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floral-poisons · 3 years ago

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twst characters: their roles in a horror movie

i absolutely love horror movies!! so this is something really exciting to do for me!! i have a similar head canon post on the way: the twst cast and their roles in a teen movie and a rom com. so stay tune if you really like this!!

NRC STAFF

dire crowley

the narrator. the omniscient third party that may or may not comment on the horror movie acting out before him. he’s an objectively third party and his purpose is to watch over the events that unfold.

ashton vargas

the really muscular camp counselor who wears short shorts. i’m not going to elaborate on this.

mozus trein

random high school teacher that appears for a brief few minutes and then is never seen throughout any film or any of the sequels.

divus crewel

the parent with a secret. there’s something from his past that’s coming back to haunt him and his child. it’s up to the cast to find out what exactly that secret is. kind of like nancy’s mom and the other parents that killed freddy krueger.

sam

the unnecessarily mysterious, ominous exposition character. the person everyone goes to for advice to try to understand what’s happening only to get an answer that is basically useless. kind of like william bludworth from final destination.

DIASOMNIA

malleus draconia

the first victim. i’m sorry malleus but he would be the tina gray and casey becker. we think we’re following him in this horror movie. we think he’s the protagonist. we think he’s going to be the final girl. but no. he fucking dies within the first ten to twenty minutes and his death sets off the events of the film.

lilia vanrouge

the red flag. he’s weird, he’s got a weird aura. everyone and the audience inherently believes he is the killer only for it to be revealed that he isn’t. he’s just weird. and he even knows how to survive. or he gets killed which then results in him being revealed to be a red flag.

silver

he’s not here. silver’s gone honestly. probably made the good decision to go on vacation when the murders happened.

sebek zigvolt

the horror fan. he knows everything about horror movies and knows all the rules. that scene from scream? “there are RULES to surviving a horror movie. number one: you can never have sex...” yeah that’s him.

HEARTSLABYUL

riddle rosehearts

the survivor. a victim of the killer who managed to survive being attacked. he’s in the hospital, resting. he gives his testimony and it’s probably right after hanging out with the final girl. probably ends up being the love interest for the final girl.

trey clover

the professor. the man who is knowledgeable on the occult and pagan deities. you know, like ever supernatural horror movie. like vincent d’onofrio in sinister. he’s got that phd to back up his inferences.

cater diamond

the thirsty reporter. the gale weathers in this movie. he’s willing to do anything for a story and will be at places that aren’t appropriate for him to be at. probably ends up surviving and writing a tell all about his experience.

ace trappola

the ‘i’m going to ignore all the red flags present in this scene and do what i shouldn’t do’ character. you know the necronomicon? yeah this bitch is the one who’s going to read it and then cause everyone to die. he’s the one that also suggests the cast splits up too. and other horrid ideas.

deuce spade

the punk. he’s the alt kid. the one in leather jackets and jewelry and wears eyeliner. doesn’t conform to stereotypical popular norms and it thus makes him a prime target from the more popular, preppy crowd. most definitely doesn’t come from money either.

POMEFIORE

vil schoenheit

the popular girl. mean or not. he’s popular. everyone’s always comparing the final girl to him. maybe he’s a whore too but regardless, he’s popular and he’s going to get merced either in the beginning or in the middle.

rook hunt

he’s not even in the movie. just briefly mentioned. probably the sibling in college who’s not around when this happens.

epel felmier

the final girl. laurie strode, nancy thompson, ellen ripley, kirsty cotton, alice, sally hardesty, jess bradford, sidney prescott. the most iconic character in horror aside from the killer themselves. he’s the one to face the final evil and he’s the most adaptable in his situation.

SAVANACLAW

leona kingscholar

the (second) killer. extremely intelligent and he blends in the background enough for people not to suspect him (using the red flag in place) but is also prominent enough to not make the plot twist feel like it’s coming out of nowhere. he’s plotting against someone and has a desire to get revenge.

ruggie bucchi

the non-believer. this man DOES NOT BELIEVE ANYTHING that is happening. he doesn’t care less. especially if it’s a supernatural killer. and it’s not until he gets attacked himself that he actually believes the kids. probably in law enforcement too.

jack howl

the sheriff. i would imagine jack to be a competent sheriff too. he doesn’t miss a clue and he’s quick to put things together. however, he gets so sucked into his work that he eventually begins to neglect his personal life.

OCTAVINELLE

azul ashengrotto

the capitalist. there’s nothing to explain here. he’s willing to do anything for money even at the expense of other people’s lives. just like the mayor from jaws. he doesn’t care. his interest is solely in money.

jade leech

the priest. in a supernatural horror movie, he would be the priest. the cast come to him for advice on how to defeat the demon at hand. he provides cryptic ass messages too.

floyd leech

the horror fanatic. obsessed with horror movies and media in general. people comment that it’s extremely weird and a lot of people suspect that he is the killer too. but when he dies then it’s revealed he had narrowed down who the killer was based on his interest in horror movies.

SCARABIA

kalim al-asim

the best friend. he’s the best friend to the final girl. really peppy, happy go lucky. but his death is the one that ignites the flame within the final girl and motivates them to confront the final evil. the audience really likes him only for him to die.

jamil viper

the (first) killer. i hate to say it but he would be the killer. he also works in a team similar to stu macher and billy loomis. no one suspects him to be the killer too but that’s what makes the final reveal so shocking.

IGNIHYDE

idia shroud

the nerd. he’s smart, intelligent, and he’s introverted. he doesn’t talk much. but he’s quick to figure things out and knows better than his friends. however, he does eventually die despite trying to outsmart the killer. he probably dies because he thought he outsmarted the killer.

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wof-reworked · 3 years ago

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I don’t have the brainpower to develop this, but I had some thoughts on Nightwing theater (I’ve been meaning to write like this for all the tribes since I had a lot of fun with Sandwing theater)

Nightwings are big on tragedy and romance together in their theater. A good Nightwing story ends with two people who can never love each other again, either through death or circumstances, but yet still do.

Nightwing stories tend to favor female protagonists/point of view characters.

Ensemble driven stories aren’t uncommon by any means either, where oftentimes the group will end up imploding due to being turned against each other through circumstances outside of their control

Nightwing theater also relies a lot on character tropes, sometimes with subversions, but sometimes just taken wholesale. Some popular (and suitably ~tragic~ tropes include:

the seer who could predict everything except their own tragic future. Often a girl, but not always.

The counter to her is usually another dragonet who spits in the face of destiny but finds it comes back to bite her.

The young diplomat who is hurt by the world they enter into, often dead or changed for the worse by their experiences.

The precocious dragonet who harbors sinister inner workings, unnoticed by their parents until it’s too late.

The cruel royal, often hiding skeletons in her closet that explain how they ended up this way.

The evil non-Nightwing here to snatch away the hero’s happy ending- sometimes literally. Often an Icewing. Usually their main role is being unnecessarily cruel and/or violent.

These are, as all tropes are, flexible (the diplomat isn’t always a diplomat, they might be a student or someone else “educated”, the seer is sometimes able to outrun her tragic end, the royal is sometimes pleasant), it’s more about the themes they carry (you can ~barely~ sense the xenophobia I’m sure).

(Unsurprisingly, a lot of this draws on Nightwing history. No one will talk about Darkstalker and Clearsight except as boogeymen, but the fingerprints of their relationship are still pretty clearly visible in Nightwing culture)

In modern times, the prophecies are usually delivered through non-Nightwing means (a magical source telling them, a curse from another dragon that becomes real, just the writing on the wall that the protagonists can’t read) vs in the past when seers were an actual fact of life and could be used instead.

Nightwing stories aren’t all doom and gloom- part of the fun is not knowing how it will end, even though everything about it promises tragedy. While most of them end sadly, you’re always holding out hope that this time the protagonists will make it through.

Nightwing plays also draw on a very limited color scheme, as to make sure the performers stand out best. Props and stagedressing are often minimal, though music and sound in general often fill that space to give the necessary context of scenes.

You’d best believe there’s a ton of monologues and soliloquies. 90% of theater is people dramatically announcing their internal feelings, but only to the audience.

dark blue-black scales are seen as the most glamorous for the way they reflect light, and sets are often matched to these colors, especially if the lead role happens to look the part. Nightwing aesthetic preferences in general tend to favor rich, deep colors and cool tones- grey/lighter scales and warm tones are seen as the least attractive (unfortunate, since the time spent on the island lead to a loss of that “rich black” color Nightwings find attractive).

Tl;dr: wouldn’t it be funny if Nightwing art was soap operas

#wof headcanons #nightwing headcanons #nightwings wof #idk these are half-baked but I thought they'd be funny to share

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sweetsassymusic · 3 years ago

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The Long Kaz Rant I Told Myself I Wouldn’t Write, But Here We Are

This is probably an unpopular opinion. And I hope it doesn't come across as confrontational or anything because I don't mean it that way. But I've always been super confused by the way Kaz is accepted, basically across the entire fandom, as either morally gray or straight up villainous? He doesn’t really seem like either of those things to me. On a surface level, obviously there are things he’s done that are normally considered evil. He’s stolen, he’s killed, he threatened a child, he gouged out someone’s eye. And that’s all pretty bad, right? But it completely ignores the context given in the books. (More after the cut because this got too long...)

There’s a difference between doing something evil and doing something that’s shocking, “dark,” or difficult to watch.

Before I read the books, I heard fans discuss all the horrible things Kaz does. And the way people talk about him, I was expecting him to be… Feral Kaz – someone who delights in doing horrible things because he’s just so twisted and angry. The author herself even referred to him on her blog as being utterly despicable. Wow! This guy must really go out of his way to hurt innocent people, huh? So when I sat down to actually read it, I was so surprised. Most (if not all?) the killings were done on some level of self-defense. His “murder victims” were actual evil people trying to kill him or someone he loved. And the reason he threatened a child was because the only alternative was killing her – something he would never want to do. You know, because he’s not evil.

I don’t know if I just have very different definitions of these terms than most people? But to me, the idea of Kaz being “utterly despicable” should not even be on the table to begin with (Leigh Bardugo, you good?) and even the idea of him being “morally gray” is questionable.

When I think of a morally good character, I don’t think of someone who never does anything questionable or always perfectly makes the correct choices. I think of someone who is on a mission–either to protect the world, a loved one, or simply pursuing a personal goal–who at least tries to conduct his mission in a way that either does no harm to others, or (when that’s not possible) does as little harm as necessary to get the job done.

Whereas, when I think of a villainous character, I think of someone who has no regard for others at all. Someone who either relishes in harming the innocent, or pays zero consideration to whether he harms innocents while pursuing his goals (which are usually, in themselves, harmful to innocent people).

And finally, when I think of a morally gray character, I think of someone directly between these two. Someone who is a little bit evil, a little bit sadistic, but not entirely evil. He’s got a few good points too. Maybe he’s someone who keeps switching sides, unsure if he wants to be a hero or villain. Maybe he has hurt a lot of innocent people unnecessarily, but he joins in with the good guys for personal gain, and people don’t mind him there simply because he doesn’t interfere with the protagonist’s goals. Or maybe he’s the “Bad Cop” to someone else’s Good Cop: someone who uses more violence than is necessary, just for fun, but still helps the good side in some capacity, so everyone chooses to look past it.

Under these definitions, Kaz (to me) seems more like a good character. While pursuing his personal goals, he protects people he loves, and yes, he does do “dark” things. But he doesn’t relish in doing them (despite his reputation in-universe of being a chaotic sadist. His reputation is not accurate; he invented it for his own protection). He does them because he has to. If he can get the job done right without hurting anyone, that’s the route he’ll take. But that option isn’t always available. And he’s not the type to lie down and die just to avoid getting his hands dirty (nor should he, imo).

Again, maybe I just have a different idea of what constitutes being morally gray. But I always thought it was meant to be a judgment on the choices you make when you actually HAVE a choice? A morally gray character has the choice to be good or evil, and they choose to do both (which one depending on how they feel that day).

Whereas, if you do something “bad” because circumstances force you to do it–because you or someone you love will die otherwise–that’s pretty much the same as having a gun to your head. You’re not morally gray. You’re doing it under duress. It’s survival, not a reflection of where you stand on moral topics. Like, if you trap a vegan in a room with only a piece of meat, and you leave them there for days, weeks, that person doesn’t suddenly become a “fake vegan” if they eat that meat to avoid literally starving to death. You forced them to do it. When it comes to their moral beliefs, they would still be a vegan if they had the freedom to make that choice. You just put them in a situation where those choices aren’t available to them. Your lack of freedom in a situation shouldn’t define you.

The same can be said for placing a starving, homeless orphan boy alone in the dog-eat-dog world of Ketterdam. The option of being a sweet little law-abiding citizen is not available to him. So is it really fair to define him by something in which he had no choice?

I’ve come across so many GrishaVerse fans who, while sipping on their Starbucks in the comfort of their own home, go “Ugh, Kaz. He’s so DARK, so EVIL!” (Fun fact: while my mom was watching the show, she said Kaz is evil because “he seems to always have a plan.” Oh no! Not PLANS!) “He must be some kind of monster to be able to do the things he does and still live with himself! I could NEVER do those things!” Well…you’ve never actually had to do those things? Your life has never depended on it? Idk, to me, it’s just a very privileged take. And I’m not trying to make this into a big social issue. It’s not like criticism against a fictional character is anywhere near the same level of importance as the issues marginalized people are facing in real life. I’m just saying, it’s very easy to condemn activity you’ve never been forced to engage in for your own survival.

One of the biggest reasons people have given me for why they think Kaz is evil is that he is “for himself.” Even the author said she thinks Kaz is worse than the Darkling (who, I’ve gotten the impression, she believes to be irredeemable) because the Darkling has communal goals (he wants to bring positive change for other people/the world at large) while Kaz’s goals are just personal (he wants to bring positive change for himself and only himself). And for one? It just isn’t true: many (if not most) of the things Kaz does is either for his Crows or for his late brother; he just disguises it with supposed self-interest for the sake of his reputation. And second? It’s…not actually wrong to have personal goals or to act in self-interest. Bettering your own life is a valid desire. It’s not the same as being selfish. Not everything you do has to be for other people.

(And, tbh, this is something Leigh Bardugo seems to have a problem with in general, not just in this scenario. I could write a whole separate rant about other characters that were demonized in-narrative for engaging in “too much” self-care, and how her unforgivingly black and white morality ruined the Shadow and Bone trilogy for me. Worst of all, she even seemed to imply recently that the only reason real-life antisemitism is wrong is because “the Jews didn’t fight back”? [Like, if they had met her criteria of “fighting back”, would that make antisemitism somewhat justified to her? What? Idek, but she should really clarify.] Basically, she seems to take “non-selfishness” to an extreme. I don’t know her personally, I don’t want to make assumptions, I don’t have anything personal against her, and I’m not trying to get her cancelled or anything, I promise. But please, when you read her books, please don’t accept all her ideas at face value, because there’s some Weird Shit™ in there sometimes.)

Anyway, another reason people say Kaz is bad or morally gray is that he wants revenge. “Revenge is a bad coping mechanism! You should want JUSTICE! Not REVENGE!” And again, this argument is wild to me. I mean, yes, there are situations–especially in real life, modern, western contexts–where revenge is a bad coping mechanism someone has developed, and transforming their anger into a desire for justice is a way for them to overcome that and express their anger in a healthier way. But that’s a very specific scenario. When we’re talking generally, the line between revenge and justice is a lot thinner than people think (and in some scenarios, there is no line at all).

For example, real life victims and their families often say they can’t wait to see the perpetrator rot in prison, even wishing (sometimes even fantasizing) that the guy gets abused in prison by fellow inmates. For them, justice and revenge are wrapped up together in one big court-issued sentence. And while some people find that disturbing or take issue with it, it’s…generally considered valid outrage? This guy is evil and hurt them, so it’s okay for these people to want him to suffer. And most importantly, these people called the cops instead of taking matters into their own hands, therefore they’re Good, right? They’re good citizens who obey and rely on the established authority, therefore they are handling their anger in an Acceptable™ way?

But in the world of Ketterdam, if someone has victimized you, or is trying to kill you or someone you love, you can’t just call the fucking cops (and let’s be honest, looking at irl cops, it’s a questionable idea here too sometimes). If we’re analyzing Kaz’s outrage and how he handles it, we have to analyze it in the context of where he lives, not where we live. We have options in our lives that Kaz doesn’t have. So we have to ask, what are the most productive steps he could realistically take in his world?

I see activists and bloggers on websites like this, publicly fantasizing about gouging the eyes out of certain politicians and right-wing figureheads. And they would probably do it for real if they could. On Tumblr and Twitter, this is generally considered righteous anger. The politicians are evil, so it’s okay to hurt them, right? That’s how the logic goes, anyway (I know some will disagree, but it’s a common take here). Well, imagine if, instead of just being a bigot, one of these evil people personally stabbed–possibly killed–your girlfriend. And there were no cops to call, no news stations or social media to turn to, to show people what this guy did. No authority or community on your side. No way to ensure this guy faced consequences for his actions. There’s just you, your dying girlfriend, your helplessness, your anger. What would be the appropriate way to handle this situation, so you were acting out of justice instead of revenge? What does “justice” even mean in a world like that? It’s a world where either you hurt others or you lie down and just let others keep hurting those you love (which, in itself, would be evil). I can’t think of any “appropriate” response Kaz could take. Which, for better or worse, is probably why he just went for the eye. You probably would too in that context. Are you morally gray? I doubt it.

It’s really weird to me how people seem to hold Kaz to this high standard of absolute Moral Purity, but they don’t hold other characters to it. Like, was the dad on Taken being “feral” or “morally gray” when he told his daughter’s kidnapper that “I will find you and I will kill you” and then pursued him with fury? His motivations were personal and not communal. He was coming from a place of revenge, just as much as justice. But most people consider him a hero. He’s not controversial or “dark.” There are plenty of other heroes who do terrible things (sometimes to innocent people! Even when it’s not even necessary!) for the “greater good” or just because it’s convenient. People call them a “badass” and then turn around and say Kaz is just “bad.” Idk, it just seems really arbitrary the way people draw these lines.

If we’re expanding the definition of “morally gray” to include anyone who’s ever done anything questionable, made a mistake, been forced to do something they wouldn’t normally do, done something for personal reasons instead of for the world at large, or wanted revenge for something, then there literally are no heroes in fiction (except maybe a few cardboard cutouts) or in real life.

(Ironically, the most morally gray thing Kaz does, imo, is something most people don’t even have a problem with: the fact he runs a gambling house to “take money from pigeons.” And even that is really mild [no one is forcing the “pigeons” to gamble their money away]. But yeah, that’s one of the few instances I could think of where he actually hurt innocent people unnecessarily. That and the time, as a kid, where he stole candy from that other kid...and even that might be mostly-but-not-entirely excused by the fact he was starving to death. But yeah.)

#Kaz Brekker #Shadow and Bone #grishaverse #tw: antisemitism #Grisha #my meta

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blindbeta · 3 years ago

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Hi! First off, I'd like to say your blog has been an amazing resource and thank you for all the feedback you've given people. I'm writing a sci-fi/fantasy story and one of the protagonists is blind due to having no eyes. They are not human and the "no eyes" thing is not considered normal for their species. Their parents are well-meaning but horribly ableist to the point of funding a corrupt research facility in exchange for a possible "cure". I wanted to use this because I think it helps illustrate an aspect of their people's culture that needs to change as well as the desperation, misguided as it may be, to "help" a loved one, which is a theme that comes up later. However, looking at it again, I'm not sure how appropriate that is, given how damaging real life ableism is and how I am not disabled myself. I was also wondering what your thoughts are related to the kind of blind jokes where the joke has more to do with someone else forgetting the blind character can't see, like in Avatar

Blind Character With No Eyes, a Bit of Info on Prosthetic Eyes, Ableist Parents Who Want a Cure, and Possible Blind Jokes

Hi anon! Thanks for your question. I have helped someone with a similar question before, so I’ll use some of the same resources and if you need more help, feel free to ask.

I’m not sure how I feel about the no eyes thing. Personally I would prefer to see prosthetic eyes used in media more. If this character was born with no eyes, it might be okay, but generally the loss of eyes can affect the bone structure of the face. So, with that in mind, I assume this would also be a risk of being born with no eyes. Depending on the type of creature this character is, you might be able to deal with this if you account for it in the narrative. At the very least, they might have a ‘comforter’ put in to support the structure of their face.

Since this character is not human, it is up to you. If you go the prosthetic eyes route, you can make it more relatable for blind readers, especially because prosthetic eyes are uncommon in sci-fi creatures. I don’t have a prosthetic eye myself, but here is an FAQ about the process of getting a prosthetic eye. These fake eyes do cost a lot, but if the character’s parents fund a research facility, I don’t think it would be a problem. Joy Ross also has videos of her prosthetic eyes on YouTube. Her channel was suggested to me by a follower I helped with some prosthetic eye research.

As always, I suggest having at least one other blind character at minimum.

If you decide to continue with the no eyes thing, I would advise researching animals born with no eyes and seeing what happened with them. You might be able to research humans as well, but I don’t know how human-like your character is. You can also research how to write changes in bone structure due to a lack of eyes. If you don’t, the lack of changes should be explained somehow in the story. If you go this route, I would suggest adding more blind characters aside from the main character. My suggestion is at least two other blind characters with different kinds of blindness, but if you can add more, that would help.

As for the cure part, I like the focus on ableism and the ableism in wanting a cure for their blind child. I think it is a nice contrast to the prevalent cure narrative. It could also possibly help readers see how common and upsetting this can be, how wanting a cure when your child doesn’t tells them they aren’t accepted as they are and that their bodily autonomy is not respected as it should be. I will say that this is a very sensitive subject in real life and will require not only nuance, but also a few sensitivity readers. @sensitivityreaders should be useful.

This type of parenting is surprisingly common even if it takes different forms. It can be unwanted religious healing, discouraging blind kids from using a cane or reading Braille, assuming the child wants to be cured, limiting what the child is allowed to attempt, and surgeries. I have experience with many of these myself from different areas of my life, although not as much from my parents.

The sensitive part comes in with how you portray the parents. They should be relatable, but still portrayed as in the wrong. Because even loving their child does not mean they cannot be ableist, especially because their society, like ours, wouldn’t tell them they are wrong. The cure narrative is so prevalent that non-disabled people think it’s okay because they would want a cure for their disability if they had one. The reality is that, unless it causes them pain, many people with physical disabilities do not wish for a cure. A cure may even be impossible or painful for them and hoping for one might decrease their chances of getting aids they need or managing their disability or condition in a way that works best for them.

For example, would the parents discourage the character from using a cane while they wait for this cure? And is there even a cure for such a condition? There certainly isn’t one in real life.

As for if you should continue with the parental ableism plot, I’m not sure. Part of me thinks you could pull it off if you have a lot of sensitivity readers (with as many blind readers as possible). I also think having a few blind characters with supportive, accepting parents would be helpful. I also feel like it might be one of those stories I really like it if it is portrayed well. It isn’t that I think non-blind people shouldn’t write such a thing, but this is also one of those times where I don’t know what the wider community thinks either. And this could go badly if not handled well.

However, we also don’t see this type of story as often, with the cure being portrayed as obviously bad. With parents who are otherwise loving being portrayed as ableist because they want to cure their child. Something that is normally portrayed as a good thing by writers who don’t know what they’re doing.

I would suggest avoiding parents being otherwise abusive, forcing or coercing the character into surgeries, and otherwise taking away any of their bodily autonomy. This has real life consequences and I know I don’t want to read about it from the point of view of someone who has never experienced it. I also don’t want to see the character face unnecessarily physical altercations or violence or medical trauma.

I personally would feel better if this was just an emotional or mental thing. I don’t want to see the character get hurt or be forced into anything. It sounds like you aren’t planning on anything like that, but I wanted to share all my thoughts just in case they are helpful to you or anyone who is reading. I would also feel better if, after publishing this and being paid, you were able to donate a bit of your author rates to organizations for blind people in your country. Assuming you are going that route. If not, you could simply share some helpful links along with your story, both resources and educational links for people who aren’t disabled.

If you decide to write this plot, I’m going to say it should be fine for me personally as long as you also have sensitivity readers and have other blind characters (more than one extra) who has non-ableist parents.

In terms of the extra blind characters, here is my thinking so you have it all together. You need:

-at least 1 other blind character at minimum to avoid tokenism, if you don’t have 1 already.

-if you go with the no eyes thing, at least 2 other blind characters who have eyes.

-if you go with the prosthetic eyes, at least 1 other blind character.

-at least 2 other blind characters with accepting, supportive parents who aren’t ableist

That is the minimum. I always encourage as many blind characters as you would like to include.

Back to the parents plot. I wish I could give you a straight answer. Unfortunately I’m not sure myself. I would like to open this to any blind or otherwise disabled people who would like to share their thoughts on a non-disabled person writing a plot such as this. Should they write this or should it be more ownvoices? What might help you feel better about this if they decided to do it?

As for the jokes, I would proceed with caution. I thought they worked well in Avatar, but that was a specific situation and in real life those kinds of jokes can sometimes be cruel. To be fair, the characters always made it a point to apologize to Toph in the show. In real life, some of the jokes or reprimands I get are about how I should see something because it is right in front of my face. This can be embarrassing for me.

Can it be done well? Yes. Do I want to see everyone attempt it? No.

I wouldn’t mind if the blind character made some jokes themselves, but I would keep these to a minimum.

However, if you would really like to include a joke or two, you can always run them by a few sensitivity readers and see how they read. Some jokes might do well in specific situations and some might not. Jokes are pretty easy to edit in and out, so, as you write, I suggest making note of the joke and running it by sensitivity readers.

Here’s a post on blind jokes. It can be one of those things where if it works, it works. If it doesn’t, it can stand out in a bad way and even seem cruel or uninformed if it isn’t called out as such. I don’t know if this will help, but here is another post I made, although this is about strangers who haven’t met blind people or have and still don’t know much about them, but make jokes anyway.

So, to wrap this up, I’ll leave you with this. Some of the information here isn’t as concrete as you may have liked. I can’t give you an answer for some of it. But if you are open to listening, that will show. Having a lot of different blind characters can help with almost any trope with a few exceptions, and getting multiple sensitivity readers will also help.

Good luck on planning your project!

-BlindBeta

#blind #ableism #the cure trope #the cure narrative #blind jokes #prosthetic eyes #blind characters eye conditions #blind characters ; eyes #writeblr community #writing blind characters #blind sensitivity reader

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crusherthedoctor · 4 years ago

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Sonic Villains: Sweet or Shite? - Part 15: DR. EGGMAN

There are some villains I like. And there are some villains I don’t like. But why do I feel about them the way I do? That’s where this comes in.

This is a mini-series of mine, in which I go into slightly more detail about my thoughts on the villains in the Sonic the Hedgehog franchise, and why I think they either work well, or fall flat (or somewhere in-between). I’ll be giving my stance on their designs, their personalities, and what they had to show for themselves in the game(s) they featured in. Keep in mind that these are just my own personal thoughts. Whether you agree or disagree, feel free to share your own thoughts and opinions! I don’t bite. :>

Anyhow, for today’s installment, it’s finally time for him. The bad doctor himself. Gather round ladies and gentleman, for the spotlight is on the arch-villain that shines above them all... Dr. Eggman.

The Gist: It's the dawn of the 90's. A little company called SEGA had an ephiphany. They wanted to make a video game juggernaut that could rival the quality and iconic appeal of the then-unmatched Super Mario Bros, and their current star, Alex Kidd, just wasn't doing it in the way that they hoped. They promptly set about starting anew, as a worldwide phenomenon wasn't going to make itself.

So a gentleman named Naoto Ohshima created a selection of design concepts for this brand new mascot. One of these concepts was President Roosevelt in his pajamas.

Seen here with his catgirl body pillow.

The response to this character was “This is good, but we think kids would prefer kicking the shit out of him”, and so he was given an antagonistic role instead. In the meantime, after juggling the rest of their ideas, they eventually settled on a rabbit hedgehog named Sonic for their main protagonist, knowing his Mickey Mouse-like aesthetic would help endear him to the audience, and the franchise as a whole would have an easier time gaining a DeviantART fanbase later on down the line.

Initially, the character of today's review was but a mere lackey among many, seemingly little more than one of numerous minions working for Sonic's originally intended main villain, the Nonspecific Goblin. He was also dressed as a bee for some reason.

Which is the least weirdest thing in this image.

At some point however, they all got together and decided that actually, the guy with the moustache was the only one worth shit, and so he was upgraded to the role of main villain himself. With a spiffy new attire of red and black, he was given the bold title of Dr. Eggman, because with a shape like that, what else are you gonna call him?

“Funny you should say that”, laughed SEGA of America, as they rebelled like an angsty teen and named him Dr. Ivo Robotnik instead. While this name does make equal sense for the character, as he is indeed a hard worker who also happens to like robots, the reason for this name's existence seems to have been mainly because they thought Eggman was too out there of a name for an egg-like man. Whatever the case, this would confuse a lot of fans for years, and remains a point of divisiveness to this day... Unless you're like me and your first game in the series was Advance 2, in which the manual clears it up right away, and you accept the idea of a character having two names and immediately carry on with your life.

He would have aimed it perfectly if it weren't for the Sonic Heroes Parrot distracting him.

And that was that, really. It didn't take long for them to come up with his characterization, which was that of a cackling fiend with an ego to end all egos. This guy was the Narcissist Alpha, more king than actual kings, no strings attached. Other villains would build statues of themselves, but only Robotnik would deface Ancient Egyptian monuments to improve them with his face. Other villains would think “Nah, refacing all four in Rushmore would look silly”, but only the Eggman, the Eggmyth, the Egglegend, would go “Well fuck you, I'm doing it anyway.” Then he'd do it anyway, and proceed to address to the entire world that he did in fact do it anyway.

It also didn't take long for them to develop his primary schtick. With the dynamic of Sonic VS Eggman, you had a classic rivalry between nature and technology. Interestingly enough however, this turned out to be executed more tactfully than your typical Amish-abiding examples in similar media. Never was technology itself regarded as a corruptive influence that you should never utilise no matter what. Rather, it was only as good or as evil as the person using it, with it just so happening that the villain loved machinery only slightly less than he loved himself, and it was countered by Sonic’s best friend being a techno wiz in his own right anyway. Anyhow, with his machinery, the doctor would make a name for himself among video game baddies by confronting his enemy as the boss of nearly every zone in each game, rather than hide away until the endgame.

And all without a driver's licence.

In his soon-to-be-30 years of activity, he has largely remained the same since his inception. Other characters have been introduced, other villains have came and went, but Eggman has remained THE villain of the franchise, and he's remained a vital part of the Sonic the Hedgehog universe... with a slight redesign along the way.

The only ad I don't want to skip.

The Design: Eggman's design may be more simplistic than the likes of Bowser and Ganondorf, and he may not look as openly threatening at first glance, but it's still a very iconic look no matter what look it is. His original appearance was devised so that kids could have an easy time drawing him, which only makes me feel worse about not being able to do it as a grown adult without it looking like a Sexy Legs Kirby.

Still, it's a classic for a reason. With his to-the-point colour scheme, contrasting heavily with Sonic's blue, and his capelet collar resembling walrus tusks, it was an instant winner and made everyone goo goo for g'joob.

The Emeralds he’s juggling are a metaphor for the divided fan community.

And when it was time to give the cast an update for Sonic's first real 3D adventure (or at least the first one that didn't get axed for being a magic eye seizure), Eggman got a respectable change of his own. He was taller, his getup was militaristic, and his body was more legitimately egg-shaped rather than basketball-shaped. He also gained a pair of goggles that he never uses, except in scenes where he puts them on and then never uses them.

“How do my chicken legs not collapse under the might of my gluttonous mass? Find out in an unrelated tie-in novel that you have to pay additional money for.”

There was also that one redesign from 2006, but...

Be it Classic or Modern, I've always loved his design. Before he even says a word or does anything, you know from his appearance that he's a bit of a clownish sort. But he also has a subtle creepy vibe going on, with the way his glasses often obscure his eyes, and how this only makes the pearly-white, unnecessarily wide grin on his face that much more empty and unsettling. This little bit of eeriness hiding among his cartoonish physique reflects the full extent of his character pretty accurately, as we’ll delve into soon enough.

If nothing else, it's more effective than him having no eyes at all.

GRRRRRRRR FUCK YOU BUNNIES THAT I CAN'T SEE

The Personality: If you've seen my villain reviews, then you'll have gathered that Sonic's rogues aren't known for having much in the way of personality. There are exceptions, but they are indeed the exceptions. More often than not though, whether it's an alien conquerer, an ancient monster, or Dan Green the Recolour, they can be summed up thusly: They're evil, they want to destroy the world, and the heroes stop them because they're evil and want to destroy the world. If they're feeling particularly daring, they might go for a second colour.

Luckily, as if to counter all these cardboard drawings, the central adversary of the franchise makes up for these voids of personality by actually having one. And what a personality it is.

The writers of SatAM looked at this and thought “No, this won't do, there's no character to work with here.”

He really is brimming with comedic charm. Every moment that he's present...

Every moment that he shows off...

Every moment that he basks in his own glory...

Every moment that he unveils a new wicked scheme...

Every moment that he puts his enemies to the test...

Every moment that he challenges the world...

Every moment that he laughs at the world...

Every moment that he lives, nay, every moment that he breathes...

Yes, the man has plenty of humor, and it's part of what makes him so enjoyable and memorable. However, if you think being a clown is all there is to him, then prepare to have your expectations subverted initial assumptions taken in a unexpected direction, because although he puts the goof in goofy, he ALSO puts the “oh...?” in “oh shit”.

For you see, Eggman is by all means the epitome of Laughably Evil, but do not, under any circumstance, take him at face value and write him off as a joke. He is anything but.

For starters, he can swing a planet.

There is a rule of thumb that I personally go by with Eggman’s characterization, one that I believe is an immediate make or break factor in regards to whether or not you understand what makes this villain work. Eggman - when you put all his secondary traits aside - is made up of two prominent halves. There’s the egocentric meme machine that bounces up and down like a kid with his N64 and laughs like Santa... and there’s the monster buried within that remains completely and utterly unrepentant for everything he’s responsible for. This is very important. Despite the character’s simplicity at his core, many writers have failed to grasp this, official writers included, and I for the life of me cannot understand why this is such a recurring problem. Eggman is funny, AND Eggman is evil. Both are equal. When you take away one or the other, you may have a funny character, or you may have an evil character, but you don’t have Eggman. Simple as.

Armchair intellectuals may argue that Eggman’s deeds aren’t that evil, since he tends to be merely callous rather than actively trying to hurt or kill people. Those people are probably the types on TV Tropes who weigh a villain’s evilness and effectiveness purely through the surface-level scale of their goals rather than what they actually do to achieve them. While it is true that Eggman tends to be more apathetic about the aftermath of his actions, that doesn’t - and shouldn’t - negate how dangerous he is. It shouldn’t negate what he’s capable of. It shouldn’t negate how far he’s willing to go. And it shouldn’t negate the consequences and casualties that can and do result from his many schemes.

Seriously, think about this for a second. If you confronted Eggman about his current plan to... I dunno, make a water park in Africa or some shit, and you informed him that there has been unexpected mass suffering as a result of this, how do you think he would truly feel about that? What do you think he would actually say to that?

Spoiler: No fucks.

If anything, that he “merely” doesn’t care either way as long as he gets what he wants is more uniquely horrific and deplorable than if he were a generic baddie who committed his evulz specifically for evulz’s own sake and nothing more. At least you’re inadvertently acknowledging that other people’s lives have value when you act one-dimensionally gleeful over ending them, but when your immediate response to the side-effect of a million potential deaths and environmental disasters is “Oh well, fuck ‘em, Eggmanland time baybeeee”, that’s a new level of cruelty.

Besides, even in the Genesis era, he was carpet bombing Angel Island...

“Good thing I have this shield. Sucks to be this forest!”

And he’s only gotten worse since then, indulging in such acts as going full suicide bomber with a missile, after his initial plot to destroy and rebuild Station Square through the means of Chaos and the Egg Carrier didn’t work out...

But don’t worry, he kept it lighthearted by making it look like a penis.

Making one of Sonic’s friends go insane with power against their will, forcing the Blue Blur to put them down personally...

It’s ironic, cause he’s metal. Or do I have to awkwardly explain the joke two more times before I’m a proper YouTuber?

Capturing thousands of innocent aliens, and forcefully converting them into mindless beasts...

I’m pretty sure I saw Alfred Molina conduct this experiment one time.

He even removed the heroes’ collective IQs so that he could shoehorn a cliffhanger on an already terrible game.

Thanks, cunt.

And honestly? When it comes to Sonic and chums at least, Eggman does let out a more openly sadistic side now and then. Need I mention that time when the doctor forced Sonic and two random buddies to make their way through a trap-infested island of his own creation? Not for the sake of nabbing Chaos Emeralds or anything of the sort mind you, he just wanted the blue motor mouth to suffer.

Images you can hear.

To make matters even worse, as befitting of his manchild tendencies, he’s ridiculously petty. How petty? Petty enough to abduct a little girl’s mother for no other reason than because Cheese completely trivialized his forces the girl was friends with Sonic and helped participate in the latest kicking of his own ass.

He only picked Vanilla because there was no Strawberry.

But at least his captives can admire the sheer variety that their captor has to offer. One of the greatest things about the doctor's style is that anything goes. With all due respect to Bowser, he tends to stick with his fiery castles (although he has been branching out recently), and plenty of other villains in gaming tend to be similarly stuck in their ways when it comes to tastes. Eggman, on the other hand, will create all sorts of fortresses and reside anywhere on the planet and beyond. It can be in the sky, in space, somewhere hot, somewhere cold, under the sea, in a circus... and every now and then, he might combine some of them together and thensome. So long as it's even vaguely mechanical in some way, his ground rules have already been ticked off.

Hang on a minute...

You know what else Eggman is? Relentless.

Persistence is a quality that most villains by their very nature share, lest they cease to be an effective antagonist. But once again, Rrrrrrrobotnik maxes out more than any other, and will often go to insane lengths to keep the current plan going, or if not that, then to spite Sonic.

Exhibit A: Sonic 3 & Knuckles, in which the grand finale consists of the madman throwing a gravity-shifting contraption your way, busting out a Kaiju-sized robo, escaping with the Master Emerald after his defeat, continuing to escape even after the Death Egg has been thoroughly destroyed, getting chased through the asteroid fields in space by Super Sonic, and only finally going down when the escape craft and the piloted mech controlling the escape craft are down. And all of this came after a grand adventure where, among other things, he destroyed an entire level just to kill you.

There are immortal omnipotents that put up less of a challenge.

“Looks like it’s time for Plan... *checks paper*... F.”

His relentlessness also reveals another side of the doctor that is simultaneously admirable and terrifying: He bows to no one. No one. Doesn’t matter who it is. Doesn’t matter how powerful they are. Doesn’t matter how much the odds are stacked against him. If another villain were to demand that he cower before them, the scientist would laugh and show through physical demonstration that this is not the way the egg rolls. Unless he’s absolutely unable to do so, he will give it his all every time, and even if he can’t, he’ll use his crafty mind to find some other way to get around the issue. You can beat him in battle, you can foil his plans, but you absolutely cannot break his resolve.

“Dad said it’s my turn to play with the Ruby. I know this, because I’m your dad.”

What about his relationship with those who actually serve him? Specifically, his own robots? Well for the most part, he treats them like absolute crap, what with verbally abusing them at every corner and being all too willing to go full Vader on them the moment they mess up. He IS capable of expressing fondness and giving praise to his more successful creations, like with Metal Sonic and Gamma, but even then, it’s a roundabout way of praising himself, since he’s the one who made them what they are. So basically, you’re only valuable to him if you make him look good.

Gaming in the Clinton Years in a nutshell.

And as for Sonic? Yeah, like with any legendary and long-lasting hero/villain dynamic, it’s obvious that Eggman has some degree of begrudging respect for his opponent. But if you think this respect would dissuade him from actually going through with his ambitions of rulership...

As the hedgehog’s apparent demise in Sonic Adventure 2 proves, as well as his defeat at the hands of Infinite and the subsequent six months of brutal conquest in Sonic Forces, Eggman is dead serious about his goals. If you think he’d get bored after conquering the world, he would simply expand his resources and have a crack at conquering the rest of the universe. When he says he hates that hedgehog, I’m inclined to believe that he means it, and although he may enjoy his “games” with Sonic to an extent, I also can’t see him wanting to remain stuck on square one forever.

If this were Sonic X, he’d just grieve.

By the way, the scene above? Undeniable proof that for all the doctor’s boasting, he’s not actually lying or exaggerating when he prides himself on his brilliance. Because when you get past his goofy exterior, when you look beyond the occasional, relatively minor mistake (*glares at IDW*), you’ll see that... yes. He IS brilliant. And not just in the science department either, although his countless robots and strongholds over the years are no doubt a testament to his credentials there. While he may prefer to go in big and bold, he can also be shrewd with his strategies when he wants to be.

Sonic’s aforementioned near-death experience, for example, was the result of Eggman turning the heroes’ own cunning plan on its head by being one step ahead of them. And in Sonic Unleashed, he lured his enemy into a trap, culminating with him cancelling out Super Sonic.

“...and pay the price for your Werehog gameplay...”

And after all those years of struggling, he finally got a giant monster under his complete control. “But he had help!”, you say? Yeah, from himself.

Did Flynn sleep through all this...?

Much like his inner nature as an evil bastard, Eggman's effectiveness is likewise commonly underestimated by writers. Yes, he occasionally makes mistakes. Yes, he occasionally overlooks details. Yes, he occasionally lacks foresight. But he is NOT stupid. A hero is only as good as their villain after all, and if Eggman is portrayed as a bumbling fool, then how can Sonic be a truly great hero? Eggman is humorous, sinister, and when the chips are down, competent.

...Did I mention that he's also a master Olympian?

The Execution: There's no surprises here. You knew from the moment you saw this review that my stance wasn't going to be anything less than 100% fanboy adoration. In that respect, this section almost feels redundant, because there's only so many ways I can say “Dr. Eggman is the fucking shit and I'm eternally grateful to Mr. Ohshima for bringing this absolute masterpiece into our world” without it getting repetitive. So to cap this review off, I'm going to very briefly compare his portrayals in other media, and explain why they tend to not be as good as the original SEGA Eggman.

“Cause they’re not balanced, right?” you ask. “Cause they veer too far in a particular direction? You're so predictable,” you add. To that I say:

1. Yeah, basically.

2. ...S-Shut up...

3. While the conclusion may be obvious, it's nonetheless important because as I mentioned previously, despite how straightforward this villain is, writers seem absolutely intent on not getting the point. There are loads of villains out there who share Eggman's talent of mixing hilarity and evil together with a bow of competence on top. Two of those villains are among the most famous supervillains of all time, in fact. You might have heard of them.

Joker can do it just fine. Green Goblin can do it just fine. And plenty of others can do it just fine. So why is it such an issue with Eggman? What is it about a round body and a long moustache that gets people to think “No, this guy is absolutely incapable of being comedic and threatening at the same time, no question, end of.” Is it because he’s a more cartoony franchise? Well, that can't be the case, because even Mario has a couple of beloved examples. Fawful, anyone? How about Dimentio? Cackletta? King Boo? K. Rool? Hell, you could even count Bowser himself depending on the portrayal.

Anyway, the point is, writers tend to miss the mark for one reason or another. With Sonic X for example, he wasn't too bad in the beginning, but as the show went on, he became exactly the toothless non-villain that many people misjudge him as. We all know that scene where he berates Black Narcissus for harming their captives (not for pragmatic reasons mind you, he genuinely took issue with the act on moral grounds, even though his own hands weren’t exactly clean either), but even before that point, he was doing such things as healing an injured Sonic without an ulterior motive, not taking any opportunity whatsoever to start conquering Sonic's world because he was pining for Sonic's attention, and being the Jiminy Cricket to Chris Thorndyke's Pinocchio. Why they thought the goddamn villain should be the moral conscience of this show remains an unanswered question, but at least it no longer influences how he's portrayed in the games.

Then you have the IDW comic, which is a similar tale of starting off decent and then careening wildly into the abyss, but for different reasons. Initially, he was built up to be in-line with his competent, foresight-packed self from Forces, with his inevitable return being met with dread, and a delightfully devilish scheme to match when he finally did so. But somewhere along the way, Ian Flynn thought that Eggman coming back from his amnesiac period and returning stronger than ever with a new minion and a deadly virus wasn't enough to up the stakes... so they decided to “up the stakes” by turning both the doctor and his new minion into massive imbeciles so as to justify their plot getting hijacked by the Deadly Six, a move so predictable yet infuriating that it got even me to turn against the Six. And the reason the Six got invited in-universe is because Starline decided he didn’t like being unique and devolved into Snively 2.0 behind Eggman’s back. All this from the alleged “best writer” for the series...

Yeah, same.

And then you have the Boom version, which shares basically the same issues as Sonic X but in a more mundane fashion. It's easier to dismiss because it's a comedy-centric show and his redesign makes it easier to separate him from mainline Eggman, and I'll gladly admit that he does have a lot of genuinely funny lines that redeem him a little bit. But yeah, too much of not being a true villain for my tastes.

Now this isn't to say that there haven't been portrayals in other media that are up there with the original. The versions that I consider better off than the ones above include...

- The OVA Eggman is pretty faithful all things considered, aside from his romantic feelings for Sara, which feels slightly off since the idea of Eggman loving anyone other than himself is incredibly unrealistic at best. But it doesn't actually soften or undermine his deviousness, so I'm willing to let it slide for an alternate take. Especially since he gave us the best Metal Sonic out there.

- AoStH is far from a perfect show, but there's a reason why even its detractors tend to treat its version of Robotnik like a national treasure. Admittedly most of that is because of the legendary Long John Baldry and the endless memes associated with this incarnation, but despite hailing from a comedy-focused show like Boom Eggman, this Robotnik still had a lot of legitimately dangerous moments, more than you'd think.

- And of course, Jim Carrey's Robotnik in the Sonic movie is just... *chef's kiss*

So obvious aesop though it may be, but you see what the more effective portrayals have in common, I assume?

Granted, this also isn't to say that SEGA Eggman himself has had a perfect track record. The decade's worth of upstagings and backstabbings by other villains should be enough of a counterpoint to that claim, and I've also made it clear now and then that I take issue with certain games regarding what they do with the doc, no matter how revered they may be by other fans. Sonic Adventure 2, for instance. I praised the fake emerald scene, and I do sincerely believe that he has a number of other badass moments in that game, but because Shadow was playing him like a fool the whole time, I can't help but have a bitter taste in my mouth when I look at the bigger picture.

So close to greatness, yet so far...

So in that case, which game do I think has Eggman's best showing overall? That's not in any way an easy question, but lack of dialogue aside, I'm gonna go with Sonic 3 & Knuckles again, as the classic journey through the sights of Angel Island plays out in a way that highlights just how determined, ruthless, and underhanded he is with carrying out his mission to revive the Death Egg by any means necessary. Other games do win out in other areas - SA1 for how bastardly he is, Forces for how cunning he is, Colours for his hilarious announcements, CD for using the scenery to show the effects of his actions, Mania for not letting the other villain walk all over him - but for the purest essence of the doctor at his cartoony yet competent best, I'd say S3&K is a reasonable bet.

And when it comes to all his many traits, which one do I find the most special one of all? Well again, far from easy to answer, but I think the coolest aspect about him is also one of the most overlooked. Robotnik, despite whatever superhuman qualities he may occasionally unveil, is for all intents and purposes a regular guy with a big brain. This might make him appear unimpressive when compared to your average Final Fantasy villain and the like, but if anything, it paints him in a more flattering light than expected, because he doesn't even need to be on their level to still be on the radar. It's easy to be a big bad threat when you're an ancient demon or an almighty god-like being, and you only have to wave a hand to cause armageddon. But when you're just Some Guy™ going up against superpowered opponents, meaning you have to earn your threat level the hard way, and you prove to be a challenge every step of the way regardless, because you're just THAT much of a genius... that's fucking awesome, no other way to put it.

And you know what else is awesome? You may not like Eggman, and you don’t have to like him, but like it or not, he is directly and indirectly responsible for a vast majority of the coolest and most loved moments and aspects of this franchise.

The opening to Unleashed? Eggman set up the scene.

Shadow running around and continuing to be part of the franchise? Eggman released him.

Blaze getting involved with Sonic’s world and continuing to be part of the franchise? Eggman’s half-responsible for that.

Metal Sonic? Eggman made him.

Egg Dragoon? Eggman.

Big Arm? Eggman.

Monkey Dude? Eggman.

That text is missing a blue checkmark.

This review is probably longer than the echidna family tree in Archie at this point, so I better finish it off. If it wasn't obvious from all the paragraphs I've belted out in this post, I'm very passionate about Eggman and the way he’s portrayed. Ever since I got into the Sonic franchise in 2003, I immediately took a liking to the doctor, and to this day, he remains not only my favourite Sonic villain, my favourite Sonic character, but also my favourite character period. Some may find it a weird or lame choice compared to other, “better” characters, but that's the way it is, and I ain't about to change it. I am very unlikely to ever stop enjoying the hell out of this villain, and even if he got irreversibly ruined in some way, I'd still continue to love what he was before that point.

Because yeah, he's not the deepest character ever, but... who cares? Is it not enough that we find something that appeals to us? When I got into Sonic, I was introduced to fantastic games, a likable cast, high quality soundtracks, beautiful worlds, numerous friends on this very site, and of course, the lovely treasure that is my partner. I may not have been with this franchise during the 90's, but it's given me just as much fun, nostalgia, and happiness as those who were. Despite the flawed titles, despite the fandom conundrums, I still love this series.

And I still love this absolute prick.

Crusher Gives Dr. Eggman a: TWO Thumbs Up!

#Sonic Villains: Sweet or Shite?#Opinion #Sonic the Hedgehog #Dr. Ivo Robotnik

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amillioninprizes · 5 years ago

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Some thoughts on Veronica Mars, fan service, and noir

I’ve been on winter break and at home with a nasty combo cold-ear infection-stomach virus the past couple of weeks, and as so often happens when I don’t have much going on, my thoughts have turned to ruminating over the steaming pile of excrement that was season 4 of Veronica Mars. Why yes, almost six months and one cancellation notice later and I’m still complaining about it--as I told someone on Twitter, it was so stupid that it’s going to take years to unpack.

This particular rant is brought to you by a common refrain seen in both professional critics’ and S4 supporters’ reviews of S4: the movie was schlocky fan service, while S4 is TRUE NOIR. I’m here to argue that neither of those things are true, and that in the grand scheme of things trying to definitively call Veronica Mars noir or not isn’t the best qualitative judgement of the series.

A note on “fanservice”

Something that’s been very strange to me in the critical discussion around S4 is that the fan-funded movie has been retconned as a fanservicey failure. This is weird because it did get a positive Rotten Tomatoes score, actually turned a profit despite the unorthodox distribution model, and was overall well-received by fans except for maybe the 5 Piz lovers out there (he absolutely did not deserve better you guys; he works at This American Life and lives in Brooklyn, he’ll be fine).

A lot of the things pointed to in the movie as fan service actually weren’t. In every interview about the movie and S4, RT and KB always talk about how they started with the image of Veronica punching Madison at the high school reunion and worked from there. The problem is that almost no one had been asking for that. If they had bothered to read any online discourse about the show (and we know RT definitely does), they would know that fans are actually somewhat sympathetic to Madison--after all, she was the intended recipient of the drugged drink Veronica received at Shelly Pomeroy’s party, plus growing up in a family that she wasn’t meant to be a member of must have negatively impacted her. When the preview scene of Veronica encountering Madison at the reunion welcome table was released, Veronica didn’t come off sympathetically. In a similar vein, as much as I liked Corny as a side character in the original series, I didn’t need him to come back for that random scene at the reunion. Nor was anyone asking for an out-of-nowhere James Franco cameo (which given what we know about him now is super gross in hindsight).

So why was the movie well-received by fans? Veronica was in character after an unevenly written and performed S3, and she was back in Neptune, doing what (and who; Ay-yo!) she was meant to do. So while the mystery was subpar (and what Rob Thomas mystery isn’t?), the character side of the story made sense and was satisfying. I wouldn’t call that fan service so much as good writing. Plus, what is even the point of wasting time, money, and effort on making a tv show or movie if it’s going to actively alienate the audience?

S4: more trauma porn than true noir

Admittedly, I’m not exactly the world’s foremost scholar on film noir (in my opinion, the height of cinema is teen romcoms c. 1995-2005), but I do feel I have enough pop cultural knowledge to have a working understanding of what film noir is, and as internet folk would say, S4 ain’t it chief. Sure, S4 was bleak subject matter wise, but that does not automatically equal noir. HappilyShanghaied, who does have a film studies background, wrote a pretty excellent post about why that is shortly after S4 dropped that I could not improve upon, so I will just leave it here.

In addition to this analysis, I would also point out that S4 was lacking in a unique visual style common to noir films, especially compared to the original television series and the movie. The original series made use of green, blue, and yellow filters to fulfill a high school version of the noir aesthetic (quick shoutout to Cheshirecatstrut’s color theory posts for more on what we thought this meant before it turned out that Rob Thomas did not actually intend to imbue meaning into any of this), while the movie adopted a more mature muted blue-grey palette. S4, however, was more or less shot like a conventional drama and was brightly lit, perhaps signifying Rob Thomas’s apparent plans to turn the show into a conventional procedural.

The movie: more than fan service

If anything, the movie was more noir than S4. Take Gia’s storyline for instance. While Veronica was off obtaining elite degrees, Gia spent 9 years in a virtual cage being forced into a sexual relationship without her total consent (because that’s the only storyline women can have on this show), and then set herself up to be murdered at the very moment she could potentially break free. That’s pretty fucking grim.

Then there is the whole police corruption storyline, which is a hallmark of noir fiction. The glimpses we get of the Neptune sheriff’s department point to a larger conspiracy at play than just crooked cops; Sachs lost his life trying to expose it and Keith was gravely injured. This was the story I was excited for future installments of Veronica Mars to address, especially given its relevance to today’s politics. Unfortunately, this thread was entirely dropped in S4, where the police department (because, as Rob Thomas revealed in interviews but not onscreen, Neptune has incorporated) is merely overwhelmed by the scope of the bombing case rather than outright corrupt. (Side note but Marcia Langdon was also a more complex and morally grey character when introduced in the second book than she was on screen in S4. Another wasted opportunity).

Noir is also marked by a sense of inevitability or doom as a result of greater forces at play. An example of this in the movie is Weevil’s storyline. After building a life and family for himself, he ultimately ends up rejoining the PCHer gang he left as a teenager due to a misunderstanding based on his race and appearance and the assumptions authority figures make about him because of those things. No matter what he does, he is still limited by an unjust and racist society. Contrast this with the final explosion in S4; it’s not inevitable, just based on Veronica’s incompetence. Rob Thomas claims that he tried to create a sense of doom to LoVe’s relationship between the OOC Leo storyline and the last minute barriers before the wedding, but those aspects just served to make the story unnecessarily convoluted.

What is noir anyway? Was Veronica Mars ever noir? Does it matter?

But this is all assuming there is a set template for noir anyway. This New Yorker essay points out that trying to definitively establish a set of rules for noir is difficult and that the classic noir films were more a product of midcentury artistic and political movements than a defined genre. The noir filmmakers working at the time would not have described their work as such. The kicker of this essay is the final sentence: “But the film noir is historically determined by particular circumstances; that’s why latter-day attempts at film noir, or so-called neo-noirs, almost all feel like exercises in nostalgia.” I found this particularly amusing because as Rob Thomas infamously proclaimed in his S4 era interviews, he wanted to completely dispense with nostalgia going forward. Rob Thomas and S4 supporters have said that Logan needed to die because noir protagonists can’t have stable relationships; but, if there isn’t a defined set of rules other than “an element of crime”, then was it strictly necessary? Hell, writing a hardboiled detective who does have a stable relationship and maybe even a family could have been an interesting subversion of genre expectations. Unfortunately, Rob Thomas isn’t that imaginative.

There’s also the issue that noir and hardboiled detective fiction aren’t interchangeable genres. This article lays out that idea that they aren’t the same because noir is ultimately about doomed losers; in contrast, detective fiction, while dark, contains a moral center and has an ending where a sense of justice is achieved. An interview with author Megan Abbott makes a similar argument; she states that in hardboiled detective fiction, “At the end, everything is a mess, people have died, but the hero has done the right thing or close to it, and order has, to a certain extent, been restored.” Based on the descriptions laid out here, I would argue that in its original format Veronica Mars far better fit the detective fiction model; while she wasn’t always right, she was never a loser, and she solved the mystery. S1-3 all had relatively hopeful, if not totally happy, endings, but you never see anyone complaining that they weren’t noir enough; if anything, they were more emotionally complex than the ending of S4, where Logan’s death is essentially meaningless. One could make the argument that S4 did push Veronica towards a more noir characterization by the definition of these articles by making her more incompetent and meaner than she was in previous installments, but that is a fundamental change in character, which is not coherent writing.

And that is ultimately why S4 was so poorly received by longtime fans and why there will be no more installments of Veronica Mars anytime soon (at least on Hulu). Even if S4 had been noir (or at least shot like one), the serious issues with plotting, characterization, and lack of adherence to prior canon that this season exhibited would still exist. Defending the poor writing choices made in S4 with “it’s noir!” does not mask them or automatically heighten the quality of the product. Perhaps ironically, in ineptly trying to be noir in S4, Rob Thomas likely prematurely ended Veronica Mars by failing his creation and fans with lazy storytelling.

#Veronica Mars #Burnt Marshmallow #Yeah I'm still angry what of it #If only RT had put as much effort into writing the show as I did into this post

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takaraphoenix · 5 years ago

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(This is a relatively long post, so here’s what it is: It’s a love letter to Haikyuu!!, the TL;DR is literally: I love Haikyuu!!)

I love this story a whole lot. I never expected to love it as much as I do now. It’s tied for my favorite all-time anime with my two other favorites (there is no picking the ultimate because these three stories and genres are too different to find a definite one that outdoes the other; all three fill certain needs I have in an anime).

But this one was... unexpected. You see, my other two favorite anime are One Piece and Sailor Moon, both anime that have been with me since the 90s, anime that I grew up with.

Haikyuu!! is different, because I got into it during season 1. Back in 2014. It’s... It’s a baby anime - in that it is still so young, compared to the other two. The same can be said about the genres; both magical girl and adventure/fantasy were basically the two types of anime I’ve been enjoying since the 90s.

2014 was the year I first got into the sports anime genre. In fact, Haikyuu!! was the second ever sports anime I watched (my first being Kuroko no Basuke). I never really took that genre seriously or cared to even check it out, because well... sports. Sports aren’t my thing, so what could possibly be the appeal of watching an anime about them...? But a friend of mine was very deep into KnB and after one convention where she cosplayed Kuroko, I figured I’d give it a shot and I really ended up loving it. And yes, I admit, the main thing that made me pick HQ!! next was Hinata’s hair; the bright orange really jumped out at me when helplessly browsing for a successor.

I watched the whole thing - well, there wasn’t much of it at the time, only the first season - and I literally immediately watched the whole thing again. I started my rewatch the same day that I finished my first watch. I’ve never done that before.

And after I finished the first rewatch, I started reading the manga. I don’t... do that. I do own two shelves filled with manga, so yes I read them, some of them are in fact corresponding to anime I enjoy, but usually when I watch an anime I don’t feel the need to also read the manga. (I don’t like reading much.)

In this case, I just needed to know. I needed to know how it continued, I needed more. The only anime that ever happened with is One Piece. And, much like with One Piece, I am horribly bad at actually keeping up. After a couple of weeks of being caught up and waiting for weekly releases, I drop the manga again so it can... gather more chapters for me to read. And usually I forget about picking it up again, tbh.

I rewatched the first season once more when the second season hit. And rewatched both seasons before the third, shortly after the second season had ended. And, after the third one ended, another obligatory rewatch of it all.

We’re in 2016 now, at which point I was pretty deep into sports anime and had started watching multiple ones with multiple sports and was so busy discovering new news that, admittedly, in the following years there was no rewatch. I was falling down rabbit hole after rabbit hole of new anime and the appeal of the shiny new beat out watching something for what would be the sixth time.

Only when 2020 hit with that fourth season did it happen again. At first, I only really wanted to watch that last episode of season 3, because well the release had hit me a bit out of left field and actually I’m kind of busy and there are so many things I’m already watching and supposed to do I can’t possibly watch 75 episodes of something I already know by heart. But mh, that final episode, how can I leave it at that? At the very least that final match, right? That third season. It’s only 10 episodes. I’ll just... skim through it, skip around it and watch the highlights - and oops, I forgot to skip anything. Well, now that only made me want more. I could maybe just--

Yeah, I watched the whole 75 episodes in a week. Which, admittedly doesn’t sound like much considering they’re only 20 minute episodes, I mean come on that’s ony 25 hours of TV. However it’s subtitles so it’s something that requires my whole entire attention and that’s not how I consume other media; I always write while watching TV. Anime is special, because no dubs for me. So it requires more time, in a way. And I usally only carve out time for maybe an episode or two a day when I watch an anime. With HQ!! it was that I accidentally kind of binged season 3 in a day like I didn’t mean to watch 10 episodes in a row but how do you stop? And it continued much the same (logically, if you look at 75 episodes over 7 days. That’s literally just math).

I had finished the rewatch and was left with the weekly wait and it is slowly killing me. My fingers are itching to just rewatch the whole thing again but I now have this girlfriend and like she’s super adorable and also loves anime and she made this whole list of recommendations so I’m kinda working through that and come on you can’t just watch one thing on a loop that’s ridiculous.

So I picked up the manga again, two weeks ago. I had left it off and bookmarked it on chapter 161. I’m currently on 311. That’s... 150 chapters in two weeks. That’s a lot for me.

That’s all a very long way of trying to express just how much I love Haikyuu!!, because I just... genuinely can’t stop? I’m so thoroughly enjoying this whole thing that I just wanna consume it again as soon as I’m done because it’s so good.

I love the character, I adore the characters. Hinata Shouyou is in my top five favorite male characters of all time. I love him so much. But not just him. Not even just his team, aka the main characters? This one just completely makes me love even the other teams - yes, naturally the main rivals the most because that is by design, but usually sports anime fall short on making me invest in anyone beyond the actual main team, it is very rare that the main rivals get some baseline investment from me. Usually I’m just in it for the main characters, why should I care about those... stepping stones? The teams they defeat on the way.

Haikyuu!! has me squeal and point stupidly when my big dumb owl shows his face (Bokuto ily). It has me excited for them all. Invested to a certain degree (naturally, I don’t want the other teams to win when fighting Karasuno, because duh).

I even love the female characters in it! I very rarely can even stand female anime characters because like... 90s American stereotype female characters be cringey but anime stereotype female characters are the bane of my existence. Here, I love them, I find them wholesome. They’re not being exploited like in certain other male-centric franchises where they need the biggest tits possible and the thinnest waists imaginable and only exist for the male gaze and for the male characters to be perverts about them.

Hinata isn’t some super gifted chosen one but he has to work hard, really hard. They all do. And they all get their growth and just the pure excitement whenever they do learn something new, whenever they do improve? Not to mention his character design, that short ball of sunshine and fluff. His hair kills me. Seriously, that orange fluffiness. He’s so smol but so energetic and so bright in that contageous anime protagonist way - meaning that he just makes everyone around him like him and cheer for him and smile with him (well, not everyone *side-eyes Tsukki*).

Tsukishima has such a great arch. He starts out as such a stereotypical bully who is just put into the way of the protagonist to create some tension, but then he actually gets fleshed out fully, gets his own arch and growth and I genuinely never expected to care about the damn bastard??

The humor in this one also kills me. So much dry-witted sarcasm and snark, so much of the humor lays in the facial expressions of the characters too! It’s a joy to watch and to read.

The pacing just works. There are some sports anime that rush too much through games and some that drag them out too long - but in boring ways. This anime turned one volleyball game into a 10 episode season and manages to convey so much tension and excitement that even after I had already seen it twice and absolutely knew the outcome, I still couldn’t even pause and had to watch the whole thing because I needed to see how it continues.

They manage to convey all this excitement and also the joy - the joy of the characters whenever a play works out - and the surprise when something new happens in ways that have me excited all over again, even when I really shouldn’t be because I already know exactly what happens.

And then there’s the animal theme. I love a good animal theme. The fact that basically all the teams have an animal associated with them. There are such great visuals given with the animal themes too.

Naturally, there is also always the component of shipping for me. Such great ships that I love so dearly and... honestly, nothing has ever made me ship an OT6 before because I’m over here, juggling all these overlapping ships and loving and cherishing them all.

I don’t know, on the greater scale of things and the vast, endless landscape of anime, this may just be one of many, but to me personally...? It is... It’s like this one was just perfectly tailored to me, specifically, in a manner I experience very rarely. TV shows are always about compromises. Sure, I like plotlines A and C and D but man do I hate B and yeah I love the main character but urgh X member of the main cast I just loathe and then there’s the unnecessarily forced canon romance that’s making me cringe - these kind of things.

With Haikyuu!! I just... enjoy everything. Every aspect of it. Every character of it. Every interaction between characters. The writing, the art-style, the animation, the pacing, the characters, the plotline, the execusion. I just love the whole damn thing.

#Haikyuu!!#I dunno #I felt like gushing about it #Phoe's Random Show Rants

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thatyanderecritic · 5 years ago

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Hi! So I saw a post of you talking about how blank MCs/inserts in yandere written stories typical have no personality because of the nature of being inserts. What would you suggest could be done if someone wanted to write a second-person POV story that is from a semi reader insert perspective. To give the narrating character an actual personality?

To write an MC: Writing Tips with Kai

Hey there anon. Kai here to answer your question.

If you want the simple answer, it’s pretty obvious: Just give them a personality, duh. It ain’t rocket science. Even if the MC is meant to be a self-insert or relatable to reader, just give them a personality and not make them blank with generic personality traits. Even if the character is so wildly different from how a person may act, most people do a thing called “roleplay”. In that story, they aren’t the “[Y/N]” from IRL but the “[Y/N]”, the baddass assassin (or something like that).

Now that’s the simple answer. For those who want a more in depth answer, read below the cut.

As stated before, the best way to write a an MC with a second person POV is to actually give them a personality. The only way you could actually pull off a blank MC is if you’re writing for a game. But games fall under a different set of rules. For now, we’re strictly talking about stories/books/ect. (basically a medium that doesn’t allow for the reader to directly influence).

Authors shouldn’t be try to achieve in making an MC that everyone can self insert in. It is an impossible endeavor and with blank MCs, you’re going to end up appealing to the lowest denominator. And when you think about it, it sounds like you’re a wishy-washy person if you try to make everyone happy by making such an MC (note: I’m not implying that authors who do blank MCs are wishy-washy, I’m just stating that it could come across in such a manner). You’re simply better off appealing to no one and concentrate on telling a good story. And to make a good story, you need to have solid characters. A blank MC isn’t a solid character.

Personally, I don’t think an author should worry too much of the audience being able to relate or “be” the MC. It’s really not that big of a deal. A majority of people are capable of doing a thing called “roleplaying”. You know, inserting themselves as the character and pretending to be that character. It’s easier to pretend to be a defined person than an empty puppet. In fact, authors should be more concern in making a good roleplaying experience and not “is this MC vague enough?” You may think having a blank MC helps the roleplaying experience, but it isn’t. Here are the reason why:

Blank MCs are typically stupid and make dumb decisions. If I was the reader, I would be wondering, “Is the author insinuating that I’m a stupid person?” There’s also the fact that people would get upset and go, “I would never do such a thing” hence making a disconnect.

Blank MCs are overly passive and inactive. Due to the fact that authors want to have the MC be everyone, the author can’t predict what everyone would do in a certain scenario. In the end, the “safest” option would be to do nothing. But then that leads to upset readers since practically everyone would at least do something instead of nothing.

Blank MCs usually only have two traits: nice and clumsy. That’s it. Those are the only two traits. Obviously this is a bland person and really, not everyone is that clumsy… or that naively nice. Some people can be given the illusion that they are this MC with just these factors, but with the combination of just the two, there can be a disconnect and people go, “What’s wrong with this person?”

As you can see, the main issue with blank MCs are the fact that there’s a disconnect. People aren’t puppets. If you simply give a person a body but give them permission to move it, then are you not making that person an unmoving puppet? You’re basically telling people they’re just a wall or a piece of furniture… not a person… especially a person that they know quite intimately: themselves. Having an MC with an actual personality that people can establish, people will have a better attitude. You might be surprised but people can relate to other who aren’t “themselves”. As long as a person can understand the other, then they can put themselves in the other person’s shoes. Instead of pushing “This MC is literally you” try pushing “This MC is you’re role, Mx. Actor”. Even if the character is so completely different from the reader, readers would just be happy if they can just insert their own name. To summarize the audience’s reaction would be this meme:

But if you’re really insistent for a blank MC, the only place that it could work would be video games or interactive fiction (visual novels, chose your own adventure, ect.). The reason why this option works so well with blank MCs is that the reader actually have a say in what the MC does… basically, the reader is filling in the blanks as they move in the story. At this point, the blank MC is given life. But the probably most of the time with this particular case is that author’s miss the point.

The biggest control freaks of out of all creators would be authors since most options are usually limited or would punish the player if they don’t act how the author wanted them to act. What’s the point in giving options if you’re just going to tell the reader that they think wrong? For example: a reader would get his negative points if they refuse to do something superficial with a love interest; like going out drinking or if they like muffins or not. Why do they get punished if they don’t like muffins??? Doesn’t make any sense.

The same go for options. Most of the time… the option sucks. It’s either be the “UwU” soft type, the unnecessarily bitchy one (for some reason), or the quite one who’s only dialogue options are “…”. But I guess that how people view others: either the Virgin Mary, Lilith, or a blow up doll. Fuck me, ay?

Just give more reasonable options and don’t punish players/readers over the smallest superficial details. Let a person like a brownie, god damn it.

Now that we establish the fact of: “Yes, authors should give an MC a personality even if they’re a self insert”, here’s some tips if you want to have a unique personality for your MC-

Don’t let the MC make stupid choices. Kinda obvious but, using the MC’s stupidity as a plot device is over done. I mentioned this before: There’s other sort of conflicts BESIDES the MC’s stupidity. Like MC vs. nature or MC vs. fate. Sometimes, even if you did your best, life doesn’t always work out perfectly.

Don’t make the MC an overly emotional mess that cries over the smallest thing. Similar to the stupid choices point, it’s an over done trope.

Let the MC be sensible and have common sense. If a door is locked, then it obviously needs a key. You don’t need the MC to go through a mental gymnastics to figure this simple shit.

Let your MC be morally grey. People aren’t black and white. Why do authors always try to make the MC an angel? There’s a thing in between you guys.

Let your MC be evil. While I personally would like more morally grey MCs, evil MCs are probably the next rarest type of MC. It’s good to have variety.

Try to let your MC be more of a T (Thinking) from the MBTI personality types instead of F (Feeling). Personality types that have a T in it are one of the more rarer types of protagonist in stories. They’re normally either the villains or side characters. Rarely the protagonist. It’s a bit more common to expect a T male MC while T female MCs are downright mythical. Probably because it’s womanly to be an F… oops.

Don’t make your MC be overly naive. Like seriously, why are all these MCs act like they lived under a rock for the past five years. “What is this… strange heartbeat when I’m next to my love interest? Must be a heart attack.” Biiiiitch. Not everyone is so emotionally stunted. And before anyone think that the T type of personality are like this… no, they aren’t. Just because they use their brain doesn’t mean they don’t understand how they feel. If anything, they’ll take these feeling and formulate a plan on how to successfully woo their partner… anyways, point is: Don’t make your MC an emotional virgin.

In yandere stories in particular, let your MC be the yandere’s equal… if possible, their superior. Actually, just give a unique character dynamic instead of “UwU, the yandere is overbearing and stronger than me.”

Anyways, I hope this was helpful to you anon!

Here’s a bonus picture of all the T type personalities that you could use for unique MCs:

(Bonus: I’m an INTJ while Julie is an INTP, in case anyone was wondering)

#Anonymous #anon #yandere #male yandere #female yandere #writing tip

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minaminokyoko · 5 years ago

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Maleficent: Mistress of Evil--A Spoilertastic Review

Disney: *shuffling through records* Hey, Hollywood.

Hollywood: *drunkenly burps, throws empty beer can behind the couch* Yup?

Disney: What’s that really well written, well acted, beautifully shot, feminist movie we made with Angelina Jolie that one time?

Hollywood: Oh, the broad with the wings and the horns? Maleficent.

Disney: Yeah, yeah, her. Do something else with her.

Hollywood: Wait, you don’t want to give it to her? *points to Talent, who is sitting at the table typing* Or her? *points to Effort, who is in the kitchen baking souffle* I mean, they’re the ones who made the first one.

Disney: Nah, you got this. Go for it.

Hollywood: Alright. *farts and a script falls out of his ass* Here you go.

Disney: Thanks, fam.

*END SCENE*

In case you can’t tell, I’m extremely disappointed in Maleficent: Mistress of Evil.

Overall Grade: C-

As always, spoilers below.

Pros:

-Probably the only reason a few straggling fans are showing up to Maleficent II is finding out that the legendary Michelle Pfeiffer was cast as the evil queen. She is just as smug and cold and awful as she seemed in the trailer, so kudos. They don’t share enough screen time, but Mal vs. Ingrith at that dinner table was some of the shadiest, pettiest shit I’ve ever seen. Ingrith is That Bitch. You really wanted her to have a harsher fate considering the monstrous shit that she does in this movie.

-Though they are seriously few and far between, I did like the tiny domestic moments we got from Diaval and Maleficent. I’m sad to say that the hype was once again wrong. They were teasing that perhaps Diaval and Mal would get a little more of a romantic spin, but either it was cut for time or they changed their minds. Diaval and Mal are apart the entire movie. It’s the worst. However, the bits we do get of them in the beginning, like him giving her the bad news and her trying out her smile in front of him and her telling him he missed her was nothing short of adorable. I especially loved it when they were served bird and Mal gives him that mean little side-eye. It feels very comfortable and domestic, and less like they’re mistress and servant and a little bit more like the mother and father pair that they actually are. I’m just sad there is so few scenes of them together.

-Expanding Mal’s backstory has very mixed results, but the bits we do see and understand aren’t half bad. The phoenix thing is way under-explained, but it is a neat concept that the dark fae came from a single source. It was also a believable story that they were hunted to near extinction, especially during this era of time when white people were at their most fucking ridiculous killing every new people they found on every fucking continent they found them on. It made sense they hid from them and wanted revenge, since we pretty much see that the humans for the most part are utter shitheads anyway. I also loved the diversity of the dark fae, coming from all continents and all peoples. Nothing drives me crazier than the idea that all fantasy creatures should look like pale white folks. This was very nice to see.

-At least Diaval didn’t die. I was afraid of that since bad sequels often kill someone you like just to “raise the stakes.”

-Tying the cursed spindle into the sequel isn’t half-bad an idea. It’s kind of neat that it’s how Aurora ends up discovering the truth.

Cons:

-Fucking everything else in this movie, basically, is a negative point. Goddammit. Why did they squander all this fucking talent?

-Having Mal, Diaval, and Aurora separated the entire time is the first huge mistake. I was hoping from the trailer that Mal getting hurt and finding her own kind was something that happens in the second act. Nope. First act. Fucking hell. All the reasons why Maleficent was a great movie was the dynamic between these characters and the development of their relationships. It was so easy to love them. They were a family. They had struggles and they all put in effort and they won the day. And then this movie happened. Mal and Diaval first and foremost were done dirty, especially since behind the scenes they had been teasing that maybe the hints of romance between them might finally get a brief spotlight, but no. Didn’t happen. Either it was cut for time or they changed their minds. Then Aurora just blindly believing that Mal cursed the king despite knowing her mother for fucking five plus years, not counting how Mal raised her from afar, just massively pisses me off. Aurora has shown no signs of wanting to just be a normal girl. She loves her mother faithfully and it feels very OOC for her to just instantly assume the worst, especially since she should know things about magic by now and would have heard that Mal has to verbally curse someone, not just with a gesture of magic.

-Almost every part of this story has our leads being passive as hell. I hate passive stories and I hate passive characters. Remember, a good story is one in which your protagonists affect the plot and the outcome and each other. This movie is borderline boring. It’s so much of people looking out the window at the sky and fretting and being moody. All of our characters just sit around for two goddamn hours barely doing a thing until the war at the end, as if the movie is just waiting for itself to end. It’s such a fucking shame considering how many creative, engrossing scenes are in the first film. The first film perfectly paced the character development with the three main leads alongside the action. I loved seeing Diaval’s different forms. The action was fantastic and the story was deeply personal. Everything built towards the end goal of showing the full scope of who Mal is as both the hero and the villain. Here, it’s just miscommunication. That’s it. It’s so stupidly basic and it doesn’t do anything but open the door for her backstory. It’s such a lazy method to introduce them. There were much better ways to go about it and I’m sad that none of our beloved three barely does anything over the course of the movie.

-The tone is all over the fucking place. I actually would not recommend this movie for kids. It’s much too harsh for the little ones when we reach the war in the third act. It’s unnecessarily cruel to a bunch of characters. It even has the nerve to outright KILL one of the three fairy godmothers with little to no reverence for what a big fucking deal that should be. It’s a nasty, unpleasant feeling when she dies and when the other moorfolk and the dark fae die as well. And yet some of these scenes have slapped together “wah-wah-wah” moments, like the evil queen simply being turned into a goat. Ha-ha. Yeah. There are dozens of soldiers and innocent townsfolk and fairies dead. But she’s a just a goat. Sure. That’s not a whiplash of a fucking tone at all. What the hell is the matter with this movie? How dare you actually kill a fairy godmother. And it was one of a few stupid sacrifices while we’re at it. I mean, Magical Negro Fae went full Piccolo standing in front of Mal when all he had to do was yank her out of the way. Same for the big tree fae who died. Not to mention the fact that the giant tree fae just had to walk over to that fucking pipe organ and snap that stupid redhead’s neck, easy peasy, in three seconds. Problem solved. Fuck this movie for showing such flagrant deaths for innocent characters.

Oh, excuse me, one second.

*grabs Hollywood by the ear, shoves him into a chair, and breaks his nose*

Hollywood: OW! WHAT WAS THAT FOR?!

Me: IF YOU PUT ONE MORE GODDAMN FUCKING MAGICAL NEGRO INTO ANOTHER MOTHERFUCKING MOVIE IN 2019 OR BEYOND, I’MMA FUCKING KILL YOU.

-Magical Negro Fae makes me want to kill something. I’m tired, y’all. I’m tired of writers in Hollywood continually making wise black characters teach white people life lessons and then promptly die to advance their story. Go to hell. All of you who keep writing this wretched cliché go straight to hell. Do not pass go. Do not collect $200. Take your ass to hell and rot in the lake of fire. Stop. Fucking. Doing. This. To. Black. Characters. You. Fucking. Assholes.

-It feels like there is a movie between the first Maleficent and this one that we missed. Seriously, the characters spout backstory that sounds interesting and important, but it’s off-screen, and we’re constantly fighting to understand something that the characters clearly do. Show, don’t tell. Show me Aurora and Philip being in love. Show me Aurora’s longing for Philip and Mal to get along. Show me Mal wondering about her heritage and feeling like an outcast. Show me the dark fae’s backstory. Show me Lickspittle being forced into betraying his own kind. I cannot connect with these characters if you do not give me a reason to do it like you did in the first film.

-Is it just me or did Hollywood deadass steal a whole bunch of this from the Gargoyles animated series? I’m just saying. Go back and watch that and then watch this and tell me it’s not similar.

-Nitpick: God, Disney, I am so tired of you filming all your live action movies on one sound stage with zero practical effects and zero sets. Yes, we can tell the fucking difference when you film everything indoors and there’s no sets. Can we go back to actually giving a shit about how movies look?

-Nitpick: There’s plotholes everywhere. I already mentioned how the tree fae could have ended that church massacre in a total of 3 seconds, if that. Where have the dark fae been? Why did they just act that one time with those mercs stealing the moorfolk? What was Lickspittle actually doing to the trapped fairies? We never see him experiment on them or anything. How did Magical Negro Fae see Mal fall in total darkness? Was he just hovering around the area? Why? They seem very far away from their stronghold, so how did he see her and why have they never attempted contact with her before even though they apparently know the moors very well? I could go on like this for some time.

-Angelina Jolie is given very little material to work with and it’s depressing considering how emotionally attached I became to Mal in the first movie. Her struggle was so sympathetic and her reaction to Stefan’s cowardice and cruelty was arguably justified. Here, she’s not having some kind of revelation about herself. It’s cookie cutter right and wrong. It’s very little struggle. She’s not barely doing anything for long periods of time and it’s honestly boring and disappointing as hell considering what a force of nature she is in personality and in abilities. They took all the zest and spice out of her. She’s a hollow, empty version of herself here and it’s probably the most insulting thing of all.

-Nitpick: The title is a big fat lie. Mal does not turn evil or become evil. She swats some fools around at the end, but that’s all. I hate misleading titles.

Overall, the word to describe this movie is unnecessary. It’s not bad, but it is nowhere near good at all. It reduces all its characters into passive roles in a dull story that tries to make up for it by heavily loading the ending with very distasteful, cruel war scenes that are frankly too harsh for children. It’s not asking any deep, sympathetic questions from its audience. It’s just spinning its wheels, mostly. If you’re curious, sure, go ahead and rent it. I would warn you from paying full theater price since it adds almost nothing to something that was frankly perfect the way it was already. I went in with low expectations and while the movie didn’t go below them, it was still a letdown. Mostly because I wanted some Maleval scenes to wake up the tiny, dormant fandom, and I highly doubt this is going to do that.

Sigh. You deserved better, Mal. At least we’ll always have the first movie.

Kyo out.

#maleficent #maleficent: mistress of evil #maleficent II #mistress of evil #angelina jolie #michelle pfeiffer #movie review #film review #review #spoilers #spoiler alert

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lucyreviewcy · 5 years ago

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The Mummy (2017) Dir. Alex Kurtzman

What can I really say about this movie?

I wasn’t allowed to watch the original Mummy movies as a kid, so when I eventually came to watch these forbidden films I was vaguely disappointed that they weren’t spooky enough. As a result, I was pretty excited for the much spookier looking Tom Cruise reboot (even though it had Tom Cruise in it - usually something that drives me away from the movie).

There were a few alarm bells in the first fifteen minutes of the movie. For starters, we have a love interest who is a solid 23 years younger than our protagonist. She’s also definitely a love interest: she doesn’t do very much apart from get injured and be sad.

The second alarm bell was something I hadn’t picked up on before seeing this movie, but which I believe to be generally true. Rule: if the main character in a movie is called Nick, the main character in the movie is usually the worst. The Mummy compounds this issue by layering the Nicks all over the place. The first two characters we are introduced to are Nick (Tom Cruise) and Sgt. Vail. Sgt. Vail is played by Jake Johnson, who most of us will know as Nick from new girl. This issue is then made even worse by the introduction of Russell Crowe’s character, Henry, who is essentially the Dark Universe version of Nick Fury. THAT IS TOO MANY NICKS. More Nicks than a well-used broadsword. More Nicks than a Santa vs Satan themed birthday party. More nicks than Adrian Dunbar in a room full of bent coppers.

Aside this sig-nick-ficant issue which probably only affected me. There are so many other problems with this movie, but before I list them I want to state that I found it a fun romp. I would probably watch this movie again as a spooky treat around Halloween. I am fully disappointed that the Dark Universe never took off, because if this were the first offering I would have been so ready for the rest of the franchise. Sadness abounds.

That said, I can completely understand why audiences may have had trouble with this movie. Please see the following list of glaring flaws in The Mummy:

Tone. This movie has more trouble with tone than a dog trying to tastefully decorate a penthouse apartment. I don’t know much about its development, but it feels like an original version of the movie was shot and then producers said “Can’t you add a funny in every scene?” I don’t know if it was intentional, but even the big scary Pharoah-faced statue has something vaguely comical about it. As they lower the Mummy into her prison, past this big ol’ face, the face just looks really shocked and vaguely disgusted by her. I guess that’s a nice way of hammering home that the evil lady who just killed a baby really is evil. But also… She just killed a baby. We know she’s evil. We don’t need a statue to make an emoji-esque face to tell us that. This gets worse when later, as she’s lifted out of the prison, the same statue looks shocked and afraid. But we know that she’s bad. We don’t need to be told to be shocked and afraid by a big statue. Stop telling me what to feel, statue! This is typical of the film as a whole. Spooky fight scenes have comical sound effects and any brief emotional scene involving Nick is punctuated by a witty one-liner. I would have been happy with this in smaller doses, it works really well in Jurassic Park. In Jurassic Park we have lots of comical one-liners and witty banter from Jeff Goldblum in the early stages, but as the film darkens and characters start dying, Goldblum’s character is removed from the action and the gags are fewer and farther between. That doesn’t happen in this movie, we have jokes all the way through and a lot of them aren’t even funny. Especially this exchange: “You’re a good person Nick, I know that because you gave me the only parachute.” “I thought there was another one.” This doesn’t work for lots of reasons but it especially doesn’t work when it is referred back to as an emotional flashback in the final scene, sans punchline. The punchline of “I thought there was another one” is Nick’s way of brushing off this and indicating that actually he might just be an asshole through and through. You can’t use that compliment later on as proof that he’s a good person! You think you can do these things but you just can’t Nemo... sorry... I digress...

Gender. There’s a blonde female character who’s vaguely intellectual but actually clearly only there to roll her eyes at Nick and how he’s the worst. She earned her right to eye-rolling by having sex with him at some earlier point but now that’s all she’s allowed to do. She also provides the emotional core of the movie… What a shock, said no-one ever. Perhaps this is just because the last movie I saw that I loved this much was Fast and Furious: Hobbs and Shaw which has Vanessa Kirby kicking ass and propelling the plot forward with sheer force of will, but I found the character of Jenny unnecessarily dull and cliche. She just screams a bunch to tell us about the threat that’s happening. In case we weren’t feeling threatened by the zombie mummies that are attacking her. But we were aware because we could see that happening. So… Thanks for trying, Jenny. Then there’s the Mummy herself. I swear no actress on the planet gets her talent squandered as frequently as Sofia Boutella. Equal parts terrifying and beautiful, Boutella is at her best when she gets to wreak havoc in Kingsman - but since then I’ve only ever seen her in limiting roles that don’t make the most of her delicate threat/allure balance. From almost bond-girl in Atomic Blonde to the-hit-woman-in-the-red-dress in Hotel Artemis (She’s a hitman = THREAT, but she’s in a red dress = ALLURE - delicate, subtle…), Boutella gets landed with characters that are tired stereotypes. Ahmamet is not much of an improvement. The parts of the film where the Mummy is less CGI and more makeup and physicality are really satisfying, allowing Boutella to be her spooky self. It’s disappointing that the mummy makes people into other mummies by kissing them, because of course the only way a woman can win a man over is by using her sexuality. FEMINISM. The Mummy could have pushed her much further, but if this movie proves anything it is that Sofia Boutella would have made a far better Enchantress than Cara Delavigne did in Suicide Squad.

This movie doesn’t know the difference between Zombies and Mummies. As soon as she wakes up, the titular Mummy starts snog-converting all of the locals into mummies who then become her lackeys. But they just look like zombies. She’s made zombies. They shamble around like zombies. We have the “Zombie on the car” sequence that I’ve seen before in zombie movies. These are zombies. I didn’t come here for zombies. I came here for mummies, the risen dead. Not zombies, the undead. The thing that’s really irritating about the snog-mummification sequence is that she turns all the living people into zombies even though it is later established that she can cause corpses to rise from the dead. So why is she bothering to turn all these alive people into zombies when she is in a graveyard. That’s so much extra effort. Has she never mapped a process? Has she not considered she may need to conserve her resources? Have you ever heard of RECYCLING? I mean she’s from ancient history so I guess not. Eventually, we do end up with a significant number of mummies because of some very heavily established buried knights (SO MUCH EXPOSITION), but those are fine. I’m just mad about all the zombies.

Tom Cruise. I regret to inform you that Tom Cruise is no-longer a bankable star. The Mission Impossible movies are a bankable franchise and that is a different thing. I am never tempted to go and see a movie because Tom Cruise is in it. I spent the last hour of this film listing actors who could have made this movie better. The list ended up with one name on it and that name was Ryan Reynolds. Reynolds’ typical cynicism in the face of a well-loved franchise might have resulted in a more consistent tone to the movie. We know from every other movie that he does that he can balance serious and silly in a way that keeps the audience laughing and crying. We know that he can make even the thinnest of storylines seem plausible. We know that he does well opposite another equally sarky character so the chemistry with Jake Johnson (one of the few commendable parts of this movie) would still work and maybe even be improved.

I loved Russell Crowe in this movie and there won’t be any more Dark Universe movies and it is all Tom Cruise’s fault. This point doesn’t need much expansion. Russell Crowe is just really fun as Dr Jeckyll and Mr Hyde and I loved every second of his performance. The structure of the movie is weird because it introduces him and then drops him almost immediately for about an hour, but he’s just great. I don’t normally love Russell Crowe in anything and this really won me over. I would have watched all the Dark Universe movies for Russell Crowe alone. My boyfriend pointed out, from only hearing his voice emanating from my laptop, that Russell Crowe in this movie sounded like he was voicing the big fat posh tuxedo cat that used to live near us. I loved it.

I didn’t know how many feelings I had about this movie until I started writing them down. I loved the idea and I felt like I was enjoying it but now that I look back there were so many problems. It’s like if I spent a few days knitting a scarf without looking at my work and then discovered that I’d dropped like half the stitches and it was just a mess. That’s how I felt.

I hope you can look past the many problems I have highlighted with this movie next time you need a wild, undead but also risen dead romp. In a lot of ways, The Mummy is just like Sofia Boutella’s characters in everything: both alluring and threatening at the same time.

#themummy #the mummy #tom cruise #movie review #mummy 2017 #sofia boutella #feelings #stop telling me how to feel statue

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starryandersen · 6 years ago

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ok so I have this idea for the longest time please hear me out. brandon/adam (I’m lost but u can’t tell me you aren’t as well) both of them are hockey players but Brandon is secretly an acclaimed author (zach hyman vibe) and his latest book is an experiment with poetry and of couse it’s about Adam, can’t blame the guy. BUT imagine when somehow the secret is revealed and Adam gets suspicious after all of his friends tell him to read it and he caves in and reads all of Brandon’s books.

(pt. 2) AND he finds out he somehow always ends up being an important character in every single one, but full on freaks out when he realises the whole book of love poems are describing HIM! anyway that’s all I’ve got but it fits well with 33.hide so I’m curious about what are your feelings about this

yes yes YES i love it! i agree brandon/adam have stolen my heart and this is such a lovely trope. i’m such a slut for the dramatiques so this is wonderful. i hope you don’t mind if i write a little smth for it, since it really DOES fit so well with 33 :)

33) hide

Seriously, when Brandon had come out as this Y/A writer, it kind of rocks the whole team’s world. Of course, it was never that they found Brandon incapable of being a writer, but it certainly in a million years would never have been anyone’s guess at his secret talent. Between all of the stress baking and hockey, everyone had been baffled as to where he had found the time to write whole fucking novels. Especially when, in the thick of the season, the common perception is that Brandon and Adam have a combined total braincells of negative four. They tend to be associated with each other.

Mark is the first one to finish reading the bulk of Brandon’s repertoire, two novels and his latest publication, a poetry book, and as soon as he’s done, he’s leaving the books in Adam’s stall with a little post-it note telling him that he has to read it.

Adam has never been a big reader, admittedly, he had relied on SparkNotes religiously all through school and wasn’t one to read for pleasure. However, he really is curious to see what Brandon even wrote about, and he was eager to be a supportive friend. He picks up the first book on an off-day where Brandon had obligations and couldn’t be around to entertain him, so he curls up on the couch and reads while listening to the rain thump against the windows in a slow pattern. He finishes it before dinner, wrapped up in every single word spinning off the page, building an entirely different universe inside his modern apartment. Adam can hear Brandon’s voice in each word, telling of his protagonist’s adventures.

It’s kind of fun, Adam realizes, as he uncovers relationships between the side characters and their teammates, it feels like a private look into the story that Brandon’s other readers wouldn’t get. Something unnecessarily warm settles in between his ribs. One of the characters, the one who actually holds the key to the climax of the story and is far more important than the reader would have been expecting, is based off of him, he thinks. Adam only puts it together at the end. The way Brandon describes him, things that Adam wouldn’t think to notice about himself even, makes the heat build in the tips of his ears. He finishes the book and slams it closed, dropping it onto the coffee table with a pounding heart, and goes for a run to process it all. It’s oddly flattering.

“I read your book, the one about the spies.” He tells Brandon, one day over lunch, taking a bite of his sandwich like it hadn’t unearthed a whole plethora of repressed feelings that Adam hadn’t though would resurface. Brandon goes pink in the cheeks, stirring his soup with his spoon.

“You can read?” Brandon bites back, but the anxiety under the flat, sarcastic lilt of his voice is easy for Adam to pick out. He worries his bottom lip between his teeth, watching him carefully across the table through dark eyelashes. The dim, yellowed light is casting perfect shadows over his face and makes him look unfairly good. Brandon always looks unfairly good. Adam kicks him under the table.

“Shut up, asshole. I was gonna say that I really liked it.” He defends mildly, through a smile. Brandon catches his foot between his ankles, and keeps it there. Adam doesn’t make any struggle to pull away. “My favorite was Andrew, naturally.” Brandon goes a dark red, eyes widening and returning to the perpetual hooded look that they always seem to have so fast that Adam thinks he might’ve imagined it. He steels his expression and shakes his head.

“Narcissist.” He sighs, and Adam retaliates with another kick to the calf with his free foot. Brandon laughs, and scoops baked carrots and peas into his mouth.

Adam starts on the poetry book last, which takes him the longest. It’s a combination of the hustle and bustle of the season as it progresses, and the required amount of brainpower it takes to understand poetry. Adam has never been a poetry guy, but there’s something in Brandon’s words that roll off the page like silk and breeze through his chest like a breath of fresh air. They’re shockingly emotional, more than Brandon has showed in person during all of their years of friendship combined. It’s beautiful.

They’re flowery and reflective and simple, but the ones that stick with Adam the most are the heartbreaking stanzas of unrequited love. Brandon does say in the forethought that not all of the poems are of personal experience, but these feel so real that it’d be near impossible to fabricate them. The one he’s stuck on at the moment is one of these pages that tug at the heart strings and make Adam a little dizzy. He’s sat against the headboard with the book in his lap as he tries to make sense of it. Brandon exits the shower, perfect and naked and dripping pearls of water that absorb into the towel around his waist, and flushes all over when his eyes land on Adam. The pink spreads deliciously down his chest and Adam wants to bite him.

“Shit, don’t read that around me.” Brandon grumbles, moving towards his suitcase to dig out some clean clothes. Adam reluctantly averts his gaze and discards the book onto the bedside table.

“It’s- you don’t have to feel weird about it, or anything. You’re really good, man. I didn’t know you had all of those emotions in there.” Adam tells him, tapping his own chest. Brandon shrugs, pulling a shirt over his head that falls loosely over his shoulders, baggy around the elbows. He drops down onto the bed next to him and Adam pretends not to stare at the way his thighs strain against the fabric of his briefs. “I mean, shit. Those love poems, wow. She must’ve really broken your heart. Why didn’t you ever tell me?” The pronouns feels awkward and bitter rolling off of his tongue and he doesn’t know why. It leaves his chest aching.

“Yeah, uh, I don’t know. Kind of sucks to bring up, you know? It never could’ve worked.” Brandon pauses, hauling a slow breath through his nose. “He’s too good for me anyway.” Adam blinks, trying to process the words coming from the other side of the bed. He suddenly feels all turned around.

“Brandon I’m- fuck, I’m sorry. That’s shitty. No way he was too good for you, though. You’re-” Perfect, he wants to say. “-great.” He drops a hand to the side of his face, stroking his thumb gently over Brandon’s jaw. The pad of his thumb just barely grazes the corner of his lips. “Who-”

“They’re about you, Adam.” Brandon says at the same time, squeezing his eyes shut. He sounds like he’s swallowing around a golf ball stuck in his throat and his face is turning a splotchy pink. Adam’s hand stills, heart stopping. There’s just no way, no way that someone could wax so poetic about him like that. Especially not his teammate, his liney, his best friend. He feels like he can’t breathe, the only thing grounding him is the sounds of the mattress creaking as Brandon sits up. Finally Adam’s brain starts working again, he reaches out to grab his wrist.

“You fucking sap,” is all he’s able to get out before he’s pulling Brandon in for a bruising kiss, hands holding on like he’s the most precious thing in Adam’s world. He probably is.

#brandon/adam #lowry/tanev #sysakiddo #prompts #IM SORRY THIS TOO SO LONG #ive been so fucking busy #anyway your prompt made my heart go kaboom i loved it sm

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elusianknight · 5 years ago

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How is Skip from C&T racist? If OG bulldog was black too you would call that racist as well. The show is made in a country where there isn’t much black (or other races of people) or much LGBT .

Alright we’re gonna break this down.

Skip. Whose design looks liiike this

Orangeish jumpsuit... just happened to be their fashion choice for this Black guy? Hmm. HMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMM.

Okay, so right from the get go, his design is uncomfortably similar to like, what somebody in prison would wear. Not a good start. And then his introduction in the episode... is absolutely ridiculous.

Carole and Tuesday run from Ertegun and end up running into a random trailer, which happens to be Skip’s. Some girl basically forced them inside by blocking the entrance, and they both freak out and get all scared as they watch Skip approach them. The whole scene is framed to paint Skip as intimidating and dangerous, like shots of the light outside vs the inside of the trailer being unnecessarily dark.

I don’t feel like watching the episode but you get the point. The direction is pretty clear here.

It doesn’t matter that Skip turns out to be a real nice guy, who tells them not to let go of their musical spark or whatever. The direction, framing, and script is playing up stereotypes of Black men as intimidating and scaaary so our protagonists (one of whom is literally a blonde white girl...) are afraid of him. So it’s a big twist when he turns out to be a chill guy singing a love song.

The problem is the way they just... full force rely on stereotypes to characterize him, and how him playing a love song is supposed to be a shocking, surprising moment. They could have built this up without relying on stereotypes, like having our characters hear that he only does hard rock music or something, or not having his design be so blatantly fucking referencing a prison jumpsuit. They could have just gone for like, a really punk aesthetic for him. That alone would have had a nice dissonance between the music he played and the music you might have expected him to play. But no, they just rely on the presumably racist assumptions of the audience to do that work for them!

Part 2: “Bbbbbut it’s japan they dont’ have black people or gays111!!11″

First off, the show is a collaboration of many people. Many of these people are not from Japan or are not Japanese. Including like, the singing voices of Carole and Tuesday, one of whom is LITERALLY a Black woman. Like, you’re gonna tell me they don’t know how to present black people these are their musicians.

I’m pretty sure Thundercat did Skip’s song. Like, COME ON. There is no excuse for racism whether it comes from Japan or not. And like, LGBT people exist everywhere, including Japan... just as many as there are anywhere, even if they aren’t able to be out and proud like a lot of Americans. Just because this one show refuses to actually take a progressive stance on what the future could look like, doesn’t mean it can’t. There are plenty of good representations of Black characters in anime, as well as LGBT characters, even when written by people who don’t have that experience, like the trans characters in Wandering Son.

Writing a story with themes you yourself aren’t familiar with just requires effort rather than relying on tired old stereotypes, and apparently the creators of Carole & Tuesday were not willing to put in that effort.

As for OG Bulldog, yeah, it would be stupid and stereotypical if they said “yeah this black guy was a gang member and drug dealer, oooh he’s so scary!” even if they did the twist at the end still. Carole and Tuesday has ONE Black protagonist who doesn’t get any weird racist shit going on. And that’s Carole. Who, in one of her introductory scenes, stops a young Black kid from stealing something. Krystal is also a character of color, i feel like she’s supposed to be a Beyonce expy, and she is fine, but we don’t see too much of her. But still, aside from Carole and Krystal, most of the Black characters we see are not treated well. We see plenty of white people like Spencer and Gus with varied believable stories, like being a politician’s kid or a burnt out music producer divorcee. Roddy is just like, a nerd. But Skip as a musician is presented as intimidating and scary, the Galactic Mermaids are a transphobic stereotype AND they become violent after losing the contest, that one background kid who stole something just HAD to be black... if you don’t notice the pattern of antiblackness you might not be paying attention.

This show has plenty of cool moments and interesting musical bits, but it falls terribly flat when it comes to actually being progressive. And none of these good moments make up for the shitty things that happen! For a story that supposedly takes place in the future, on FUCKING MARS, it has a regressive outlook on people that ruins the whole premise of ~oooh future~ since they’re learning into the same old racist, transphobic, homophobic nonsense.

#carole and tuesday #carole & tuesday #i thought this show was gonna be really good and!!!!!! IN A LOT OF WAYS IT FUCKING SUCKS AND IS MY BIGGEST DISAPPOINTMENT OF LIKE #THE ENTIRE YEAR IN TERMS OF ANIME #Anonymous

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battlestar-royco · 6 years ago

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I don't mind the bad boy trope, but I do mind what it's become. A person can be tough while still being genuinely caring. I'm thinking something akin to Uncle Jesse from Full House. More of those would be great!

Yeah, I think a bad boy can certainly be done well, but most of them are not, especially because most of the time they are love interests. Personally, I think to make a successful bad boy, the character’s agenda has to be sympathetic, he and the author need to be aware that their behavior is problematic, and if he is a love interest he can never do anything to hurt or control the protagonist or their loved ones mentally/physically/emotionally etc. Most often, the fandom and the author just want to woobify a white fuckboy rather than present someone who is afraid to be emotionally vulnerable and explore the complexity of doing unethical things for an ethical cause. Rice is the perfect example of a “bad boy” gone wrong because SJ/M excuses all his terrible actions, he never grows as a character, and his “bad” qualities are meant to be sexy and admirable. J/ace from TMI is another example because he’s so self-absorbed and unnecessarily mean, and is framed as the hotter and more intriguing love interest because of his bad qualities. Meanwhile, to use an easy example of a well-written bad boy, Kaz from SOC knows full well he’s done sketchy things, and so do the rest of the characters. They hold him accountable. He grows from it. His actions are not endorsed or glorified or sexualized. There are plenty of “tough” guys in real life who have multiple facets to their personalities and their reasoning for their actions but YA has reduced them to controlling, leather-wearing, conventionally attractive paranormals and nobles. There are plenty of people who identify with the broody and emotionally closed off but empathetic schtick but aren’t actual assholes. Authors need to be aware of the implications of their writing in order to avoid falling into unhealthy tropes in order to explore all the aspects of these kinds of characters and not reduce them to gross stalkers who wanna control their girlfriends.

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hereitalkonandon · 6 years ago

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I have new neighbors, the only time they stop making noises is when they aren’t home. I need to move soon. If this letter looks extremely stupid is because I can’t concentrate.

I wouldn't say I would rather die than tell a lie, but I don't really lie. If it was actually either telling some lie or dying it would depend on the lie, I can think of a lot of lies where it would feel like the right thing is dying rather than telling them but since I haven't been there I don't know if I would have the strength to do the right thing even if I wanted to.

If I could know for sure that I would choose dying, I would still find it too hard to judge someone for telling some terrible lie in order to survive. It's just that obviously that wasn't this person's case, what he did was disgusting.

And now that I think about it, I'm almost sure that I would lie, I feel like it's my obligation to stay alive for the people that love me and for my dog, that I should put them first, even if that means getting someone else in trouble, that I should avoid their suffering by surviving no matter what. I've always thought that love should come first.

My mom lies to get out of trouble, she lies all the time, stupid lies, unnecessarily, I find that behavior so shameful, but I don't think it's something that bad. I just don't understand why people do that. If I do something, I don't care if it will get me in trouble, if I did it it's because I thought it was worth the risk, so I won't lie when I get caught.

It's also because I'm shameless, if I do something I don't care who knows it. I'm not afraid either, sometimes people use that as an excuse, my mom doesn't, she isn't afraid when she lies, she does it anyway. This reminds me of when she accidentally dated some drug dealer without knowing what he was, she was right to lie to him.

I was only worried about someone sending you really awful messages, something disgusting, because even if you are not famous, I'm sure that whether you know it or not enough men have liked you, and men tend to be extremely bitter when they aren't liked back, sometimes even if that woman doesn't even know them. So he could pretend he hates you because of something you said about anything at all, even pretend he is a girl, just to make you feel bad, as if you could feel bad over that, but it works with some people, they feel bad about insults.

And also because once in a while people send you stupid anons whenever you say something they find problematic. Like how they annoy you saying Cleopatra was black, so that maybe some dumb person could end up holding some grudge over a single comment or whatever.

I obviously have no reason to want to insult you, but yeah it was just that thing about telling you I had already been involved in something like that which would make a lot of people ask themselves why I would even bother to bring it up if I was planning on eventually doing it, but then people are sick so maybe I enjoyed it or whatever so that would be exactly why I was bringing it up in the first place, or maybe I was bringing it up myself so I wouldn’t look suspicious if I did it and you could think that’s exactly why I mentioned it in the first place and I would end up looking even more suspicious. But anyway, I had already mentioned a murder and you didn’t just ignore that comment when I did so I had to elaborate.

Like this meme I saw once, a naked man put some stuff in the freezer and then he waited until it was ice and used it to murder people instead of just using a knife. That sort of messed up thing. But I get what you said, that you wouldn’t immediately assume it’s me because of the story I told you, and I’m glad.

But I wasn’t worried about something like a song they send you on anon or some cheesy message because even if that's so not who I am it wouldn't be a horrible thing to be accused of.

This reminds me though, of this one message that I didn't send but whenever I remember it I feel embarrassed for him, I'm almost sure that it was a guy, you probably don't remember it, but I do because he said something about being a hopeless romantic, and out of nowhere he starts talking about his castle and books and hitting on you and it's funny because I never forgot because I'm an idiot and I felt bad for him.

I know he was an anon and so he didn't care I guess but I would feel so bad if I embarrassed myself even if I was an anon and that person would never know who I was. I asked myself why anyone would say something that embarrassing. I often feel bad for other people when they are doing something that I find embarrassing. Maybe it's because I'm this proud.

The kind of "lie" that I tell, is feeling rude if I stop writing to that one guy that I've told you about in other letters, and pretending I enjoy it, not that I've ever told him that I do, but I assume it's a given since I don't say I don't want to do it. I hate being unnecessarily rude.

Other than that I'm so not into white lies. I would hate it if someone did that to me, maybe because it has to do with embarrassment, I would think it's demeaning even if I would understand they meant well. So that's why I don't do it to other people even when I'm aware that they are the sort of person that would rather a white lie than what I am about to say, it doesn’t feel right.

I've probably read less than twenty manga and watched less than ten anime, (and it was enough to realize that the manga is almost always better, as it usually happens with books and movies) and I read Death Note.

I enjoyed it but since I've always mainly cared about the characters in a story, I was never a fan because while I didn't dislike most of them and it was a great plot I also didn't love any character either, but I always had the feeling that Matsuda was supposed to do something and I was right.

They can make a book about two characters trapped in a room, no furniture, nothing, they never get to leave the room before the book ends, and it could be my favorite book if I loved the characters.

This is why I never watch movies, I think that no matter how hard they try, I'm not able to see that much depth in a character or know enough about them because I will probably only care about one character anyway and it won’t be the protagonist.

I don't like to have to fill in the blanks, I want the writer of the character to give me as much information as he can. I feel like it doesn't happen too often with movies since they have to focus on the plot and tell it in two hours or so.

I know there are great characters in movies but I don't have the patience to watch movie after movie looking for that. So that's why I love TV Shows and movies that have many episodes, I don't find that problem. Then, I could love a character in a movie, and what for, all I'll ever have of that character are the few minutes he gets to appear.

I hated Light but because he was terrible at it, at first he had the right idea, I just didn't like his personality so even then I wasn't into him.

I live in what is often considered one of the five most violent cities in the whole world. Women have it terrible everywhere, but here, I don't think I'd ever leave my house if I were a girl.

I know of this man, I didn't love him, but I knew him since I was a little boy, I kept seeing him until I was a teen, one night he was driving his taxi, minding his business, two drug dealers accidentally killed him because they were fighting, they shot him in the head, he didn't owe them a thing, he was such a kind man. I can't tell you if he had principles or not, but he always tried to help others and I never once saw him being rude, people were often taking advantage of him.

His murderers are obviously out there, selling drugs, alive, they were wrong and nothing happened to them, but he has been dead for years because of them, for no other reason.

Between six and ten people are murdered here each day, most of the dead ones are just criminals murdered by others criminals, and I'm glad. But some aren't criminals and that makes me so angry. I wouldn’t care about people selling drugs if they didn’t hurt innocent people. If someone wants to become a drug addict I don’t think the person selling him the drugs is responsible as long as the costumer isn’t underage. But I still dislike all drug dealers because it’s their fault this business keeps going and so many innocent people end up dying because of it.

If I could leave this place, I wouldn't do it because I want to chase some dreams like a lot of people do in other countries or because I find it boring, I would do it because I don't want to be murdered just because I was born here. Because my odds of dying are so much higher just because this place is filled with criminals, I was unlucky enough to be born in this city.

Most people I know have had guns or knives pointed at them at least once. My mom has had a knife held against her and an arm around her throat. And she has been around while they were shooting.

I never feel safe, because when they shoot each other, bullets get inside your house or inside your car, hundreds of bullets sometimes, and they don’t care if they take you with them though you have nothing to do with their business, so I don’t care if they rot, I want them to.

They often shoot you before they even ask you for your money, before they even give you the chance to say yes, they take it from your corpse, they shoot you to take your car. They take your organs, they steal women so they can force them into prostitution, they steal children so they can fill their dead bodies with drugs and pretend they are just sleeping, or sell them alive to men that are into that.

I don't owe them a thing, and I can never feel safe inside my own house because of them. So yes you could say I loathe criminals and I want them dead and I know my reason is more than good enough.

That said, I'm well aware that some criminals would never intentionally hurt someone else. But they have no problem accidentally hurting other people, and they wouldn't be in that situation in the first place if they weren't criminals, so it's still their fault that decent people and up being shot, caught in the middle of their stupidity. That’s why I believe their lives are worthless.

And I don’t care about god’s opinion because of my beliefs if he is out there because he is surely not worrying about this city. Since you keep bringing up not being a god whenever it comes to punishment. God is clearly not the one having to put up with the criminals so if someone doesn’t have any authority to decide what to do with them, to me that would be a god.

But I wasn't really talking about cleansing the world of criminals, just of murdering that one guy because I wanted to forgive my girlfriend and he did something bad enough to make me feel fine about killing him. He did it to me, not to someone else. He messed with me so I made it my business. Cleansing the world was just a nice bonus. I only talked about the other stuff since you said I reminded you of that character.

So, if Light had actually researched every single man that he murdered, and was completely sure that he deserved to die, I would have had no problem with him. And I would love anyone that made my city even 50% less dangerous, as long as he wasn't raping someone to achieve it, or something really wrong.

A huge problem with that character, was the fact that he didn't care about murdering innocent people for the greater good, that made him almost as bad as the criminals that he was killing, I said almost because the criminals weren't doing that much for the world and at least he was keeping average people safe. It was his own fault that they started to suspect him, so he had no excuse to murder them just because he was afraid of being caught, so I started hating him as soon as he started murdering innocent people, but as I said, I never actually cared for him.

If someone kills his daughter's rapist, then he won't be as bad as the rapist assuming he hasn't raped anyone or done something similar. So I've never bought it when someone says you would be just as bad murdering someone for whatever it is that they did. He wouldn't need to believe he is god to decide that the man deserved to die, so just because you say I think I have the power of some god because I decided that the person who wronged me deserved to die it doesn't mean is true, that's just the way you have of putting it.

The same goes for saying "I feel that no one in the entire world can play god like that with somebody else's life", you feel that, I don't. I think a lot of people could and should. Being obsessed with romantic love, I couldn't care less though because it’s not like I can bring justice to this world so I no longer worry about it and it's just for the sake of this letter that I keep talking about it.

I have no doubt that it's clear to you that I felt pretty proud and pleased with myself when I said that he is only alive today because I let him and I'm quoting you, but I never said that. I'm not ashamed of it, I didn't write it because of that, he is nothing to me, whether he is dead or alive, there's nothing about it that could make me proud or pleased, I was only stating a fact, saying that he wasn't as clever as he thought he was. That he was only alive because of my girlfriend's decision and that it was because of his stupid choices that he almost ended up dead.

When I said I was proud of everything going on inside my head at the end of the letter, I just meant that I am proud of feeling okay with all my choices, with my thoughts, about feeling like I always do what seems the right thing to me, that I've nothing to be ashamed of because whenever I do something is because deep down I truly believe is the right thing and my guess is as good as anyone else’s. That there are people that do things that deep down they feel are wrong but they do them anyway and I never do that.

I know there are a lot of people that could even get off feeling like they have control over someone's life like you thought I was doing, no thanks, same as with revenge, it does nothing for me, I couldn't care less about that. It would never make me feel powerful. Who is that coward for me to feel anything because he gets to breathe or because he doesn’t. His life would need to mean something and it doesn’t.

When you say that all he did was "accuse me without any proof", every crime could be simplified like that too. And then, If you take some sugar from an innocent man, and you are somehow completely sure that he will die if you do, and you take it anyway, you are just taking some sugar, but what you did was actually terrible if they tell the whole story. When you talk about someone doing something evil, things are never that simple and it doesn't feel right to simplify what he did, the devil is in the details. All he did was lie too, and that doesn't mean I think people deserve to die for lying.

Most people would say that killing someone in self-defense is fine, I believe that too. But I could say "you can't go around taking people's lives because your own personal moral compass allows it" just like you did, that's your quote. And they could answer me "But, what is wrong with you, I was defending myself." "No, no, no, no, who says it was okay? Really, tell, me, who gives you the right to decide your life is more important than his? Oh, the police? No, they are men, like you and me, why are they superior? Why? They are not gods. I don't agree with you, your belief is as valuable as mine, and you were wrong to defend yourself, you should have allowed him to kill you instead. What makes you so sure that he deserved to die?"

No, of course I wasn't defending my own life when I thought of murdering him, I'm not mentioning it in that context. The reason I bring this up is your quote. Everything that you are telling me that is wrong is because of your own moral compass. Everything the law tells us is wrong is because of the moral compasses of other men. I fail to see why I should follow someone else's moral compass. You can't even talk about democracy here. What democracy? No one asked me when they came up with those rules, so I don't owe them anything.

I told you from the start, that I knew I was right and that I would still know I am right, and that it's clearly wrong for you, and that you are entitled to your opinion. So when you keep telling me why it's wrong, I don't agree with you. And you will never agree with me, there's nothing I can say that would change your mind, but I don't want to change it. And I'm not saying you want to change my mind just that I feel the same way I did before reading your letter.

We don't see things in the same way, it's like telling me why I should like your favorite color better than mine. It doesn't matter how many things you tell me or how much sense you think it makes, it won't make sense to me, just as what I say won't make sense to you. I’ve already told you that he wronged me, and it was something sacred, you don’t play with rape, that’s what makes me so sure that he deserved to die. It’s not fair to you but it’s fair to me, because I feel it, just because of that. But it’s always good to know your thoughts.

I didn't mean it's literally rape even I could have written "it's literally rape", what I meant is that to me it's 99% as bad as rape and it’s still sexual abuse. So why should it be 100% as bad as rape for that to be a valid a point. And the point being, yes, he didn't tell just any lie about me, he said I kept threatening to do something 99% as bad as rape, there, you have this really specific thing now.

Well, you say "you can't force that system upon others" when you talk about me deciding to punish that man for what he did, even if that wasn’t the actual reason I wanted to do it but I don’t have to keep repeating that, it’s the reason I thought he deserved it anyway. But why should he force his system upon me and why should you force yours?

So, to you, murdering someone is one of the worst things you can do to them. Let's suppose that it works like that for him too. But let's say that if he had murdered me, to me that would be nothing (it wouldn’t), but that to me, being repeatedly falsely accused of 99% raping the person that I've loved the most for half my life was the worst thing that could be done to me. Why should you and him get to decide that "it's not that bad, big deal, he lied and it's terrible, but it's only this amount of bad, because I say so." But then suddenly you have the authority to say "But murdering someone no matter what they did is awful, I'm entirely sure, because we are not god." That's what doesn't make sense to me, that's all I see while reading that.

You keep saying deciding who lives and who dies is pretending you are above everyone else like some god. I didn't, I just pretended I was above him because he wronged me and I didn’t, he owed me. And I am ignoring what society says is right because he affected me, not them, my business. He was messing with an innocent person, when I was messing with him he wasn’t innocent anymore.

I could just as well claim that to me deciding who gets to live dead inside is playing god too. If my ex-girlfriend had spent her whole life believing that I was truly capable of doing what he said, 99% raping her, he would have killed me inside, he would have shaped my whole life. Maybe he would have killed her inside too. Maybe she would have lost her trust on other people for the rest of her life.

And he didn’t murder us, but he couldn’t possible know what was going to happen. What if my ex-girlfriend had a brother that loved her so much, he beat me up until he killed me, thinking I wanted to hurt his sister like that? It would be because of that coward’s lie even if I was innocent. He didn’t care about the consequences. He just decided to play god with our lives, then. But once again, the difference is I didn’t owe him anything, and when I decided to play god as you call it, he already owed me something.

So you see? For every little thing you could tell me about why I am so wrong, I have something to answer to you that you won't agree with. So you can go and on if you want to, and you have the right to, but I'll never see it like you see it. I change my mind, I just don't do it often because I rarely feel wrong. I don't think you are wrong because you have your own moral compass but I feel like you believe I can’t have mine. That you act as if your own moral compass was somehow given to you by some god but that mine is wrong.

I respect that he had his own moral compass too and that to him it wasn’t a big deal, but I have mine, and he messed with me. I didn't suddenly show up to his house out of nowhere and started trying to hurt him and imparting justice, I was minding my business and he decided he should say something despicable about me because he could.

I wasn't being presumptuous and it's the only reason I said I didn't think I was, but I am extremely arrogant, I've always been. I just try hard not to be rude to others and I hope I often succeed, luckily I don't get to interact with others that much, but I feel like I manage.

I wasn't talking about memories or having history, you can eventually build that with anyone. I've never met a woman like you before, so I doubt they are out there asking to be with your ex-boyfriend right now even if he meets more in the future, not being a social person has nothing to do with it, I just know it, I never came across someone like that before, and I'm already 28.

Yes, maybe he will meet a woman like you, but maybe he doesn't need to, maybe his taste isn't that good and what will make him extremely happy will be whatever he finds, that doesn't make you any less special.

There are billions of people out there but what's the use, all I see is the same thing all over and over and over, so they aren't that likely to find those people either, but I repeat, not that they even need to. That's what I said about my ex-girlfriend too, that maybe she will be happier with someone else, I never said she wouldn't, like you said in your question.

I didn’t mean I was giving her anything she couldn’t eventually find somewhere else. I said I was rare enough that she wasn't likely to meet a man like me twice and that I wasn't going to risk her future over that coward. What if her life wasn't better without me? I can't know that, I could have done something about it back then and try to make sure that her future wouldn't be awful, even if she wasn't that happy with me, at least I would always love her and be there for her. I couldn’t be sure she was going to find someone to be with her forever and she clearly wasn’t happy by herself. Case in point, her current boyfriend who cheated on her, and she believes he probably keeps doing it. And that she is the type of person that could never be satisfied with an average person, you believe you could do that eventually, but she wasn’t like that, she just hates being alone. Maybe she is that type of person now, I wouldn’t know.

You tell me that we are so replaceable but I don't believe that, if I loved a thousand dogs just the same, no dog would be a replacement for another dog, and the same goes for people. We are beings with feelings and not cars. They can like someone better but it still wouldn’t mean they are replacing you.

And you tell me you can't side with me because she left because I was always thinking about my jealousy and she wasn’t happy about it but I've always told you she left because of that so I don’t disagree, she didn't have to sleep with someone and then try to come back though. I can't respect running away to sleep with someone a day after breaking up with your boyfriend that you still love, I hate impulsiveness, she was a really impulsive plant, if she had waited for a while she would have been able to come back and maybe she would rather be with me anyway even if she wasn’t happy, I wasn’t happy either but I wasn’t miserable like I ended up feeling without her, I can't know that, and she can't either because she made a stupid choice, not waiting until she was sure of what she wanted, whether it ends up being better for her in the end or not.

I don't think she left because she remembered how toxic everything was when I told her I wanted to murder him, like you think could be the case, I think it's more probable that she ended the call because she didn't want me to murder him. But it’s too likely that she doesn’t come back because of my jealousy.

Sadly by now it could also mean that if she wants me back, maybe it's only because she changed her mind about me and she hasn't met anyone that's interesting enough and that at the same time could love her as much, that she is well aware there are so many men better than me out there (I don't believe this, but there's no reason she couldn't believe it) but that she can't be with them or that she hasn't met them yet. This reminds me of when she told me she wanted to meet more people, when we talked this January, maybe she was being serious. Well if that's the sort of love she feels for me then it wouldn't mean anything to me, it would be pointless.

I left this quote here "The answer is probably no, but they’ll very likely be loved better, and healthier. and non-toxic people will always choose the latter one." because I agree with you, that's even what she said she wanted and that she knew no one would love her as much but didn’t care. I can't respect them for doing that, but it's probably the truth, except "better", to me when it comes to love, more is always better.

It's not that I don't care, whenever I say I don't care I just mean it doesn't matter to me, I laughed after I wrote that because I realized I had just said the same thing, I meant it doesn't change how I feel, not that I don't like knowing what people think.

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susandsnell · 7 years ago

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it's been bugging me for a while now, but five worst parts of the dark Knight and one good part. bc I know you hate the movie 😂😂

boh. oh my gosh. b please don’t hate me. 😂😂

Five worst parts of the Dark Knight:

5. The Filmmaking. More specfically: LONG AND WASHED OUT PALETTE. IT’S SO FUCKING LONG. IT DOESN’T HAVE TO BE OVER TWO AND A HALF HOURS WITH TEN PLOTS TO WRAP UP AND HAVE NO FUCKING COLOURS IN IT. WE GET IT, NOLAN, A MAN DRESSED UP AS A BAT BRINGS YOU NO JOY AND SO NOW WE HAVE TO NOT HAVE ANY JOY IN OUR HEARTS EITHER, THANKS A LOT. HERE I THOUGHT I WAS SUPPOSED TO HAVE FUN AT A MOVIE ABOUT BATMAN, BUT YOU SURE PROVED ME WRONG.

4. The Writing. Holy pretentious dialogue Batman! Where do I begin?Harvey Dent’s “I will state the theme of my arc in the most lazy and blatant foreshadowing speech until Emma Stone literally says she’s gonna die in the opening of The Amazing Spiderman 2″ gets quoted all the time and yes, superhero movies aren’t known for their subtlety, and not all great movies need to be subtle, but the “die a hero or live long enough to see yourself become the villain” is egregious not only for the reasons I stated, but is a nauseating indicator of the film’s cynicism (despite what the boat climax purports to be proving!). Alfred’s “some men just want to watch the world burn” speech is similar albeit less facepalmy and Theme Stating. It’s blunt and heavy-handed, overly expositional, and very hit-you-over-the-head with regard to commentary.

And here’s the thing! It could work in the context of the type of movie it is - The Shape of Water pretty much opens with a statement of the “who the real monster is” idea, but it works because the film is a fairy tale and presents itself as such, whereas this movie wants to have its cake and eat it too as a “super adult DEEP subtle COMPLEX movie” with incredibly clear and simple shit like this. Beyond that, Nolan really has a dialogue issue in a lot of his works where nobody just has a fucking conversation. Everything has to be the most serious issue in the world or a ten thousand word treatise on the fundamental dichotomies of human nature or some shit you’d hear in a freshman philosophy 101 course from that guy nobody can tolerate who thinks he’s G-d’s gift because he wears glasses or some shit, I don’t know. Even the Joker, an agent of chaos, gets wrapped up into it! Like he is a showman, but the yammering and rambles of shit that isn’t even that deep but pretends to be gets on my damn nerves. And the worst part is that it comes at the expense of the characters.

They don’t really…develop emotional bonds (even with Rachel, the token woman And Therefore the Object At Which Emotions are Thrown). I’m not invested because none of these characters are real or relatable or have human interactions. The script shouldn’t be an anchor that drowns the actors and suffocates the characters to the point that there’s no chemistry, no connection, no believable core. Alfred is practically Bruce’s father and I get no love out of them! Harvey and Bruce don’t connect at all! Lucius Fox, the only POC in the entire movie, is literally reduced to a plot device despite having moral concerns!

3. That damn third act. This one takes special mention because it just pisses me off. It’s just too much! The chase with the Joker would be fine, but that’s not the end. His plot already extends way beyond where it would logically end (hence the bullshit runtime), but on top of that, on top of the drama with the escape ferries hammering you over the head with the point they’re trying to make about humanity and the obnoxious moralizing, and then you have Harvey’s fall to the dark side which I’m sorry, needed a lot more time than just getting crammed in to the back end of the movie. His descent into evil happened way too quickly. Two-Face is a great villain! But take Batman the Animated series (to me, the best adaptation of Batman there is, while not perfect) as an example: he’s established as a character and his descent into Two-Face receives the full focus of entire episodes and impacts the characters later on! Having him play sideshow to the Joker is a huge mistake, especially with something as huge at play as threatening Gordon’s family; it completely disrupts the focus of the plot and unnecessarily prolongs the film as a whole, but he goes down pretty easily in one of the movie’s shitty-ass fight sequences that I’d make their own point if there weren’t worse things because I can’t tell who’s punching who. And if you’re gonna rush Dent into villainy only to kill him, that makes his whole plot kinda a waste.

And The Dark Knight Rises was a lot more criticized than the Dark Knight, so how’s this for a fix for the entire trilogy? Don’t kill Two-Face. Keep Joker getting carted away gloating about having corrupted him, but then have Two-Face get away too. Don’t make whitewashed lamely written Bane the villain of the next movie - instead, let the tail end of this movie build Two-Face up as the main villain for the final part! That way, you have more time for development, cohesiveness, consequences, exploration of themes, and you don’t waste characters.

2. Batman / Bruce Wayne’s entire character. Okay, so whenever I fawn over the Lego Batman movie and how it confronts the issue with modern portrayals of Bats and rightfully points out it’s not deep, he’s just a humongous dick, this feels like the source material of that popular portrayal. Of course, it pre-dates it in the comics - Miller and company are to blame for Grimdark Asshat who Batmansplains, but I feel like Dark Knight especially, for its success and greater accessibility as a film, is what widely propagated this portrayal.

Secret identity or cape and cowl, there is a serious issue in your Batman movie if your Batman is terrible. He’s the protagonist, the titular character, and he’s fucking terrible! At best, Bruce Wayne is like…completely deadpan and not even there (I don’t give Bale shit because I think a lot of the fault lies with the writing/direction, Ledger was pretty much the only lively performance in the movie), placeholder of a protagonist. At worst, he comes off as deeply self-centered, self-aggrandizing, entitled, and violently unstable. I don’t care how bad the Joker is, when in custody, he still had legal rights, and Batman fucking tortured him. Even brutal criminals should not ever be tortured for information! And the film never engages with Bats reaching the point of beating people to a pulp as means of interrogation; he just feels conflicted about who’s worse and broods over it after the fact instead of, I don’t know, maybe thinking twice about torturing someone. The darker Marvel Netflix shows have their characters doing a lot of grim things, but the narrative or other characters almost always holds them accountable for it in ways beyond “aww, I feel kinda sad that I beat mentally ill people to a bloody pulp” – it challenges them often, or has other characters call them out. Batman just does this shit and people are like “oh you shouldn’t do that” and he’s like “AHHH I’M A MONSTER” and it borders into uncomfortable real-life implications with regard to authority and violence. There’s something to be said for introducing grey morality into superhero media, and I get the anti-hero thing, but Dark Knight codified the “white guy grimdark antihero being actually just a terrible fucking person who is the good guy in name only” deal we see in a lot of our media today.

It’s one thing to have a complex and flawed protagonist, but you have to balance that out with redeeming qualities, otherwise, he’s not even a fucking superhero! Again, I refer back to the 90s animated series: Batman has his moments of ruthlessness, but it’s balanced out with the philanthropy work we see in Bruce Wayne, and moments of genuine compassion that he shows many of his enemies – he apologizes genuinely to Two-Face, often tries to give them an out, and is frequently super kind to Harley Quinn, bringing her the dress she was accused of stealing when she was sent back to Arkham in the episode where she tried to redeem herself, and frequently trying to get her to acknowledge that the Joker is abusive towards her, as well as convince her she can still start over and be a good person. On top of which, Batdad is super popular in both the show and the comics. He’s frequently shown as having an especial soft spot for children; addition to all his adopted kids, you also have a lot of his interactions with children, whether as Bruce or as Batman, marked by gentleness, care, and compassion, largely based on what he went through as a child.

You get no such moment in the Dark Knight. I cannot for the life of me think of kids who would go to see this as a Batman movie and leave looking up to Batman and wanting to be like him except on the surface level of wearing a cool costume and punching bad guys. There is nothing heroic or admirable about this Bruce. He fights crime as a vigilante - brutally, I might add -and this time, it comes off more as a desire for vengeance than a desire for justice, a point which the film raises, but ultimately doesn’t resolve or engage with in a satisfying character arc.

The closest thing we get to humanizing this character is his relationship with Rachel, and even then, his interactions with her have heavy shades of Friendzoned Nice Guy which is especially bullshit because he won’t pursue a relationship with her yet is bitter about any decisions she might make about her own love life. He doesn’t even care about her that much as anything more than a conquest! He really doesn’t, and Alfred tearing up the letter proves that – with regards to how he behaves towards her, it really feels like it’s not so much that the letter would break his heart as it is that he’d resent her beyond the grave!

Worse yet, he gives no shits about anyone else. This has a lot to do with Nolan’s scripts having a toxic masculinity problem where it’s not cool for guys to sympathize with or have emotional bonds amongst themselves, but like… he’s allies in a shared venture with the other characters, and nothing more. Alfred is practically his dad but you wouldn’t know that. Gordon, as revealed in TDKR, was kind to him after his parents’ deaths, but they’re just partners. Harvey is a rival for claiming a woman! In other adaptations, Bruce and Harvey’s friendship is fleshed out a lot so the guilt and shock of his transformation into Two-Face is really impactful! Here, Bruce doesn’t really give a shit beyond it just being another thing to do.

And that’s what heroism and motivations are to Batman in this - just a thing to do. I don’t want to watch a hero who’d rather bitch about doing good than actually just fucking do good, this is the safety of your city, not a school essay! He doesn’t really seem to want to help people, he wants to complain about people, but then thinks he’s so fucking special and such a snowflake martyr for still helping them regardless! It’s such a deeply childish and yes, toxically male mentality. I know it’s become a meme, but the ”I’m not the hero Gotham needs, but the hero that it deserves” line pisses me off so much for this reason, as well as the fact that he thinks that Gotham’s flaws justify the fact that he beats the fuck out of people and roars in their face to get answers; I think the perfect refutation to both that line and how a superhero protagonist that explores what heroism means can actually be found in Wonder Woman – “It’s not about deserve, it’s about what you believe.” In fact, that’s what made Wonder Woman so good (and feminist!) – it’s rejection of toxic masculine ideals and emphasis on love, compassion and vulnerability being one’s strength, and that people are inherently deserving of being saved if you believe in the good of the world - a much better treatise on good and evil than “see, people sometimes don’t explode boats but they still suck so it’s okay for a billionaire in furry cosplay to beat the shit out of mentally ill people because that’s what this city deserves, a guy who’s more into violence than saving people.” He just doesn’t care, so why the hell should we?

And there’s just no arc. He just reacts to shit and that’s it, which makes him boring when he’s not being a fucking maniac. Despite the script not allowing him to have feelings for other human beings, having him break his no-kill rule with Harvey at the end would have been impactful….had he not already broken it in Batman Begins by leaving White Ra’s al Ghul (Liam Neeson I love you but there is no reason to have whitewashed him or Talia the way Nolan did in the series - same as he did with Bane and arguably Catwoman since she’s been portrayed as a WOC many times before, actually come to think of it, there is a LOT of whitewashing in this trilogy) to his death.

The film comes up with no real way to challenge it’s hero, have him grow, or change, or even show consequences for his failure to change, making him come off as stunted, unlikeable, and yeah, not much of a hero.

1. The sexism. (You knew this was coming, and yes, it is the worst part). I already mentioned how the men in this movie all fall prey to toxic masculinity as is common with Nolan characters, then even more characteristic of a Nolan movie is The Dead Girlfriend, Wife, or Daughter (you know, the only three things women could ever be!) of Sad White Guy(s). Rachel is the only female character (strike one) and she is handled nothing short of atrociously. Her entire job as a lawyer, intelligence, and hard work established in Batman Begins (which is also too grimdark but actually doesn’t piss me off half as much!) is hardly even mentioned and takes a backseat to her being a prize for the men (including her boss!) to throw feelings at and squabble over. While the male characters have no personality except for one characteristic and a goal because this script was written by an edgy thirteen year old boy, Rachel has no personality except to be a living emotional crutch/plot device. She does not exist as an autonomous individual outside her relationships to the men in the movie. Shit, she’s barely autonomous within these relationships! Bruce is a bitter little shit about her not wanting him back and we’re supposed to feel for him despite him literally offering her nothing relationship-wise for two movies and actively pushing her away at times! He feels he can’t be with her, but the framing is such that she shouldn’t have the right to be with anyone else, either! What the hell? I would even go so far as to say that her choosing Harvey just as she gets blown up, as well as how both of them got to that point, almost feel like the narrative punishing her for not wanting Bruce. More male entitlement bullshit.

And her fate…well, I mean. There’s a damn reason The Dark Knight is my go-to example when I want to explain what Fridging/Stuffed in the Fridge means. After having every possible stereotypical pigeonholed white girl trope tossed at her, Rachel is killed off callously for the character development and man angst of not one, but two self-obsessed stubbled white guys who make it about themselves and their right to act like phenomenal turds. She’s Helen of Troy – a woman blamed for people’s reactions to her (Harvey becoming Two-Face, Batsy or Bruce being saaaaaad, etc). She’s the Lost Lenore; a person reduced to how their death impacts their romantic interests. We have reached peak Nolan here, and frankly, peak Batman too, because the franchise (comics, movies, etc) has always had this same problem with its treatment of women. Her fucking death isn’t even about her! It’s Harvey’s fucking villain origin and Bruce’s sad ending and Alfred’s resentment and note-burning and would she have waited, oh boo hoo, how about, did she have a fucking family, what would have happened if she hadn’t been murdered young, et fucking cetera.

The thing that really gets me is that Rachel is by no means the worst treated woman in speculative fiction (especially not those that make a claim to some degree of intellectualism); she’s white, so her death is beautifully tragic and she’s put on a pedestal rather than being subjected to racialized misogynistic tropes (being treated more roughly by the narrative, having her suffering ignored or erased altogether, her death being callously ignored except for a throwaway line of dialogue, etc), she’s not unnecessarily and gratuitously sexually brutalized for shock value (that looks uncomfortably like fetishism at times) like the women on Game of Thrones or in nu!Bond movies, or, if we’re still in the Batman universe, Barbara Gordon in any iteration of the Killing Joke (which is another tentpole of misogyny in the Batman universe and I fucking hate it and it clearly influenced the Dark Knight, so, chicken, egg). She isn’t forcibly sterilized and her inability to get pregnant treated as making her a freak like AOU Black Widow. She has no pointless and insulting fanservice scenes like Carol Marcus in her underwear in Star Trek: Into Darkness. Her suffering is not treated as empowerment like any number of women written by Joss Whedon, she isn’t used to be chewed up and spat out and destroyed in a romance with either a guy who terrifies her and in whom she’s shown no prior romantic interest or an outright villain who has caused her nothing but pain in some stupid half-assed not-redemption arc where she has to sublimate herself and be stupidly forgiving beyond the willing suspension of disbelief so some horrible man can evolve.

But why this sexism sticks out to me is that it’s so insidious; if it were more on the nose like the examples I listed above, it’d almost be less jarringly offensive, but it masquerades as her being an empowered yet tragic character and weaves into an overall narrative that validates all the tropes I mentioned, and legitimizes itself in a way that feels fundamentally dishonest about how sexist it’s being. Worse yet, there’s the fact that The Dark Knight is more than just self-contained; its influence on not just comic book movies, but all kinds of media as we know it, is undeniable. And as far as setting the example goes? This hugely well-regarded, influential film is almost entirely white, and tells us that women exist as distractions, tragedies, and extensions of men’s storylines, and this bullshit has been echoing in similar media works since.

AND NOW, THE ONE (or multiple!) NICE THING(S):

All this being said, I admit there actually are a lot of things I like about this movie if I can separate them enough from the main issues! 😂For one thing, Hans Zimmer’s work on the score is top-notch; I listen to Like a Dog Chasing Cars and Harvey Two-Face all the time and the music alone provokes stronger emotions for the characters than anything in the movie actually did. The opening heist is just fantastically entertaining, and up until the messy third act, the pacing and plot is pretty tight and engaging! Heath Ledger’s performance as the Joker is of course fantastic; although he’s not my favourite Joker, he really gave it his all, and is by and large the highlight of the film. Nolan is really good with visual appeal (with the exception of that damn colour palette) and the shots are fantastic. I really love the chase scene with the Joker and wish the rest of the movie held my excitement like that.

Finally, it’s odd to say this, but I really like the world of the movie once I ignore the characters and plot. The Gotham that was built in Nolan’s trilogy, the contrast between the classes with the lavish receptions and dinners versus the underbelly, the corruption versus the goodness, how these disparate elements work in a terrible symbiosis, the architecture and technology reflecting this character – it’s incredibly vivid, both grounded in reality and yet sufficiently speculative fiction-y enough to be intriguing. I just wish that the people in it matched the quality of the setting. 😂😂😂

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