#instead of people dooming and glooming and say there is zero difference between the two

[theamazingannie]

One thing I’ve noticed both with parenting and with wider topics like politics is that people often don’t seem like their goal is to get their goal achieved. When you want a goal achieved, and that goal is not on track to being achieved, you need to try something new in order to get that goal achieved. Instead, some people see that their goal is not being achieved and they decide to punish the ones not achieving their goal. For example, my brother is bad at getting his homework done and perhaps I might threaten to take something away from him. If he does his homework, great it worked. If it doesn’t, then the threat was not adequate. The goal was not achieved. But I still want the goal achieved, so I find something else to motivate him. My parents, on the other hand, will go through with the punishment, and be done with it. The homework is still not done, and they no longer have their leverage, but they stop at that. The end goal was not having the goal achieved, but to inflict punishment at the goal not being achieved. This may be cathartic, but it does nothing to help in the long run. We see this now politically. We want our government to do a specific action, and we may threaten to withhold our vote if they fail to achieve said action, but if that doesn’t work, we can’t just keep going with our punishment. Because the goal is not yet achieved, and that is indeed the goal, right? And in addition, because you made a threat and went through with the punishment, the people you want accomplishing these goals don’t really want to help you anymore. It’s very frustrating, and you can wish all you want that they will want to do it anyways, but as I see with my brother all the time, they won’t. And now you have to live with the consequences because you were unwilling to adjust your methods and cared more about punishment than achieving your goals. And many people, like my parents, seem to be okay with that. But if you aren’t, if you genuinely want that goal achieved, then I suggest you change tactics before the deadline for late work passes

[laughingpinecone]

Yuletide letter

I am laughingpineapple on AO3  

Hello dear author! I hope you’ll have fun with our match. Feel free to draw from general or fandom-specific likes, past letters, and/or follow your heart.

Likes: worldbuilding, slice of life (especially if the event the fic focuses on is made up but canon-specific), missing moments, 5+1 and similar formats, bonding and emotional support/intimacy, physical intimacy, lingering touches, loyalty, casefic, surrealism, magical realism, established relationships, future fic (when in doubt, tell me what’s happening to them five, ten, twenty years in the future!), hurt/comfort, throwing characters into non-canon environments, banter, functional relationships between dysfunctional individuals, unexplained mysteries, bittersweet moods, journal/epistolary fic, dreams and memories and identities, tropey plots that are already close enough to characters/canon, outsider POV, UST, resolved UST, exploring the ~deep lore, leaning on the uniqueness of the canon setting/mood, found families, characters reuniting after a long and/or harrowing time, friends-to-lovers, road trips, maps, mutual pining, cuddling, wintry moods, the feeling of flannel and other fabrics, ridiculous concepts played entirely straight, sensory details, places being haunted, people being haunted, the mystery of the woods, small hopes in bleak worlds, electricity, places that don’t quite add up, mismatched memories, caves and deep places, distant city lights at night, emphasis on non-human traits of non-human characters (gen-wise, but also a hearty yes xeno for applicable ships), emphasis on inhuman traits of characters who were human once and have sort of shed it all behind

Cool with: any tense, any pov, any rating, plotty, not plotty, IF, unrequested characters popping up.

DNW: non-canonical rape, non-canonical children, focus on children, unrequested ships (background established canon couples are okay, mentions of parents are okay!), canon retellings, consent issues, actual covid (fantasy plagues are okay)

Les Cités Obscures: any

This is a very general “please, anything in the style of canon, just maybe with less thoughtless sexism” request. I want to lose myself in these cities again, and in the strange lands that connect them. I’d be happy to follow any of the known characters and/or OCs, or eschew characters altogether and write about the cities themselves. What caught your imagination in Brüsel, Xhystos, Taxandria, Alaxis...? The history of some cool building that was only marginally featured in one of the stories? Or an OC city! If you’ve got a favourite European city that doesn’t already have its obscure counterpart, please tell me all about it! Go big, go wild! What strange and classically surrealist happenings take place within its walls? Or even... outside Europe... Nerding out about architecture is of course very welcome. I would also love to read a story based on any Schuiten illustration, contextualizing it as if it were part of this ‘verse. Here’s a bunch of them, for example!

Ghost Trick: Cabanela

You know.. him. Dazzlingly OTT, untiring, rock-solid self-esteem, loyal to a fault, following a rhythm of his own, flawless intuition until it fails and it all burns down… him. I just want to see more of him doing stuff! The way he’s chill and open toward new people (like Sissel and Missile in ch15) makes him perfect to throw at most other characters and see how they react to the sparkles… I’d love some focus on how ridiculous his aesthetic is, half Saturday Night Fever half hardboiled detective half bubbly preteen (for a total of 150%) and yet he makes it work. Or how ruthless he can be, possibly for the sake of the people he cares for. The quote “The intimacy of big parties”. Him and Alma in the new timeline bonding over knowing (once Jowd has spilled the beans) but not remembering that terrible timeline. Some tropey scenario on the job. Snark-offs with Pigeon Man, by which I mean PM snarks and it bounces off him like water off a spotless white goose’s back.

Ship-wise it’s only Cabanela/Jowd whenever it’s not infidelity, Cabanela/Alma in what-ifs also if it’s not infidelity and Cabanela/Alma/Jowd for me (and Lynne/Memry and Yomiel/fianSissel on the side). There are a bunch of shippy prompts in all my past letters - I would however reiterate here that Jowd. is. the worst tease. always. Like, just saying, but assume he’s pining big time and Jowd and Alma figure it out - they’d make a national sport out of excruciatingly protracted teasing.

Conversely, Cabanela/Lynne and Cabanela/Yomiel are NOTPs especially from Cabanela’s side. So while I appreciate the thick tension of a good Yomiel VS Cabanela confrontation like everyone and their cat, and also really appreciate a roughed-up Cabanela, and I do love Yomiel in his own right… I don’t want Cabanela being into it. Adrenaline junkie he may be but this hurts and his coat’s a mess and there’s no perfect winning scenario so he hates every second of it. (JOWD being super into Cabanela being roughed up is another matter altogether and he should probably mind his own business. ...incompatible kinks, truly tragic. they’ll have to find some other common ground. they’re smart, resourceful, playful fellows, I’m sure they’ll manage)

Kentucky Route Zero: Donald kentuckyroutezero

I love everyone in the cast, all acts and interludes, and I am extremely into all the themes this incredible work of art ended up exploring. Agreeing with the overall doom and gloom up to Act IV, I was blown away by Act V’s strong affirmation of the importance of the arts and of the bonds we make and of carving up spaces for ourselves in capitalism’s wake. Donald was, indeed, not a part of any of that. Even the final interlude updates us on Lula and mentions Joseph, but the big guy is nowhere to be seen. So, you know, there’s fanfiction! He’s so static, defeated. I am fascinated by the chain of metaphysical spaces that goes surface -> Zero -> Echo -> Dogwood and even within that framework, the hall of the mountain king is like a hopeless dead end. Dude’s terminally stuck. So - once again, in the spirit of transformative works, how could he get... you know... unstuck? Did Lula’s momentous appearance in Act III shake him? Having a functioning Xanadu again, perhaps? How could he interrogate that oracle, what recursive wonders would it show him? If he decides to leave, what does it feel to be on the surface again after so long, or on the river perhaps? Maybe he is forced to leave by the flood, if not this one, the next... Having him meet any other character would be amazing. Past or future time spent with Weaver... seeing Conway again, changed... programmer guy chatting up musician androids... did he know Carrington from his college days or was Carrington only a friend of Lula’s?

As for Lula herself and Joseph too: “Flipping through the pages, Conway is able to gather that it’s a story about three characters: Joseph, Donald, and Lula. It’s something like a tragic love triangle, but much more complex. Some kind of tangled, painfully concave love polygon.” 😔 I ship them as a full triad, if you can nudge them in that direction, good. But I’m very open to non-romantic resolutions as well, going past their messy feelings to find each other as friends after so many years maybe. Or... a start. idk.

I’d be interested in fic that leans on the game’s adjacent genres: wanna go full-on American Gothic? Dip into surrealism? Take a leaf from Twin Peaks with tulpa / split narratives to explore the characters’ issues? I’m also open to AUs, real or through Xanadu. This also feels like a good place to stress that I really, really like caves.

And now for something completely different: FAQ:  The “Snake Fight” Portion of Your Thesis Defense is in the tagset this year. I’d say that the crossover with the snake portion of Here and there along the Echo writes itself, but it would not be correct, as in fact I would like you to write it for me. Feel free to not feature Donald if you focus on this crossover instead!

Uru would be a fun crossover too, for Donald specifically. He’s very DRC-shaped in how he tilts at doomed projects which just so happen to be deep underground.

Pyre: Volfred Sandalwood

This is a Volfred solo, Volfred&literally anyone or Volfred/Tariq, /Oralech or /Tariq/Oralech request. I adore everyone in that Blackwagon+Dalbert+Celeste, so if you want to add a Nightwing or two to any prompt, please do! I also love all the Scribes and find Erisa a compelling tragic figure, while out of the other triumvirates, I’m “love to hate them” for Manley, Brighton, Udmildhe and Deluge and would not like to see them featured in sympathetic roles. fwiw I also enjoy Jodi/Celeste and Bertrude/Pamitha a lot!

I feel deeply for all of Pyre’s main themes - literacy, degrees of freedom, the fragile time that is the end of a historical cycle, nobodies rising up to the occasion, building a better society, and of course found family, “distance cannot separate our spirits” and all that jazz, and Volfred is squarely rooted at the center of all of them. I really really love everything he stands for, even if he’s overbearingly smug in standing for it. Just please tell me things about my fave. His relationship to the Scribes (as a historian, a some kind of vision, via *ae or once he’s a star himself)? A ‘forced vacay’ Downside ending where he looks at the Union from afar and keeps living in this strange transformational place? Life in a cramped Blackwagon that was meant for like 5 people tops and is currently eight Nightwings, a herald and an orb? Since he picked him for the job to begin with, does he respect and cherish Hedwyn as he dang well should? What does it feel like to try and Read a herald? Was he ever in danger, in the Commonwealth or in the Downside? What daring act of resistance did he and Bertrude pull off at some point in their past? It’d be cool if one of his old pamphlets came up at some point. Does he puff up as prime minister because he’s nervous, and who can see past his hyper-professionalism and lend a hand? Please roast him big time about the votes he assigns to the various Nightwings in his planner? What’s his attitude toward the flame’s purification (what with being a tree but mostly like, as a general concept. He did nothing wrong!) (well he definitely said some things wrong and sometimes oftentimes the ego jumps out, but his intentions did nothing wrong)? When did his calculating approach fail him? Something with Pamitha along the lines of that edit that goes “Can we talk, one ten to another?“/"I am an eleven, my girl, but continue”? Dude could easily be voted sexiest voice in the Downside - how much is he aware of it? Does he sing? I love how he bears his ‘reader’ brand proudly. And speaking of scars, I have to wonder, looking at Manley for comparison, if the shape of his head, with that massive crack, isn’t also due to injuries.

As a refrain from my general likes: emphatically yes xeno to both shippy interactions at all ratings and to gen explorations of what a Sap is like… I’d love to read all your headcanons.

Ship-wise, I enjoy him with Tariq as this kind of esoteric connection of minds, guarded words full of secret meanings, long contemplative walks together (is any external pov watching...?), Volfred’s Reader powers brushing against Tariq’s mind and getting weak in the knees at the starlit expanse he finds there, so unlike mortal thoughts. Tariq finds his individuality learning from him; Volfred presumably gets a transcendent glimpse of the Scribes. And I enjoy him with Oralech as pretty much the opposite of that, Oralech is so very mortal compared to him, such a precious, fleeting, burning life especially after his fall. Oralech’s idealism is very dear to me, it was their plan, their shared revolutionary spirit, I find it deeply moving. And I am very interested in seeing them rebuild their connection now that Oralech is back, changed, and in some ways he can learn to let go of his misconceptions and slowly open himself to Volfred’s love again, but in other ways that’s who he is now, with this deep-set anger, and what does it even feel to realize that you’re the symbol of the end of an era (the end of the Rites, the fading of the Scribes). I’m interested in both topside and downside endings for all of them, as long as they end up on the same side, the revolution was peaceful and they don’t angst too much about the side they ended in. Tariq can ‘find his way home’ in the near post-canon somehow or even be summoned again, as a different aspect of the same ‘moonlit vision’ that once inspired Soliam Murr.

Strandbeest: any

https://www.strandbeest.com/

I would just like words to go with these, please and thank you so very much. Worldbuild to your heart’s content! Specifically: I’m fascinated by the premise that the strandbeest are living creatures that evolve and adapt to their ecosystem. A world where life is just wind stomachs and sandy joints, and the tide that can catch you unaware. I would like a story that feels distinctly inorganic. The wonder that is the existence of these creatures. Their unique struggles. Weird and experimental if you like. With a mechanical focus, maybe?

I nominated four critters as a selection of the different cool things they can do - Percipiere Excelsus is huge and has the hammer mechanism, Suspendisse’s tail senses the hardness of the sand, Uminami is my fave caterpillar and the caterpillars overall feel like a new paradigm after a mass extinction event, Ader straight-up flies... but they’re all wonderful. If you want to focus on different strandbeest, please do!

Twin Peaks: Lucy Moran

Case fic but they don’t find out jack shit, someone disappears, David Bowie was there, it’s complicated. Fragmented, shifted, mirrored identities. New Lodge spaces. The risks of staring into the void for too long. Gentle illusions. Transcendence. The moon. Static buzzing. Any title from the s3 ethereal whooshing compilation used as a prompt, actually. Whatever goes on on Blue Pine mountain or the even more mysterious things that go on on White Tail mountain where exactly zero canon locations are found. Twin Peaks is all about the mystery to me, the awe of mystery and unknowability and the human drive to look beyond and the risks of getting a peek, and about shared consciousness and trauma taking physical form in an uncaring world. Go wild with the ethereal whooshing! But I also love the human warmth at the heart of it all, and sometimes it’s enough to anchor these characters and let them have a nice day. A fic entirely focused on some instance of coziness against the cold chaotic background of canon would be great too.

For Lucy specifically, a big draw for me is how canon (...s2 need not apply) empathizes with her way of processing the world. Not just Peaks, but On the Air’s protag who is basically a Lucy expy also gets the narrative completely on her side and that’s great. And I love how in s3, her focus on the small things around her is always echoed by bigger, climactic events beyond her horizon (bunnies / Jack Rabbit’s palace, chair order / Garland’s chair, her first scene talking about the two sheriffs / doubles everywhere...). It feels to me like some kind of off-kilter mindfulness and I love it. She’s also got a loving husband and an amazing son, which, in this economy and also this canon? Damn. The one functional family, imagine that. I am not interested in focus on family dynamics, but singularly, either Lucy/Andy or Lucy&Wally are great - in particular, I’m interested in how strange they are and yet they make it work. With the ruthless critique of traditional family structure that’s all over canon, maybe they make it work specifically because they’re not doing any of that. A bit like the Addams family... but... not goth...? Anyway. I’d love to see Lucy interact with and maybe strike a friendship with any character she’s never shared a scene with in canon! In the tagset, there’s Diane for some secretaries bonding, Audrey because??? why not?, Albert because it’d be an epic enemies to friends slowburn, some version of Laura in the future, if we’re feeling really daring maybe even some version of Coop in the future, still fragmented... or anyone you want! Outside the tagset I’d be curious about Hawk, Margaret and maybe Doris in particular, I think, and Phil, and Nadine and the Invitation to Love fandom in general (Frost says it still airs - did it get as weird as TP s3 did?), but if you have an idea with someone else, absolutely go for it!

Canon-specific DNWs: any singular Dreamer being the ‘source’ of canon, BOB (let alone Judy) being forever defeated in the finale, Judy being an active malevolent presence in the characters’ lives, clear explanations for canonical ambiguities, ‘Odessaverse’ being the reality layer, the Fireman’s House by the Sea being the White Lodge, whatever Twin Perfect’s on about, Cooper/Audrey, Cooper/Laura

[zenosanalytic]

Doom-Broom Looms; Assumes Costumed Groom will Fume in Tomb-Gloom: The Tune-Presumed Consumes

Yes I did it; No I’m not sorry; Shutup it’s a Gr8 Headline; Mild Spoilers below cut:

So I really liked this one, I’d say it’s at least as good as the first Avengers and probably better, making it the best of the Avenger films so far. As per tradition, I will start with what I didn’t like first and, aside from the first two, they’re mostly Quibbles:

The Bads

So:

Labeling the cruelty of an abusive guardian -who murdered his child’s family, surgically altered and experimented on her without her consent, forced her to kill, forced her to fight and sometimes kill her siblings to protect her body and her life from that parent- as love is some Buuuullshit >:( I can easily accept that Thanos would think he loved her, abusers tell themselves all sort of garbage to justify what they do, but that some omnipotent universe-stone would judge that situation and those feelings sincere is, again, Buuuuuullsheeeeiiiit >:( >:( Attaching that execrable nonsense to the killing of Gamora makes it so much worse, and then connecting that to how Thanos “wins” through Quill’s anger, makes it even, even worse. 

Their choices on who to “kill” were fucked up and bad. Bucky dealing with a world without Steve is interesting. T’Challa traumatized by the loss of his closest friends and torn between healing/protecting his people and helping bring Thanos to justice and potentially undoing what he did is interesting(not to mention how loved the character is. Though I’m p sure we’ll see a BP Shuri as a result, which I’m very much looking forward to). Scarlet Witch given the chance to grow on her own, instead of being tethered to a guy, is Interesting. Groot dealing with the death of their “parent”/Confidant/translator is Interesting. Having Banner “die” so that only The Hulk is left would have been interesting. Going with what they did was stupid. Killing off Fury and Hill was Stupid. Wiping out, to a duo(!), the Guardians of the Galaxy was Stupid. Killing Drax and Mantis is some Galaxy-Brained Criminal Ignorance! Killing Heimdall I understand BUT(!!!), at the same time, Elba’s a great actor and Ragnarok’s the only film to make even decent use of him, so I’d have liked to see him live through this one and into the next one, at least, before he was killed. And, as others have said, the general race&gender balance of the killings was, charitably, Iffy.

These are some seriously flawed ethical/political choices they made for this film, and they didn’t have to make them. Totally could have handled all of this differently, and better, than they did. So on to the Quibbles!

Having Gamora and Peter’s relationship, which had, so well and realistically to two folks working through trauma and immaturity, been cooking low and slow over the two GoG movies, suddenly be physically and emotionally intimate and vulnerable, and having her saying things like “I love you more than anything” to him, when they live on a tiny ship with zero privacy with four(?) other people, and doing all of that purely for plot-convenience, was dumb and lazy and Lame. Character dev should serve the characters first and plot second; this complaint kinda dovetails with my issues with SW and Vision in the next para.  

There really should have been one more movie, and maybe two or three, before this one. The character writing was great and all, but Scarlet Witch and Vision just haven’t had the time to be developed enough as characters for their(rather central) place in the movie to be emotionally meaningful enough. A movie focusing on them, or maybe on Steve’s “unofficial” Avengers, would have really helped add some more depth and impact to Infinity War. The other movies I think would have helped are another Dr. Strange(I didn’t like the first one much at all and he didn’t really come off as all that capable to me in the first one and really seemed to just fall into the role of Sorcerer-Supreme by dint of being the last one standing), and Definitely another Black Panther. There are obvious scheduling reasons for not holding off for a second Black Panther(which are totally Marvisny’s fault, of course; for instance, if they’d just introduced the character earlier, so that CW would have been the 2nd BP movie and BP the 3rd), but Dr. Strange was 2016 and they could have totally gotten another one out, with some significant crew and writing changes, before this to flesh out, build up, and actually render interesting/likeable, the character. Though, I suppose maybe there were equally obvious financial reasons why not to roll the dice on that franchise again(though though, looking it up just now it topped Captain America: The First Avenger on box office, which is Insane).

Dispensing with Nova off-screen. I Mean: WTH. That should, at the least, have been an in-credit sequence(in GoG 2 or T:R). Something as simple as showing Thanos with the Power Gem, then panning out to show a devastated Nova Command or him taunting Nova Prime before killing her, would have been fine(though, the GoG movies gave me the impression the Nova Corps would have been a tough nut for Thanos to crack).

Probably my most niche opinion: they should have, FINALLY, done a movie crossover with the Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. cast here, especially given the in-credit sequence. Marvel and Disney have been promising Chloe Bennet that AoS was going to be her vehicle into film work since the series started and this is, like, the third or fourth frigging times they’ve either reneged or passed on a chance to boost her up into the big leagues, and frankly it’s annoying. She’s a good actress, The Inhumans should have stayed a movie and been that vehicle(with the characters they made protags the villains S.H.I.E.L.D. was fighting), and, given the stakes and the nature of the conflict, it’d have been easy to ameliorate that mistake by bringing her, the rest of the AoS cast, and Fury in on this one as secondary characters. I mean, it’d have been better if they’d had two or three SHIELD movies spread out over the MCU by now, or always included them in the Avengers films to give also-rans like the show cast and Hawkeye places to shine, but barring that and given Disnal’s fuckup with Inhumans, they should have made a go of it here. Ming-Na Wen also deserves more time on the Big Screen and, while Johannson’s Fine in the films, Wen does her character-type Better u_u u_u u_u

Like I said, Quibbles, they don’t really detract from the movie. The main problems with Infinity War, to me, are it’s screwy plot-ethics.

The Goods

Not really much to say here other than “I liked it and had fun”. The character writing was good, the dialogue was funny, the fight choreography was, given the logistics of multicharacter combat, Fine, the fights were engaging, the camerawork was(mostly) clear, the costume design was great, the side characters(especially the Black Order) all got good beats of their own, the Heroes(except Black Panther and maybe SW, since she was restricted to just moving things and blasting things) all got opportunities to show off their abilities. IW really validated the “Comics=Wrestling” critical lens I was introduced to by @some-triangles, as it felt like a Wrestlemania or Battle Royale more than anything else to me. Related to that there were some really dumb moments, like when Scarlet Witch left the lab to enter the rin-, er, battlefield, but you basically knew that was going to happen the instant they told her to stay in the room because Tropes, and the Forms must be Honored u_u u_u The Russos are genuinely competent movie-makers, who seem to have that all-important skill of recruiting and keeping a talented crew around them, and they made a genuinely competent movie, despite the questionable plotting.

The Judgements

So that’s my opinion on the thing. Infinity War includes some highly fucked up ethical messages for the sake of plot convenience, and confirms the MCU’s refusal to make even basic use of some really top-notch acting talent, which just happens to be mostly non-white people, that they’re (presumably)paying fortunes to have access to; if you feel that sort of ish isn’t something you can sit-through or abide giving your money to, then don’t see the film. But it’s a technically competent film, 90% of the time the writing is wonderful, and overall it’s an engaging and entertaining film so, if you can tolerate that ish in some fashion, maybe you’ll enjoy it like I did.

Oh, and it’s really long(2h40m, and there were, like, 30mins of previews before it. Seriously >:| >:| >:| They played TWO[!!!!!!] flipping Jurassic World trailers, as if anyone wants to see that junk), so I’d rec you not get any drinks if you’re going to go see it(though it’s not a big deal as there are some nice-sized lulls, reasonably spaced, to take breaks in).

[lawlilight]

Netflix Death Note: My Thoughts

So the long awaited American adaptation of Death Note arrived on Netflix on Friday the 25th of August, and it’s clear to see that the reviews are certainly mixed.

Let’s just jump right in and get down to the many faults with this adaptation.

Note* This isn’t all doom and gloom, as I think there is definitely some room for appraisal. There will be many spoilers ahead but who cares, right?

Light Turner (Light Yagami):

Light is essentially a bit of a loser, taking crap from bullies and even from L. As we know from the anime, Light isn’t hesitant on throwing in a good ol’ punch to the face. Yet in this adaptation, Light seems to just accept any grief that he is presented with. In addition to this, Light appears to be a bit of a loner, as we never see him socialising with any friends. Now in the anime, whilst it wasn’t common for Light to have the boys around for a few games of Mario Kart, he was still acknowledged around school to “hang out” with other students, but he of course declined because he’s a busy bee with a rotten world to cleanse

Another point to mention regarding Netflix Light is how careless he is. At many moments throughout the movie, Light can be seen shouting about the Death Note whilst in loud conversation with Mia (Misa Amane) and he even has his Death Note out on his lap during gym class. Whereas we all know that anime Light would never do something like that. He understood the importance of keeping the Death Note hidden from absolutely everyone, and wouldn’t dare openly talk about it in public. Because why would he be so careless? He wouldn’t. This links in to Lights intelligence, or so to say, craftiness.

Netflix Light doesn’t appear to be the brains of the operation, except at a few key points towards the end of the movie. throughout the anime, Light had his head screwed on from the start, and he allowed absolutely nothing to get in his way. He also wouldn’t sacrifice the Death Note for anyone or anything (except when Sayu, but of course he had a plan to wind up getting the Death Note back) In the Netflix adaptation, it is more Mia who has true intentions for the Death Note, and it appears that Light doesn’t really have everything set in stone, as he did in the anime. I’ll elaborate more on that when I discuss Mia’s character.

A crucial key aspect to mention is that at no point did Light proclaim “I am the God of the new world”, which is severely disappointing,as anime Light genuinely believed that he was Justice, but Netflix Light just wants to be a do-gooder and be rid of the bad guys. Netflix Light also never has a psychotic moment of ranting to Ryuk, himself, or anyone for that matter. Anime Light is iconic for having random outbursts of craziness, as all great characters do, but Netflix Light is pretty chill throughout the movie, with the exception of the moments in which he thought he was about to get caught out. I just believe that it would’ve been more enjoyable for Netflix Light to have been portrayed as the Evil Genius that we know him as.

Now onto Mia Sutton (Misa Amane):

In complete contrast to Anime Misa, a cute blonde model with a slight sinister streak, Mia Sutton is a dark haired edgy cheerleader who smokes (see? bad habits = bad movie) In a weird way, from watching Mia, I got the feeling that she was more suited to be Light Yagami than what Netflix Light was. Let me explain: At the beginning of the movie, Mia is the typical semi-popular good looking cheerleader. However, the look on her face is like a constant expression of boredom, similar to anime Light at the beginning. When Mia discovers the power of Lights Death Note, she is the one who is more keen on changing the world, as though it was her all along who has been “bored” of how things have been working out in the legal system, and as though she is the one with the real desire to be rid of all criminals in the world. This includes the lives of innocents who stand in her way.

The key difference between Mia and Misa is that Mia’s drive to use the Death Note is for her own personal desire, and she is very willing to throw Light under the bus, as revealed when she wrote his name in the notebook and promised to burn it so long as he gave her ownership of it. Whereas Misa on the other hand done everything under Lights instruction, and wouldn’t dare step out of line. This can be said to be because Misa was infatuated with Light, therefore her use of the Death Note was to assist him. If anything, Mia is more problematic to Light, despite being clever, that what Misa was.

This adaptation really spun things around for Misa’s character, as it conveyed Mia as intelligent, and only looking out for herself. I suppose this is only considered a fault if you prefer the original Misa.

Furthermore, the relationship between Light and Mia is also in stark contrast to Light and Misa. Netflix Light appears to be genuinely in love with Mia, and it actually seems that he is more interested in her than what she is with him, as we can assume she is only in it for the Death Note. Anime Light has zero romantic attraction to Misa, and only kept her safe as he was under threat from Rem. If it wasn’t for that, Light would’ve disposed of Misa in a heartbeat in order to make matters less problematic for himself. And yes, whilst we can say “but Netflix Light wrote Mia’s name in the Death Note” I don’t believe that was his intention from the start. I think he genuinely loved Mia, but upon realising that she was going behind his back and eventually holding his life against him, he had to fight back.

Another cringe detail on Mia and Lights relationship is how edgy and quirky they are. Their relationship is portrayed as slightly darker than anime Light and Misa. For example, they “make out” whilst writing names in the notebook. Honestly, how twisted does one have to be to get in the mood whilst killing people? In addition to their edge & quirk, Netflix Light has a “normal people scare me” picture in his locker, next to a picture of the two of them, Light and Mia. C'mon guys, only the edgiest of teens own American Horror Story merchandise. Having said that, I do see a slight resemblance between Netflix Light and Mia to Evan Peters and Emma Roberts… Oh, not to mention their edgy homecoming pictures. Choking? Very edgy indeed.

Now onto L:

Whilst my thoughts on L may be bias, as he is my favourite character in the anime and the movie, I am able to acknowledge his faults. Let’s start with his irrationality. For the beginning of the movie, Netflix L appeared to walk in similar footsteps to that of anime L, with some minor changes such as the way in which he addressed Kira during a press release, and confronted Light in a cafe of sorts. However, the calm and collected demeanour suddenly shifts after Watari’s disappearance, when L begins to panic. Instead of taking a rational approach, as anime L would, Netflix L decides to let his emotions get the better of him, and carries out a series of irrational behaviours: starting with almost assaulting Light at his house, before being stopped by a poorly portrayed Soichiro Yagami (but more on that later), then onto stealing a police car and, whilst being armed with a gun, recklessly chases after Light, and then attempts to shoot him. As we have witnessed in the anime, L isn’t keen on moving around much, so this adaptation was probably a bit too quick and fast to suit anime L. Another mistake Netflix L makes is announcing to a bystander that he is a detective and Light is Kira, and that’s why he’s pointing a gun at him. Of course, L is ultimately struck down by this bystander, allowing Light to escape. What was disappointing about this was that anime L would’ve known that virtually anyone could be a Kira supporter, and would’ve done anything to protect who they thought was Kira, so the real rational minded L wouldn’t have made that announcement. To be fair, the real rational minded L wouldn’t have been having a physical showdown with Kira in the back alley of a restaurant in the first place.

My final kick at Netflix L is that he’s a bit of a crybaby, very much unlike anime L. Throughout the movie, Netflix L is shown to be very passionate about justice and all that business, but he seems a little /too/ passionate. He is even seen to be crying at the end of the movie, which we know is very uncommon for the original L. This can be perceived to make L look weak, and sort of as though he’s lost the “war”.

In conclusion to Netflix L, this adaptation managed to maintain his quirks and mannerisms, however I do believe that he was made to be more emotional, which I guess is a good thing as we get to see that he is a real human.

Ok so here’s a lil list of various other flaws that aren’t necessarily worth making a big rant about:

•Watari’s name is Watari, and not an alias. This made it easy for Light (well technically Mia) to kill him.

•Wammy’s house has a different name, and it’s also dead. The orphanage has been abandoned and it just looks sad.

•The guy who played the guy who’s supposed to be Soichiro Yagami (cba learning the names) was not the best at all. His performance was so dry and pretty much annoying. The real daddy yagami wouldn’t stand for this.

•There is no Mello, Near, Matt, or any of the task force.

•Lights mum is dead and there isn’t a little sister who can’t do quadratic equations.

•Everything seems to move a bit too fast in the film, so I think that if you weren’t familiar with Death Note, then you’d probably be confused as to what’s happening.

•Ryuk isn’t that thing in the corner that laughs maniacally and makes the odd quip. Instead, he’s quite keen on making Light give up the Death Note, as he can see the trouble it’s causing. Anime Ryuk is preferable as he thrived off the chaos, which made his character more appealing.

There are most likely many more but I feel like I’ve dug deep enough.

I have to admit, the soundtrack for the Netflix adaptation was actually really good

[thercoon-blog]

Liliana, Crumbling Oppressor

Let’s move on to another one of the nu-Origin five walkers, one that takes on the role of Persecutor in our Karpman Drama Triangle. Here we dive into the seriously mentally ill persona of Liliana Vess, whom I can find numerous mental health parallels in history, most notably in John Nash, the famous Mathematician. In order for the Drama Triangle to arise, a person must take on the role of Victim or Persecutor. Our first example of this occurrence is between our focus character, Liliana, and future Victim, Jace Beleren. Persecutors typically blame everyone else for everything, insisting something is their fault. Persecutors are typically controlling (Liliana has successfully bent the Gatewatch to her desires), blaming, critical, oppressive, angry and superior (we know Liliana has a serious god complex stemming from her dabbling in the dark arts). Each participant in this triangle takes on their role by acting upon their own selfish needs – something Liliana has done since day 0.

Let’s begin.

Liliana grew up on the most important (arguably) plane in the multiverse, Dominaria. Her father was a general and ruler, possibly for the Forward Order (a load of chaps fighting some dark force, possibly Belzenlok’s cabal). She had a name for herself as a bit of a hussy (that’s slang for hoe), and because of daddy’s extremely high ranking profile, this would inevitably bring on family meetings of “you’re bringing shame to my name”. Liliana cared little of her reputation, so from her absolute origins, we’re told she pretty much doesn’t care about anyone or anything other than herself. We also discover she’s a somewhat gifted sorceress/wizard whatever you want to classify her as. Possibly a cleric, I guess? She learned the healing arts from a lass called Lady Ana, similar to Gideon’s Hixus, however being the blasé cleric that she was, she thought necromancy would assist in her healing career. It’s an odd parallel to draw between two opposites but then I know nothing of the dark arts or restoration so who am I to judge her conclusions. She wanted a shortcut to be better, because that’s just Liliana. The shortest and simplest solution is always best, a self-destructive behaviour that will follow her and essentially rule her life from this point onwards.

Her father’s enemies corrupted her brother Josu with some sort of curse. Now this is where a crackpot theory comes in. If indeed her father’s enemies were the cabal under the rule of Belzenlok, then it ties one of Liliana’s four demons into her storyline long before she makes her pacts with them. One might posit that Liliana’s life had already been woven by a scheme spanning her entire life. This leads her to a test by Lady Ana, which in turn leads her to the Raven Man. That leads her to Bolas, who then brokers the deals with her four demons, including Belzenlok, which then follows on to the Chain Veil storyline where the Raven Man then takes charge of her future interests. So whose scheme is Liliana’s life led by? Bolas, or this mysterious Lim DulRaven Man? Anyway, Lady Ana tells her she needs to acquire Esis root to cure her brother. Her father’s enemies have conveniently burned down the grove where this tree grows.

She learns this when a curious man appears with the information. He then encourages Liliana to use her necromantic powers to revive the tree and make a potion out of it. Seems legit. It is at this point we can conclude Liliana is quite young and naïve, since undoubtedly a present day Liliana would have easily seen past this and probably let her brother die before raising him as a servant. Unfortunately Liliana loves her shortcuts, and loves to prove people wrong, so despite warnings from Lady Ana, she uses it on her brother. It cures him, but basically turns him into a shambling horror.

Pause.

A late teens early twenties girl, with little to no care for reputation or anyone but herself, zero desire for strict rules and guidelines, has taken her first massive shortcut. This in turn has forced her to witness her own family in a state of undeath, then forcing her to kill said undead brother. This is akin to you saying “damn the doctors” and giving your big sister cancer with the “best intentions”, then being forced to euthanize her. That is entirely fucked up, and very much easy to gloss over as a reader interpreting fantasy fiction. She sparks, and ends up on Innistrad – plane of zombies, stitched abominations and general gloom and doom horror. If any plane epitomises a person’s past nightmares, it is a perfect fit for Liliana. But she embraces it instead of running away. Despite her trauma she remains headstrong, it seems.

She studies under vampires and liches, becomes a master necromancer, but she stops short. They recommend she joins them in death fully to master necromancy, but the trauma of what her brother became stops her from fully committing to her path. She is not entirely without sense, and like Tezzeret, is living life by pure instinct for survival.

Eventually Sorin discovers she’s on Innistrad, and Sorin is a very old, very powerful and very solitary planeswalker that suffers no fools. He utterly stomps Liliana, to the point he deems her too paltry a threat to deal with. He allows her to be a guest on his home plane and play nice, or he’ll kill her. Just ask Nahiri how that goes. So the plane she’s adopted as her home is now yet another metaphorical set of rules that will remind her of her father. She returns to Dominaria after she’s confident she’s powerful enough to take on the Raven Man, but he miraculously escapes. Yet another failure for Vess.

Between then and Ravnica, it’s revealed that the mending happened, and Liliana is no longer all powerful, or immortal. Being the vain, shortcut taker that she is, she mixes up with Bolas and brokers a deal with a demon for more power. She uses that deal to make another, and another until her soul is eventually beholden by no more than four demons. In exchange for youth and power, she must serve the demons, and this is where she gets her tattoos from, eternally reminder her and everyone else that Liliana sold her soul for life eternal.

After some time, Liliana becomes mixed in with Bolas’/Tezzeret’s Infinite Consortium, sort of as a freelancer I suppose. After Jace defects from the group, Liliana is tasked with tracking him down. She befriends Jace and his accomplice Kallist (whom Jace will later swap consciousness with), and then has an affair with Jace. She stays loyal to Jace through a number of bizarre happenings, including ye olde consciousness swap story. It’s then revealed she was using Jace in order to remove Tezzeret as the leader of the Infinite Consortium. Liliana had sold her soul to Nicol Bolas of all people (just ask Tezzeret how that went), and this was one of her many tasks.

Liliana is altruistic. She dislikes rules and regulations, but now finds herself under the thumb of a 25,000 year old elder dragon planeswalker, and four demons that lay claim to her soul. In true Liliana fashion, she has ideas on how she can most easily escape said deals in the bluntest ways imaginable, but she hasn’t quite had the push to get her ego that big yet. Enter Kothophed and the Chain Veil.

Kothophed calls in a favour, and Liliana must obey. She’s sent to retrieve the Chain Veil, and ancient artifact from the now extinct Onnake civilisation on Shandalar. On her way, she’s attacked by one of Garruk’s Packleaders and kills it. My main man Garruk witnesses this, and decides she’s a target. Liliana retrieves the Veil and then Garruk attacks. Using the surprisingly powerful artifact, Liliana very easily sends Garruk on a Shandalar escape trajectory, and begins to muse at how much power is at her fingertips now. She wanders to a fortress on a random plane and utterly annihilates it, because the best way to test an artifact belonging to a race that is now entirely dead is to use it to wipe out another. She considers, and the urges to release herself from the thrall of Kothophed is too great, so she planeswalks and blast the demon to high hell. Her tattoos begin to bleed, which disturbs her somewhat. In true “simplest solution is best” she resolves that in order to make this pain stop, she’ll just kill the rest of her demons.

So, Liliana has gone from accidentally killing her brother with good intentions, to an egotistical maniac hell bent on returning her old power to her by any means necessary, even if it means permanently scarring her young but otherwise immortal body. That includes senselessly dispatching a demon that had a claim to your soul. Long term plans are not Liliana’s strong suit. Unlike Bolas, Liliana is a very short sighted, short term planner. What makes Liliana different from every other oldwalker is that she simply wants to be left alone to her own devices. While she doesn’t initially crave for the rule of planes or infinite power and wiping out all other rivals, she does want to live forever and be beautiful at that. She just wants to do what she wants as and when she decides to do it. Liliana Vess of origins is what we’d call a sociopath. Liliana Vess of post mending is what we call a psychopath. The key difference? Sociopaths don’t know what they’re doing is wrong. Psychopaths do, they simply don’t care.

Concerned by the bleeding of her tattoos, the Chain Veil, and her fate thus far, she returns to the plane of the Onnake. She resurrects the body of an old wise man who knew of them. The town is none too pleased with a necromancer, and do what any other old time populace would do: they chase her into a pile of wood (a barn) and burn it down. The man she raised begins speaking cryptic riddles about Liliana while preventing the flames from taking her. Just as she’s about to release her body to the sweet abyss, the corpse is revealed to actually be the Raven Man. He uses what appears to be the same potion as the one Liliana used on her brother, and her tattoos all turn the same colour and she is healed. In typical grateful Liliana fashion, she thanks the Raven Man by stabbing him and planeswalking away with the Chain Veil. I mean, stabbing your saviour is a bit of a dick move.

Liliana, enthralled by her experience decides to annihilate some more demons because she doesn’t have a better idea right now. She heads back to Innistrad to kill Griselbrand but can’t find him since he’s stuck in the Helvault. Garruk shows up and tries to splat her, but Innistrad isn’t short of local meatshields, so she sends a few dozen zombies to keep the guy occupied and escapes. At this stage Garruk is simply a nuisance in comparison to her other problems. Like a big, meaty bad penny with an axe the size of a tree. She heads to Thraben for answers while its under siege by the duo Gisa and Geralf. Mikaeus the Lunarch has already been killed in the battle, and so with her usual respect for the fallen, Liliana raises him from the dead to get her answers. She learns of the Helvault.

Flavourfully black cannot do anything to artifacts unless your name is Geth. It can however demand sacrifices. Liliana casts a spell that forces Thalia, the acting commander of the defence of Thraben, to either sacrifice her soldiers, or crack open a cold one the Helvault. Being the white-white character she is, Thalia smashes open the vault and all the demons (and Avacyn) are freed. Oh and Nahiri. Yeah, you can blame memerakul on Lilana kind of. Liliana tracks down big old G, slaughtering everything in her path (including angels, Liliana really hates angels). Using the Chain Veil, Griselbrand is no more. Easy? Nope.

The Chain Veil starts whispering to her, and this is when our all-powerful necromancer begins to remind me of the woes that beset John Nash. Now John Nash was a peculiar bloke in the beginning, but he was also a mathematical prodigy. This led him to massive success in his field, but the guy strived for more. Eventually people began approaching him for some pretty wild and exotic uses of his services, and wanting more to his life than occasionally teaching and working on cryptography, he agreed. This went on for many years, until eventually he was committed. It turned out that all these years, he had been working for people in his mind, doing jobs that didn’t exist, even imagining up his own roommate who he talked to and about to others frequently. He was utterly convinced that these people were real for years. Imagine having a best friend for a decade and then being told he didn’t exist. After stints in an out of psychiatric help, he maintained his sharp intelligence, but was besieged on a daily basis by his own brain, trying to convince him these people were real and these tasks he wanted to work on were a fabrication. Now, John Nash wasn’t aware of this until somebody else told him and convinced him. He had work colleagues, doctors, and a wife. Liliana has nothing, nobody. She’s hearing voices from the Chain Veil, she keeps seeing this Raven Man, so she’s convinced that the spirits in the Veil are real, and the Raven Man is some kind of planeswalking capable asshole of some kind. Like John Nash, Liliana is powerful, driven, and convinced of herself.

She heads back to Shandalar to find her own answers. She’s then confronted by an angel guarding the entrance and basically melts the thing, all the while it mumbles than Liliana has become a vessel of the Onnake spirits wanting to release themselves. She then has a vision of the Onnake’s extinction event, again seeing the Raven Man as an architect of their destruction. She indicates to the spirits talking to her that she’d quite like to learn such a spell. Her cockiness only grows from this point. She reaches the alter where she found the veil, but her own body refuses to put it back. She raises an Onnake skeleton to obey her command to return the artifact, but it also refuses to comply. Upon de-animating the skeleton, it throws the veil back onto her. By now Liliana should probably recognise when her body is being hijacked. An Onnake spirit materialises in front of her and tells her she’s the vessel of the veil of deceit. She tries to kill the spirit using the Chain Veil, and at long last realises that the thing is slowly damaging her body. Mentally defeated, she planeswalks away. For once, Liliana accepts her fate. Briefly.

She heads back to Jace to manipulate her Victim once more, trying to persuade him to help her kill her two final demons. Back to that old chestnut. He’s angry with the way she dealt with Garruk at this stage however, as he and Nahiri have separately tried to help the cursed beast master. She invites Jace to dinner, but it’s interrupted by Gideon begging for help on Zendikar. Jace immediately accepts, and then Liliana moans how he’ll spare time for his friends but not his wife – in essence. She’s furiously jealous that somebody else can manipulate him to their every whim. Jace informs her bluntly, that Gideon asked nicely, whereas Liliana tried to seduce him. Liliana’s façade begins to crumble from here on, and when a chronically narcissistic person loses the power of their fake front, things begin to unravel. They begin to see a need to reaffirm their role to themselves and others. As a necromancer and narcissist, Liliana is beginning to develop a god complex, and the combined presence of the Chain Veil and the coming Emrakul are only too keen to feed it.

Back on Innistrad Liliana is sulking in her mansion. Jace tries to escape two werewolves after arriving on the plane, and Liliana uses some zombies to drive them off. Jace informs her that he’s searching for Sorin, and being a human of pure survival, Liliana warns Jace that that may not be such a good idea. Jace goes to the manor, goes a bit insane, and then returns to blame Liliana for everything that happened. He tries to break her brain a bit, but the Raven Man that is quite obviously inside her head protects her and tells her to kill Jace. As it happens, the Raven Man is quite afraid of Jace, because of course he’s a mind mage, and might find him lurking inside Liliana’s head should he delve too deeply. Liliana then tries to get some generic geistmage to exorcize the Onnake spirits from the Chain Veil with a witchbane orb, but unsurprisingly it does sweet F.A. Honestly at this point she’s desperate, and I think even she didn’t believe it would work, but she’s willing to try anything to escape attachments to anything. Vess just doesn’t like to be tied down, unless it’s with Jace’s cloak. Giggity.

Emrakul arrives, and the Gatewatch and Thraben are under attack by masses of Eldrazi horrors. Convincing herself that she doesn’t need Jace, Liliana tells herself that she needs the Gatewatch to need her, so that she can use them to kill her final two demons. Realistically both of these are true. She’s desperate, but also an Oppressor. A team of four young neo-walkers are probably just as easily impressed upon as she was when she was younger. Equally four mages with their own specialties are a handy tool for killing demons and not getting your hands too dirty. That is how an Oppressor sees these people – tools. Liliana raises a colossal army of zombies to drive back the horrors and Emrakul, she even thinks so highly of herself that she can take on the titan, calling herself Innistrad’s “Last Hope”. As it turns out, she quickly learns that the Chain Veil isn’t quite that powerful, and Emrakul begins to overpower her. The Chain Veil as well as the Raven Man pretty much begs her to escape with her life, thinking that they can’t possibly win against this thing. Multiple personality disorder aside, Liliana chooses her own fate. Miraculously Emrakul uses Tamiyo to seal herself into Innistrad’s moon and the whole group survives. Jace asks Tamiyo to join the Gatewatch (she thankfully declines) and instead, as second choice, they ask Liliana to join. That worked out well didn’t it Vess? She agrees to their childish terms, knowing full well she has no intention of following their code unless it happens to coincide with some demons.

Liliana is short on patience however, and has a subtle distaste for wasting time on things that don’t concern her. The Kaladesh story comes to fruition, and Liliana notes a possibly entry into the good books of the highly impressionable and entirely chaotic Chandra Nalaar. The arrival of Dovin Baan triggers Chandra’s fury at the Consulate on her home plane, and Liliana plays on it. She takes Chandra under her wing, concealing the usual Oppressor tendencies, and instead takes on a role of Rescuer. She encourages Chandra to share her story, and then tells Chandra she should take revenge on Baral, Emperor Palpatine style.

They come across Tezzeret and Liliana pretty much flips her lid. She tells Chandra that Tezz is dangerous (and we know he’ll do just about anything to survive, same as Liliana), and they need to retreat. The rest of the Gatewatch arrive and scald Liliana for flying off with Chandra so fleetingly. Not wanting to risk her importance in the group, she heads back to her favourite tool and vouch man Jace, convincing him and Gideon to come to Kaladesh. Basically Jace will stick up for her when she does Liliana things. Who needs to convince a team themselves when they can have the defacto leader do it for them?

They join forces with the rebel scumrenegades and take on the consulate, blowing up some ships, confronting Tezzeret in the arena, only to have him escape and rob all the inventions from the fair. Liliana dispatches some troops rather too permanently for Gideon, he moans, but she snaps back at him as though he were a naïve child. You were like him too Vess, at some stage. She says she needs to strike at Tezzeret directly, because he won’t fight fair. She reveals that she’s a little more than weak in the knees for Jace, and wants to hurt Sucker-T for hurting Jace all those years ago. Liliana has somehow grown empathy. She heads off with Saheeli and finds Rashmi, the creator of the planar bridge, and brings her back to the renegades. The Gatewatch are now aware that Tezzeret has interplaner travel tech.

She convinces Gids to let her take on Tezzeret, as a cunning distraction for the Gatewatch to destroy the Planar Bridge. Suddenly she opts to use undead minions to “scare away” the consulate soldiers instead of killing them, leading us to briefly believe she’s taking the Gatewatch’s non-lethal approach some serious consideration. She makes it to Tezzeret and they then commence the most underwhelming planeswalker battle in the history of Magic™. Tezzeret initially believes Bolas sent Liliana to check on his progress. He then informs him He then tells Liliana Bolas is hidden on Amonkhet, where her third demon Razaketh is located. Before she can finish him off, the Gideon-Chandra missile hits and blows the whole fucking spire to bits. Tezzeret escapes with the core of the planar bridge. Liliana then suggests they head straight to Amonkhet to take Bolas on without giving him chance to prepare. What she actually means is, come to this god forsaken plane so I can kill my demon and escape while you all get fisted by the most powerful (known) planeswalker in the multiverse.

On Amonkhet more Chain Veil shenanigans ensue. Liliana gets eaten by a giant worm, but reveals to the Gatewatch that she used the Chain Veil to decompose the worm from the inside. What actually happened was the Raven Man assumed control over her body to prevent her death, using the power of the Chain Veil to kill it. They come across the gods, and the city of Naktamun, and she takes note of the mummified servants. She also derides the gods, as the only gods she knew were hubristic planeswalkers. She should know, she was one of them pre-mending.

The Gatewatch continues with the story, while Liliana… gets fed grapes and uses the mummified servants to her advantage. The Raven Man returns, warning her that she had gotten soft. The voice inside her head has noticed her change from egotistical psychopath to egotistical psychopath with a developing conscience. Jace approaches and he vanishes again, hoping to avoid his cover being blown. They follow one of Liliana’s shades and discover Razaketh’s true involvement in the afterlife and the plane itself. The mummies set upon them and they escape.

The gate opens when the Second Sun rests between Bolas’ horned statue, and Razaketh is revealed. This demon is vastly more powerful than the previous two. He can assume direct control over Liliana’s body (it’s become the town bicycle at this point). It’s a brutal reminder that Liliana is never truly free until every person involved in her soul’s enslavement is ended. He toys with her, but the Gatewatch come to her aid. They distract her long enough to raise some undead crocodiles and tear apart and eat the demon. It’s noted viscerally that Liliana actively relishes the act of consuming the demon via the animals she has raised, and brings us back to the harsh reality that despite all the pretence, Liliana is still cracked mentally. Bolas appears, whips the Gatewatch’s collective asses, and gives Liliana the option to betray her friends and await his command, or die. Liliana is a being of selfish desires, but most importantly, the raw desire to simply survive. She escapes, with other members of the Gatewatch as witnesses to her betrayal. A harsh reminder that she is not allowed attachments to potential Rescuers, and any attempts to do so will be met by harsh consequences. It’s also a blunt reminder that she is still at the mercy of Bolas and her remaining demon, Belzenlok.

She planeswalks to Dominaria to kill her final demon. As a writer, I am fully aware that the death of Belzenlok may not yield the results she hopes; in fact things may only grow more complicated for our psychopathic Oppressor. She is so singularly focused on one goal; she cannot see the forest for the trees. The only solution to the actors of the Drama Triangle is to deprive them of their payoff. Liliana’s superiority is crumbling, her authority is waning in the face of multiple actors within the group, and the blame has shifted significantly since their encounter with Bolas. Liliana’s role as an Oppressor is coming to an end. Three solutions remains – she leaves the triangle as a better person, she becomes a Victim, or, most likely, she ceases living.

[weekendwarriorblog]

Maybe Movie Theaters Aren’t as “Lethal” as “Experts” Are Telling You?

I was going to write this piece “30-Minute Experiment” style* but then decided to write it offline in case I want to make changes before posting, although this is still mostly being written freeform.  I’ve been dwelling on this stuff for months now, and I’m shocked that others who work in the movie business haven’t made even half the effort I’ve made to try and figure this stuff out. Instead, people seem more interested in making stupid jokes or spout the type of doom and gloom fearmongering to purvey the myth that reopening movie theaters will extensively kill people. Not only is this not true but none of these conversations have been even remotely constructive.

I’m here to say that a lot of what is being said is absolute fucking horseshit.

Besides spending more time in movie theaters than many if not most “experts,” including most of New York’s vast film critic base, I also made the time to take the Johns Hopkins course in contact tracing, mainly so that I could learn more about the spread of COVID and how to prevent or stop it from spreading.  Sure, this is a constantly evolving pandemic where we’re getting new and conflicting information on a weekly and even daily basis, but there are simple premises in place that has made it possible for places like New York to beat it. Frankly, I have no idea why movie theaters have suddenly been deemed the most dangerous place on earth … compared to airplanes, churches, supermarkets, restaurants, etc. etc.

I can understand why reopening movie theaters has not been considered a priority by lawmakers since moviegoing might not seem essential, but right now, we need movies more than ever. If you look at all the craziness in the world right now, and especially in the United States, it’s pretty obvious that people staying at home in quarantine is like shaking a closed bottle of soda pop. Nothing is going to happen at first but eventually you have to open that cap and soda is going to spray everywhere.  In this case, the effects have led to a lot of angry people but also a lot of bad behavior. I won’t go into details but you can see the uptick in violence across the country and wonder if maybe people had the outlet of going to movies.

Before I proceed, I just want to remind anyone reading this that NO ONE IS FORCING YOU TO GO TO MOVIE THEATERS!! If you don’t feel safe, don’t go. If you’re a film critic and don’t feel safe enough to go to a press screening of Tenet, don’t worry. There will be plenty of other writers out there who will gladly go and see the movie and write a review and ultimately replace you. There’s plenty of other jobs out there that are far more essential than being a film critic, and most of the film critics I know are so fucking lazy already, that they just want any excuse to sit at home in their bathrobe and slippers watching movies on their giant-screen TV sets. As someone who has reviewed 70 movies since April – you read that right – I’m already sick of watching movies in this less than optimum way and not being able to fully appraise the hard work by filmmakers at their craft. So yeah, I’m partially wanting movie theaters to reopen out of selfishness, but I also think that it can be done safely and in a way that people who need that outlet of  escape can have somewhere to go and something to do, as opposed to what we have now…. NOTHING.

Not Everyone You Encounter Has COVID!

This is important, because there seems to be this underlying myth right now that everyone out on the streets, including those who aren’t wearing masks, are COVID carriers and potential spreaders. This could not be further from the truth, particularly in places like New York and New England where COVID has mostly been kept under control. When testing in New York is showing that around 1% of those tested are positive, that’s basically saying that 1 in 100 people currently has or had COVID, and most of them will have recovered and no longer be infectious in roughly two weeks. I don’t think I’ve been around more than 10 different people TOTAL in the last four months, and before that, I can’t remember the last time I was at a screening with more than 100 people (probably Birds of Prey, which was this big premiere/party fiasco in Times Square – I will not miss these).

If someone gets COVID, they may be carriers but they’re only infectious TWO DAYS before their symptoms show up. This is fact, straight from Johns Hopkins. If someone is in contact with someone with COVID on Thursday, but they don’t have symptoms until the following Thursday, they’re not infectious until Tuesday.  But that also makes them pre-symptomatic since neither you nor they will know that they’re carriers. That is one of the biggest issues with COVID and why everyone needs to wear a mask… but hey, if you get tested today and you test negative for COVID, I’m gonna assume you’re okay, as long as you haven’t been doing stupid shit like going to COVID parties or hanging outside bars jabbering with other people you don’t know. This is how COVID spreads. Not sitting in a movie theater quietly watching a movie and not necessarily interacting with others you don’t know. I mean, who does that anyway?

Social Distancing

One of the key points to fighting the Corona virus has been for people to stay six feet apart from other people and generally isolating themselves from others. A lot of people have readily complied, because frankly they’re scared shitless of getting the virus themselves. Sure, they’ll say that their concerns are about spreading it to others, but it’s just not the greatest thing for everyone to stay isolated and away from other people. I’ll admit it that I’m getting pretty lonely, because I don’t have any friends who live in my general neighborhood, so I’ve not seen any single one of them in person in four months. It really sucks. But that doesn’t mean it’s impossible to socially distance in a movie theater. In fact, it’s much easier now more than ever since there are reserved seats, and in some theaters, they have the reclining seats which means they’re spaced further apart back-to-front.  There are some issues with doing any sort of barrier or taped-off-seating thing because you have to expect that families or groups of two, three, four or more might all want to sit together, but you’ll still need to space out patrons/groups by two or three seats. On top of that, moviegoers tend to want to sit where they like to sit, so this could end up being somewhat limiting but I have to assume that most theaters won’t be able to be full beyond 25-30% capacity on reopening anyway so there will probably be plenty of space and options. That actually makes me happy, because like most people,  I don’t necessarily want to be seated right on top of some person I don’t know… unless they’re very cute.

Mask Wearing

As we now know, wearing a mask is the most important part of preventing the spread of COVID-19, and except for a few people, that hasn’t been a big issue. More importantly, it really isn’t that big an issue inside movie theaters. While you’re in shared areas like bathrooms and lobbies, masks will have to be mandatory. There’s no reason not to wear a mask there, and it’s not hard to purchase and pick up tickets without having that much contact between employees, who also shouldn’t have a problem wearing masks when dealing with customers. (In fact, there’s far less contact between patrons and employees in movie theaters than restaurants where servers need to keep going back to tables and talk to people eating without masks.)

But honestly, once someone is seated, presuming that they’re more than six feet apart from others, they should be able to take off their masks, drink soda, eat popcorn whatever. It’s not like people are jabbering away while watching movies (at least they shouldn’t be, even without COVID), so I don’t think wearing a mask will be that big of an issue once everyone is settled.

Speaking of which, some of you may realize that I had leukemia back in 2013, and some might realize I got a stem cell transplant in October 2013, which basically reset my immune system to zero. I literally did not have an immune system, and I could have gotten measles or mumps or anything that people are normally vaccinated for as toddlers. I was told that if I got a fever or anything, I would be back in the hospital, so I basically was wearing an N95 mask whenever I was out and around anyone besides my mother (who I was living with at the time). That said, less than 30 days after my transplant, I was back in a VERY crowded theater to see Thor: The Dark World, and I continued to see movies. I’d wear my N95 mask when I went into the theater and once I was seated (usually on an aisle next to someone who I knew wasn’t sick) and I felt comfortable, I would take my mask off to watch the movie. When I returned to New York City in February, I rode the subway everywhere, and I continued going to movies including crowded all-medias, always wearing a mask but taking it off once the movie started. Sure, my situation was very different from how COVID spreads, but it’s a similar concept where anyone can contact COVID since there’s no vaccine. One also has to think that the safety measures being taken (as mentioned above) is helping to quell the infection when the rules are followed, and I see no reason why being in a movie theater, socially distanced from others, is any different than riding the bus or being in a store or anywhere else.

Cleanliness

I’ve seen a few comments online about how “theaters won’t be cleaned properly” because according to them, theaters employee underpaid teenagers who aren’t going to take the proper time and care to clean theaters and other spaces to the standards needed for preventing spread. Again, bearing in mind that not everyone who goes to theater is a carrier and just in general, people don’t walk around movie theaters spitting and spraying everywhere under normal circumstances, this is probably the dumbest reasoning I’ve heard. Experts have also said that more people have gotten COVID from it being airborne than it being on surfaces they touch and then proceed to touch their faces. Surfaces will generally have to be cleaned but I don’t think defaming young people is the stance to take on this matter.

Air Condition vs. Ventilation

This is the biggest question in my mind, and so far, I don’t think any of the “experts” have fully agreed. To be honest, a lot of what has been said is completely contradictory. At first, the reason movie theaters were being considered so dangerous was “because the air conditioning can blow the COVID all around the theater” but then, more recently, it was said that the reason why indoor locations aren’t good is due to the “lack of ventilation.” Those things seem to be polarly opposite to me. Either the air conditioning is blowing the COVID or there is a lack of ventilation and therefore nothing blowing around. There has also been talk about the AC systems needing a certain type of filter that can keep the COVID particles from travelling around or that the AC system needs to draw in fresh air from outside vs. recycling the air from inside, which makes sense if there is anyone positive with COVID inside. (And again, that’s a BIG “If.”)  

Listen, I have been in a lot of movie theaters, both commercial and smaller screening rooms, and I prefer to have some sort of air or ventilation for it to be comfortable. I would rather have air blowing on me and keeping me awake than stale or “dead air” or worse, a warm and unventilated theater. But I also have never been in a theater where the air conditioning  is blowing so hard that it might blow any molecules from out of my mouth into someone else’s mouth or vice versa. I mean, seriously… that’s gross.  

I question this entire line of thinking, because I just don’t think there’s anything in the air in a movie theater that’s any worse than the air in a supermarket, a post office, a subway train, a bus or even a hospital.  If you think about it, most ER waiting rooms in hospitals are so bad that if someone comes in with COVID symptoms, and for some reason, they’re not wearing a mask, they could literally infect every single person in there, going by the theories on why movie theaters are so bad.

The “2 Hour” Rule

This is something that’s come up most recently with China reopening its theaters but only for movies under 2 hours. So apparently, sitting in movie theater for less than 2 hours is MUCH safer than sitting there for 2 hours and one minute or anything longer? This makes little sense since you’re generally sitting in the same place, and the only way that being there less time may be safer is because, sure, there’s less time for you or someone around you to do something stupid. But that whole time, most of you will just be sitting there watching a movie. It’s not like you’re wrestling or singing hymns or doing anything that forces you to come closer into conduct with someone over the course of two hours or longer.

But there’s a really simple way to avoid people sitting in movie theaters too long… just kill the 20 minutes of ads and trailers in front of every movie. I mean, I prefer seeing trailers this way, and I always get to the movie theater earlier to see them, but it’s not really necessary, and it helps to get people in and out faster, if that is such a big concern.

Easy Tracking and Tracing

I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again, and I’ll keep saying it until I’m blue in the face because PEOPLE DO NOT LISTEN. The key to quelling an outbreak like COVID is through testing, tracking and tracing… plus social distancing, mask-wearing of course… but when someone tests positive for COVID, people need to know immediately who they came into contact with to make sure that they quarantine themselves and don’t spread it further. If someone quarantines for two weeks without symptoms, it’s pretty safe to say they didn’t contract COVID but if they immediately went out and get tested, at least they can quarantine while waiting for the results.

This is the key to why movie theaters are far safer than anyone seems to understand, because it’s far easier to track/trace who went to see a movie in which theater at what time. The person who tests positive for COVID would have to tell the tracer where/when they saw the movie, and then through online and onsite ticket sales, one could figure out who else was in that theater, call them up, see if they have symptoms, make sure they get tested/quarantined, etc.  In fact, with reserved seating, you can determine who was sitting anywhere near the COVID case and you can contact them to see if they have shown any symptoms. One major problem right now is how slowly tests are coming back. These results need to be known within two or three days tops for contact tracing to make a difference, but the point is that movie theaters have so many ways to help in the contact tracing process by knowing more about their patrons (even if that information just sits in a database for two weeks in case it’s needed).

The COVID pandemic has been pretty awful, but getting COVID has not necessarily been a death sentence for roughly 95% of the people who have contracted it, and in some areas (like New York), the infection rate is so low you probably spend more time around people who don’t have COVID and maybe never had COVID then you do those who have contracted the disease. But if you get it, and you’re not over a certain age or have conditions that make it harder to beat, then you’ll just have to deal with it.

I find it more than a little funny and ironic that film critics -- one of the least essential jobs out there -- can't seem to drum up the courage to do their jobs, while nurses, doctors, delivery people, supermarket clerks and millions of other essential workers get up, go out and face the unknown every single day.  Seeing movies in a movie theater may not seem essential to some people (including film critics, oddly) but movies have brought joy and escapism to millions of people across the world for over a hundred years. To some, watching movies in theaters offers a lot more to them, even if it’s just getting out of the house or getting some air conditioning for a few hours.

If you want to go to see movies in theaters, that’s just the risk you’ll have to take, and if you have diabetes or other conditions that might make it more dangerous for you to get COVID, then it’s up to you if you’re willing to take that risk… but I have a feeling that if you’re at risk, you will be a LOT more careful while interacting with people you don’t know when you go to the movies.  You’ll wear a mask, and you won’t get up and up close to people you don’t know who are not wearing a mask. Really, it’s not that hard to figure this out.

(*Incidentally, I did write a 30 Minute Experiment on how to reopen movie theaters literally THREE MONTHS AGO!!)

[johnmauldin]

Here’s The Case For An Upside Risk In The Global Economy

One of the true riddles in the economic world today is a steady drop in total global productivity over the last few decades. That’s in spite of the growing use of computers, robotics, and artificial intelligence.

In theory, productivity should have gone up, but it didn’t.

Professor and Nobel laureate Robert Gordon and others have foreseen that the GDP growth will decline to less than 1%, and they have all sorts of data to back up their claim.

And then we come to an analysis of Matthew Tracey and Joachim Fels that predicts the opposite may be true. They ask the intriguing question, “Productivity: A Surprise Upside Risk to the Global Economy?”

Using microeconomic rather than macroeconomic analysis, they lay out a path by which they think it might be possible for productivity to actually rise over the coming decade.

While that would be a pleasant surprise, they also include one scenario in which that productivity growth actually has a negative social impact.

The authors take a truly nonstandard approach, reach conclusions that are outside the bounds of consensus, and make us think.

So without further ado, I’ll give the floor to Matthey Tracey and Joachim Fels.

Productivity: A Surprise Upside Risk to the Global Economy?

A bottom-up look at major industries around the world reveals significant potential for productivity growth.

By Matthew Tracey, Joachim Fels  May 2017

Is productivity dead? It is no secret that global productivity has languished in the post-financial-crisis years—with precious little evidence of a turnaround. If robust productivity growth were indeed a relic of the past, the long-term consequences for investors would be profound: Lower-for-even-longer interest rates would prolong the pain for yield-starved savers, pension funds, and financial institutions; equity markets might underwhelm in a low-growth world; and PIMCO’s New Neutral might begin to look permanent.

But what if amidst all the doom and gloom there were a productivity-revival story in its infancy? That world would look starkly different. Imagine: World growth stages a comeback, interest rates normalize to the benefit of fixed income investors globally, and fears of secular stagnation give way to a renewed optimism in our future economic potential.

The productivity question couldn’t be more important. After all, there are only two ways to grow an economy: boost productivity or grow the labor force (demographics). And we’re certainly not going to get much help from demographics. Fortunately, the upside potential for global productivity is growing (or, in economist-speak, productivity’s “right tail is getting fatter”—referring to the rising probability of a positive surprise in the range of outcomes). You might never recognize productivity’s upside potential, however, looking through the lens of macroeconomics alone. So let us look instead to microeconomics (sacré bleu!) for insights. Our thesis in a nutshell: Don’t rule out a global productivity rebound in the coming years that ushers in “old normal” (4%+) global growth. While a strong rebound is not PIMCO’s baseline view, it’s a tail that is fattening—and the microeconomic catalysts may have arrived.

Productivity optimists versus pessimists: clash of titans

Labor productivity—or GDP per human hour worked—is in the dumps. Throughout the entire post-financial-crisis period we’ve observed declining productivity growth in economically significant countries worldwide (see Figure 1).

Productivity pessimists typically blame secular stagnation for the slump. Here, the arguments fall into two camps. “Demand-side” secular stagnation devotees, notably Larry Summers (a guest speaker at PIMCO’s upcoming Secular Forum), suggest that a chronic deficiency of aggregate demand and investment is responsible for the dismal productivity growth we’ve seen in recent years… and that absent a rebound in demand, we’re doomed to more of the same. Meanwhile, “supply-side” secular stagnationists such as Robert Gordon believe innovation today isn’t what it used to be and that productivity gains from the computer revolution (formally, the “information and communications technology” or “ICT” revolution) have mostly run their course. These supply-side pessimists argue that today’s innovations are mostly non-market—namely they help us enjoy our leisure time, but that’s about it (think iPhones loaded with fancy new apps). Gordon himself has suggested that “The future of technology can be forecast 50 or even 100 years in advance” and that he sees nothing on the horizon that will rival the breakthroughs of the past (see references list at the end of this paper—Gordon 2014).

Yet it is hard to look around and not see promising new technologies everywhere: self-driving cars, drones buzzing overhead, and “smart” everything, to name just a few. Enter the techno-optimists: people who argue we’re on the cusp of radical breakthroughs that will drive huge gains in productivity and living standards. In our increasingly knowledge-based economy, they suggest, we’re moving from a zero-sum game of trade in goods to a positive-sum game of trade in information and ideas—with exponential benefits that our brains are not wired to foresee. (If you want to become a techno-optimist, read “Abundance: The Future Is Better Than You Think,” by Peter Diamandis and Steven Kotler.)

And so the debate rages on. It is certainly true that many consumer inventions—Facebook, Fitbit, Apple Watch, and the like—don’t help workers produce more output per hour on the job. But what if these same underlying technologies (big data, microsensors, ever-smaller computers) join forces in less obvious ways to revolutionize the way firms, and whole industries, operate? And, we ask, is the future actually as predictable as Gordon would have us believe? Legend holds that an 1876 internal memo from Western Union, the telegraph monopolist, read: “The telephone has too many shortcomings to be considered as a serious means of communication.” Well, we all saw how that turned out.

Bottom line: Rapid innovation—as Robert Solow might say—is everywhere except in the productivity statistics. So what gives? Macroeconomics may not have the answer. As Dr. Olivier Blanchard reminded us during our May 2016 Secular Forum, we macro folks actually know very little about productivity. So let us turn, instead, to microeconomics.

Microeconomics: a right-tail picture of global productivity

When we look at the state of industry in 2017 from the bottom up—sector trends down to company-level innovations—we see a global economy with underappreciated potential. A productivity-driven return to “old normal” 4%+ global GDP growth may lie within reach in the coming years, based only on the spread (“diffusion”) of existing technologies.

How? A handful of technologies have emerged that are radically changing the way firms do business. These technologies—offspring of the computer revolution—include artificial intelligence (advanced robotics), simulation, the cloud, additive manufacturing (3D printing), augmented reality, big data, microsensors, and the “internet of things” (web connectivity of everyday objects). These technologies are now being used, in many cases for the first time, in synergy with one another. Together, they enable businesses to experiment more effectively, better measure their activities in real time, and scale their innovations — and those of their peers—faster. (See the works of Erik Brynjolfsson and Andrew McAfee for more.) Here’s the key: Smarter experimentation plus faster scalability of winning ideas can speed up the diffusion of best practices from productivity leaders to laggards. And global “catch-up” potential is huge, especially in emerging markets (EM). The productivity gap between leading, “frontier” firms and all others has widened dramatically in recent years—see Figure 2. (Note: This gap does not merely reflect productivity differentials across industries.) The gap cannot widen forever; inefficient and unproductive firms can play defense for a while—creative destruction takes time—but eventually they will converge toward the frontier or exit. This growing divergence between leaders and laggards represents strong pent-up productivity gains waiting for a catalyst (… read on!).

So there’s potential for catch-up… but why now?

Two logical questions: Haven’t computers, the internet, and automation been around for years? Why should we expect a productivity rebound anytime soon? One key reason: cost. Productivity-enhancing technologies exist today that haven’t yet been put to use because their cost outweighs their perceived economic benefits. That’s changing.

Case study: advanced robotics

Take robotics. Costs continue to fall while performance improves—making automation more and more competitive with human labor. In many industries, companies are nearing an inflection point where they can earn an attractive return on an investment in advanced robotics systems (Sirkin et al., Boston Consulting Group 2015). “Generic” robotics systems capable of many different types of work cost, today, about $28 per hour, already below the typical hourly human wage in a number of industries. By 2020, the cost of advanced robotics is expected to fall to $20 per hour or lower—below the average human worker’s wage. The Boston Consulting Group projects that growth in global installations of advanced robotics systems will accelerate from 2%—3% per year today to about 10% per year over the next decade. The result: robust productivity gains in the industries that can take advantage.

Sound fanciful? This isn’t the stuff of theory or hope. A major German shoe manufacturer, for example, is building its first factory on German soil in 30 years; the 50,000-square-foot facility will rely on robots and customized automation to slash logistics and supply-chain costs—and free up hundreds of factory workers to focus on higher-skill tasks. And the world’s two biggest airplane makers also are incorporating advanced robotics into their production processes. To date, both companies have built planes mostly by hand. But going forward, taking after the auto industry, they will use robots, drones, and higher-skill human labor to boost production efficiency—a response to years of order backlogs and surging (unmet) demand. Why now? Because these technologies are now priced low enough that they become accretive to earnings—and therefore are poised to transform these companies’ business models (Wall 2016).

And now smaller firms are joining in. Until recently, advanced robotic systems were too complex and too expensive for small firms—but it now generally takes only a few months for small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) to earn a positive return on their investment in these technologies. Greater adoption by SMEs, most of which do not operate on the productivity frontier, will help speed up technological diffusion—a catalyst for faster aggregate productivity growth. (Note that SMEs account for about half of total employment in the United States.)

Pent-up productivity growth: examples from industry

Advanced robotics in shoe and airplane production is just the beginning. We may be approaching similar tipping points in other industries as well. McKinsey & Company, in a 2015 study authored by James Manyika and others, offered projections of global sector-level productivity growth potential through 2025 based on anticipated diffusion of known technologies and existing best practices. (Take the numbers themselves with a grain of salt; productivity trends are notoriously difficult to forecast.) Here are some of McKinsey’s industry-level estimates of potential annual productivity growth:

Agriculture: 4%—5%. Big data and cutting-edge microsensors can team up to create “precision agriculture” techniques that improve real-time forecasting, production tracking and micro-optimization of irrigation and fertilization. The result? Rising crop and meat yields—and less waste.

Automotive: 5%—6%. Big data, simulation, and robotics can drive rapid improvements in operations—and force smaller manufacturers to merge, exit or adopt current best practices (the sector, globally, remains highly fragmented). Within parts supply, the industry’s largest segment by value added, advanced robotics may just be reaching the point of economic viability for second- and third-tier suppliers.

Food processing: 3%. Mechanization and automation can drive robust productivity gains, mainly in EM countries where food and beverage production is still relatively labor-intensive.

What about notoriously low-productivity service industries? Boosting productivity growth in services will be critical given these sectors’ rising share of global employment. Here, we see new hope for productivity gains through catch-up, consolidation, or exit—mainly due to the huge productivity gap between leaders and laggards (as shown previously in Figure 2). But again we ask: Why now? Greater use of computers, web technologies and analytics (the stuff manufacturers adopted long ago) is opening up services to greater competition—both domestically and internationally through global trade. (As evidence, consider that across countries, the value-added share of domestic services in gross exports has been increasing at a faster and faster clip as services become increasingly tradable. The “micro-multinationals” are coming.) Bottom line: In services, productivity gains through basic IT and digitization may still be in their infancy.

Now for a couple of service sector examples from McKinsey’s 2015 study. Below are their industry-level estimates of potential annual global productivity growth through 2025:

Healthcare: 2%—3%. Big data and simulation may produce gains through “smart” care, while basic IT improvements could drive time and cost savings. (Nurses, for instance, currently spend only one-third of their time on actual patient care. And imagine what happens when more doctors learn to use FaceTime for remote consultations.)

Retail: 3%—4%. Global retail is ripe for creative destruction (consolidation, exit, or catch-up) given massive productivity gaps between retailers within countries and between retail sectors across countries (e.g., Japanese retail productivity is only about 40% of the U.S. level). The catalysts for change? In the McKinsey scenario, advanced analytics and big data will drive improvements in lean-store operations and supply-chain management. Competitive pressures are mounting, notably from the continued rise of e-commerce (80% more efficient than modern brick-and-mortar yet still only a small fraction of total retail activity—about 10% in the U.S.). “Modern” (i.e., large, as in not your local mom-and-pop) brick-and-mortar formats themselves are three times as productive as small, traditional stores—yet modern brick-and-mortar businesses are rare in much of the emerging world (where they represent a 25%—and often lower—share of total retail employment).

We could go on. Could government services, notoriously far behind the productivity frontier, be next in line for an upgrade? (For color, see Glaeser et al. 2016.) Evidence is trickling in that municipalities are turning to big data to better track their performance and provide public services more efficiently. And then there’s the education system...

From micro gains to macro growth?

Could industry-level productivity gains boost global productivity growth in aggregate?

In our view, this (right-tail!) possibility is rising. And the microeconomic experts at McKinsey would seem to agree. In their 2015 report they draw from a collection of industry studies to project productivity growth through 2025 at the sector level—and then extrapolate these sector trends to global labor productivity growth in aggregate. McKinsey forecasts 4% potential annual productivity growth through 2025—a jolt higher from the 2%—2.5% post-financial-crisis global average. (The forecast considers the G-19 countries plus Nigeria.) Note: This 4% forecast is based only on the diffusion of existing best practices and known technologies—i.e., before giving any credit to unknowable future innovations. As the study suggests, “Waves of innovation may, in reality, push the frontier far further than we can ascertain based on the current evidence.”

Three productivity scenarios and their investment implications

Broadly, we envision three possible scenarios for global productivity. The first is that our weak-productivity status quo—call it secular stagnation—persists. We all have a sense of what this paradigm means for economies and markets because we have been living through a version of it for years. The future effect of secular stagnation on interest rates is ambiguous—though we note that a continued global trend toward populism, absent a productivity rebound, could put a higher inflation term premium in nominal yield curves (causing curves to steepen).

The other two (more optimistic) scenarios both involve a productivity rebound; the resulting economic gains, however, manifest differently between them—and that’s because productivity growth can occur in two ways. Either innovation reduces required inputs for a given output (through efficiencies and cost savings), or innovation boosts output for a given input.

Productivity rebound scenario 1: ‘Technological Unemployment’

Under “Technological Unemployment,” innovation drives robust productivity growth through firm-level operational improvements and cost savings while chipping away at the demand for human labor. Productivity gains therefore come mostly from a reduction in (human) hours worked—mechanically, this is the denominator in the productivity calculation (output divided by total hours).

Consider the potential long-term economic and market impact of “Technological Unemployment” (note, we’re speculating and simplifying a lot here):

Global GDP growth picks up moderately

Inflation remains low and stable (a positive reflationary impulse from rising GDP growth is offset by a disinflationary impulse from falling costs and lack of wage pressure)

Labor market distortions and inequality worsen; chronic underemployment develops (too many workers, not enough jobs)

Global interest rates rise modestly from rock-bottom levels amid stronger economic growth (but disinflationary conditions limit the extent of the increase)

Yield curves modestly steepen, but only if growth impulse more than offsets disinflation impulse; otherwise, curves could flatten

Equity markets perform well given improving economic growth, muted inflation, and rising corporate profitability (falling costs and minimal wage pressure)

“Technological Unemployment,” in the extreme, is the scenario in which we humans are relegated to the beach while machines do all the work for us. The distribution of wealth across society could well become even more uneven given rising polarization between the “capital owners” and everyone else. This is a grim scenario for Main Street, and it would pose significant challenges—not only economic but also political and social.

Productivity rebound scenario 2: ‘Productivity Virtuous Circle’

Our “Productivity Virtuous Circle” scenario involves a different (and better!) type of productivity growth—one where innovation drives productivity gains without rendering human workers redundant. Here’s how. First, new technologies and processes employed in one industry generate cost savings and efficiencies in that industry. But they also create new jobs—jobs that require new skills we didn’t yet know we needed. A virtuous circle then develops: Technological growth in one industry forces related industries to innovate (or fall behind), creating even more demand for new skills. And on we go. The upshot: In this scenario there is no mass of discouraged (former) workers plodding off to the beach. Mechanically, productivity gains are driven mostly by a rising numerator (output) rather than by a falling denominator (hours worked).

Here is the potential long-term economic and market impact of “Productivity Virtuous Circle” (… still speculating):

Global GDP growth approaches “old normal” levels (4%+) in an enduring escape from secular stagnation

Inflation normalizes but remains well-contained (“demand-pull” inflation is offset by disinflationary impulse from positive productivity shock)

Labor markets strengthen (full employment and solid wage growth)

Global interest rates rise given strong economic growth

Yield curves bear-steepen (term premium normalizes at the long end)

Equity markets perform well given solid economic growth—but remain sensitive to the sustainability of profit margins (potential for labor to garner a larger share of the economic pie)

Clearly, in this scenario, bonds underperform in the short run (higher rates and steeper curves). But ultimately, we believe the “Productivity Virtuous Circle” would be the very best long-term outcome for fixed income investors.

We summarize the forces at play across all our scenarios in Figure 3.

What could go wrong? Barriers to diffusion

For the global economy to realize its full productivity potential under any rebound scenario, we need a lot to go right. While global industry leaders have enjoyed strong productivity gains in recent years, the median firm has not (recall Figure 2). The key to boosting aggregate productivity, therefore, is to speed up the diffusion of best practices from industry leaders to laggards. To maximize diffusion, governments need to continue to support free trade, a key enabler of global competition; liberalize product markets to enable the forces of creative destruction to do their work; make labor markets more flexible so that human capital will flow to its most productive uses; and help workers learn the skills required to best leverage tomorrow’s technologies. (Worthy topics for a future note…)

Bottom line: productivity’s upside risks are growing

So, what should we expect going forward? Secular stagnation or a productivity rebound? Our crystal ball isn’t that good. But whereas many market participants are coalescing around a secular stagnation baseline view, we are decidedly less convinced. In fact, we see a growing risk that we collectively underestimate the global economy’s pent-up productivity potential. It wouldn’t take a leap of faith to envision some variant of our “Technological Unemployment” productivity rebound (putting aside, in this note, its potentially serious social consequences). If future innovation displaces low-skill labor first, as we suspect it will, the impact on employment could indeed be negative—absent herculean worker-retraining efforts.

But don't count out a “Productivity Virtuous Circle,” which—lest we forget—is not lacking in historical precedent. The Luddites of 19th century England and their ilk have been wrong for two centuries; historically, over long periods of time, technological change has been a net creator of higher-skill jobs—and has not jeopardized full employment. (Over the past 50 years in particular, global labor productivity and employment have grown together in most multi-year periods.) Yet many observers seem certain this time will be different.

All told, we’d put better-than-coin-flip odds on a productivity rebound in some form in the coming years—and an escape from secular stagnation toward “old normal” global GDP growth. (The composition of GDP growth, however, will be skewed much more toward productivity gains than labor force growth.) The microeconomic catalysts have arrived. These catalysts—to recap, rising synergies in the use of leading technologies, declining costs, greater small-firm adoption and green shoots in services—may put 4% annual global productivity growth within reach. And that 4% includes zero credit for potential unknowable future innovations. (Yes, “unknowable unknowns” can be positive!)

There may also be a nascent macro catalyst at play. Global central banks are beginning to rein in extraordinary post-financial-crisis monetary stimulus, which—as our colleague Scott Mather suggests—probably has for years distorted the allocation of capital worldwide. The withdrawal of ultra-accommodative monetary policy may encourage a more efficient capital allocation throughout the global economy, potentially helping jumpstart creative destruction—the key to shrinking today’s massive productivity gaps.

Why, as investors, do we care? A productivity rebound could mean higher interest rates and steeper yield curves—greener pastures, indeed, for savers, pension funds, and financial institutions. It could mean equity investors wouldn’t be doomed to a stagnant future of low returns. And it could boost the resilience of the global economy in the face of several looming secular risks. Productivity’s right tail is getting fatter; if history is any guide, the night often appears darkest just before dawn.  

Closing Remarks from John

All of us might wish for a virtuous productivity cycle like the one they describe a scenario number two, and that is what has happened in the past. People left the farms and went to the cities to work in the factories and then moved on to other jobs. Technology created new jobs in the process of destroying past jobs. It was in the height of this process that Schumpeter wrote his famous “creative destructio” paper.

The problem with that scenario playing out in the future is that we literally had generations of time to adapt. If we had tried to go from 80% of the people working on farms in 1880 to 2% in 10 or 15 years—less than a generation—it would have been far more disruptive than the actual 20 generations it took. People had time to change.

I am far more concerned about today’s “technological unemployment.” Automated cars are just the tip of the iceberg. The Council of Economic Advisers thinks that 60% of lower-paying jobs will be automated in the next few decades. Where will these people go to work? Yes, we can retrain them for other work, but are they willing and able to be retrained? Will they be willing and able to move?

Given the nature of the change that I see coming, I think that income inequality will actually grow. In my upcoming book I will put a mathematical formula to it and demonstrate that in the future income inequality will be worse, no matter how you cut it. And increased taxes are going to slow down growth and reduce employment opportunities. There are no free lunches.

Add that in the coming debt crisis, the inevitable demographic changes and geopolitical tensions are going to contribute to the slowing of GDP growth. All of which makes it difficult to be a pure technological optimist. I mean, yes, we’re moving toward a world of abundance and marvelous new technologies, but like the past, the future will be unevenly distributed for quite some time.

And that does not even get into the issue that the way we measure GDP is so fundamentally flawed as to produce statistics that are essentially misleading. Seriously, to an economist, a $100 barrel of oil or two $50 barrels of oil have the exact same GDP impact. Ask a kindergarten child which is better, one cookie or two cookies? Just saying…

I will close here, but you get the thrust of what I’m trying to cover in the new book. I think that Matt and Joachim did a fabulous job in taking us on a thought trip and making us question our assumptions.

Get Varying Expert Opinions in One Publication with John Mauldin’s Outside the Box

Every week, celebrated economic commentator John Mauldin highlights a well-researched, controversial essay from a fellow economic expert. Whether you find them inspiring, upsetting, or outrageous… they’ll all make you think Outside the Box. Get the newsletter free in your inbox every Wednesday.