesh out her arc was when she caught her dragonite.

unlike axew, who was by her side from the beginning, she and dragonite did not get along immediately. dragonite was stubborn, wouldn’t listen to iris, and had its own way of battling. in order to become a dragon master, she would first have to understand dragonite. the trust that was built happened really slowly, but she did get there. by understanding a pokemon as troubled as her dragonite, iris would then be able to reach out and soothe her excadrill, making it confident enough to battle again, and help axew evolve after her journey with ash ended. and i think that was a solid way to end her arc until pokemon journeys, where offscreen, she fulfilled her dream as a dragon master and became the champion of unova.

now onto cilan.

cilan doesn’t get hated on nearly as much as iris, he’s more or less just forgotten about. so while i was expecting to hate iris when i first started watching, i had zero expectations on cilan. and tbh, i think he’s my favorite traveling companion?? if not than at least top 3.

cilan is the oldest of three siblings, and he first met ash and iris when ash came to battle at the triplet’s restaurant/gym. usually, the challenger only battles one of them, but ash was the first person to want to challenge all 3 brothers. when it was cilan’s turn to battle, he assumed that he would win due to him having the type advantage (ash choosing to battle with oshawott against cilan’s pansage)

well, ash won. and a few episodes later, cilan asked if he could join ash on his journey. the reason cilan wanted to come along was because he saw a new side to pokemon battling that he wanted to better understand.

something about cilan is that while he is a gym leader, he doubles as a pokemon connoisseur. a connoisseur is someone who makes critical judgements in fine arts or matters of taste. for cilan, he analyzes the bond between trainer and pokemon. and during his battle with ash, he evaluated his and oshawotts bond based on their battle. and he dug INTO ash, almost outright insulting his capabilities as a trainer, due to his assumptions from ash using a water type against a pansage.

but the thing is, cilan was wrong. in the end, oshawott ended up winning with ash’s strategy and support.

he fully expected to win, and was given an entirely new perspective of battling after seeing ash pull through. like cooking, pokemon battles aren’t just about type advantage and throwing moves out. it’s about thinking outside the box and trusting your pokemon, which ash accomplished by having oshawott use its scallchop to deflect a bullet seed attack. wanting to become a better trainer and connoisseur, cilan tagged along to gain a new understanding between trainer and pokemon.

and outside of his arc, cilan is just a genuinely fun character!!! did you know that along with being a pokemon connoisseur, this man is also a fishing, cooking, detective, judge, and film connoisseur??? and he can cook!! (EDIT: people are mentioning that he is also a train connoisseur!!! sorry :( i forgor)

cilan is shown to be more composed with his emotions than the previous traveling partners ash had. he also plays a mediator role whenever ash and iris bicker. and remember, cilan is the oldest sibling of 3 triplets, so he’s likely had to play mediator countless times if his brothers ever argued. ash and iris also seem to have a sibling-like bond, so their clashing was probably similar to what cilan faced before with cress and chili.

as i said, cilan is much more patient and gentleman-like. so the few moments where he genuinely loses his shit leaves a stronger impact.

the most notable example was with skyla, who instead of fulfilling her gym duties, played out battles in her head, and made her own judgements on if she could win a battle or not. this lead to challengers either being pushed away without a chance to battle, or given a gym badge without deserving it.

now cilan, who is a gym leader, sees this as a disgrace. it goes against everything a gym leader is supposed to do. skyla was lazy, arrogant, and wouldn’t do her job, which set him off. while he did lose against skyla, it was a big character moment to try and defend his honor as a gym leader.

overall, cilan is soooooo cool you guys don’t get him the way i do!!! i am the number 1 cilan fan!!!!

i think the reason people complain about iris and cilan more than any other companions ash had is because they were different.

iris had a completely different goal than everyone before her, it was a complete 180. she had zero interest in contests or performing, her dragon master dream was brand new in the anime. additionally, her relationship with ash was more like siblings than best friends, which likely made some viewers think their bickering was annoying.

and cilan. poor guy didn’t even have a chance from the start. not after brock was around for like a billion seasons.

overall, the black and white anime does have its problems, as does every pokemon anime. but leave iris and cilan out of it THEY ARE INNOCENT PARTIES :(

[anotheruserwithnoname]

Ten years of Whouffaldi

My word, where did 10 years ago?

Ten years ago on Aug. 23, the episode Deep Breath launched the remarkable era of Peter Capaldi as the Twelfth Doctor (or true Thirteenth if you want to annoy some people).

And it was the true launch of one of the most interesting romances in sci-fi (friendly reminder that Peter, Jenna Coleman, Steven Moffat, writers and directors have all in some way or another confirmed that this wasn't fans watching with "ship-coloured glasses" - it was canonical. Regardless how some fans and even media have tried - as recently as a few days ago - to pretend it didn't exist.)

I do think it was not intended. It cannot be denied that a lot of people consider there to be an age-gap limit in romances, real-life and fictional, even when both parties are consenting adults. So when Peter replaced Matt - and no one can deny Clara had the hots for Eleven because she flat out says so, several times - they obviously planned on a return to the First Doctor-Susan dynamic with Capaldi (or maybe more accurately Third Doctor-Jo Grant, since Three low-key held a flame for Jo, since Twelve would still remember how he felt as Eleven, plus Three was "Capaldi's Doctor"). But due to the fact Peter and Jenna had such intense chemistry (to this day some fans remain convinced they had a real-life romance, which is not something I ever subscribed to), coupled with the decision to shoot the first episodes of the season in order of broadcast, you can see Moffat and his writers pivoting in real time as they adjusted to the fact that - with no disrespect to Samuel Anderson - Danny Pink was never going to be the next Rory Williams. This is most in evidence with Listen defining a future for Clara and Danny that was definitively retconned by Danny's death in Dark Water.

I know the Capaldi era was not everyone's cup of tea. Season 10 in particular did not age well for me, mainly because it was clearly "one season too many" for Moffat and Capaldi himself seemed to "check out" after a fashion when it became known that the next producer wasn't planning on keeping Twelve around. And if we're going to harp about falling ratings for the show in recent years, Peter never attained the same viewership levels as Matt or David. But for me, Seasons 8 and 9 were - a few off points notwithstanding - the best of the modern era and easily rank alongside the Pertwee years as some of the best this show ever had. (I stopped watching after Season 10 - but having spoken to people whose judgement I trust, I don't think anything that followed is likely to have rendered that statement outdated.)

But I appreciated the more mature approach to the show. Yes, I know DW always was at its core a children's show - though upgraded to family show over time. But having the Doctor and Clara having a mature conversation at the diner, the Doctor inviting a villain to have a drink with him (the closest the Doctor ever got to being James Bond), Clara freaking out about being called a control freak (not to mention her perfect "Nothing is more important than my egomania!"), the fact the episode confirmed that the Doctor did look upon Clara as his girlfriend when he was Eleven, and the fact the episode walks up to ageism and pops it in the nose with Clara being upbraided by Vastra for being ageist because of Twelve no longer being the young man Clara fell for ... all these add up to a remarkable episode and likely the strongest debut story for a Doctor since Spearhead from Space.

Deep Breath also marks the last time we saw the Paternoster Gang on screen. Having praised Moffat for Whouffaldi, now time to aim some criticism his way - he set up a perfect spinoff series (Neve McIntosh is one of my favourite actresses not named Jenna Coleman) and yet never followed through. Say what one might about RTD, we'd have gotten 4 series of Vastra, Jenny and Strax had he been in charge. Big FInish doesn't count though I'm sure Neve and Dan Starkey appreciated the fact they didn't need to put on the makeup all the time! LOL

So happy 10th anniversary to Whouffaldi!

[see-arcane]

I came across your Jonathan in Hellsing posts and read and reread them enough times to burn them into my brain. The ideas you come up with are fantastic! But I was wondering if you had any thoughts on a Jonathan vs Anderson dynamic? Not necessarily physically fighting (though they definitely could) but like, in regards to their morals, relationship with god, and interactions with Dracucard.

(Ps. Obsessed w your Dracula sequel book and I hope it gets made into a movie that remains true to the characterizations you write and reshapes how the collective public views the characters forever!)

Thank you, this will sustain my gremlin of a writer ego for days

Jonathan and Anderson would have an interesting dynamic. Naturally they have to wind up in opposition if Jonathan's nominally on Team Hellsing. Anderson is fighting using holy magic and sci-fi/Christ sorcery-based regeneration and strength: Cool! He's using all of that to slay monsters: Cool! He has no filter when it comes to what he deems a 'monster,' no matter their actual innocence or level of humanity: Not Cool. In fact, it likely triggers a very specific flavor of ire Jonathan had to swallow back after seeing a certain Wafer burn.

(God is love. But that love is conditional. A truth that holds across the multiverse, apparently.)

((Cue the ringing of steel against steel. Because they've got to get into some kukri versus bayonet action.))

Actual confrontation has to happen when Jonathan either witnesses some arbitrary zealot-edged murder or he jumps to defend Seras or others from his pouncing. Anderson probably lumps Jonathan in with Alucard and Seras' situation at first--up until he learns that the only scar on Alucard's person, the fresh red line over his brow, came from Jonathan.

"Stole some sacred blade for him to play with, did you?"

"Oh no." A grin from Alucard, delighted to tattle. "A shovel spade. Just to prove a point. I do believe he might put us both out of the job before long. He doesn't need any specific toys to play this game. It's all him, Anderson. God picked a favorite whether he likes Him or not."

(And it wasn't you. He may put me down before you ever get the chance. Ha.)

((Notably he never defines what 'god' he refers to, but this framing twists the knife in Anderson better as well as making Jonathan a bit twitchy. It's complicated.))

Anderson takes this. Weirdly. He doesn't have quite the same 'Only I can do X! Only you can do Y!' fixation that Alucard seems to have about someone special~ doing the deed of killing him/being his equal et cetera. His whole deal is an obsessive need to Slay the Monsters. So he looks at Jonathan, sadly Protestant (probably? still? again, complicated), but obviously roiling with reflexive Hate for Alucard, possessing the ability to actually put the overpowered fucker down, and not doing it. Why?

"What is it they have on you, lad? Who has your leash to keep you from doing what comes natural, eh?"

Another clang.

"He's on a leash," said like lead. "He's being put to work for," bitter, bitter, bitter, "a greater good. And the sins I hate him for are long dead."

Sins slightly askew from those he recalls in his history. Van Helsing--no, Hellsing--would not let them slay Dracula back then. Enslaved him instead. Made a thrall of the one who wanted thralls. It is...somewhat uneasy to think of. Enslavement is a position far worse than destruction; it's the same way the Count meant to prey on them. He doesn't like it.

He hates Dracula. He is nauseous in Alucard's presence. But still. He does not like this. Yet where else is there for a time and universe-displaced Victorian cryptid to go?

"That power was given for a reason. Use it, lad. Put it to work against the foul things it was made for. Iscariot's got room for your like if you only repent and turn that knife the right way."

"My life was saved more than once by faith and by the faithful as you know them," Jonathan admits with a bow. "God is love," under his breath.

"That He is--,"

Slice.

Blood spills. The wounds do not heal, the bayonet cannot be gathered up in either shaking hand.

(This Power wounds monsters.)

"No. My god is Love. I have seen your God's love in action. I have been shielded by it and seen it betray the most virtuous soul in Creation. I cannot put my faith in anything so fickle. Especially not in you, who would murder a girl for her sharp teeth or strangers who dare to point out you have acted against a mutual peace. Go home and pray the pain away, Father. Now, or you will not leave with all your pieces."

Anderson exits. Alucard is going to combust out of sheer glee. Iscariot is put on alert alongside Millennium, both groups getting cagey about the concept of new unprecedented competition. Iscariot doesn't like Hellsing having another anti-supernatural ace up their sleeve and the Major and company hate the thought that someone else might have a chance at putting Alucard down (if the bat bastard allows it; he's waiting for Jonathan to juice up as a weightier cryptid for a proper throwdown).

In the meantime, Anderson ponders his cut arms, slowly healing as an ordinary man's would. He shoves Jonathan back on the same shelf as Alucard. Another monster in need of slaying--a blasphemous one of a different make. Some pagan divinity must be at his shoulder. No other. No other.

His arms ache.

[whatyourusherthinks]

The Rocky Horror Picture Show Review

God, you haven't seen this either? Have you watched ANY movies that didn't come out in the last ten years? Yes, my film history is filled with blind spots, but look on the bright side! I can tell you what I think about it in a modern retrospective kind of way!

What did I know about RHPS before watching it? Well, I remember playing The Time Warp on Just Dance 4 a lot. I saw the clip of the Sweet Transvestite song when I was probably too young to watch it. And I heard this movie was the pinnacle of so good it's bad. My friend Mary from the Video Booze podcast (I know you won't be reading this but HIIII MARY! Fuckin' name dropper over here.) loves the movie and is constantly telling me about the history and impact of this movie, so I went with her and my other friend/coworker (I know you won't be reading this either but HIIII! What, you aren't gonna tell us their name?) to see it. And well...

What's The Movie About?

It's astounding... Time is fleeting... Madness... Takes it's toll. But listen closely... Not for very much longer. I've got to... Keep control.

I REMEMBER Roan we don't have time to do the whole song. Aw...

What I Like.

THIS MOVIE IS FUCKING GREAT!

First of all, I like the story. It kinda steals from a bunch of classic horror movies in a very surface way. Like Doctor Frank-N-Furter is obviously a parody of Doctor Frankenstein, but he kinda acts like Dracula with all these people under his (sexual) thrall. Not to mention he's from Transylvania. But in a hilarious twist (Spoilers) TRANSYLVANIA IS A GALAXY IN THE MOVIE. THE TRANSYLVANIANS ARE ALIENS COMPLETE WITH SILVER AND GOLD OUTFITS AND LASERGUNS. It's so fucking funny, I absolutely loved it. This movie had me rolling in the aisles laughing. More to the point of the story, even though it heavily borrows from classic horror and sci-fi, it DEFINATELY is it's own thing. Doc Frank is such and iconic character and performance, I was really surprised that it was Tim Curry's first role in a movie! Admittedly he was playing the role on stage for a while, but stage and movie acting are two different things with different levels of elaboration. Everyone reprises their roles from the play, and they are all great. I STAN RIFF RAFF! His actor switching between two extremely different voices was so impressive!

And the music! HOT PATOOTIE BLESS MY SOUL! I REALLY LOVE THAT ROCK AND ROLL! Stop just singing every song! NO! THEY'RE ALL GREAT! I love musicals, especially ones with some darker themes. RHPS has some overt stuff like cannibalism, but the subtle storytelling implying Doc Frank's history as a concentration camp survivor is insane. Honestly, if Mary hadn't pointed it out I don't think I would have noticed. Also, I love rock and roll music! I was actually kinda impressed on how much storytelling was done in the lyrics of the music, because listening to most of them isolated, they just sound like songs! As much as I like them, there is a distinction between song written to be just listened to in isolation, and a song written to be part of a bigger story. RHPS has some songs that only really work in the context of movie (slash play) but The Time Warp, Hot Patootie/Bless My Soul, as well as a few other I can't think of of the top of my head work extremely well in isolation as well and perfectly slot into the storytelling of the movie.

This movie is so goddamn cool you guys.

What I Didn't Like.

Literally my only complaint is that the ending is a little too long. Like a skoosh. Mary told me the version we watched had one extra song stapled onto the ending, and the theatrical cut is much cleaner. So there's that.

Final Summation.

I think everyone who told me this movie is so bad it's good was too straight and dumb. Hey! This movie is actually, legitimately, really really fucking good! I think it may have became one of my favorite movies ever. The music, the queerness, the acting and story, it's all fucking perfect. Check it out if you like anything remotely related to this movie, old horror, musicals, queer people, cross dressers, rock and roll, fucking... Charles Atlas. Rocky Horror Picture Show is SO GOOD!

It's just a jump to the left.

AND THEN A STEP TO THE RIIIIIIIIIIGHT! Oh just end the review down already.

[lollytea]

in love with the fact the Halloween costumes haven't left (and Hunter's still in his wolf shirt). you'd think the crew would have them change into clothes more tonally appropriate for trying to stop the end of the world and having breakdowns and emotional conversations and personal revelations and catharsis but NOPE. sometimes scary/important shit happens when you are unprepared and aren't dressed for the occasion and you gotta deal with it!! unironically love that. they're KIDS, MAN!

I am so grateful honestly because their costumes fucking SLAP!!! Not an ugly fit in sight. And you're right, it really emphasises just how young and carefree they really are. Just a bunch of silly kids who who were torn away from their silly Halloween party and unexpectedly thrown into this madness.

Because I'm Like This, I've also been thinking a lot about the symbolism of their outfits since TTT aired. I'm probably reaching and none of this was unintentional but it's still fun to think about.

Gus, dressed as Captain Avery, the protagonist of the awesome Human Realm book that helped him cope with missing his Dad. The book with the line "We'll find a way back. We have to." A line that apparently stuck with Gus enough that he immediately made the connection once Hunter said it. I like to think the resilient hopeful tone of Cosmic Frontier was something that helped Gus keep his spirits up.

Not to mention that it's Sci-Fi, something that is so distinctively human. Gus, the boy who has defined himself as a passionate human enthusiast, whose dream is to become an ambassador to their Realm, is gonna shine in the final episode wearing a symbol of all his enduring optimism and passion and imagination.

Willow is a peculiar case. She is, ironically, a girl who was once considered half a witch now wearing a big loud declaration that she is, in fact, a witch in full. And then some!! It's not in the same vein that Luz and Amity are dressed as magic girl-esque witches. Willow's got the whole ooky spooky cackling and spiderwebs kinda witch vibe. Well, to be specific, it's a bit of a witch/devil hybrid.

Like let's get it out of the way, she looks like Evelyn. The stripey tights, the jagged skirt, the fact that her costume was originally meant to be red, just like the witchy cutout that hung above them during the hayride. Although only the last episode will tell if anything is gonna come from this. Maybe it's just a coincidence. But I think it's very interesting that she's dressed as a stereotypical reflection of how the Human Realm views witches/demons. And then there's Belos, a human man who is defined by his black and white perception of witches as the scum of the earth. He believes they're wild, they're evil, they're dangerous, they're monstrous. Which, at first glance, doesn't represent Willow at all. But then FTF happens, and the viewer is reminded that Willow's magic can be unstable. That she can be dangerous. She can be monstrous.

However, there's also that little W patch on her arm, reminding us that she may be a witch but she's also a silly girl named Willow wearing a personalised Halloween costume. She's not defined by being dangerous. She's so much more than that. She's full witch Willow and she's going out with a bang.

Amity is dressed as Hecate, Azura's rival turned friend turned heavily wlw coded best friend (I guess???), which obviously mirrors Amity's own role when the story initially began. There's a bit of significance linked to the Azura books and what they mean to Amity. Namely, from Lost in Language, when her chilly exterior began to crack. Her secret hideaway in the library was discovered, which acts as a representation of the person that she really is, but desperately tries to hide. And, on full display, was the Azura books. She had all but one, which Luz allowed her borrow. The missing piece that set Amity's whole motivation to change into motion.

That book was the tentative olive branch between her and Luz. And, with Luz's influence, it kickstarted her journey into becoming a better person, taking control of her own life, cutting toxic relationships, repairing others, etc. It's possible that Amity wouldn't be the kind and happy girl she is today without the Azura books. So, her diving into the finale while representing those books is very sweet. Also....I love her Hecate outfit. Its SOOOOOO pretty. The boots, the dress, the celestial aesthetic!!! Serve!!!!

I feel like I don't need to go that in depth about the significance of Hunter's costume. We all get it. He discovered Cosmic Frontier when he was struggling to come to terms with his status as a grimwalker, which severely clouded his sense of identity. Hunter not only connected with O'Bailey, but it gave him the opportunity to see a representation of a thing he hated about himself from a more empathetic perspective. Hunter accepted O'Bailey, Hunter loved O'Bailey, Hunter became obsessed with O'Bailey. The book was probably a big stepping stone in accepting himself. Hunter cannot ignore the fact that he's a grimwalker. He can't sweep it under the rug. But he can embrace it. As somebody who is tied to the legacy of Caleb Wittebane against his will, it must be comforting to feel like he can latch on to a cool space hero, rather than an anonymous witch hunter from 400 years ago.

Hunter's sense of identity is very important to his arc. So, the T-shirt is also very fitting. Hunter's gonna have his final confrontation Belos, who constructed him as a doll of someone else, while wearing the wolf T-shirt he personalized himself and a homemade O'Bailey costume. Because his name is Hunter and Hunter loves wolves, sewing and Cosmic Frontier.

And Luz....man. I feel like there's SO MUCH significance to Luz ending this story dressed as the Good Witch Azura and I don't even think I can do it justice. It's like....that's her. Azura means everything to her. It's shaped her into the person she is today. The Good Witch Azura is the reason Luz loves magic. And if Luz didn't love magic, she never would have stayed in the Demon Realm. It brought her closer to Amity. It's what inspired her to read and write and draw and imagine and create. It's an outlet for all her passion for stories. It was the thing that comforted her and brought her genuine hapiness during the darkest point in her entire life. It reminds her just how much Manny loved her. It reminds her just how much she loves Manny.

Luz is a character who is defined by all this relentless love and almost all of it can be linked back to Azura. Fiction, art, magic, family. She's a kid who has endured so much pain but she has such a capacity for appreciating the eccentricities of the world around her. She's full of light.

It's worth noting that Luz began the story having a hard time differentiating fantasy from reality. As such, using the Azura universe as a form of escapism was a little unhealthy. However, that's not the case anymore. Luz has matured into a much wiser person, but that doesn't mean she has to let go of her love for fantasy stories. She's found this perfect balance where she can accept the world as it is, while still being able to indulge in her storybooks in a healthy way. I don't think Azura will ever stop being an important aspect of her life.

Luz is carrying the memory of Manny with her until the finale. She's weird and she has always been loved for being weird and once this is all over, she'll keep being weird and she'll keep being loved for it.

[sp00kymulderr]

Pedro boy sexuality & gender headcanons

A couple weeks ago @perotovar shared their headcanons around Pedro characters and their sexualities and gender identities, here. It was such an interesting read as someone who has had many of my own thoughts around these things, it was really cool to see how someone else sees these characters through a queer lens and the little things in their characterisations that make us connect these thoughts to them, and that makes us connect to them in the way we do.

I mentioned that I would share my own thoughts and so, here we are! We actually have basically the same hcs. Just for a few of the boys for me though as I tend to stay in my Ezra & Dieter corner for the most part. I don’t know some of the other characters well enough to have any major thoughts about them.

I would love love to hear from other queer members of the fandom here, if you have any thoughts to share!

Also obviously these are just my silly little ideas and just for fun, I read all flavour of fanfic and whilst I would love to see more work from an lgbtq+ perpective I will happily consume all the (perceived) straight fic out there.

(I will also just ask that if you feel I have used any outdated/incorrect language here please let me know, I’m always learning, and I’d like to be corrected if there’s anything in here that could be considered harmful).

Ezra – I’ve mentioned it before and maybe it’s just because Ezra is my favourite character of all time but I very much see him as non-binary, genderfluid, using primarily he/they pronouns but doesn't mind any pronouns, and who really doesn’t care about or consider gender much at all. Honestly, this is a sci-fi character and I’d like to think that when we get to the point of living in space gender won’t even be a damn thing anymore lol. In the same vein, Ezra is pansexual.

Dieter – Bisexual king, of course. That’s literally canon. He would most likely label himself as queer and leave it at that though, rather than specifically defining himself as bi. I love to think about Dieter as somewhere under the non-binary umbrella but I’m not entirely sure where yet; gnc although again there is some fluidity there. Also, Dieter’s ideal way to love is in poly relationships, for sure.

Marcus P – Marcus is bi. He is a beautiful bi boyfriend, just look at him. He took a long time to come to terms with his sexuality, but now he is much more comfortable with it and allows himself to have the experiences he missed out on when he was less accepting of himself, and now he can be proud of who he is.

Joel – I actually hadn’t really considered Joel much in this way until Erin’s hcs but now...oh man…Joel is aromantic (and graysexual maybe). I feel it in my gut, like especially thinking a lot about the stuff with Tess. I don’t necessarily think it’s something he fully understands about himself, even in his later years, but it’s there.

Javi P – Hetero. Loves women. We know that. But, I can also see him questioning. I think when Murphy shows up, there’s something there. Something in his mind. He’s the least likely to ever act on it, given the external factors, but he’s certainly had moments of thinking about it which unfortunately probably cause him a lot of anguish.

Din – Aroace. I don’t even know what to say, this just feels very real to me.

Marcus M – Demi oh my god very much demisexual and demiromantic. He needs the connection first, and the rest will follow. He loves hard, and he loves forever when he gets there, much like Erin said he only ever really loved his wife.

[veronicaphoenix]

hello hello hello random ass question but you're an English major and I want to know what your favourite books are and why thank you very much 🥰

Dear Laura,

hi hi hi!! You just asked what's probably my favorite question ever and of course, I got carried away. I'm sorry if this is too long!

Surprisingly enough, none of the books I had to read at uni are my favorite 😅 Obviously, I had to read the classics (Pride and Prejudice, Wuthering Heights...) and I'm not a very big fan of those. They also forced Shakespeare down my throat for a couple of years and I ended up having a love/hate relationship with his works and his persona lol (I love the town where he was born, tho, it's my favorite town in England). 🤍

I read a lot, and I read a lot of everything. If you ever see my bookshelf you will see stuff ranging from Nicholas Sparks' novels to Stephen King's works (he's one of my fav authors) to some really fucked up stories like We Need to Talk about Kevin or My Absolute Darling (I actually loved these last two).

If you ever want to know, I have a favorite book for every genre. But my absolute all time favorite books are The Thirteenth Tale by Diane Setterfield, and The Time Traveler's Wife by Audrey Niffenegger (I literaly cry for days every time I read this one).

The Thirteenth Tale is, most of all, a Gothic novel, and I love all things Gothic. This is definitely my go-to comfort read at any time. It has many classic Gothic elements and it can be somewhat predictable at times, but I was not expecting the plot twist toward the end. I love it for its setting in an abandoned manor and a main character with a quiet nature, who adores books and stories, and is emotionally scarred from childhood trauma.

I would define The Time Traveler's Wife as a romance novel with magical realism, and totally heartbreaking. It's got a touch of sci-fi with the time traveling thing, but it's not exactly what you would expect. I really don't like sci-fi stories and I think one of the reasons why I fell in love with this one is because of the way the author deals with that in the book. To summarize, the story follows Henry and Clare as they navigate life while coping with Henry's genetic condition, which causes him to randomly time travel. The curious thing about his condition is that, when he time travels, he often finds himself meeting Clare at different stages of her life; when she's a little girl, then a teenager, and then when she's an adult and they're married. The first time I read this book, I was a teenager and I found it really beautiful, innovating, and sad. The second time, I had already experienced being in love, so I felt everything between Henry & Clare's relationship on a deeper level, and towards the end, the story gets so heartbreaking that I was crying for days on train journeys, at work, and at home (I have to say that I'm a very sensible person and a crybaby lol).

However, there's also one other book that I read when I was 14 or so called The Wishing Game by Patrick Redmond that I've loved ever since, but its somewhat controversial for me because I fell in love with the 'villain' and was supportive of all his crimes 🫣 I think the reason why I empathized with him was because I read the story while I was in my teenage years, in my glorious high school days, and as most of us, I didn't really fit it, and sometimes I felt really neglected and angry, so I guess it was sort of comforting to read about a boarding school where the bullies start mysteriously dying 😶‍🌫️

What about you? Any favorite books? Oh, I love talking about books! This message put a big smile on my face sfsadfnsdsdfasjn 💞

[0-r-a-y-0]

Hair Play— Romantic #12

In which: Nick admires Jasper as he does his hair and plays with it later

Idk if I made it obvious but Jasper has curly hair!!!

Also I can’t tell if I like this or not but this was the most voted for my next oneshot (it was a tie between this and another one) and I’ve been planning on posting again.

It was late at night with both boys hauled in Nick’s bathroom. The house was silent aside from music playing in the bedroom and the boys’ talking.

“I don’t understand why you need like three different products if they all do the same.” Nick said.

“You don’t understand because you got straight hair.” Jasper laughed, taking his hairbrush and running it through his wet hair. “They all do different things. Like this one defines the curls, a little bit of oil is good for your hair, you should use it too, and this keeps my hair from being frizzy and it makes my hair smell good.”

“What happens if you don’t use any of it?” Nick wondered.

“Then I’d kill myself.” He stated.

“I thought we agreed we wouldn’t joke like that.” The redhead said.

“Who says I’m joking?”

“Jasper.” Nick says sternly.

“You’re right.” He replies, turning to face him. “I’m sorry.” Jasper kisses Nick and he kisses back gently. “Okay, but I have to do my hair like now or it’ll look horrible.” He claimed, pulling away.

“So, what do you do first?” He asked.

“Well, besides brushing my hair and getting all the tangles out, I use this product first. So, I just put some on my hand, rub it then just run it through.” Jasper demonstrates.

“That’s a lot of product…” Nick commented, trailing off.

“You have to use a lot or else it won’t do anything.” He confirmed, taking the teal bottle and taking the cap off before pumping a few squirts of product into his hand. “I use this on next, I put it mostly in my fingers so if gets my curls more individually. It’ll make my hair curl better.”

“Does your hair just naturally curl or do you need to take some strands and curl it with your fingers?” Nick questioned.

“It naturally curls, obviously, but the products just make it look better. And sometimes if my hair won’t curl like I want it to, I just take my two pointer fingers and curl it.” Jasper explained, taking a piece and rolling the strand up between his fingers, he holds it for a moment before carefully sliding his fingers out of his hair. “Then wala, look at that.”

“When do you use the oil?” He quizzed.

“So curious.” Jasper teased. “I use it after a scrunch my hair or use my diffuser.” He answers, taking both his hands and scrunch the hair in his hands. “If it makes that sound then you know it’s good.” He adds.

After he scrunches his hair enough, he takes the oil and puts some on his hands. With his hair mostly dry, he runs it through his scalp. “You want to make sure your hair is mostly dry though.”

He takes more of the oil and puts some in Nick’s hair, ruffling his hair afterwards. “That’s so much work.” Nick claimed.

“Tell me about it.” Jasper sarcastically rolled his eyes. “Let’s go lay down now, and watch a movie or something?” He suggested.

“Yeah, maybe we can watch Rudolph?” The redhead requested with a smirk.

“You just want to watch it so you can thirst over his dad.” Jasper giggled.

“Whaaaat? Never…” Nick said. Jasper raised a brow at him, crossing his arms as he sat in the bed. “Okay, fine. But not my fault he’s fine as fuck. And besides, it’s almost Christmas!”

“I’m still not over Halloween.” The curly haired boy stated. “We can watch a Christmas movie after if we watch “My Bloody Valentine” first.”

“Why do you keep mentioning that movie?” Nick wondered.

“Because Jensen Ackles is in it and I love Jensen Ackles and he’s hot as fuckkkk!” Jasper exclaimed.

“Who’s Jensen Ackles?” The other asked.

“He plays Dean in Supernatural.” He responded as if it was the most obvious thing ever.

“Ohhhh yeah, we still gotta watch that.” Nick muttered.

“No, you and your brothers gotta watch it, I have to rewatch it.” Jasper said.

“Okay, fine. We can watch that movie. But we have to watch Rudolph after.” The redhead agreed.

They get the movie on and get comfortable on the bed. Jasper lays his head on Nick’s lap and the movie begins. He feels Nick’s fingers tangle around his slightly damp curls. He hums in satisfaction, relaxing as he kept his eyes on the tv.

“You’re so pretty.” Nick says.

“Thanks.” Jasper smiled.

“Your hair is gorgeous. I love it so much.”

“You don’t have to go on this whole banter of compliments now.” He grinned, chuckling.

“I won’t, I won’t. I just want to tell you that I love your hair.” Nick claimed, twisting strands of his hair around his fingers.

“I love it when you play with my hair.” Jasper said.

“Good, cause I’m never gonna stop.” He replied, only continuing his movements.

“Okay shush now, I wanna watch this.” The tan skinned boy scolded.

Throughout the movie, Nick ran his fingers in his hair or around Jasper’s body. Until he just stopped, but he was too sucked into the movie to notice. Nick’s fingers still laid tangled in his curls as he laid on his lap. And by the time the movie was over, Nick was asleep.

[invalidtumbls]

De-rezzed in the Second Act

So, I have this weird habit: I am fascinated not by perfect stories, but those that start well and fall apart for no particularly good reason. I remember seeing Atlantis: The Lost Empire in the theater and being carried away by the efficient setup in the first 20 minutes, only to hit a point when things slow down and thinking “wait, when did this suddenly start to suck?”

I hear ya Vinny. I’m bored too.

The problem, as story theorists know, is second act trouble. It’s that problem of the long middle of the story where initial enthusiasm fades, attention drifts, and momentum fails.

Well, that’s what it does when you’ve got second act trouble, anyways. Obviously, some movies/games/shows don’t have this problem, because they don’t have a defective second act. Nobody in 1977 came out of Star Wars saying “man, that stuff on board the Death Star went on way too long.”

Anyways, let’s define our terms. Three-act structure splits the story into three parts:

Setup — Introduce the characters and the situation. An inciting incident gets the ball rolling, ultimately leading to the first plot point, where an irreversible change occurs and the conflict begins.

Conflict — The protagonist attempts to achieve their goal, dealing with a progression of complications that arise naturally from each of their actions along the way. Eventually, this leads to the second plot point, at which the back-and-forth of the main conflict cannot continue, and a conclusion (for good or ill) must be reached.

Resolution — A new, final conflict ends the story, with the protagonist succeeding or failing (or, sometimes, a combination of both, like discovering the thing they originally wanted and have now attained isn’t what they actually need).

Thing is, these aren’t divvied up in tidy one-third portions. In practice, the acts are in more of a 25%-50%-25% split, or 20-50-30 if you go by the Scriptnotes podcast’s t-shirt. Author K. M. Weiland has an extraordinary site for story theorists that breaks all the key moments (or beats) of this structure into blogs, podcasts, and compilation books.

So, after seeing YouTube videos of the cool new Tron roller coaster at Disney World, I was reminded of 2010's Tron Legacy, the would-be franchise-relaunching, torch-passing, sci-fi film that basically did none of those things. It's another film that I remember deflates about halfway through, so I thought it would be worth a rewatch to see where it goes wrong.

This being a sequel to 1982’s Tron, you’d figure some the audience would need a reminder of the first film, since it had been been 28 years. You could just watch the first movie, but… surprise… Disney let it quietly go out of print in the year or two prior to the debut of Tron Legacy. Corporate incompetence? I’d argue quite the opposite: whatever you think of the original Tron, it’s not as good as you remember. To modern eyes, it’s clunky, talky, and slow, and certainly can’t coast on the power of its dated special effects. Chance are, if 2010 audiences could have gone back to watch Tron, they’d have been less likely to get tickets to Tron Legacy. Which is why I think Disney drained the retail market of Tron DVDs on purpose. After all, they were perfectly happy to issue a Blu-Ray of "Tron: The Original Classic" once Legacy had finished its theatrical run and got its home media release.

Come for the space frisbees, stay for the Wendy Carlos soundtrack that you remember from the arcade game.

So, instead, Tron Legacy opens with a scene of a digitally de-aged Jeff Bridges — well, a digitally de-aged back of Jeff Bridges’ head — reprising the character of Kevin Flynn, the protagonist of the first movie, a coder who went inside the computer called “The Grid” to defeat evil programs. He tells his son about how he fought alongside the heroic program “Tron”, and created another program named “Clu” to care for The Grid in Flynn’s absence. That’s basically everything you need to know from the first movie. All the other details — Sark, the MCP, Yori, Dumont — none of it matters. See how much time you saved by not rewatching it?

Next scene: info-dump. A news story reports Kevin Flynn’s disappearance, as it plays out over footage of the lonely, and increasingly troubled young Sam Flynn. It moves fast enough, and it’s fine for what it is.

Now, though, we are six minutes into the movie and don’t really know the protagonist. A 10-minute action sequence takes care of that. With an implicit timeskip, we see the young adult Sam speeding on his motorcycle, escaping the police, and breaking into the corporate tower of his father’s former company, which is having a board meeting to announce their new operating system. This is one of the already-dated bits of Tron Legacy: the now-evil version of ENCOM is a pretty obvious expy for Microsoft, as it prepares to launch its new operating system with a high new price tag and no new features.

When Apple did this, they called it “Snow Leopard” and everyone thought it was great. Shouldn’t we cut ENCOM a break?

I don’t think this bit lands today like it did just 13 years ago. People under 35 don’t recall Microsoft’s cutthroat monopoly days and mostly just know Microsoft as the Xbox company, not that different from Sony or Nintendo. An evil computer company today would probably be portrayed as directly creeping on its users, like Google or Facebook, or perhaps an Apple-style aesthetic dictatorship. Maybe with an Elon Musk caricature because, man, that dude is creepy.

As the board meeting continues, Sam sneaks into a server room and starts hacking, narrowly avoiding a security guard. As the board goes to launch their new OS, Sam’s hack reveals itself as a looping video of a barking dog, despite the “world-class security” claimed by the company. Better yet, Flynn’s last remaining loyalist at the company, Alan (the creator of the original “Tron” program), discovers that Sam’s hack has released the OS for free on the web.

At the top of the building, the security guard reaches Sam as he stands atop a crane. Sam, as the main shareholder in the company, justifies his hack as stealing from himself… then jumps off the building. Halfway down, he opens a parachute to complete his daring escape… except that he gets caught in a traffic light on the way down and the cops catch him.

Fifteen minutes into the film and Garret Hedlund is almost effortlessly charming. Pity it doesn’t last.

After bailing out of jail, Sam returns to his home — a makeshift bachelor pad built of stacked shipping containers — to find Alan waiting for him with news: Alan received an alert from a pager left to him by Kevin Flynn 20 years ago. From a long-since disconnected number.

Bruce Boxleitner has such a low-key charm, it’s a shame we didn’t see him in more stuff. Although now I’m sure you’re all going to tell me to watch Babylon 5, aren’t you?

Sam laughs off the idea that his father is waiting for him at the old arcade, but eventually rides over to check it out. Finding a secret room behind the “Tron” machine, Sam discovers Kevin’s office, and after a few ill-considered commands at the terminal, he gets zapped into The Grid.

So, in 20 minutes, there’s Act I. The essentials, from a story perspective:

Protagonist: Sam Flynn, genius hacker, prankster, lost-boy-without-a-father-figure trope.

The hook: Can Sam figure out what happened to Kevin Flynn all those years ago, and find him? And could doing so set things right both with Sam and the company?

The inciting event: Alan receives a page from Flynn’s pager, and lets Sam know.

First plot point: Sam is zapped into The Grid, the world inside the computer.

All told, this is really good. The movie efficiently gets us on board with a fun, exciting protagonist, and gives him a compelling purpose. You’d figure we’re in for a good time at this point.

(Reader, we are not in for a good time.)

OK, so Act II. There’s lots to do in the second act — it’s half the running time after all — so it’s helpful to break it down more granularly. Weiland writes, “[the] first half of the second act is where your characters find the time and space to react to the first major plot point.” Since the plot point was getting zapped into The Grid, it makes sense that the reaction — Sam’s first order of business — is figuring out where he is and what do to do. So we start with a five-minute sequence of Sam immediately being captured by the authorities, outfitted with his Tron-land uniform and identity disc, and brought to the game grid.

I hadn’t realized until this rewatch that Sam being pinned down by the Recognizer’s searchlight is a callback to when the police helicopter gets him back in Act I.

From here, we go into what everyone expects from the Tron movies: the videogame stuff. Sam immediately ends up in “Disc Wars”, the gladiatorial death frisbee from the first movie, albeit with updated effects. Using his innate athleticism and cleverness, he survives to a faceoff with the champion Rinzler, who wounds Sam and realizes from a blood drop that Sam is not a program, but a user. A mysterious figure lording over the games demands that Sam be brought to him.

As Sam is ferried up to the throne room, the mysterious figure reveals himself as the spitting image of the 35-year-old Kevin Flynn. Sam greets his dad and insists they go home, only to be told the leader isn’t Kevin Flynn after all. Sam realizes that this is Clu, a program that Flynn created (owing to the Tron convention that programs resemble the person who created them).

The convention of programs resembling their “users” also speaks to the mainframe-era idioms of the original Tron, when a user and programmer were one and the same, typically someone who wrote a program to solve computational problems for themselves.

Clu sends Sam back out to the game grid, presumably to die in combat in the lightcycle game. So, shut off your brain, we get another zippy five-minute action sequence. It’s playing out just like the original Tron at this point in the second act, arguably better because Act I established Sam’s motorcycle skills, so the lightcycle action sequence and his success in it is actually motivated by his character.

40 minutes in and he’s still charming. If only it had lasted.

Despite being outgunned by opponents with better equipment, Sam leads his team and puts up a solid fight. Eventually though, dirty tricks kill off his compatriots, leaving Sam with a wrecked bike and facing certain doom at the edge of Clu's outstretched disc. Suddenly, a four-wheeler bursts onto the grid and rescues Sam. The driver wrecks most of the pursuing lightcycles, then blasts a hole in the arena to escape to a barren outland beyond the grid, where the pursuers’ vehicles can’t operate. Removing her helmet, the driver introduces herself as Quorra, promising that Sam’s questions will be answered in due course.

Things slow down as the car weaves its way through hidden passages to a secret lair. Quorra brings Sam inside an elegant home, where a solitary figure resides in a seated meditation.

For those of you keeping track, the Blu-Ray is at 48 minutes, 30 seconds, and the movie is about to fall apart, though we don’t know it yet.

We’re now approaching the midpoint of the second act, and thus, the midpoint of the movie itself. This is a separate phase of the second act, one that is uniquely situated to keep the story from flagging. That is, if you actually do something with it. As Weiland writes:

The midpoint is what keeps your second act from dragging. It’s what caps the reactions in the first half of the book and sets up the chain of actions that will lead the characters into the climax. In many ways, the midpoint is like a second inciting event. Like the first inciting event, it directly influences the plot. It changes the paradigm of the story. And it requires a definitive and story-altering response from the characters.

So, a good story probably wants to do something big at the midpoint, something that changes the stakes, changes the conflict, and forces the protagonist to act. Revelations! Betrayal! Explosions! The good stuff!

Tron Legacy, by comparison, sits down to have dinner.

What’s wrong, Quorra? You haven’t had any of your uncannily realistic roast pig.

The reunion scenes with Sam and (Kevin) Flynn stretch out for about 15 minutes… a full one-eighth of the movie. It’s all dialogue, much of it while seated. That’s already tough to make dramatic. What’s even harder to chew through is a staggering amount of info-dumping:

Sam insists they leave the Grid together, but Flynn says it’s impossible.

Awkwardly, Sam and Flynn try to catch up over the lost years, but it turns to why Flynn didn’t return. Flynn explains the discovery of the “Isos”, isomorphic algorithms, a spontaneously-generated digital life form that could change the world.

As Flynn's story turns to flashback, Clu sees the Isos as a corruption of the perfect system Flynn created him to build, and stages a coup against Flynn. Tron (apparently) dies defending Flynn, who flees into exile to escape. With no one left to stop him, Clu commits genocide against the Isos, wiping them out in one stroke.

The portal between The Grid and the real world closes, trapping Flynn within. It can only be opened from the outside, meaning Sam’s entry has opened it.

Flynn suspects that Clu is organizing something, and that he wants the power of Flynn’s identity disc. Flynn reveals that he didn’t send the page to Alan, meaning that Clu must have done so, as a means of laying a trap to lure out Flynn.

Yeah yeah, I was around in the 80s. I remember “War Games” too.

It’s kind of a chore to get through all of this material. It’s good for the story to breathe after the action of the game grid, but 15 minutes is probably too much. And to be fair, this does meet one of the requirements of the midpoint: it changes the protagonist’s goals and actions. Sam realizes he can’t convince Flynn to come with him to the portal. Instead, as he explains to Quorra, if he can just get to the portal himself, then out in the real world he can delete Clu with just a keystroke. Quorra thinks about it, then gives him the contact information for “Zuse”, a program who can get anyone to anywhere. Sam takes this information, steals Flynn’s old lightcycle, and heads back into the Grid.

We are now at one hour, five minutes into the movie, and believe it or not, this is the last time in the movie that our protagonist will take action entirely on his own. But more on that later.

Sam meets a female program who takes him to the End of the Line Club to meet Zuse, through an intermediary named Castor. Meanwhile, Clu's forces find the lightcycle and trace it back to Flynn’s hidden lair. Sam negotiates with Castor (who turns out to be Zuse himself) for transport to the portal, but is betrayed when it all turns out to have been a trap and Clu’s forces crash in from above. This kicks off a big bar fight sequence — the first action in nearly a half-hour at this point — with Quorra arriving to help protect Sam.

The Daft Punk cameo is a cute touch, since the soundtrack they created is quite likely the most enduring and best thing about the film. It’s a pity the Blu-Ray doesn’t have a music-only audio track, because then you could turn the entire movie into a two-hour Daft Punk music video.

The fight goes badly, with Sam overwhelmed and Quorra losing an arm to one of Clu’s goons before Flynn arrives to use his convenient god-like powers to turn the tide of the fight. He urges Sam to escape with the wounded Quorra to the elevator, but as they leave, one of Clu’s minions steals Flynn’s identity disc: exactly what Flynn has tried to prevent all these years.

Flynn and Sam steal a solar sailer and set off, Flynn reluctantly agreeing to Sam’s plan to make a rush to the portal. With the in-flight downtime, Flynn starts to use his magical user power to start healing Quorra. As Sam watches Flynn work, he realizes the truth: Quorra is an Iso, in fact, the last surviving Iso.

And this pause gives us an opportunity to bring up something about Tron Legacy: what is the point of this entire exercise? Ideally, a good story should have a theme that it expresses. The title gives us a hint: "legacy", things left behind by previous generations.

There's a really interesting idea when you think about it: Flynn basically has three children in this story:

Sam, his biological human son.

Clu, the program he created literally in his own image.

Quorra, his adoptive Iso daughter.

…and it doesn’t really do anything with that idea. Clu is motivated not by his resentment of Sam (or Quorra, if he’s even aware of her), but by his political ambitions to create a perfect world. Sam arrives to see Quorra living with Flynn and doesn’t for a second consider the idea he’s been effectively replaced by her in his father’s concerns and affections. If anything, the movie wants us to see a spark of romantic interest between Sam and Quorra, and if years of watching anime on Crunchyroll has taught me anything, it’s to never fuck your sister, even if you’re not blood-related.

(Looks up suddenly, taps earpiece.) Uh, Wolf, I’m getting word that what anime actually says is to always fuck your sister. Back to you in Atlanta.

The scene of Flynn magically healing Quorra’s disintegrated arm also brings up what a missed opportunity this is. Between these three characters, they chose the least interesting option. To wit, could Sam heal Quorra? We’ve seen he’s got 1337 4ax0r 5k1llz back in Act I; does that give him magical abilities inside The Matrix The Grid? Do all users have that, or is it just Flynn?

Turn it around another way: what if it’s Flynn or Sam who gets injured. Can Quorra heal them? Flynn tells us that the Isos are these fascinating creatures who are going to reshape the real world, but we never see anything like that. Quorra is at best a quality Action Girl, but nothing she does in the story appears to have any relevance to her identity as an Iso. It’s another failure to “show, don’t tell”, in a movie that does an heck of a lot of telling to begin with.

Moreover, this sequence is taking us to the end of Act II. Citing Weiland again, this post-midpoint section is supposed to set up the protagonist for his or her final actions in Act III.

Because the second half of the second act will lead right into the slugfest of the climax, this is the author’s last chance to get all his playing pieces into position. We have to set up the line of dominoes that will knock into the final major plot point at the 75% mark, and we do that by creating a series of actions from the main character. Although he’s not likely to be in control of the situation, he’s at least moving forward and calling a few shots of his own, instead of taking it and taking it from the antagonistic force.

Tron Legacy has an even worse problem than the protagonist sitting back and taking it. Over the course of the last 10 minutes or so, Sam has been all but replaced as the protagonist by Flynn. Following the fiasco at the club, Flynn is the one driving the action (stopping the falling elevator in the escape from the club, healing Quorra) and providing all the information to drive us to the third act. Sam has been just going along with it, suddenly demoted to damn near sidekick status in the The Jeff Bridges Show Starring Jeff Bridges, with Special Guest Star Digitally De-Aged Jeff Bridges. Also appearing: Garret Hedlund and Olivia Wilde. And it's only going to get worse in Act III.

But before we get to Act III, there are two completely unnecessary scenes that drag even more momentum from a story that’s already at a virtual standstill:

Back at the End of Line Club, Castor/Zuse negotiates with Clu over Flynn’s identity disc. Clu coerces him into handing it over, then his minions bomb the club, killing Zuse inside. It’s now been almost 15 minutes since the breakout from the club, and the lead characters are long gone. Why should we care about Zuze? And if the point is to remind us that Clu is a cold-blooded murderer… um, I think we got that when he exterminated all the Isos.

On the solar sailer, Quorra tells Sam the story of how Flynn rescued her from The Purge that killed the Isos. She asks Sam what a sunrise is like, and he describes it in romantic terms as he briefly looks into her eyes. This could be a charming moment that lets the story breathe, if it weren’t for the fact that this whole second act has been largely sitting on its ass for nearly an hour.

No. Just no, OK? Don’t even think it, Sam Flynn.

At one hour, thirty two minutes into the film, we now head into Act III. The solar sailer arrives unexpectedly at an industrial facility, rather than the portal. The trio finds barges of kidnapped, zombified programs, who they realize are being amassed into an army by Clu. As they skulk about the facility, Quorra gives her disc to Flynn and makes a run for it. While she's easily captured by Rinzler, her distraction allows Flynn and Sam to further infiltrate the facility.

Plot point two, in screenplay theory, puts an end to the the conflict of Act II and forces the conclusion that will play out in Act III. Here, it comes in the form of Clu’s speech to his army, in which he reveals his plan: he will use the army he has created and take it through the portal, using Flynn’s identity disc, to conquer the real world.

Straight-up Triumph of the Will here, because Hitler Is Bad is the easiest point in the world to make.

The conflict of the second act was Sam trying to get back to the real world, preferably with Flynn in tow. Now that they know Clu’s plan, they can’t just run away. They have a new goal: Clu must be stopped here, on The Grid. That’s what takes us into Act III.

Well, for what it’s worth of course. We burned an hour in Act II not doing very much action-wise, not doing anything thematically, and spending just a staggering amount of time in flashback info-dumps. The momentum has fizzled, and this movie wouldn't be saved by Act III even if it were great.

As it is, Sam and Flynn split up, with Flynn getting an escape ship ready while Sam makes an all-too-easy trip up to the throne room to recover Quorra and the disc. Seriously, Flynn’s disc is the most important thing in the world and you’ve got like three guards? It’s a pretty rote action scene that takes less than three minutes of screen time, and that’s with intercutting to Clu finishing his speech and reacting to an alarm when the disc goes missing.

As the trio take off in a stolen lightplane — with Quorra driving, Sam shooting, and Flynn calling the shots (because he’s all but the protagonist at this point) — they get chased by Clu, Rinzler, and their goons, basically replaying the lightcycle sequence, but now it’s flying.

And the thing about this is, the action doesn’t really lean on anything specific to Sam or Quorra that’s been established earlier in the movie. There’s one line about how Sam’s glider-assisted escape from the throne ship tower is a trick he learned a few nights prior at ENCOM Tower. But there’s nothing really thematically about Sam, who he is, what he values, how he solves problems — no “use the Force, Luke” moment — because the prior two acts never really set any of that up. So what’s left now is pew-pew CGI light show.

At least they should have gotten a good PS4 game out of this, right?

Dispatching the pursuers — including Rinzler, who turns out to be the corrupted Tron in a subplot that feels like it just barely escaped being left on the cutting room floor — the trio reaches the portal, only to find Clu waiting to confront them. So now, with Clu standing between them and their goal, does Sam take the role of the protagonist and vanquish the antagonist once and for all? Does he deliver the thematic truth, proving the righteousness of his world-view, and putting a bow on the whole point of the story?

What, are you kidding? No, of course not. Because this is Tron Legacy. Flynn does it instead.

If you squint, you can just barely see the putative protagonist, out of focus in the background.

Flynn offers a reconciliation; Clu rejects it Because Evil. After a brief fight, Clu retakes Flynn's disc, only to discover he's been tricked by a switcheroo and is holding Quorra's disc, while Sam and Quorra make their escape with the real disc. Clu attempts to stop them, forcing Flynn to use his Magical User Power to merge with Clu, seemingly killing them both, or at least reducing them to a little glowing light, which match-dissolves to Sam back in the real world, saving something (possibly Flynn’s data) to a USB stick.

After this climax, there’s just wrap-up bits of falling action in the real world to whip through before the credits. Sam finds Alan at the arcade, telling him to meet tomorrow morning at ENCOM Tower to retake the company. And we end with a cute shot — even if so much of the film doesn’t work, it is a lovely note to end on — of Sam on his motorcycle giving a now-human Quorra a ride and showing her the sunrise.

For the last time, Sam, do not bang your de facto stepsister.

So, what have we learned? I’d argue that the problems of the second act that doom the film aren’t just that not enough happens. That kind of audience-gets-bored-easily thinking is what gets us more dumb, loud movies. I think the problem of the second act is that it loses track of what the story was supposed to be about, if it ever had a point at all. The story raises a question of what would happen if the son ever finds his long-lost father inside the computer, but never settled on a good answer before they started banging out pages. And with no point to the whole exercise, there’s no natural pull of where the story should go. Perhaps it’s inevitable that Flynn ends up stealing the movie from Sam, because there’s no answer, no conclusion, that Sam’s story is working towards.

Still, the movie got one thing right: ORIGINAL MUSIC BY DAFT PUNK.

It’s a widely acknowledged truth that the Tron Legacy soundtrack is the best coding music ever created. As a software engineer, I can confirm.

[kodicraft]

I for one would LOVE to see your cyberpunk rant.

(btw i appreciate a lot the fact you would encourage me to post about this /gen)

Alright, here goes.

I'm gonna start by reiterating the initial things I said when I "announced" this, I stated that big budget alien (as in, sci-fi with a focus on non-human space lifeforms, think Star Wars or Avatar as opposed to something like Interstellar) and Cyberpunk stories tend to be a big waste of a really great concept due to prudery, anthrocentrism (I'll be defining this word I made up later) and occasionally racism.

I think both alien and cyberpunk stories tend to suffer from these issues but they appear in very different ways, so I'll talk first about cyberpunk and then about alien stories.

Cyberpunk is a genre that hinges on great technological progress, people now have cybernetic enhancements, everything is an electronic device and everything is interconnected on the internet. While "cyberpunk" was first claimed by a futuristic sci-fi story, cyberpunk as we know it was popularized by Cyberpunk 2013 (and its sequels). It decides to take a much greater look at the social and political consequences of this technological progress which arguably made it very attractive back in 1988. Nowadays more than ever, its setting and story can be used as a direct parallel to the present time and it's clear that it's still a very popular genre thanks to games such as Cyberpunk 2077, arguably one of the most anticipated video games in the last few years.

Obviously, when you have something as large as "technological progress" as a critical plot point, you can take it in lots of creative directions! You can say a lot about the world by displaying current or potential abstract issues with a concrete image like body augmentations.

In 2020, quarantine forced a large majority of the world to work from home, entirely dependent on their electronic devices for working and ultimately being able to live. This can be directly compared to electronic enhancements in cyberpunk stories. These are electronic devices that can allow people to work and socialize in entirely new ways, however they are made by corporations, often closed source, and very expensive. Cyberpunk stories can take these fundamental concepts they have and put them in convincing stories to be able to comment on the real world and create an immersive universe. These are incredibly powerful tools for conveying your world and making it interesting.

Do big budget cyberpunk stories do this though? Rarely, if ever! In Cyberpunk 2077, augmentations are never questioned. They have none of the flaws of a real electronic device and are instead just an excuse for abilities and the occasional plot armor. What sucks even more is the fact that in order to convey their world, these stories rely on extremely fucking stupid tropes.

Sex work, god I fucking hate sex work in cyberpunk stories. It's always literally just used to "show how bad things are". If you know me, you know I genuinely respect sex work and that I believe it is unfairly stigmatized and separated from other types of work. Obviously, the white allocishet male does not care because he is a prude and immediately correlates seeing a prostitute with a sign that society is crumbling.

I hate how prevalent sex work is as a cyberpunk trope, it's shoved in the face of the person consuming the work because the writers couldn't find a genuine way to use all of the tools their genre allows them to have in order to convey the depth of their fictional society. It's a crutch for bad writers, and quite frankly really insulting to sex work. Like please, these people have consumed porn in the past, of course they have, do they really lack the thought process to realize that it's a very important part of society and that it simply existing isn't a dystopian feature?

Sex work can definitely be used in good ways, don't get me wrong. I will always love works that genuinely normalize or comment on the stigmatization of sex work, but big budget cyberpunk stories written by prudes don't do that.

Same goes for gender stuff too, like are you gonna tell me that in this world full of electronic prosthetics and enhancements literally nobody is openly non-binary, transgender augmentations aren't literally everywhere? That's an incredibly unconvincing aspect of these stories that's entirely due to the fact that the writers are so goddamn close-minded and probably all cishets.

This is also the part where racism comes into play. I'll be more brief about this because it's not nearly as common as the other two criticisms I have at least in my experience, but it's worth remembering that cyberpunk is a very occident-centric genre mostly written and consumed by whites. Part of the appeal (to some, not to me) of cyberpunk is its "exoticism", how "different" it is from the present (which as I already stated is not true, but again, this is only the case to some people). Obviously, when you're a white writer with an immense toolkit of creative tools, what do you do? Fucking base yourself on asian culture.

Oh my fucking god.

The stereotypes of "Japanese" and "Chinese" culture are fucking filthy. It genuinely feels sometimes in these stories like the world is governed by weebs. I can understand that "Japanese culture" is very different from the Occident in a lot of ways that can be interesting to explore, it's genuinely uncomfortable as fuck when characters are literally just stereotypical anime men and women. Playing through Cyberpunk 2077 with its stupid-ass focus on this futuristic Chinatown felt like I was visiting a Chinese town as told by a American conservative.

This even combines with the prostitution point from earlier! White men fetishizing Asian women is nothing new but it's just way too fucking present in these big budget cyberpunk stories. Since the teams in big corporations are so heavily stacked against women and POC, it's clear why that's so often the case.

The last point that I cited was the "anthrocentrism", now, that's a term I coined myself because I couldn't find a preexisting word that said what I mean.

Anthrocentrism refers to a tendency in writing fictional non-human characters as just humans with "differences" shoehorned in. Think anthropomorphic two-legged aliens that breathe that are mammals or androids with mechanical blood that need to eat something (but oooo it cant be human food!!!). This is just a design route I hate a lot, humans aren't the center of the world and real beings aren't just humans but different. These anthrocentric characters tend to have very surface-level differences from humans that are made into big important plot points just to try to show how different they are, which really just brings attention to how they're not that different at all. I think Avatar is a very good example of that: Avatars are literally just bigger stronger humans with blue skin, a cat nose and a tail. They are mammals, they still breathe, eat, hunt, have societies with birth rituals, death rituals, hierarchies, etc. That fucking sucks so bad, these aliens are more similar to humans than 99% of creatures on Earth.

But I'm not talking about aliens yet, anthrocentrism tends to be apparent in big budget cyberpunk stories through artificial intelligence! For some fucking reason, these AIs are designed to be limited in very similar ways to humans. They don't benefit from multithreaded thoughts or snapshots or clusters or even internet connectivity. These are all features of computers that can be incredibly interesting for an AI but their implications are deep, you can't just multithread a human mind, you need to design a mind from scratch to support features like these, and obviously clever design is too damn hard for our poor close-minded big budget writers. I like how Portal decides to do this with GlaDOS. GlaDOS is a backed up human mind, while she gets access to controls for the facility and a highly advanced processor, she isn't fully artificial. Her human limitations make sense and are convincing.

In Cyberpunk 2077, Delamain is just an AI that drives cars. It has a human face n shit, but it's just a driver. Does it have anything that makes it different from humans fundamentally? Nope, its only differences from human characters is the fact it talks very formally and doesn't have a physical form. This is such a goddamn waste of a perfectly good idea because the writers can't be fucked to write a non-human character without it just being a human with surface level changes.

You can make the excuse "humans made it so it makes sense that it would resemble humans" but like when has that ever happened in real life? Literally what piece of technology around you has been designed to resemble humans? Our technology is an interface between the human world and a mathematical abstract world. Why don't we have characters that are the other way around? Why don't we have mathematical abstract characters that need interfaces to interact with the real world? That would be so cool! Strange non-human entities that program their own interfaces so the human at the monitor notices their presence, trying to learn human language based on their natlang processing code in order to communicate. That would be so fucking cool!

Let's go back to Avatar because I still have more to bitch about. The anthrocentrism in the series doesn't end at the design of the characters. Next time you watch one of the movies, pay attention to the breasts of "female" Aliens. Just admire the fucking lengths the artists went through because female nipples can't be shown on screen. They still want their aliens to look tribal and primitive for some reason but no nipples, not allowed. I think that it should say a lot about how these characters are just different humans that the prudery of the executives forces their clothes to behave so awkwardly. Star Wars for instance does a little better on this front but quite frankly most aliens that aren't based on humans are nothing but one-time side characters, which is possibly more insulting than them not being there in the first place as it shows that the writers only value human-like characters.

Why???? There are so many animals on earth and you pick fucking humans??????? Motherfucker there are creatures on god's green earth you could convince the whole of the internet are aliens from how they look and behave but you decide to make them anthropomorphic breathing mammals? With custom biology you can create such interesting characters with particular abilities and a unique culture that's so different from the real world that it truly feels like seeing another world, another convincing world that could have been ours.

The racism shows here again. I think we can all immediately identify the issues with displaying any non-human societies as "tribal" with "primitive" technology unless they're the bad guys. To white close-minded humans, that's what non-humans are.

Also, considering the fact that these writers aren't really making a creative and unique biology this is a bit of a moot point, but really, no alien reproduction? Are humans such prudes that we can't even imagine a reproduction process that isn't unacceptable to show to children? You are creating Aliens, fictional creatures, you have full absolute control over the biology and sociology of these creatures, you are literally god itself but you still drop an integral part of who they are just because it's too sexy.

Now, I do recognize that this is not always because of close-minded white neurotypical allocishet male writers, sometimes it's because of close-minded white neurotypical allocishet male executives! Either way, at some point in these high budget creations there is someone who doesn't understand their own humanity, who doesn't understand what humanity is or means, who can't put themselves in the boots of someone who isn't a white neurotypical allocishet male, and because of how the world is right now, that person is the weakest link and makes the chain break.

Smaller budget stories are just so much better, usually they are written by people doing it out of real passion, smaller groups with lots of creative cohesion, and usually people with a way better grip on reality.

I myself am currently writing my own sci-fi story, and am paying attention to how my setting can be used to comment on the present while creating an engaging fictional world. I've experimented with creating custom species and cultures in the past and if you know me you know I ain't no prude. I'll post it here once I'm done, this way if I'm a hypocrite I can be fairly judged for it.

Ok that's it for my rant, again thanks for feeding the fire that is my spiteful soul.

[mahar123]

Borderlands’ movie adaptation stars Cate Blanchett, Jamie Lee Curtis in sci-fi journey

Borderlands, the video game franchise that defined the looter-shooter genre, is poised to get its own cinematic universe — and it’s about time. All six base games in the series are well-loved by fans for their fantastical lore and quirky characters, who you better believe will be making their on-screen debut with director Eli Roth’s upcoming film adaptation of the franchise.

There’s still a way to go before the film hits theaters this summer. In the meantime, IGN sat down with Roth and Randy Pitchford, founder of Gearbox Entertainment and an executive producer on the movie, to talk all things Borderlands ahead of tomorrow’s first official trailer release.

And if that weren’t enough, IGN can also exclusively reveal the new poster for the Borderlands movie, as shown below.

From the way Pitchford and Roth interact, even on a video call, you’d think they were brothers. They both exude the same fun-loving goofiness that makes Borderlands, well, Borderlands. To me, this was best exemplified by the way the two creative continued to interrupt one another with comedic anecdotes about their time on set.

But jokes aside, the two mesh well on a professional level which bodes well for this video game adaptation. Roth was given extensive creative liberty on the project while Pitchford was on stand-by as a resource to provide deeper insight on the original series.

Obviously, it’s Randy’s baby, it’s his brainchild, and it’s everybody’s brainchild,” Roth said. “You’re stepping into a world that is so beloved and the fans are so hardcore that you think, ‘Okay, well, I really don’t want to screw this up.’”

Thankfully, Pitchford was open to pretty much everything. Roth recalled how Pitchford was even receptive to the idea of keeping Claptrap alive and entertained the Cabin Fever director’s various suggestions for how the robot might be able to expel bullets: “Is it like a tail goes up and… are they little rabbit pellets?”

In truth, it’s a blessing this adaptation was made, and it speaks highly to Pitchford’s faith in Roth as a director. Since the start of his career in the games industry, Pitchford said he’d been turning down requests to adapt his studio’s work into film. Ari Arad, who is now the producer of the upcoming Borderlands movie, came to Pitchford with several iterations of the script before the deal was sealed.

“Finally, we were playing League of Legends together one day, Ari and I. He was the support and I was the ADC,” Pitchford explained. “We were talking on chat, like on Discord, about the possibility of a movie while we were playing.”

(In an ironic twist, the Gearbox Entertainment founder clarified that he was playing as Caitlyn, who he says “was completely ripped off from Mad Maxi from Borderlands, by full comfortable admission of the Riot team.”)

From there, the two began to play video games together frequently, which gave Pitchford the confidence to finally sign off on developing a film adaptation of the Borderlands series. (So I guess business deals don’t happen on the golf course anymore.

As in the game, the upcoming film will take place on the fictional planet of Pandora for an action-packed adventure featuring some of the franchise’s most beloved characters. In this all-new interpretation of the video game series, viewers will see the red-headed outlaw Lilith unite with a team of unlikely heroes to locate a missing girl who could change the fate of the universe.

“At a certain point you just have to pick, these are our characters, this is the story we’re going with, and let’s just make the best one possible,” Roth told me, reflecting on the decision-making process of what characters would appear in the upcoming film.

Because the movie is not canon to the video game series, the creative team behind the Borderlands movie had free reign to select from the unique cast of characters across the franchise — some of whom don’t appear until later games in the original storyline.

The film features a star-studded line-up of performers led by Academy Award winner Cate Blanchett as Lilith alongside Ariana Greenblatt as Tiny Tina, Jack Black as the voice of Claptrap, Jamie Lee Curtis as Tannis, Kevin Hart as Roland, Florian Munteanu as Krieg, and Gina Gershon as Moxxi.

Other additions to the full cast list include Edgar Ramírez, Bobby Lee, Janina Gavankar, Olivier Richters, Cheyenne Jackson, Benjamin Byron Davis, Charles Babalola, Steven Boyer, Ryann Redmond, Paula Andrea Placido, and more.

“I was like, ‘Find me the weirdest, gnarliest people. We’ll put them in the movie.’ And everybody, they loved it,” Roth said.

Roth and Pitchford shed light on what it was like convincing some of these actors to say “yes.” We obviously had to find out what made someone like Blanchett pull the trigger on a project like this, and the answer is, honestly, heartwarming.

In our conversation, Roth likened the Tár actor to one of the three greatest female performers in history. Their working relationship dates back to the director’s 2018 fantasy film, The House with a Clock in Its Walls, in which Blanchett starred alongside Black. So, when it came time to figure out who would be a fitting lead for the Borderlands cast, there was no doubt in Roth’s mind that the Oscar winner was the best pick.

“I think with me, she has permission to go a little bit weird and a little bit insane because it’s like, ‘Well, it’s Eli,’” Roth said. “It’s just like, ‘Let’s go have fun.’ But she’s obviously very serious about her character.”

For Curtis, the decision to join the cast was largely spurred by her gamer daughter, who is a fan of the Borderlands franchise, saying “‘Mom, you have to do this movie,’” as Pitchford recalled.

In Black’s case, the roots run even deeper. Back in 2012, he brought his son to E3 when Borderlands 2 was first being teased. Black asked Pitchford for a demo of the game, and the Gearbox founder told him that he would have to play Claptrap if a film adaptation of the franchise were ever to be made. The Nacho Libre star, of course, readily agreed.

“Whether you’ve played a Borderlands game or not, it’s a fun movie. It’s a really, really fun movie,” Pitchford said.

Borderlands will be released in U.S. theaters by Lionsgate on Aug. 9, 2024.

[paolojcruz]

Bridget Jones in Kirby’s Fourth World

REVIEWS : COMICS

Jersey Gods succeeds at an unlikely mashup of “chick lit” and cosmic superheroics.

Originally posted on the Multiply page of Sputnik Fantastik, January 2010

Did you ever think Bridget Jones’ Diary would be more interesting if DC’s jetpack-wearing science hero Adam Strange had been the love interest? Or perhaps you’ve always wanted to read a comic that mashes up The Devil Wears Prada with Marvel’s galactic crossover War of Kings. If so, then Jersey Gods is perfect for you.

The basic premise is relatively simple: Zoe is a willful, free-spirited gal from the suburban Garden State. Barock is a stoic, dutiful war hero, who’s caught up in the midst of a power struggle between god-like alien civilizations. By some contrived twist of fate, their paths cross, when a rogue deity opens a dimensional portal in a crowded shopping mall. But what are the odds of this star-crossed pair falling in love, let alone having a functional relationship?

Jersey Gods necessarily caters to readers with broader pop sensibilities, due to its mix of disparate influences. It obviously borrows heavily from Jack Kirby’s cosmic adventures, like the Fourth World titles, and the original 70s version of The Eternals. Indeed, artist Dan McDaid’s panel layouts and character designs feel like a ‘reimagining’ of vintage Kirby, in the same way that, say, Darwyn Cooke updates pulp adventure illustration for modern audiences.

To that end, he’s supported by colorist Rachelle Rosenberg, whose vivid, dynamic palette breathes life into the otherworldly conflict between the heroic Walkers and the nefarious Orbiters. It’s not easy to create a realm as fanciful as Neboron, with its celestial architecture and crackling space weaponry, and still be able to keep the reader involved with the plot. Thankfully, writer Glen Brunswick manages to pull it off by establishing well-defined personalities for the off-world characters, before thrusting them headlong into a potentially deadly infiltration mission.

Yet for all its sci-fi bravura, Jersey Gods is also very much a romantic comedy, with tropes that are deftly cribbed from Jane Austen and textbook “chick lit” alike. Zoe is refreshingly well-rounded, interrogating the “Jewish-American Princess” archetype (the East Coast US version of a kikay, materialistic career girl), even as we learn about the circumstances that have shaped her personality along those lines. Fittingly, her earthbound supporting cast wouldn’t be out of place in an episode of Ugly Betty, from her harried suitor in the first chapter, to her neurotic parents, and a surprisingly nuanced boss figure. It’s Zoe’s side of the plot that gives Jersey Gods a much needed human dimension, as a counterpoint to the awesome space battles and planetary espionage. Her life may be tied to a specific region, but if you strip away the dairy farms and industrial parks, the New Jersey she inhabits isn’t all too different from the social world of a typical upwardly mobile young professional in Manila.

Ultimately, Jersey Gods is a story about finding middle ground: between the ordinary and the fantastic; between lofty ideals and harsh reality; between living up to social expectations and pursuing one’s individual dreams. It obviously won’t be easy for Zoe and Barock to keep up this delicate balancing act. Nevertheless, I'm intrigued enough to find out how this unlikely couple gives it a shot.

[dutchdread]

Fe, Fi, Fo, Fum, I smell the smell of a huge strawman..... This post was pretty obviously in response to my article "Do I think Cloud had feelings for Aerith?Plot twist: yes" The point of which wasn't, as should be obvious, to insinuate that all men are just walking penisses trying to fuck anything that moves. But that human beings are social creatures that naturally form bonds with all those around them, either positive ones or negative ones, and that doesn't mean they're all equally noteworthy.

It's kinda ironic to me that an article all about how feelings are a multi-faceted spectrum with different flavours and degrees and that not all fleeting emotions should be granted immense weight is being criticized by an argument that only makes sense if you treat every pinge of emotion as having great weight.

There is a reason the internet is filled with millions upon millions of images of beautiful women, and its because men like beautiful women. Does that means that they fall madly in love with every beautiful woman, or want to sleep with every single one of them and can't control themselves? No, and even if they did that still wouldn't likely be something reflected in the personality of a FF hero, it just means that the thought "she's pretty", is in itself already SOME miniscule form of romantic attraction. I think we can all agree that Zidane thought plenty of women were beautiful in FFIX without acting like his feelings for Garnet weren't special, nor different from what he felt in regards to random barmaids.

Aerith is plenty cute, and clearly the team is meant to like being around her. Even if you, the player, don't like her it's obvious that Cloud is portrayed to eventually warm up to her, even if she annoys him at first. And yes, I think that when a fun girl with a pretty face sticks it close to yours you will react to that is some way. Might be a 1 on a scale where your feelings for Tifa are 100. But it's just unrealistic to expect it to be 0, and that neither makes you a slut, nor makes the 100 you feel for Tifa any less valid, especially if it's during a time where you're not yourself.

Pretending Cloud has never had any fleeting thoughts about any other girls besides Tifa, even when braindamaged, is cute, but not realistic and just makes us come across as just as unhinged as the Cleriths. What matters isn't whether braindamaged Cloud thought Aerith was pretty, but what true Cloud desires, and chooses to desire, and for true Cloud this choice would not even be a choice, it would be Tifa, hands down, no competition. Tifa is the one he sees as "the girl I am in love with", Aerith he sees as "the companion that I failed", you can think someone is attractive, or even be flustered by them at times, and yet still have no interest in having a relationship with them, but just see them as "a friend" or some other role.

In fact, if anything that's exactly why most men CAN be trusted. The reason we're faithful isn't because we just happen to no longer be ever attracted to anyone else anymore after meeting you, which would essentially imply that we're just mindless beasts who aren't in control of our urges and our loyalty is but a happy coincidence. No, of course not, not anymore than me acknowledging that a cake is tasty means that I can't stop myself from eating it, or even WANT to eat it. I don't like cake, it's fatty and unhealthy and I don't want it despite the taste. The reason we're loyal is because we know that there are more important things, that feelings and urges are a complex chaotic sea of concepts and that without US there to define what they mean to us, what to nurture, and what importance to grant them, they are utterly meaningless. Cloud had mixed feelings for Aerith just like he did for Barret and the rest of his companions, and with Aerith some of those underlying emotions might be a mixture of finding her pretty, or being embarrassed when near her. None of that changes that at no point did Cloud ever contemplate replacing Tifa in his mind as the girl he wants to be with. Because that spot was reserved just for her, and was the result of Cloud sifting through all his emotions and deciding that THAT mixture of feelings was the mixture that represents the feelings for the person he wants to spend his life with.

What's your opinion on this: Cloud must have had feelings for Aerith because he is a man and men can have erections when they are around any woman? I saw an essay by a Cloti basically said some shit like that lol

I sent you an anon before this one, this was in the essay I mentioned that I read from a Cloti lmaoooo

I think that's like saying any man on the street is attracted to every woman he sees because she's a woman, and let's never take into account personal preferences, sexualities or moral standing.

That's like saying you can't trust any man because he's just a walking dick and will put it anywhere.

So, I guess they think Cloud is as much of a slut as they think Tifa is 😬