#it was done in a realistic style which... essentially inspired me to do this whole thing more or less realistically

[the-ace-of-fools]

[denimbex1986]

'“Ripley” editor Joshua Raymond Lee explains about his collaboration with fellow editor David O. Rogers, “The first passes of many things were done by Dave and also Lillian Pachter, who’s our first assistant editor … When I started in post I sort of had this different dictate from [creator, writer and director Steven Zaillian] to take fresh cracks at assembling many of the episodes.” This “was a really strange and different exercise to do as an editor, but I think it produced some fruitful results.”...

Based on the sinister con artist created by author Patricia Highsmith, “Ripley” follows its title character (played by Andrew Scott) as he conspires his way into a new life in Italy. Zaillian wrote and directed the whole eight-episode series, so “the entire thing was like an eight-hour-long feature film,” according to Lee, “so it was essentially like we were working on one project together, even if some responsibilities fell to one or the other of us.” Rogers observes that Zaillian was “very in-tune to everything, every component of filmmaking. Anything you see, meaning the pencil holder on the desk and the things that are hanging on the wall and all of that, he would be very meticulous and come into the frame sometimes and move things around to get things just right for both wide and close shots.”

Among the most memorable scenes of the series (SPOILER ALERT) is the prolonged sequence where Tom Ripley kills the wealthy Dickie Greenleaf (Johnny Flynn) on a boat and tries to cover up the crime. Rogers remembers, “We sort of built it and then started to chip away at the block of marble to try to get what we needed out of it. They shot the conversation part of it with Tom and Dickie with different angles, some high angles and things like that, so we had a couple of different versions.” Lee adds that the goal was “to properly put ourselves in the mindset of Tom and the way in which the action is suddenly arrested from the way we normally move through time.” The murder happens “suddenly out of nowhere, and suddenly time halts to a stop and moves at almost a completely realistic pace.”

When it comes to editing in general, Rogers says his inspiration “starts with the script,” but he doesn’t have one “standard approach because every show has its own particular style, whether it’s dialogue driven or more visual like this.” For Lee as well, “first and foremost, it’s about the script, and what excited me about this one was Steve’s writing, both for its humor and just the way he writes dialogue, which is so relatable and funny and interesting and dark.” What also stood out was that “the scripts added up to about 500 pages,” but “there were a hundred of those pages that were just single-spaced scene description,” which made Lee realize that “it’s all going to come down to the cinema of it, to the techniques that he employs to capture it on camera, and then to what we would have to play with and discover in post, and that turned out to be very true.”'

[tylermcfarlane]

An insight into my first few weeks studying film…

In one lecture we looked at Oscar winning editing focusing on how the different editing styles supported the story the film was trying to tell. An Example touched on was 'Raging Bull' directed by Martin Scorsese. In the poolside scene and the Jake and Vickie date scene, the editing style tells the audience a lot about jakes personality like when we are first introduced to Vickie by the public pool; shots specifically of her were in slo motion. These slow shots are specifically only used on Vickie's character  as we are seeing her from Jake's POV. This gives us the idea there is a lot of attention needed for her character in this story and it also introduces us to the idea Jake has predatory and animal like characteristics which is a big part of the story. The slow shots show jakes animalistic side as they are similar to something you could find in a wildlife documentary when an animal is getting ready to pounce at its prey. We see another replication of these slo mo shots during the mini golf section of the date scene.

The editing also falls into the style category of Italian neo-realism. This is apparent in the cinematography too, lots of close ups and barely any wide establishing shots as the stories told in Italian neo-realism follow the subjects around their daily lives and what was going on around them was constantly hidden in the deeper meaning of the film.  After discussing Italian neo-realism in the lecture I wanted to discover more so investigated and watched the 1948 "Bicycle Thieves" directed by Vittorio De Sica. It is considered a classic within the style and it definitely gave me a full understanding of what Italian neo-realism actually was. I really enjoyed this film, the main thing I picked up on was the loud surrounding atmosphere in the scenes with the most conflict. The constant rumble of passers by and large crowds of communities coming together to protect their own, helped these intense scenes achieve new heights as I felt I was in the streets of Rome with our protagonist. It completely immerses the audience to experience the real hardships of living in Italy post WW2. This sometimes made the dialogue that was important hard to hear which, if done in any other style, would feel messy however in Bicycle Thieves it just adds to the realism. The performance from both actors, Lamberto Maggiorani and Enzo Staiola who portray father and son in the film is just incredible and probably feels this way as neither were professionals at the time. In fact Maggiorani was only a factory worker most likely experiencing the struggles of all working class people in Rome after the war, which is exactly what his character represents. As a whole the film is a masterclass at establishing this neo realistic style as it was one of the first to do so and I can definitely see how it has inspired the likes of Scorsese in films like Raging Bull. 

In another of my lectures we focused on cinematography and how this is essential to every aspect of telling a story on screen and how many different elements can be used to do this. The main points I took away from this lecture was the many ways that lighting can be used in a shoot and all the "lighting tropes" we see constantly in films which are they reason that they appear cinematic to the audience. Now with this new outlook I decided to look back at some of my favourite films and look at how they have or haven't used these lighting techniques. In particular I looked at one of my favourite scenes from Moonlight directed by Barry Jenkins.

In the diner scene for the first time in years Chiron and Kevin reunite. The scene is very intimate and tender and the whole scene is lit perfectly for what it is trying to achieve, which for me is an overall warm, soft and comfortable vibe. In our lecture talking about simple shot reverse shots in a dinner setting we looked at how when you place the camera on the opposite side of the key light it creates contrast on the talent in the shot, this is used more often than not in films. However in this shot reverse shot the camera is on the same side as the key light which doesn't give much contrast on the characters at all. This helps emphasise how natural their relationship is and even with the very little dialogue Chiron has in this scene we see Kevin in a light which makes him appear as this soft and comfortable character which is exactly how Chiron feels around him even after all these years.

I also took some time over this past summer to finally watch the infamous Twin Peaks directed by David Lynch (I thought this would come in handy for conversation starters with my fellow film students). I went in completely blind and was not disappointed with how amazing and complex the Twin Peaks world is. More recently I listened to a podcast episode of American Cinematographer which had guest Ron Garcia, Director of Photography of Twin Peaks. He spoke about how Lynch used lots of wide shots and wide lenses which wasn't the norm for television at that time, Garcia explained that this made every close up used on the show so much more impactful which is something I found very interesting. He also discussed Lynch's relationship with all his cast and crew and how he was leading them blindly in terms of the true meaning behind what the show actually was but somehow his vision was just so self assured that it was still translated perfectly to the finished product. I find that so inspiring and think it is something I want to work on a lot while studying the craft. I want to be so sure of my ideas that it then becomes easy for me to communicate them to anyone I am working with on any project.

I have really enjoyed the start of my journey studying film. I am excited to move forward and continue to learn whilst making more films and fully fledging out ideas of my own from start to finish.

[ptewie]

A NON-SORTED LIST OF REASONS YOU SHOULD PLAY LENNAS INCEPTION

FYI I should note that I am not done with the game yet. I’m only just after the sixth or seventh dungeon I believe.

- can switch between 32 bit and 8 bit graphics! some characters even have different designs!!!

- you have the ability to shoo away parenter characters if they are being stupid. So if they die, it’s your fault :)

- There’s multiplayer!!! Very well implemented multiplayer!!

- Paige my beloved

- Paige is a flaming homosexual and we love her for it

- a lot of the game is a essentially a deconstruction of the whole “this child is a chosen one” trope. You play as the token tutorial character!

- there is blood but not like horror blood. the blood is mostly used to play into the parody elements in order to elect realistic stakes on the player in such a disconnected land!

- the story seems meta so far but it’s really fun and has some pretty cool characters, most aren’t really that note worthy and are kind one offs but there’s some highlights include for me Paige, the Doctor and The Other Guy With The Black Anime Hair Cut I Cant Remember His Name

- the meta stuff seems to take mad inspiration from stuff like sprite corruptions and the crazy glitches in the first Pokémon games. Really cool execution

- a main plot event of the game is people being necromanced as skeletons to work in the banking industry (this isn’t a spoiler you can learn this in the first area lol)

- PUSH ALL THE GRAVE STONES TRUST ME

- game is very similar to a link to the past and links awakening combined. it has a map that shows u if there’s treasure in the rooms and I’m p sure the dungeons are randomly generated? I’m not sure about that tho. Anyway if you like those games play it

- combat is very similar to Zelda nothing crazy but there’s tons of different types of swords and weapons you can try out. Minecraft like potions effects too, thats the only way I can think of describing them

- btw the game is pretty linear tho, you can explore but there’s constant roadblocks requiring certain abilities to proceed. You gotta do all the dungeons in order.

- you can call a pizza place which will take 40 irl minutes to bring you a pizza earthbound style, which heals you fully when you get it, it’s completely useless but one time I was in the middle of the boss and the pizza man ran in and it was hillarous

- you get a phone

- Henrietta, just Henrietta.

PLAY THE VIDEO GAME: YOU CAN FIND IT ON ITCH.IO AND MAYBE STEAM IM NOT SURE

[not-xpr-art]

Art Advice #2 - How to beat art block!

Hi again everyone!

This is the second instalment to my Art Advice tag offering hints and tips for artists of any skill level! 

This time I’ll be going into ways I’ve found that help me to combat art block or creative ruts. Of course, these may not work for you, and a big part of art is learning about what things do and do not work for you, but I hope it at least offers some advice to anyone who struggles with art blocks!

How to beat art block. 

Getting into an art block can be one of the most frustrating things as an artist. Especially if you’ve tried to dedicate a window of time to drawing something, only for your brain to ‘nope’ out and give you no motivation. I’ve found it can often make you feel worthless as an artist, particularly when you see fellow artists continuing to produce countless amazing artworks, and this kind of self depreciation only adds to your inability to produce anything. 

And I’m not about to suggest some magical cure of art block, since I don’t believe there is one, but I hope that my advice can at least help lead you towards getting out of these vicious circles of art block & self deprecation!

Tip #1 - Explore other mediums 

I feel like as artists we get incredibly ‘comfortable’ in the mediums we’re familiar with. For me, that’s digital and pencil drawing. I’ve been doing pencil drawing for as long as I can remember, and digital for a little over 7 years, so I’ve become very comfortable in using them. 

However, I think that a good way to not only help combat art block, but also to expand your art horizons, is to step out of that comfort zone into a new field of art. 

Of course, I’m not saying that I expect every artist to go from pencil drawing for 10 years to suddenly picking up a paint brush and doing some oil painting. But instead that every so often maybe just try and dabble in mediums you’ve not used as much, or haven’t used before at all. A lot of shops sell pretty inexpensive paints, pens or pastels nowadays, not to mention a quick Google search will give you tips on how to use the particular medium if you’re not sure how to start. 

A thing I want to mention here, too, is that I think it’s important to not to expect yourself to be automatically ‘great’ at a particular medium. For example, last year I did my first embroidery piece. I had wanted to do embroidery for a long time, and did actually enjoy it a lot (even if it was incredibly time consuming lol). But I found myself dissatisfied with the finale result. 

And in a way this is because I expected myself to be perfect at embroidery after just one attempt, which is ridiculous of course, since any kind of art takes years and years to ‘master’. And when I look back, I can’t help but think ‘why does it have to be good in the first place’? Why did I put this pressure on myself to be a sudden Master of Embroidery, when surely the main goal of any kind of art is to some extent the enjoyment of the process? 

This is still a mindset I think a lot of artists will relate to, and is something I’m trying to combat myself. 

Recently I painted some fake plastic eggs inspired by the Polish folk art tradition ‘Pisanki’. They took a long time, and my neck hurt a lot from being hunched over and painting little dots, but honestly I really loved the whole process of them! Painting on 3D objects isn’t something I do a lot, and I also rarely do purely pattern-based work like this, so it was a real deviation from my comfort zone.

In a way, exploring other mediums is like a creative respite. Giving yourself a break from what you’re familiar with not only helps you to be inspired by a wide range or arts, but when you return to the mediums you enjoy the most, I’ve actually found you appreciate them even more!

(Really, nothing makes me more appreciative for digital art than painting a wrong dot on the surface of an egg and not being able to rub it out...)

Tip #2 - Try different styles

Another tip, similar in many ways to the first one, is to try different styles of art every once and a while. 

Like with materials, I think we as artists can get overly caught up in ‘our style’ of doing things. Whether this is a particular stylised or cartoonish way of drawing, or doing realistic art, or even sticking to a particular colour scheme. And I think especially in the world we live in, where artists have to make themselves as ‘consumer friendly’ as possible, which often means having a ‘recognisable brand’, it can feel like we have to do our art in a particular way, otherwise people will lose interest in it. 

I think this is harmful for a lot of reasons. Partly, I feel it stifles artists creativity to force themselves to do one style and one style only. I also feel it assumes that non-artists are so single-track minded that if an artist were to post works of art that involve different styles, then they would immediately lose interest. 

So my advice to any artist who has a particular style is to once in a while try out some different styles. It doesn’t have to be big pieces, and it also doesn’t have to be the polar opposite of what your style actually is. But instead if can be as simple as doing a ‘style challenge’ (something I’ve done in the past), or even just trying a different way of drawing or painting! 

In a way, changing your medium and changing your style occasionally go hand in hand. I particularly find that how I draw people will change with the kinds of mediums I use, or even when I start using a new brush with digital art.

For example, I recently did this super quick sketch of Kiki Layne, because I really loved the reference image, and it came out a lot more stylised than my art usually is. And this is almost entirely down to the brush I used (which was an ‘ink’ style brush, in comparison to the ‘pencil’ or ‘pen’ brushes I usually use for sketching). 

This isn’t a drastic change in style for me, but I do think even trying to do rougher or messier styles of art like this can allow you to see your art in a new light! 

(A side note here, but I already pretty much change up my style with every piece because I have no interest in being ‘marketable’ lol... But I’m definitely not suggesting everyone should be like me, just every so often changing up your style I believe can be really beneficial!)

Tip #3 - Changing subject matters

This one is essentially the same as the other two, and I’m sorry if this comes across as repetitive, but I think another great way to help beat art block is by changing up the kinds of things you draw!

Being predominantly a portrait artist, I rarely go out of my way to draw things like trees or birds or cups or whatever. But I know that often when I feel myself entering a kind of creative rut or art block, it’s because I’ve been drawing too many people & my brain is sort of all people-d out lol... 

(this is a tree I drew in oil paints midway through last year because I was feeling particular people-d out at that point)

So I think occasionally drawing other things, and going out of your art comfort zone, can help to improve your creativity. And hey, who knows, maybe you’ll end up incorporating something you drew randomly into a new artwork!

TL;DR (/conclusion)

So, remember that exploring other mediums, changing up your regular style and choosing other subject matters can all help in beating art block! Of course, you don’t have to do them all at the same time, but instead just dipping in and out of them as you produce your regular work can be highly beneficial! 

I mainly wanted to make this post not to say that by doing all three of these things, you’ll magically be free of art block forever, because that’s just not true. (I’m someone who does a lot of these things pretty regularly, but still gets into art blocks every now and then). I instead wanted to inspire you to deviate from what you are usually drawn to as an artist. 

The world is your creative oyster, so don’t be afraid to explore it! 

~

I hope you enjoyed this post about ways to beat art block! I may make a part two if people are interested since there are a lot of other things that I think can help in improving creativity!

[aethuviel]

Real life Na’vi tribe, the Blue Moon Tribe, and realistic goals of going off-grid

In late 2009, James Cameron’s “Avatar” film came, and with it, the Avatar-related forums. There were Avatar forums, Tree of Souls, and Learn Na’vi.

While the film made an impression on me in terms of its world-building and aesthetic beauty, it did not challenge my view on lifestyle or give me ideas on how to live in the future.

But for some, it did. It was in August of 2010 that I (then nineteen years old) was reading around on the aforementioned Avatar boards, where there was a very(!) lengthy (I believe 50+ pages by the time I found it?) thread regarding the idea of making your own “Na’vi-style” tribe, as a lifestyle.

I read the first few pages and thought “Ha! Fun idea, but I could NEVER-” I kept reading. It took me two whole days to read the entire thing. I went from “maybe I could do it during the summers during the seasonal idea they are discussing, but I couldn’t live forever without my books-” to “I WANT TO DO THIS”.

At nineteen, I was at a standstill in life and had no idea where to go from there. All I knew before this was that I wanted to live in the countryside, but I had no idea and no help on how to make this a reality.

This was something completely new to me, that seemed extremely appealing. I had actually watched Into the Wild just a few months prior, but had no inspiration from it (maybe because it was Alaska, then completely unappealing to me, and the poor guy did starve to death).

By the time I found them, the thread had been broken off into its completely separate, non-Avatar-related forum. They were very clear that while Avatar forums is where they met and were inspired, the project was a serious thing and had nothing to do with “larping” or trying to live literally like Na’vi. The forum was called “the Revolutionists”, better name pending.

The oldest member, who also had the server to the new forum and was one of the most active members, was 37 at the time. The youngest was only 15, and I’d say the average age was around 21. We numbered around 15-20 committed members.

The knowledge was great among some of the members, talking about permaculture, water and waste systems, et cetera. A chat room was set up, and while we had some structured meet-ups in there, there was almost always someone there.

I was extremely inspired, but knew nothing, so I mostly stayed silent, read and listened. Over the next year, I consumed everything I could find regarding “tribal living” or “going back to the wild”. Even then, in 2011, the internet was a much smaller place than today, and it was very hard to find decent resources.

Eventually, in a live chat, the name “Blue Moon Tribe” was decided on for the group. “BMT” had a lot of ideas, some of which I’ll list to give an easy overview...

Permaculture, not pure hunter-gatherer, as it is not feasible today

Hunting for meat, as raising meat animals was never considered

Animals like dogs and horses would be allowed

Funding/permission for the project by allowing researchers to study us as a “social experiment”, as surely this has not been attempted before?

Firearms vs just archery were lightly debated, but as far as I remember, never settled on

Hanggliders and other means of flying were discussed quite a bit, inspired by the Na’vi “Ikran”, but put into reality by perhaps being used to survey forest for the government (essentially as another means of being permitted “stewardship” of a piece of land rather than buying it)

Permanent life, including children and birth control were discussed at some length

We would live in a firm spot, with some sort of permanent structures

An enormous piece of land would be required, due to having to live largely off of hunting - we actually never calculated this very well (how much meat/person/year, how many animals per acre, etc.), but estimated it at 1000+ acres for a reasonable size tribe of ~20 people. This was one of the two ultimate death blows of the project.

Where in the world would it be? Members lived everywhere from the US and UK to Sweden, Germany, Chile, the Philippines, and more countries. Visa requirements for anyone moving would be daunting. I really tried researching this, but it never went anywhere, and it was the second death blow to the project. Never a set location. (In hindsight, it would be best to just aim on the US and be done with it. Or two locations, one American and one European.)

I went from being a very quiet student in the beginning, to becoming one of the leaders in “keeping it going”, when things seemed difficult, by keeping writing new threads, and trying to solve our most pressing problems - money (for buying land) and where to move.

I researched almost every country imaginable, made in-depth charts of my research, and felt most like some of the more well-off Latin American countries would fit us best, like Panama, Argentina or Mexico. A problem with tropical countries is that they often ban hunting. Spain could also be a good fit.

Note that while I researched most of the world (including southern Africa and all of southeast Asia), I excluded most of Europe, as after growing up in northern Sweden with winters easily going below -20C, I thought I loved the heat. :D (Oh I learned after visiting Tbilisi in July...)

My focus wasn’t all selfish, of course, and growing seasons were much better in warmer climates. Mostly, we(!) focused on the subtropics.

But the years passed, and nothing happened. Not even the real life meeting we had discussed.

There was another group, meanwhile, that had been inspired from the same Avatar source, but had remained on its forum, Learn Na’vi - we called this the “real life Na’vi tribe”, with no official name. I was active on this forum as well, mostly to help, as I saw myself joining this project in real life unlikely, but if they succeeded first, maybe I would.

Overall, this other project was far less organized, with more “casuals” coming for a week and then leaving (both projects had this problem early on, in 2010), less structure and dare I say, less maturity. Some mature voices pitched in, but they mostly had no personal interest at all, they simply wanted help people keep their feet on the ground.

In the beginning, some really outlandish ideas were suggested, and it had a far greater focus on NA’VI RE-ENACTMENT, even though this faded in favor of... reality. Obviously no one is going to spend their entire life living like fictional aliens from a movie.

Reducing the project to a simple summer camp was discussed, as well as the idea of separating it - not in locations, but having two parallel projects in the same location. One would be the “true” tribal life, and then an ecovillage nearby for a “softer” approach. I urged them to go for the ecovillage, period,  but it was ditched altogether instead.

This group seemed less happy with having animals, even horses (though I joked to myself, “Hey, even the Na’vi have horses?”), but the focus was still on a huge plot of land for hunting.

After a few years of doing even more poorly than BMT, the entire forum category on the Learn Na’vi forum was locked, due to inactivity. The project had officially failed.

For BMT meanwhile, members kept falling away. Someone realized he didn’t want to leave his country and have to speak English for the rest of his life. Someone else found a career they wanted to focus on. Someone else joined the army. Life happened, we were mostly 18-24 year olds, and did not have as much foundation in our idea as we thought.

When I “left” in early 2015, there were maybe 3-4 of us left in a different chatroom, as our entire forum had been taken down by hackers, and it was never reinstated. (Oh how I grieve this, as while the project is dead, there were droves of great information on it. The original thread on Avatar forums that birthed the project is also gone, as the entire forum is down.)

I was clear that I didn’t leave the plans to have an off-grid lifestyle, only Blue Moon Tribe, as it was obviously dead, despite my best efforts to keep it going. (Not to give myself too much credit, I was never a “leader” of the project or by any means the most knowledgeable, but I did take upon myself the role of inspiration and keeping people’s spirits focused.)

I met some of the other members on Tree of Souls later, where there was a thread with people asking what happened with these projects. It all basically ran off in the sand, as we say in my language.

It’s been almost six years since I left, why talk about it now? Because I keep thinking about it. What happened, why it died, and what we could have done instead.

First off, I would not join this project today.

This project taught me that off-grid life was a thing, and not just a dream, but a feasible lifestyle. I had never heard of it before finding the then still unnamed Blue Moon Tribe.

I am still very actively working on my off-grid future, but it is a very different lifestyle from the one these groups planned.

During 2015, when I went complete lone wolf and planned it only for myself, I downsized and downsized until I (reluctantly) realized a few acres is all you need. Most hunters (and I still do plan on hunting) don’t own their own acreage. You can hunt for food without owning the hunting land.

While I was completely fine with hunting, I felt extremely squeamish with killing animals I raised myself. After watching enough YouTube videos, I got rid of this fear and decided to have chickens and rabbits as well. I was focusing on Spain, or perhaps Ireland or Croatia, as my off-grid destination.

Later that same year, I met my husband, a man who had dreamed of living in Alaska or the Russian far east since early childhood, and we made our plans for the future together. Our first few weeks meeting in real life were spent staying up late at night, talking for hours and hours, mainly about off-grid life.

During the years before it failed, in 2013 specifically, I found the then phenomenal (it has really gone downhill in recent seasons) TV series “Ben Fogle’s New Lives in the Wild”. So many different people who have found their “wild life”, in so many different locations and ways, from so many different backgrounds and outlooks. It is a gold mine, and I would have drooled over it even more if it existed back in 2011. It would have helped our project tremendously.

During 2011-2012, I also looked up ecovillages. Mostly just for research, to see what they were doing, but also, possibly, to join. (The existence of hundreds upon hundreds of ecovillages made our project members realize BMT’s idea was not that unique and that the “let researchers study us”-idea may not be so feasible...)

I found that, out of ~200 ecovillages I looked up around the Americas and southern Europe, at least half were vegetarian or vegan in their rules, and while the other half permitted meat-eating, not one hunted or raised meat. I found one project in Hawaii (only a single family, no one else yet) that had chickens for eggs and cows for milk, but that’s it. Lots of woo-ey spiritual retreats and that kind of thing, not a lot of long-term living.

Something I learned from New Lives in the Wild, is that while many do this alone or with their family, only a handful of these projects were “communes”, and they were mainly made up of hippie-like, transient young people coming and going. Same with my ecovillage research, I did not find a single true village with families creating a permanent existence.

So, on to my criticism of projects like these, and why they are doomed to fail without much better foundations and goals:

Unstructured/unrealistic goals, as it was the death blow of both projects. We had no real calculations on how much land we would need, for what, and how much money would be needed.

No set location from the get-go. Again, we should have just said “US”, picked a state (as there are tons of resources on this), and let that be that. At least half of the members were American.

Creating a community meant to last is hard. One kind piece of advice I saw on the Real-life Na’vi tribe was that “you won’t be able to make it work without a common spirituality”, and I, as the then diehard atheist, dismissed it straight away, but she was right. Without common cultural/racial/spiritual roots, or a spiritual common goal (”converts”, not as easy as people who have been raised in it, but better than nothing), communities like this will break up. It is just human nature. Without strong foundations in culture and spirituality, there is no “social glue” to keep you together through the decades.

As a side to the same point, most people simply can’t live in these artificial communities long-term. I know now I couldn’t, and I realized that in 2015. I am much too introverted and non-conformist to live in a “group”. We could be neighbors, but anything more than that would feel too “suffocating” for me, and conflicts would be inevitable. I’m also sure some of these members would today be on polar opposites of the political conflict, and so would be unlikely to even get along.

I believe the Blue Moon Tribe could have survived with better resources and better planning, but the major pitfall for its long-term survival (people living together for decades to come) would be its lack of “social glue”.

One of the unofficial “leaders” and the oldest member of the project, left because, as she said, she felt more attached to her homeland the older she got, and could not imagine leaving. She was ten years older then than I am today, and I feel the same way, now in my late twenties.

In my early twenties, I longed for “exotic” and “far away”. I wanted tropics or subtropics in a far away land. Cob houses.

In my late twenties, I long for rustic log cabins in the boreal habitat, as close to home as possible. I have seriously considered Chile, but aside from immigration problems, being so far away on the southern hemisphere with no boreal fauna bothered me as well. I think this is a natural progression through early adulthood.

Years ago, I thought rural Scandinavia was so boring.

Now, I watch videos of those who live this lifestyle in their ancestral village in Sweden, and weep with envy. I can never do that, not just because of the harsh winters, but because I can’t stay in Sweden for legal reasons. (A very important law that has no chance of change in the coming decades, and which makes it impossible for me to stay.)

I now live in Norway, and will probably stay here. My husband and I are currently gathering money - about halfway to our goal so far (we have only been able to actively save money for a year, so this will only take another year or two) - to buy a plot of land, perhaps inland, near the Swedish border - and live our lives there, in the woods, the way we want.

All our dreams won’t be realized, as some dreams are simply meant to stay that way, and the world is no longer free - but it will be as close to paradise as we can make it.

[3195c]

The Dark Knight: How Heath Ledger's Joker Was Born

2020.7

On the occasion of The Dark Knight’s 10th anniversary, we spoke with make-up artist John Caglione, Jr., who was nominated for an Academy Award for his work on The Dark Knight along with Conor O'Sullivan. Caglione had previously won an Oscar for his makeup on Dick Tracy back in 1991, so he came into The Dark Knight with some very relevant experience in the realm of creating grotesqueries. But when it came to birthing a new version of the Joker, the makeup artist quickly realized that he would be crossing into some new and uncomfortable terrain.

“So I read the script for The Dark Knight, and having seen the first one of Chris Nolan’s trilogy, I got the feeling it was going to be more of kind of an organic-looking thing,” Caglione explains. “It was going to be kind of real, not so comic book-y. Going in, and then talking to Chris, meeting him, it became a more realistic approach to the makeup. … What would it be if this guy slept in this makeup? You know, this psychopath. If he didn’t spruce up his makeup for two or three weeks. And, you know, he never changes his clothes in the film. … It was those kinds of organic details that really helps.” When Caglione joined the production, Ledger was already signed on to play the iconic villain. The makeup designer’s earliest meetings were with the actor, director, and costume designer Lindy Hemming, followed by Caglione creating five or six color sketches as overlays of headshots of Ledger complete with green hair, different kinds of clown makeup, scars, and so on. This was followed with some makeup tests with Ledger in London, but as the process continued, it became clear that Caglione had to abandon his artist’s instinct to get everything just right. “You know, you go into it, and you’re trying, as a makeup artist, I’m always trained to do every little detail,” he says. “And you think of a clown makeup, and for the most part they’re pretty detailed with sharp lines, but this had to be the opposite of that. It had to look very broken down, very… very lived in. So, yeah, my first few times were too perfect, so I had to kind of let my hand go. And it was hard, it was really hard to do that. And I remember the first week, the first few days on set, I would look at the makeup, and you don’t know the context of the film and the overall vision, and you’re looking at it as a makeup artist. And I’m saying, this is the worst makeup in the world here! You know? And, it was like, oh, am I doing the right thing?

“And you’re looking at all the great makeups in history,” he continues. “Not just the Joker, but Clarabell and so many other greats -- you know, Emmett Kelly. And they’re always just very accurate, very precise makeups, and then here comes this. Ahhh! But, thank God it all worked out, right?” It’s easy to forget now, but before The Dark Knight was released, the standard bearer of Joker makeups was the Jack Nicholson version from Tim Burton’s 1989 Batman. But Caglione says that as far as he can recall, that design was never really discussed when creating the Ledger Joker. In fact, even the idea of the Joker’s white face being the result of an accident -- which is clearly the case in the Burton film -- just didn’t fit in the Nolan world of Batman. “The first Batman was amazing,” says Caglione. “I love Nicholson’s makeup. And I love the whole approach that Tim Burton [took] … the comic book style of the film, it worked. Everything about that film was great. So, in the back of my mind, maybe subconsciously it was there, but no, it never came up in meetings or discussions. It was, let’s roll up our sleeves and make this thing look like a real person could have done this to themselves. … I think it was always discussed, that this was a possible -- you know, just a psychopath. A real person that just gets into this whole thing. It’s almost like a split personality. And so, yeah, it’s a madman in makeup. It’s that concept.”

Part of the “doing this to themselves” aspect of the character includes the question of those scars on either side of this Joker’s face. Of course, the film itself leaves the question of where the scars came from open to interpretation, as unknowable as the Joker’s ever-changing origin. “I always got the impression that it was self-inflicted,” says Caglione. “But it’s up to you to decide. Was he punished, was it abuse? Was it an abusive situation? It could have been [and] that just tipped him over the edge. Mutilation, self-mutilation. We never really know for sure.” Not surprisingly, Ledger himself was very involved in creating the makeup with Nolan and Caglione. Indeed, he was essential to getting the worn and cracked look of his Joker just right. “It was great with Heath, it was just a great experience,” says Caglione. “He was a great person to work with every day. It was like a dance, because certain parts of the makeup, to get those cracks and all the drippy stuff, you really need the cooperation of the actor’s facial gestures when laying down the makeup and the paint. So we had a lot of fun together on that movie.”

Achieving the desired effect essentially involved Ledger acting in the makeup chair. “He would contort his face or raise his eyebrows,” recalls Caglione. “Or I would even take one hand and kind of scrunch the corner of his eyes to create crows’ feet, you know, draw those wrinkles, and brush grays and white colors over it, and he would relax and you would get all these expressive lines and details that just come naturally. Listen, it’s an old theater trick. They were doing it in the turn of the century, the 1920s in theater. Actors would put white makeup on and scrunch their face and let it go, and then paint little brown lines. So it’s nothing that we really invented. It was a throwback to old makeup techniques.” Another throwback in the design process came in the famous interrogation scene, where things get real rough between the Caped Crusader and the Clown Prince of Crime. “So, Heath and I would always be like, gee, what could we do a little different toward the end of the sequence?” recalls Caglione. “And I remember one time we’re talking about the scene where he gets beat up by Batman. He’s in the jail cell. And at the end of the scene, he wanted to have a different look, Heath. And I was thinking about what we can do with the eyes, the black and stuff. And I went, you know, there was this great villain in the Chaplin films, he was played -- the actor was Eric Campbell, and he always played the big heavy in all the Chaplin movies. And he always had these big, black eyes that kind of had these black eyebrows. And Heath was like, well, let me see a picture. So I pulled it up, and we kind of went for that kind of look. It was a throwback to an old Chaplin villain from the silent screen days.”

According to Caglione, Christopher Nolan wasn’t the kind of director who said “I want you to do exactly this.” Instead, he would offer inspiration and guidance. Take, for example, the paintings of Francis Bacon that he brought to Ledger and Caglione early in the design process. “I think it was his way of saying, let’s blur this, let’s loosen this up,” says Caglione. “Here’s a book, look at it, and maybe you’ll find some inspiration. And it really helped, you know, we turned a corner. He didn’t have to say much, but that was the way it kind of went. And then Heath helped me to relax. The great actors help you relax so you can really bring it, and you can just try different things and feel free to do it. But that Francis Bacon painting, that day that Chris came in and plopped that down and we went through some pages… He said, yeah, maybe look at this picture, look at that picture. I think he actually had some of the pictures tagged with Post-its that he likes. Just for inspiration.” Funny enough, it was a Francis Bacon painting in the 1989 Batman that the Jack Nicholson Joker spared during his gang’s rampage in the Gotham City museum. Coincidence? Who can say? Of course, sadly Heath Ledger passed away before The Dark Knight was released. He went on to receive a posthumous Oscar for the role, but had he not died, the actor could’ve returned as the Joker. Caglione recalls Ledger talking about his ideas for the character beyond The Dark Knight.

“Yes, he did, he actually did talk to me about it,” he says. “He wanted to… start at the Arkham Asylum. And his idea -- I don’t know if he ever talked to Chris. This is just private moments in the chair with Heath, and conversations like, wouldn’t it be great to go back and see what really happened to this guy, how he became what he became? And why he just, you know, flipped out and became maniacal? And he always thought it would be great to go back to the asylum, or even before that. So it was just chit-chat in the chair. … Because I’m sure as an actor, he needs to know the origins of the character; it’s really important to him. “He was excited about the idea of going back in time, and seeing how he became the Joker. You know, the evolution of the character,” says Caglione. “It would have been cool. It would have been cool.”

Indeed, it would’ve been cool. But at least we’ll always have Heath Ledger’s amazing performance from The Dark Knight, and the unforgettable look of the character created by Christopher Nolan, John Caglione, Jr., Conor O'Sullivan, Lindy Hemming and, of course, Ledger himself.

[YouTube]

[meta-squash]

books on the manic street preachers in order of quality:

everything: a book about manic street preachers by simon price - best one so far. very respectful. has lots of great information as well as anecdotes and articles. simon price was a friend of theirs (if you can call a journalist a friend) and a fan, so the way the book is written really makes them feel more like regular people and less like rock stars. in general it’s also just a very funny and entertaining read. there are sections on each individual member of the band as well as chronological stuff about the band’s history. downsides: it was published in 1999 so it only has info up to this is my truth tell me yours, and if you don’t like simon price’s writing style, then you’re screwed. some of the information is a little skewed considering the rumors and made up stories about the band that were flying around in the media in the early days.

triptych: three studies of manic street preachers’ the holy bible by rhian e jones, daniel lukes, and larissa wodtke. published 2016. this isn’t really a biography of the band. it does mention the band’s career, both the early days and more recent, but mostly it focuses on the holy bible album as indicated in the title. each person looks at the album from a different angle: the first looks at the album through the political/social context of its time period and influences, the second at its literary/media influences and references, and the third examines how the album (as well as the bands subsequent discography) deals with memory and archive, in context of global and personal history. all of it is really interesting and fascinating to read through. downsides: obviously, it expects you to know the basic history of the band and to have listened to the album; it also digs into certain philosophical and literary theories that i already knew from uni classes but other people might not, so googling may be in order.

33 1/3 the holy bible by david evans - published 2019. another book that talks specifically about the holy bible. this includes a lot more information about the actual instrumental and studio production of thb, which i thought was really interesting. it also analyzes the holy bible from the lens of wales and culture in the 90s and why it is such a welsh album. lots of talk about history and how thb reflects both history and the events current to its creation, which i thought was great. it does also briefly go into emg, but not much. downside: there were some points i disagreed with, but i think that’s more about how one reads the lyrics, not anything wrong with the book itself

a version of reason by rob jovanovich - was published in 2009. has some new anecdotes and new sources regarding the early days. however, it mostly focuses on richey and richey’s disappearance, so there’s not a whole lot on the band between 1995 and 2009, aside from summary and highlights of their career. he briefly mentions journal for plague lovers, but clearly finished writing and sent the book to print before the album was released, so there’s not a lot on it unfortunately. for a lot of the book he talks about actually traveling to various places in wales and england that were important to the band for whatever reason, and tries to retrace richey’s steps from february first, which is kind of cool. downsides: huge swaths of information are clearly taken straight from simon’s book and slightly reworded. there’s a bunch of random bits talking about non-manics things that are interesting but only tangentially pertinent.

riffs & meaning by stephen lee naish - published 2018. started off as a 33 1/3 project but ended up something else and so was independently published. mostly analyzes know your enemy, which is interesting because it is an overlooked album. it has some interesting analyses of kye songs, which is cool because that’s something we don’t see very often. downsides: most of the book is signposting instead of really going in depth with an argument, which is really frustrating because it leaves you wanting something more substantial. it jumps around a lot in its points and seems a little unfocused. also there’s a surprising amount of typos.

manic street preachers: nailed to history by martin power - published in 2012. honestly if you’ve read the simon price book or as many articles on the manics as i have, it’s mostly rehashing and summarizing information. a lot of it is rushing through highlights of their career. there are a few more anecdotes and more information regarding their later career. it’s good that it includes more on the manics post-richey and their successes and stories about that. downside: it’s definitely more of a perfunctory biography, not meant for people who have already read a ton of literature on the band.

richard by ben myers - i would not put this one at the bottom of the list, but i also don’t think it belongs in the same list as the others, since it’s not a biography. published in 2010. this book is fiction, but it is heavily based on richey and the band. personally, i enjoyed it. it’s an interesting exploration of how life in a band might affect a person, and an imaginative idea of what happened to richey after he abandoned his car. honestly myers gets nicky’s “voice” more accurately than richey’s, but i feel like it would be difficult to try to write as eruditely as richey did, and might alienate an audience. i read it the first time round totally ignoring its inspirations and reading it as pure fiction, and then the second time acknowledging that it was based in true life. both ways were very interesting and i really did enjoy the book. downsides: if you are offended by the use of real people in fiction, this isn’t for you. also, [spoilers ahead] the “ending” of the novel, aka all the chapters which take place after richey leaves his car behind, gets very weird and unrealistic and kind of silly. it requires quite a bit of suspension of disbelief, which kind of made me disappointed because i was hoping for something as realistic and introspective as the rest of the novel had been, and then it wasn’t. i was frustrated enough to try and write something inspired by his style, but with the kind of ending that i wanted/expected when i picked up the book.

withdrawn traces by sarah hawys roberts and leon noakes - published 2019. horrific, conspiracy-mongering trash. they literally say that richey predicted brexit at one point, that he might have known secrets about the illuminati etc, and that he might have been kidnapped by drug lords? it gives slightly more information on richey’s childhood than we’ve had before BUT that comes with a huge pile of salt because more than one person has come forward saying they were misquoted or never even said what was attributed to them in the book/that events that were included in the book didn’t happen. it also essentially ignores the band as a whole, even kind of insults them. it makes absolutely wild claims about richey and his lyrics and just him as a person. rachel edwards’ introduction says she wants to focus on richey as an artist and a person, not as a mysterious disappearance, and then the book goes on to do the exact opposite, focusing entirely on conspiracies and his disappearance instead of his art and friendships and stuff. at some point i’ll get a whole write-up of this book done, but lets just say i only finished it because i was hate-reading it, not because it was good. downside: this entire fucking book. literally it just sucks. the only good thing is you get to see some of richey’s sassy schoolwork from primary school taking the piss out of his teachers.

[lozzique]

Okay now that I've slept on it, my thoughts on the CATS film.

First of all, I am still not completely sold on it. We have only seen a first look trailer and the trailer released yesterday. Before I go into my points, I have to mention what cats means to me.

It's one of those musicals that a lot of people see live as their first musical, and that is the same for me. I saw it when I was 16, about to start college, and it's cheesy to say but seeing that show literally changed my life. Through CATS I have met the most amazing friends online because we all share the same love for a show that holds such sentimental value to us, whether we saw it live or watched the 98 film version. So you can imagine how jarring it is to see this trailer and see how different a lot of the aspects we love are.

Anyway, it's not like I wasn't expecting changes, I knew there would be! But when the rights of CATS were being sold to Andrew Lloyd Webber, T.S Elliot's widow had said that Elliot had never wanted his characters to become pussy cats prancing around on a screen, for he had already turned down Disney. This isn't the first movie production of cats, we had the 1998 VHS version which is well known and loved amongst the fandom, there has been a cancelled animation of CATS which had so much potential and now we have the 2019 version.

Personally I've been suspended in suspense for months awaiting this trailer, and while I think the new concept from what I've seen from the trailer looks good there are parts that throw me off and do make me slightly upset. I will try and condense them down.

The animation. To me when the first shot of Victoria (the white cat) came onto screen I genuinely thought if you make her blue she'd look like an avatar. But that was just a first impression. The body of the cat itself isn't that bad, it's how you would imagine a cat walking and dancing like a human would look like; IT'S THE FACE WHICH GETS ME. Yes I understand they want the audience to be able to see the actor and actress's faces beneath the animation, but what I am not seeing is an actual CAT NOSE. If there were distinguishable cat noses then I don't think I'd be that thrown by it.

Trying to make it realistic. While I really appreciate they've tried to make it realistic, I feel like they've missed the mark. CATS on stage isn't meant to be realistic, you are meant to feel like you've stumbled upon a Junkyard filled with magic and strange looking cats, but they look strange in the wrong way in the film to me, sorry to say it. I can see that the CGI animators have gone for more realistic looking cats in some cases, that's okay, but I feel like they really didn't need to do that if these Cats are already singing and dancing around in their own Milk Bar etc, which of course isn't realistic since it's not meant to be, then why not make the cats look cool and interesting? Why not give them fur that is coloured slightly differently to a normal cat? It's what helps them stand out at being Jellicle Cats. The great thing about CATS on stage is that you can clearly see differences between characters because they all look different! Yet in the trailer I found it hard to pick out the characters that aren't being played by a big name because their fur colours blended into the background, or they all looked similar.

Choreography. Okay this part is me just stating a plain dislike and sorry but bare with. GILLIAN LYNNE IS SPINNING IN HER GRAVE! If you don't know who the late great Gillian Lynne is, she is the original choreographer of CATS the musical, if you are unfamiliar with her work just search the CATS 98 film on YouTube there you will see a perfect example of her work. She was extremely talented and really brought the feline movement to life in the dancing. She passed away recently and it was a great loss to the theatre and dance world. But, the current choreographer for the CATS movie who also choreographed Hamilton and the broadway revival of CATS, to me doesn't fully present the feline illusion in his work. Andy Blankenbuehler has a very distinct dance style which of course works for other productions, but it's the wrong style for cats. Real life cats move elegantly. The broadway revival of CATS honestly was to me not that great from what I was able to watch online, that's nothing on the cast, it's just the choreography did not sit well with me, it was too hip hop and modern for something that is meant to me making you feel like you're watching cats dance under a moon.

There are probably more negatives I could pick out but I don't feel that's necessary so I'll move onto some positives!

I will be seeing the film. Yes I will still watch it because I'm curious, I'm not going to let my negative feelings from one trailer stop me from watching it in the cinema, I may love it once I've seen the whole thing, who knows. The version I am used to will just hold a special place in my heart.

I'm really excited to see the talent of the ensemble characters! If you don't know what that means, it is essentially the background characters. The amazing part of CATS is that you can look at any character at any point in the show and they will be doing something that brings to life their character and I hope that translates onto the screen.

The set looks really fun! Though I'm used to seeing CATS set in a Junkyard I am really excited to see that their universe has expanded, the inclusion of the Milk Bar or the cabaret that Bombalurina seemed to be in looks really fun because I have always imagined what a world just for cats would look like. The illusion that they are cats is really helped by how everything is supersized and I bet the cast had a lot of fun working around that.

Finally, I hope that this movie inspires more stage to screen adaptations (hopefully done right) because it would open up such wonderful stories that are presented on stage to a wider audience. Theatre tickets are generally expensive so screen adaptations are really good to tell the story to people all over the world.

Yes I'm well aware I've had too much to say about this, but CATS is really special to me and many others so I wanted to share my feelings, good or bad.

Think what you want about the CATS movie, everyone is free to express their own opinion whether they hate it or not, all I can say is don't be nasty or hateful to anyone who is genuinely excited about this film, let them be! And don't be nasty or hateful to people who aren't excited, they just have a different view compared to you.

[him-e]

Hi, I sent the original ask about a Celibate Rey ending, I don't know what discourse came out of it, I didn't see it, but I wanted to clear the air. I didn't mean to come off dismissive of female romance/sexuality or of your ship in my ask. I understand it can be exhausting to defend your perspective over and over to people who don't want to listen, so I totally get if you thought I was baiting, though. I'm sorry for the trouble or stress this caused you.

Not asking to troll or continue the discourse, but if you don’t want to continue discussing this topic please delete this. But how can you see a valid Celibate-Rey endgame going? If IX were to end with Rey on her own and to some degree happy (Since this is Star Wars, the ending has to be at least slightly happy or hopeful) what kind of an ending would it be? If Kylo dies or survives, either/or.

Hey, no problem at all, and sorry for my snappish answer (hopefully you realized I was being part tongue-in-cheek, though). Admittedly the “better off alone/celibate” argument is something that cyclically resurfaces in other ships of mine, particularly Jaime/Brienne, which made me skittish on the whole thing, particularly when it’s tied to *female agency* buzzwords and the assumption that it’s the shippers who are arbitrarily trying to force a romance on the character, rather than it being part of the character’s canon narrative (not necessarily your case, but it’s such a popular argument against the J/B ship that I’ve developed particularly nasty anticorps for it)

So re: Celibate Jedi!Rey—

Is it a technically possible endgame for her? Totally.

Is it something I would personally be okay with and find satisfying? Well, yes, if:

a) it acknowledges and gives closure to Rey’s feelings for Ben, and viceversa. This includes admitting a degree of bittersweet in the happily ever after final picture.

Just considering the force bond alone without its romantic implications, Rey and Kylo, just the two of them, are connected on a deep intimate level. This is kind of a big deal, especially for Rey, whose familial bonds were suddenly and irrevocably severed when she was little, after which she was left completely alone with no chance to find her way back to her parents (ironically, now she has a magical tracking device in her head that allows her to communicate with another person even across galaxies. From completely alone, to never completely alone even in her own head. Big deal, indeed). 

Even if the bond is broken (because Kylo dies, or else) and no overtly romantic stuff happens between them, it will still leave a mark on Rey, an empty spot where something magical used to be that can only be partially filled with familial or “muggle” love and the purpose of a “lone” Jedi path. That she would bury Kylo (or watch him leave never to return) and immediately go to join the Resistance’s party original trilogy style as if nothing sad just happened doesn’t make a lot sense to me. In fact, it would infuriate me, as I hate when characters are written as if they had some emotion switch hidden somewhere that makes them go from sad to cheerful in the blink of an eye (and tbh TLJ, for all I liked it, already went dangerously close to that, with Rey’s jarring post-proposal cheerfulness on the Falcon during the whole Crait sequence, imo). 

So if they want to go that route, they need to be ready to tinge their happy ending with a little melancholy, otherwise I won’t find it realistic at all. This especially if Kylo dies, but also if he leaves or they are separated for whatever reason. (if Kylo lives, and redeems himself, and stays, I don’t see any reason why he and Rey should not be together, tbh. I mean it’s not like there’s still a Jedi order around dictating what Rey is or isn’t allowed to do. Like Palpatine was the Senate, she is the Jedi Order now, she can make new rules, lmao)

b) it avoids attaching moralistic implications to this choice (?) of celibacy (”that’s what I’m really meant for”, or “that’s how I’ll live my life to the fullest and be truly happy”, etc).

The figure of the Jedi in SW is, at the end of the day, a caregiver. A magical warrior/monk who essentially devotes their life to other people, denying any sort of personal ambition of satisfaction for himself (self-drive is closer to the Sith way). While the extent of this self-abnegation can be reframed and repackaged in a more “progressive” light (say Rey rebuilds a Jedi order with different rules, or just chooses a different way to be a Jedi, see above), the essence of caregiving and selflessness will probably remain untouched. It’s really funny to me that the people who want this endgame for Rey are the same one who get their panties in a twist at the thought of Rey being “reduced to an emotional caregiver” for Ben (paraphrasing some anti post I’ve read recently). The point is, Celibate!Jedi Rey wouldn’t be simply choosing friendship/family/a career over romance, she’d actually sacrifice her individual (in this case, romantic/sexual) desires in order to become a caregiver for an entire community. And this isn’t something I’d consider an especially subversive or /empowering/ endgame for a female character, quite the opposite, actually. The subtext here needs to be handed carefully, particularly if her endgame involves rebuilding some sort of Jedi school for gifted children: the risk of elevating her to a self-sacrificial virgin mother archetype would be pretty high. It can be done, and it can imply Rey will find happiness in this life, but without any sort of hamfisted *inspirational moral message for little girls*, if you know what I mean.

c) it doesn’t frame Rey’s choice not to be with Kylo specifically (if it is indeed a choice on her part and not something dictated by external forces, aka Kylo’s death or the Willabeth endgame, more on that later) in a moral(istic) perspective.

no “I can’t be with you because you have been mean to people, ewww” bullshit, thank you very much. This sounds like the ultimate anti wet dream, Rey rejecting Kylo because he’s awful, and I think we’re WAAAYYYY past it with all that happened in TLJ.

I hope this clarifies things a bit!

Another anon asked me to explain what I meant with the Willabeth endgame, and:

in POTC III Will Turner kills Davy Jones, so he has to take his place as the captain of the Flying Dutchman, which is a curse for life. He and Elizabeth (who are now married) spend a last day together on an island (during which it’s implied they fuck like rabbits and conceive a child, lmao), and then, at sunset, Will says goodbye, leaving the box containing his heart to Elizabeth, to whom he says, “will you keep it safe for me?”. It’s heartbreaking and a bit sadistic tbh but also incredibly romantic.

How does this apply to Reylo?

Well, Kylo could be 

sentenced to lifelong exile on a remote planet, or 

imprisoned for life, or 

going on exile on his own will, or 

leaving to form a new order of darksiders (or something) as he feels he has no place among the Good Guys and has Redeemed Himself But Not Really, or 

sentenced to death and then promptly freed by Rey, who urges him to leave never to return, for his own safety, or

in general, literally or metaphorically cursed to live an existence separated from Rey as a form of atonement alternative to death;

and Rey obviously can’t follow him, because she can’t and won’t abandon her place among the Resistance, and they both know this, but it doesn’t stop them for wanting each other and swearing they will wait for each other forever, cue pants-dropping emotional final goodbye scene which, while offering complete closure, leaves the possibility of a future reunion entirely possible.

Why do I think it’s a valid scenario?

it’s a good compromise between endgame Reylo and Celibate!Jedi Rey;

Kylo gets to Suffer ™, as y’all hope for;

an unwritten but very common and wise rule of storytelling (whether or not you agree with it) is that a couple who can’t be together NOW is more interesting than a couple who is Just Together and chillin’ on the sofa or something, so this endgame leaves things open enough to be further explored in hypothetical tie-in canon material (comics, novels, tv adaptations, maybe even a standalone Episode IX-bis in five or six years from now, WHO THE HELL KNOWS?);

the fanfictions would SKYROCKET; 

the force bond, if it still exists at that point, would be an INCREDIBLY convenient plot device;

Reylo Sex Island

end

[four-pages-zine-blog]

Issue 1: Tass

How long have you had your store: I started officially selling clothes after I finished college in 2013 and moved back home to the suburban midwest, so I guess 5 years now! I was working at the local newspaper at the time but was looking for an extra way to kill time, not necessarily even to make money. I started with Poshmark and loved connecting with other people who liked similar clothes, which was actually kind of rare for where I lived. I loved being able to see people showcase their own style in the form of their own closets and let people “shop their closet”. I also became really interested in clothes trading, which I like doing with my irl friends, so the fact a lot of people were willing to trade items was also really cool to me and something I hadn’t seen before.

How would you describe your shop? I think the clothes I sell are kind of more one-off like something that would be worn as a funny statement piece - I love a bright color and bold pattern, power clashing, and anything rainbow, glittery or that can incorporate faux fur in a tasteful way. It’s pretty reflective of my midwestern lifestyle and probably the clothes I consistently have the most of are windbreakers and winter coats, the main way we can express ourselves here for half of the year or more… There are a few sticker art projects I have in my store that I started doing around 2012 out of boredom when I was still in school, the most prominent one probably being the 6 foot tall Britney Spears poster that’s completely covered in (vintage) Lisa Frank stickers but never intended to actually finish or take seriously. Over the years I used sticker collaging as a way to keep my mind off things and have it be a means to add color and vibrancy to otherwise more plain posters/art.

When I first opened my shop in 2013, I made a holographic wall out of posterboards to hang my clothes on and that was my first store display on Poshmark and Etsy and always tried to have unique ways to show my clothes ever since, and to change the look of my store at least once a year. I’ve wavered between thinking having consistent “branding” is best and thinking it’s best to change as my ideas change, and have ended up going with the latter at whatever expense that has had, resulting in my store bio now being “Hi I’m Crazy Branding” lmao. The last time I re-did my store I got a mannequin from the city off Craigslist that I painted hot pink and move around my yard or put against different backdrops/bright colored walls to model the clothes. At one point I put velcro on the back of all my stuffed animals plushies and trolls and stuck them to a white wall in my apartment I was living to use as the background. I used to love to bring around solo holographic poster boards to my friends’ houses before we went out so that we could all take pictures behind them as the backdrop, portable aesthetic is essential.

What era or year is your favorite in fashion? My favorite looks are early 90s minimalistic grunge but not too minimal - Black jeans, velvet dresses, and plain tees, all of that, but then on the flip side I love the super excessive part of those eras of fashion too, like rainbow everything and floating glitter inside plastic holographic accessories. My favorite outfit of all time is something my aunt gave me from her 80s closet, it’s a long elastic teal leopard mermaid-style skirt with a matching teal leopard flowy button down shirt, all cotton and polyester. I love outfits that are completely matching like that and have been seeing that lately in brands that I follow, so I hope that sticks.

What item of clothing in the world are you lusting after or saving up for?

One of those new robot dresses that react to your moods or whatever lmao but if I’m being more realistic there is a designer who I really love that I found on Instagram who knits beaded sweaters using like thousands of different colored beads and completely covers them. They’re works of art and I would love to have one some day and be able to support an artist too! I’m definitely always lusting after new pairs of plain black pleather platform (but not too high anymore) shoes. I love the brand Hot Lava and I guess if I'm saving up for one thing it would be their "Barbed" rainbow matching bralette/pants combo.

Favorite clothing brand/brands and why? Since I usually only buy thrift for myself these days, my favorite brands are probably just based on design only but I love Discount Universe and other sequins-covered clothes or otherwise outlandish/tacky patterns, especially if they’re owned/designed/produced by women - Wacky Wacko, I have the Tabloid Dress they made a few years ago and it’s one of my favorite of all time even though I never wear it I also LOVE everything from Big Bud Press and YardSale666 in general.

What music do you like, does it play a role in your personal style? The music I listen to most now is probably "experimental pop" and growing up I loved pop punk. Both of those have affected my style and stayed with me to this day, I still wear skinny jeans and slip on Van-style shoes most often no matter what else I’ve layered on top of it. I used to like to purposely wear edgy clothes and do my hair to provoke a reaction out of people when I was younger - my brother would pass down band shirts to me that said things like “What the F*** are you looking at?” (lol) and I would cut them off into a crop top and wear it with a super long high-waisted thrifted pink and purple plaid skirt. That was definitely my go-to outfit for like an entire summer straight. I’ve always liked clothes that makes a statement even if it’s in a literal way with words, clothes with a lot of text on them, and I really like the new wave of DIY embroidery, especially on thrifted or up cycled clothes. Band tee shirts were also just like a huge part of growing up for me, buying them at shows and collecting them and wearing them all the time. Also in my shop I have a guitar that I completely stickered/bejeweled which was one of my longest running projects that I really want to make more of. It was one of my brother's old acoustic guitars that he let me completely deck out and it perfectly combines the femme pop elements I love with an actual instrument. Music and fashion are so intertwined all the time I think, and clothes/accessories are something that always stuck out to me about singers and bands too! I love how fashion plays a role in music today too and can make or break an entire aesthetic or era.

Does living in your city/state inspire you? Where are you most creative? Yes lmao living in rural suburban Illinois actually inspires me a lot and I’m probably the most happily creative here. When I lived in the city, things were a lot more stressful so it made me work on a lot of projects to distract myself, but I eventually burned out from that pretty bad. I get inspired by midwestern people but mostly in a way that most people find cringey, I mocked it more when I was younger but now try to tastefully incorporate it into my looks. State Fair Chic is inspiring to me. My mom has a lot of handpainted and iron-on sweatshirts for different holidays that are staples of my closet. Living in the midwest and being bored definitely made me thrift more and imo makes the thrifting better, it made me always be working on craft projects, and always changing my hair and style.

What things do you love to create? I think my favorite things to create are entire rooms and looks, I like to make different aesthetics through combining colors, furniture and fabrics that all feel familiar even if it’s a little chaotic. My long term project with my bedroom was turning my walls of thrifted art (with 20-30 framed pictures) into matching colored frames that fit the whole look of the room, so I guess just really getting at the details of design. I think I’m pretty tacky so I like to stick to things that embody that and will always love stickering huge projects, painting everything plain into bright colors and incorporating anything I find thrifting or in the garbage into larger art aesthetics. My favorite thing to do is thrift and upcycle clothes, furniture, wall art, lamps, etc. anything that I see “potential” in lol.

Who are some of your favorite artists?: There are a ton of artists I follow that inspire me every day, definitely just “regular” people or like more lowkey artists. People who thrift or collect and refurbish toys are amazing to me and I love the doll community on IG. Witches or people I’ve met through astrology who are creating more spiritual art inspire me every day with their words and presentations. I also love comedians and movies, I love John Early and Kate Berlant and recently saw they collaborated with Peggy Noland and Seth Bogart of Wacky Wacko so that was iconic to me.

I collaborate a lot with my brother who has done a lot of graphic design stuff for me over the years. He makes resin toys of his own and designs t-shirts. He’s great at painting and drawing, two skills I never was good at that I really appreciate in him that he is always willing to lend a hand to me. He is two years older than me and went to school for advertising so exchanging ideas and doing projects with him is something I like to do too. He also has more of a background in music production so we recently started trying to make music together. We both love combining fashion and music!

What album do you recommend to pick up ASAP? Hayley Kiyoko - Expectations, hands down the vibe for summer

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Batman Starter Pack

I’ve been through this routine once before (including the preface that I recognize there are a million other lists exactly like this on every comics-related site out there) but after having shared some starting points for Superman on Miracle Monday, I figure my second-favorite guy with his own personalized set of crime-fighting pajamas merits the same treatment on his own special day.

Assuming you’re forgoing a more traditional celebration of DC’s Batman Day - either having your parents brutally shot to death in front of your terrified, uncomprehending young eyes, or finishing your criminology degree and engaging in anonymous back-alley karate fights with circus clowns in response to the same - looking into some solid starting points for the character is a respectable alternative. Especially given some of his most classic adventures have recently come under some degree of critical reevaluation, while the likes of The Lego Batman Movie, the much-missed Batman: The Brave and the Bold, and the resurgence of the 1960s Batman TV show alongside contemporary developments in the comics have done a great deal to change the general perception of the character. So once again, here’s ten stories in a recommended - but by no means strict - order that should, as a whole, give you a pretty decent idea of what Batman’s deal is and why you should care, all of which you should be able to find pretty easily on Comixology or a local bookstore/comic book shop.

1. Batman: Zero Year

What it’s about: The current ‘canon’ take on his origin, it’s a pretty straightforward take on Bruce Wayne’s return to Gotham, early forays into crimefighting against the Red Hood Gang, and assumption of his familiar mantle...until the Riddler, a city-wrecking superstorm, and a literal bone monster get involved, culminating in a final act that has a sleeveless, dirtbike-riding Batman trying to save a post-apocalyptic Gotham whose citizens have become hopeless slaves of Edward Nygma’s merciless totalitarian riddle kingdom.

Why you should read it: This comic is bonkers, in absolutely the best way. Writer Scott Snyder has repeatedly said that since the previous major take on Batman’s origin in Year One was so iconic - to the point that, unlike Superman’s regularly refreshed history, it remained solidly in continuity for 25 years - no attempt at hitting the reset button could feasibly follow in its footsteps, and so the only way to make it work was to go as far in the opposite direction as possible, hence Dirtbike Batman and a Gotham of neon pink skies. And for all that, it works remarkably: it’s perhaps the least subtle Batman comic of all time, but it’s a solid look into what drives him, why he does what he does in the way he does it, and the beginnings of his relationships with some of his closest friends and enemies in the context of a mad, blockbuster story ranging from scraps with cops and gangsters to a race against time to literally save a city from death by fire. It is in many ways perhaps the most proudly and bluntly Batmaney Batman story of all time, the core of his world as screamed through a megaphone.

Further recommendations if you liked it: While maybe the most iconic work from their time together, Scott Snyder and Greg Capullo worked together on the main Batman title for 5 years and almost 50 issues, in arguably the most acclaimed run of Batman comics of the 21st century; I’d primarily suggest checking out Court of Owls, their first and for me best collaboration, but their entire tenure is worth your time, collected across 10 volumes. If you specifically want to indulge the off-kilter “wait, Batman’s doing what?” sensibility of Zero Year further, after his time on Batman proper Snyder wrote All-Star Batman, working with a number of iconic artists on some of his weirdest Batman comics; his later The Batman Who Laughs operates in much the same mode. If you’re mainly interested in the sort of Big Batman Event Story this and Court of Owls wrote the modern template for, Steve Orlando and companies’ Night of the Monster Men is maybe the most thoroughly entertaining example. And as a respectable recap of Batman’s life since his origins, while many longtime fans are ambivalent at best on it, Batman: Hush is an effective sampler platter of Batman’s history and relationships that’s proven enduringly popular among new readers.

2. Gotham Central

What: Set from the perspective of the grunts of the GCPD, Gotham Central shows what it means to be a cop in a city where you’re a pawn of the Bat at best, corrupt or a casualty if you’re not so lucky.

Why: Certainly the most acclaimed Batman-related ongoing ever published, there’s no book that better sells the ‘street level’ take on his world that so many want; Batman himself is largely a background presence, feared and resented by our actual leads as they go up against the incidental fallout of Gotham’s particular brand of horror. And all that’s before you even get to the Joker story that directly inspired The Dark Knight. While Gotham’s more traditional heroes may rarely show up, there’s no story that better explains why they’re needed, and what it means to live in their wake. And it’s Ed Brubaker and Greg Rucka and Michael Lark doing a cop book, so even Batman aside it’s worth your money ten times over.

Recommendations: Gotham Central may be a cop comic, but the cities’ most iconic officer in Commissioner Gordon only makes one or two appearances since he had retired at the time (an obviously temporary condition). If you really want to see him in action, you’re looking for Batman: Year One. Typically cited as one of the all-time great Batman stories - and it absolutely has some of his definitive moments and iconography - at heart it’s Lieutenant Jim Gordon’s year of figuring out how to make it in Gotham without losing his soul in the process, and it was that infusion of grim crime noir into the world of Gotham that defined the aesthetic Gotham Central operates under. If you’d like to pursue that particular line further, Batman: Turning Points is also worth hunting down, showing Batman and Gordon’s relationship develop over the years in reference to major upheavals in Batman’s world, and Batman: The Black Mirror, operating under a similar tone and showing Dick Grayson working with Gordon during the former’s own time in the cape and cowl, in a mystery connecting to both Batman: Year One and my next recommendation. Additionally, Kurt Busiek and John Paul Leon’s Batman: Creature of the Night provides an entirely different and disturbing type of ‘street-level’, ‘realistic’ view of Batman.

3. Batman: The Dark Knight Returns

What: A decade after his retirement, an unprecedented Gotham crime wave forces a middle-aged Bruce Wayne out of retirement as he proves unable to resist the call of his demons. But even as he fights back the Mutant gang and recruits a new Robin, his resurgence has caught the attention of familiar enemies, and the political shockwaves of his vigilantism will ultimately bring him face-to-face with his oldest ally in a fight he simply can’t win.

Why: Commonly held up alongside Watchmen, which is a...touch of an overstatement in hindsight, while aspects of its politics and portrayal of the Dark Knight in question have aged somewhat questionably it’s regardless a justified classic by a one-time master of the medium at the top of his form, packed from top to bottom with brilliant storytelling, jaw-dropping moments, and a redefinition of the character that not only shapes him to this day, but the superhero genre as a whole. Definitely and very reasonably not for everyone, but essential to Batman as he exists today.

Recommendations: Frank Miller’s presented numerous followups to The Dark Knight Returns, and while The Dark Knight Strikes Back and All-Star Batman & Robin The Boy Wonder are hardly lacking in lively experimental flavor or gonzo charm, they’re an acquired taste at best: if you want to see more of this version of Batman’s world, you’re safest going for The Dark Knight Returns: The Last Crusade, a one-shot portraying the events leading up to Batman’s retirement a decade before DKR. For other seminal Batman stories that either don’t quite live up to the hype or have aged questionably but are all-in-all still probably worth looking into, check Arkham Asylum: A Serious House On Serious Earth, Batman: The Long Halloween (followed up by Batman: Dark Victory) and possibly The Killing Joke.

4. Batman: Ego and other Tails

What: Before he was widely lauded for DC: The New Frontier, Darwyn Cooke was a storyboard artist for what we now know as the DCAU family of cartoons; his pitch for the job included a 14-page Batman story that years later would be edited and expanded upon to become Batman: Ego, where a catastrophic series of events leads Bruce to consider leaving his mission behind, forcing him to confront his demons more literally than ever before.

Why: Stories that question Batman’s sanity and his place in the world are a dime a dozen, but none like this, probably the deepest individual dive of all time into what exactly makes Batman tick. To say much more would spoil the amazing central conceit, but from his moral code to what he does or doesn’t give up by forgoing his life as Bruce Wayne, there are few aspects of his world this doesn’t touch on one way or another. Plus, while Ego may be the lead, the modern collection is stuffed full of other excellent Batman comics Darwyn Cooke had a hand in one way or another.

Recommendations: Most significantly, the collection also contains Selina’s Big Score, a Catwoman heist comic that leads into Ed Brubaker’s seminal run on the character, which are spread out over three trades that are absolutely worth picking up. If you’re interested in another story in the DCAU style and tone that goes into darker territory than the cartoons would typically dare, try Mad Love, the definitive Harley Quinn story. And if you want another headtrippy Batman comic that delves into his psychology, you’re looking for Death and the Maidens, intended at the time to be Batman’s final confrontation with Ra’s Al Ghul and featuring a conversation 65 years in the making.

5. Matt Wagner’s Dark Moon Rising titles

What: Eventually branded under the title of Dark Moon Rising, this series is actually made up of two six-part tales: Batman and the Monster Men and Batman and the Mad Monk, each Matt Wagner’s retelling of a classic Golden Age Batman story, from an era where the supernatural was not quite so distanced from Batman’s usual world.

Why: On a simple level, these are just some real good Batman comics; Matt Wagner’s a phenomenal fit for the character, these are nice and standalone, and Batman has to escape some deathtraps, which is always a treat. But the introduction of the truly bizarre to Batman’s world - by a standard that allows for coin-flipping disfigured District Attorneys and maladjusted widowers with freeze-rays as all part of the regular scenery, anyway - can be something of a hurdle, especially for new readers. In that regard this is a perfect introduction to the more outré side of Batman’s job, cushioning the transition with wild pulp adventure and thrilling horror in a series that feels entirely of the same world seen in the likes of Year One, even as Batman fights a vampire who is also a werewolf.

Recommendations: If you enjoyed the look at a Batman who’s still somewhat figuring out his limits and the parameters of his operation, you’re in luck, as Year One-era Batman stories formed their own effective subgenre for the character for awhile, primarily in the series Legends of the Dark Knight, which had one of the better hit-to-miss ratios for Batman ongoing titles, and Batman: The Man Who Laughs, Ed Brubaker and Doug Mahnke’s take on his first encounter with the Clown Prince of Crime. If the pulpy noir approach is what appealed, I’d say you might be in the market for Batman: Strange Apparitions, the collection of Steve Englehart and Marshall Rogers’ highly influential 1977-1978 tenure on Detective Comics (plus a preceding couple issues by Englehart drawn by Walter Simonson, and a couple issues by Rogers without Englehart), a major step on the road to Batman as he exists today which also featured the - at the time - unexpected return of one of the Golden Age villains Wagner features.

6. Nightwing: Better Than Batman

What: Under the thumb of the Parliament of Owls, the Courts’ international equivalent - if with more up his sleeve than they expect - Nightwing finds himself in deeper than he ever could have imagined as he falls under the ‘mentorship’ of the mercenary Raptor, who not only leaves Dick questioning lessons he had previously taken as gospel, but tumbling down a rabbit hole through his own past that threatens to destroy the life he’s built for himself in the present.

Why: There’s no comprehensive look at Batman that doesn’t involve the family he’s built for himself, and this in my mind is the definitive story of the original Robin. Touching on his heritage, his early days as the Boy Wonder, his modern MO as a dashing international superhero with a pinch of espionage, and his connections with the rest of his crime-fighting family, the heart of the story is his relationship with Bruce: their days as Batman and Robin, their differing methods and ideologies, the complications stemming from their distinct backgrounds, and how their brotherhood ultimately saved them both. More than any other single book it underlines the foundation of what makes Dick Grayson work, and by extension the entire concept of the Batman Family.

Recommendations: Better Than Batman is the most compact and satisfying example of what defines Robin and the Batman Family as a whole, but if you’d prefer something more expansive in scope, Batman and Robin Eternal touches on many of the some ideas. For both a solid look back at Dick’s career back when wearing pixie boots, as well as the origin of one of the other two major templates for Batman’s sidekicks, Robin/Batgirl: Year One collects a pair of cult classic stories, Batgirl in particular being the one to check out. As for the third, while Jason Todd’s most iconic story is unquestionably Death in the Family, its actual quality hardly lives up to its enduring imagery and impact; you’ll be best served looking at his return from the grave in Batman: Under The Hood. Alfred’s the other major foundation of the family, and for him I’d probably recommend the soon-to-conclude All-Star Batman arc The First Ally. As for the rest of the family, for hitting the most members in one package I’d recommend James Tynion IV’s run on Detective Comics - beginning with the trade Rise of the Batmen - which returns or recontextualizes a number of fan-favorite characters under an umbrella of incredibly solid Batman Family adventure stories.

7. Paul Dini’s Detective Comics

What: Collected across Batman: Detective, Batman: Death and the City, Batman: Private Casebook, and Batman: Heart of Hush, Paul Dini - one of the main architects of Batman: The Animated Series, and much of the later DCAU as well - serves up a run of almost uniformly excellent, largely done-in-one Batman adventure stories.

Why: Iconic storylines may draw attention to a character, but the brick and mortar of the greats is laid on a foundation of just plain good comics, month-in and month-out, and there are few better examples for Batman than with Dini’s tenure on Detective Comics, especially with the likes of J.H. Williams, Don Kramer and Dustin Nguyen in tow. They may not be stories that redefined the character for a new generation, but they’re simply and unassailably Quality Comics of a sort rarely achieved.

Recommendations: For a more old-school example of the same principle, Denny O’Neil and Neal Adams’ classic tenure on the character is as good as it gets, featuring the likes of The Joker’s Five-Way Revenge - the first comic since his earliest appearances in the 1940s to portray him as the killer clown we know today - and the first appearance of Ra’s Al Ghul. The multiple spinoff comics of Batman: The Animated Series such as the multiple iterations of Batman Adventures and Batman: Gotham Adventures also have a solid hit-to-miss ratio in that regard. And if you’re interested in more of Paul Dini’s Batman comics, Batman: City of Crime with Alex Ross is one of the characters’ all-time great stories, and Dark Night: A True Batman Story with Eduardo Risso is a powerful autobiographical piece on how Dini’s life and work collided in his darkest hour.

8. The Greatest Batman Stories Ever Told

What: Exactly what it sounds like, this trade collects standout Batman stories from across the first 50 years of his history.

Why: The trouble with comics is that not all of a characters’ best material is necessarily in individual trades, or single runs - just stick to those and you’ll miss out on some stone-cold classics. There have been plenty of collections attempting to gather up the ‘best of the rest’ to rectify that though, and of those I’d particularly recommend the edition above, filled from top-to-bottom with not only delightful artifacts like The Batman Nobody Knows! and A Caper a Day Keeps the Batman at Bay!, but definitive stories such as The Autobiography of Bruce Wayne! and Death Strikes at Midnight and Three.

Recommendations: For a similarly charming - though I believe far more difficult to track down - retrospective, Batman from the 30′s to the 70′s is certainly worth picking up if you ever happen to see it around. If you find older Batman stories appeal, it’s worth checking out both The Batman Chronicles, collecting his earliest appearances in the 30s and 40s, as well as Showcase Presents: Batman with his 60s adventures, and perhaps the more recent run Batman ‘66, a direct continuation of the Adam West/Burt Ward TV series. You might also be interested in The Brave and the Bold #200, featuring a 'teamup' of sorts between the Batmen of two eras. If what mainly appeals to you is the thrill and comic value of seeing Batman in bizarre situations you’d never see now, Showcase Presents: The Brave and the Bold might be your speed, containing Bob Haney and Jim Aparo’s madcap tenure, as well as Neal Adams’ relatively recent lunatic masterpiece Batman: Odyssey.

9. Planetary/Batman: Night on Earth

EDIT: This list was written prior to allegations made against Warren Ellis. It’s your money, but while I’d still recommend checking the book out of the library - the quality of the work isn’t going to change now that it’s out there in the universe - if you’re looking to pad your bookshelf I might recommend skipping to some of the books suggested below in its place.

What: “Mystery archaeologists” Jakita Wagner, Elijah Snow and The Drummer are a group of superhumans investigating beneath the skin of the Wildstorm universe to uncover the wonders and terrors lurking in its darkest corners. On a trip to Gotham City to apprehend serial killer John Black, his own abilities trigger when cornered to rotate them all through different realities...and in other versions of Gotham, they find they’re not the only ones looking to bring Black to justice.

Why: Planetary built itself on distilling artifacts of 19th and 20th century pop culture (typically by proxy) down to their most essential ideas and iconic values as mysteries to be unveiled, whether 1920s pulp heroes, Godzilla, Sherlock Holmes, 80s and 90s Vertigo comics, James Bond, John Woo revenge flicks, or any of a dozen others. While the other two Planetary crossovers break with formula, this applies it to the biggest modern 20th century icon of all, as a group of hardened Warren Ellis-y superbeings entirely unfamiliar with the concept of ‘Batman’ are forced to run a gauntlet of over 60 years of his most iconic takes when their versions of justice collide. As far as I can tell regarded as a footnote in Batman’s own history, it’s regardless one of his all-time greatest stories, extrapolating him in every direction at once to find the core that unites them all, topping it off with the no-shit best Batman moment of all time.

Recommendations: Most obviously, soon as of the time of this writing Warren Ellis will be tackling a full-scale Batman project alongside longtime collaborator Bryan Hitch, The Batman’s Grave, which I couldn’t be more excited for and obviously recommend checking out. For other stories taking a particularly off-kilter look at Batman and his world, whether through unusual styles or with versions of the character entirely unlike anything ever known, you’ll want to check out the trades of Batman: Black and White, an anthology running as a backup through numerous Batman titles eventually collected in trade, showing a gauntlet of top creators doing their own brief takes on Batman and his world, kicking off no less with another Ellis-written Batman story that powerfully sums up his drive. If you’re looking for something more specifically in the vein of Night on Earth though - a stripped-down, iconic Batman that acknowledges the odder parts of his history and confronts deep emotional truths about himself amidst high-action spectacle - then the current run on Batman proper by Tom King and company is something I’d certainly recommend checking out on the understanding it comes with ups and downs. 

10. Batman: The Black Glove

What: From his great lost love to family he’s never known, from the basement of the GCPD to the bowls of Arkham, from the secrets of the past to the horrors of the future, from the ends of the Earth to the inside of his mind, the grip of Batman’s greatest enemy reaches wherever his shadow falls. Collected variously as Batman and Son and Batman: The Black Glove, Bruce Wayne finds himself matched against a seemingly disconnected series of challenges ultimately pointing towards the machinations of a greater threat; one that has constructed his downfall across decades, weaponizing his own mind and history against him as they build towards breaking the Batman once and for all.

Why: These issues are the start of the best Batman comics of all time. They’re absolutely fantastic all on their own, make no mistake; the first arc introduces one of the most significant Bat-family characters of all time, The Clown At Midnight is a criminally underrated classic, and Club of Heroes has J.H. Williams III drawing what amounts to 7 Batmen and 3 Robins being trapped in the plot of And Then There Were None. But more than that, these issues lay the foundation of a 7-year run by Grant Morrison built around mysteries that reach across every facet of Batman’s world, which not only reinvents him as a character, but is frankly and simply the best sustained run on a major superhero of all time. This should by no means be the first Batman comic you ever read, but make no mistake: everything leads to this.

Recommendations: Well, for one thing there’s the rest of the run. Before moving on, you may if possible want to check out Batman: The Black Casebook, a collection of numerous Golden and Silver Age comics that Morrison drew on significant plot and thematic elements of for his work, and Dark Knight Dark City, a supernatural thriller and one of the best Batman-as-detective comics out there which ends up forming much of the spine of some of Morrison’s biggest developments. From there, the rest of his run is collected across Batman R.I.P. > Batman and Robin: Batman Reborn > Time and the Batman > Batman vs. Robin > Return of Bruce Wayne > Batman and Robin Must Die! > Batman Incorporated > Batman Incorporated: Demon Star > Batman Incorporated: Gotham’s Most Wanted. 

While much of the impact of the run was immediately dismantled (in large part by Morrison himself, who’s had similar experiences in the past and wanted to show the ideas he introduced off on his own terms here), slowly but surely creators are coming around to what he was doing and have followed up accordingly. Grayson - one of the most beloved DC titles of the last several years - follows the original Robin as he infiltrates the superspy agency Spyral introduced in Batman Incorporated, and leads directly into the previously mentioned current excellent run on Nightwing, which itself has a direct sequel to Morrison’s Bat-tenure in the arc Nightwing Must Die! The major DC event book Dark Nights: Metal by the team behind Batman: Zero Year is itself a direct sequel to several of Morrison’s biggest DC stories, his Batman run most of all. Morrison himself at one point announced plans for Arkham Asylum 2, which rather than following up on his graphic novel Arkham Asylum: A Serious House On Serious Earth is apparently a direct sequel to his Batman epic starring Damian Wayne as the Dark Knight; hopefully it will one day see fruition. Finally, if you’re simply looking for something on a similar wavelength of bizarre, lurid international pulp mystery mixed with wild fist-pumping superhero action and character moments, the ongoing crossover Batman/The Shadow - soon to end and be directly followed-up by The Shadow/Batman with the same writer - is easily one of the best of its kind of cross-company team up and absolutely a descendant of the type of Batman comics Morrison’s tenure produced.

[bestbuyhours1000]

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functions, it's essential to comprehend the motivation behind why the vast majority put on weight, in any case, is a direct result of carbs – carbs aren't extraordinary!

As indicated by the nutritionists that made this outrageous 'Keto' diet plan, "our members are just permitted to eat 20 grams in a day. A few people on keto follow a net-carb plan (deduct the grams of fiber from a food's all out carbs) and are permitted to eat more carbs in a day.

The prominence of keto has been soaring in the course of recent years so it's no big surprise that it was incorporated as one of the eating regimens on ITV's Save Money: Lose Weight, Health & Fitness, Fat Burn a famous arrangement wherein various eating regimens are looked at dependent on their adequacy.

The Keto Diet dependent on my Keto All Day Cookbook

XLS Meal Replacement Plan

The Detox Diet Radical Metabolism

The Vegan Diet

Calorie-Controlled Plan Pinch of Nom

Try not to consider it until you've attempted it! Did you realize that eating just 25 grams of carbs a day is hard? All things considered, just by taking the Slimfast Keto for 28-day Ketosis Diet Plan challenge you will be set on a high-fat and low-carb diet.

A ketogenic diet, AKA a

Slimfast Keto Challenge

, is basically a truly low-carb however high in fat eating regimen, in which your body is constrained into creating more ketones in the liver.

It's these ketones that are utilized for vitality.

The odds are you've in any event knew about the Keto Diet, or maybe you've heard it referenced under one of its different pretenses, for instance, a low-carb diet, a low-carb high-fat eating regimen, or just the last's abbreviation the LCHF diet.

At the point when you eat anything with a high carb content, your body promptly responds and creates glucose and insulin.

The insulin that is emitted into your body is created to help process the glucose in the circulation system and convey it to where it needs to circumvent your body.

At the point when your body utilizes glucose as the main wellspring of vitality, it likewise implies that your fats aren't required.

28 Days Custom Ketosis Diet Plans

The

Slimfast Keto Challenge

isn't just an ordinary eating routine; It's a lifestyle - and something that many have discovered incredible achievement - from superstars to wellness models, your neighbors ... so you can eat everything. your preferred things.

The Keto 28 Day Challenge is an online guide that goes about as your emotionally supportive network, sustenance mentor, and weight reduction master to proceed onward to the keto way of life to get the best condition of your life and accomplish. ideal wellbeing.

28 Days Custom Ketosis Diet Plans As a dietitian, my patients get some information about a wide assortment of diets. One arrangement has overwhelmed the requests of late: the ketogenic diet. Since I've never put a patient on a careful nutritional plan I haven't attempted myself, I realized I expected to encounter it by and by. I dove in for 28 days with two carb-adoring feet and a mix of anxiety, Energetic & inspiration.

The 28-Day Keto Challenge gives a particular and complete arrangement for the 28-day keto diet. Presently, you may be asking why the show just takes 28 days and that is on the grounds that it takes around three weeks to frame a propensity. So toward the finish of the 28-Day Keto Challenge, you will have the option to proceed with this sound way of life change effects on the grounds that this will be a propensity.

Be that as it may, I won't surrender. I am going to cause the best of the food I get effectively and accomplish my objective weight regardless. While structuring my Indian Keto diet plan I have remembered some basic focuses:

Carbs and calorie separate for every dinner

Basic food thoughts, that are anything but difficult to cook and store

Suppers that can be conveyed to work

28-Day Keto Challenge is a famous eating style that is frequently hailed as the most beneficial supper plan for the human psyche and body. By wiping out high carbs or awful carbs from your eating regimen and eating more solid fats.

The best bit of leeway that they have, is that they can get any food examine its scanner tag, feed the information in any wellness application, and structure their eating regimen plan. In any case, in India, it is quite difficult. I live in a modest community in India, where it is a tough undertaking to secure food that is low in carb and sugarfree. For instance, before going on Keto, I had never known about almond flour or chia seeds. No almond flour is accessible inside 190 km of where I despite everything live. Also, the expense of chia seeds is comparable to a couple of silver loops.

28 Day Keto Challenge Review — Most individuals on another eating regimen have no arrangement. They realize what to eat and not to eat. They attempt new plans…

Yet, they DO NOT have a day by day intend to help them through the basic first month.

Without an arrangement, it's anything but difficult to succumb to peer pressure… to be ill-equipped… and to settle on terrible choices.

At the point when you structure an Indian

Slimfast Keto Challenge

plan for yourself, remember the cooking time and the timeframe of the realistic usability of the food. My eating regimen plan remembers dairy for the type of cheddar and paneer and utilization of stevia as the regular sugar. I surrendered dairy totally in light of the fact that milk is wealthy in lactose and can cause slowing down.

Without a doubt, you may need to change over certain elements for more advantageous other options yet you don't need to deny yourself or go through days tallying calories.

Thus, all things considered, that ONE slip-up is having no arrangement set up. Today I present to you an unmistakable arrangement. And afterward guided in excess of 416,387 fruitful individuals! It was the 28 Day Keto Challenge. Just follow this arrangement and you will succeed.

Ketosis Slimfast Fitness Challenge For Beginners

It's known as the "Learners Ketosis Slimfast Fitness Challenge for Beginners Course" and it's a Course that incorporates all that you have to Beginners, regardless of whether you don't understand anything about

Slimfast Keto Challenge

, or on the off chance that you are taking the test solo.

You won't have to invest energy conceptualizing dinner thoughts and testing plans… I've done it for you. Presently you can watch me as I find a way to changing your attitude for progress.

This month, I need to assist you with committing to your keto consume fewer calories AND appreciate delectable, solid suppers with your loved ones.

Regardless of whether it's preparing up heavenly suppers, or acing the fast and simple lunch pack, you'll get all that you have to assume the job of ace gourmet specialist

I get this inquiry from individuals on an about regular routine. A way of life change can be unimaginably overwhelming, and individuals are regularly so overpowered with clashing data, they don't have the foggiest idea where to begin.

All things considered, as the name would recommend, the keto diet depends on the possibility that the eating routine enables your body to create particles called "ketones" from your put away fat.

At the point when your body is fuelled by a keto diet, it changes from utilizing glucose as its vitality source to consume fat all the more proficiently. At the point when you bring down your dietary starches, you start to utilize your glycogen stores and lower your insulin levels (the vitality stockpiling hormone).

You know what I state to that? Take care of the business. That's right, much the same as the Nike advertisement. Do what needs to be done, and don't think back.

Each second that you put off beginning is one more day you put off your wellbeing. So you have to hop in and begin. Indeed, even if you don't do it consummately as it so happens, you've made the dedication and you're one bit nearer.

At the point when you are fuelled by ketones, you experience more steady vitality levels, improved temperament, diminished appetite, decreased irritation, and mind-blowing mental clearness. No more evening vitality droops!

In the long run,

Slimfast Keto Challenge

it turns out to be natural. In any case, toward the start, it requires some serious energy and exertion, and you may have a couple of stumbles en route. Furthermore, that is alright – we were all there once. Simply continue getting back on that horse.

At the point when you keep your carb levels low and your body begins consuming loads of fat for fuel (rather than sugar), ketones are made.

This state is classified as "wholesome ketosis".

These ketones go about as an unimaginably spotless vitality hotspot for your body and cerebrum. They likewise perform significant 'flagging' undertakings, such as hosing interminable aggravation.

You would then be able to accomplish stable lower blood glucose levels and your body will change from being a sugar burner to a fat eliminator.

So how are you feeling, Hope you liked it, If you have any type of information, you can contact us on Best Buy Hours & also comment true to your problem say it we are always connected to your service.

Keep Share & Comment

Thank You

[beatsfortheillperth]

Words with mvnitou

mvnitou out of Vienna, Austria is an artist that has embodied a sound that shifts and plays with expression in a manner likened to the weather. With keys that dabble like a breeze and drums that shift and alter like a storm, rolling of jazzy tones for days, sometimes laced with hip hop tweaks and bap. mvnitou's musical storm will add audio allure to anyone's personal playlist.

For mvnitou is a musician who is a master of his craft. Working musical storylines with his beat-tapes "SWEET EARTH" and "ASSORTED BEATS VOL. 5" both which show the range mvnitou's sound can carry, with taste and selection, ears will retreat on these freshly dusted treats.

Working single releases in a way that encourages listeners to tune in to all mvnitou beats instead of one and delivering variety with releases through labels and collectives such as Pueblo Vista and Lakeside.

Beats for rain and shine, indoors or out, mvnitou is a beatsmith who is capturing elements of sound that mimic the way nature can interact with the soul, satisfying the musical appetites of social hermits and beat appreciators worldwide.

Pleasing the mind and offering an escape from the day to day. mvnitou should be one of the beat-makers you peep for a catalog of all things Ambient, Hip-hop, and Jazz. It must be said that mvnitou sound soothes and shares something slightly romantic about music. The relationship between its creator and its listeners can encourage a following that shares a common interest and in this regard, it's a will to chill.

And sometimes memorable things happen when our surroundings are balanced, something you will be served with this beat-smith. Balance, delicate basslines, and taste beyond measure. Unwind and take in the words of the Austrian wonder, mvnitou. Much Love.

Hey mvnitou, thanks for taking the time to share words.

I thought we'd start things off with some random generals.

Favourite Food: Falafel

Favourite Beverage: Coffee

Last track you listened to: don dose – rauchen (on soundcloud)

Views on Gardening: I would love to have a garden. Unfortunately, I am limited to indoor plants 

A childhood memory in regards to music: I have some vague memories of the old music studio my father worked in. When I was three or four I really liked to play in the room with all the acoustic foam in it.

Views on the power of positive thinking: I like to see things just how they appear. Therefore, I would say I see things more realistic than optimistic.

A track to chill to: Good Old Days – Emapea

A track to bounce to: Who Got Da Props – Black Moon

First Album you purchased: Eminem - The Slim Shady LP

Last track or Album you purchased: snares – short stories tape

Favourite Location: In front of my DAW / Altes AKH

A quote or saying that connects with you:

„Die Philosophen haben die Welt nur verschieden interpretiert; es kommt aber darauf an, sie zu verändern.“

The philosophers have only interpreted the world, in various ways; the point is to change it.

-Karl Marx

Thanks for that man, So how long have you been making beats?

Were you encouraged by someone to give it a go or was it a personal pursuit?

I started producing about 8 years ago. I was mainly producing EDM-Music in the beginning. After 3 to 4 years I began to explore the world of hip-hop which, as you can see, impacted my aim for producing.

My father was a producer himself and had a music studio. After some time, he introduced me to the world of music production, which immediately got me interested. 

After that, I would say my personal pursuit and my drive to make even better music motivates me to this day.

What does your name mvnitou mean and represent?

For someone that hasn't heard your music before, can you express what makes your sound?

Manitou refers to a great spirit and describes a form of a higher being by Algonquian traditions. 

I found this very inspiring and wanted to transcribe this imagination of a higher force into my music.

I would also describe my sound as very diversified. 

My music is ranging from fast to slow, from a chilled vibe to fierce beats, while maintaining my approach on hip-hop beats.

Amongst the commotion that can come with a pandemic, you were able to piece together a collection of beats in just a week for your tape "together in isolation". I loved this tape. With its velvet-smooth introduction, bound in the bassline of it's following track.

What follows is soulful expressions, gat love affairs, and bounce followed by a dark and slightly sinister end track that is smothered in that sound hip hop heads love. Thank you for this tape.

Will there be a physical release made available for "together in isolation"?

What was the week you made "together in isolation" like for you?

And what inspired the tracks in the beat-tape?

Thank you for your kind words! This tape won’t be available as tape/physical release unless there would be a major demand for it.

The week I produced this tape was actually very hard and uncomfortable. I like to be free mentally and physically all the time, so the consequences of this “crisis” were very hard for me at first.

There was no theme I have followed with these beats; they really just came together in this said week.

Let's talk about one of your recent single releases, that came out just over a month ago through Gold Coast-based collective - Lakeside Collective (https://soundcloud.com/lakesidecollective) called "fragments" it is such a chilling track, thank you for this one.

On this release, you collaborated with lofi wonder - đon C (https://soundcloud.com/danieldonc), and like I said, the result was a chilling ode to creative expression.

You worked seamlessly together on "fragments", much love. Can you share how this Lakeside release came about? Had you and đon C previously worked together or was it a new creative relationship?

What was "fragments" like for you to make? What was it like to work with đon C on this track? And finally what were you collectively trying to express with this release?

This was actually the first track we produced together. 

We have known each other for a while but weren’t been able to cook something up together.

Don C , as I know, likes the work mainly with the Roland SP 404. I sent him some loops I had chopped/created and a week later I almost had the finished track from him.

This collab was just one of many to follow.

Staying amongst your recent releases, I have to mention your 2 track project "Orbit" released April 10th. The featured tracks are lush and both "Orbit" and "Way Back" play off one another in a layback sort of notion to galactic vibes and bumps, appreciated. Why the name "Orbit"? What was playing on your mind when you create these two tracks? And what did you enjoy most about putting this release together?

I can’t give you an exact answer there. I produced this track many weeks ago and just found it sitting lonely on my hard drive. The feeling and the atmosphere this track creates reminds me of outer space. 

Therefore, the name orbit.

The special thing about this release is that it shows the two main styles I am following while producing beats. Orbit features mainly my melodies and contains just a few samples. Way Back is more on the sampled side with a focus on creative ways to manipulate the used samples.

You're a part of Lakeside Collective that I mentioned is based on the Gold Coast, Australia. Lakeside is dropping some seriously sweet tunes and I discovered your music through the track "Anakin" that you produced for Lakeside founder and Rapper Yzl.

Your work on this track was impeccable and Emphasize, Yzl and yourself together produced a sound unblemished, much love and thank you for your other releases for Lakeside as well.

"Liquid Motion" and "Essentials" are two Lakeside releases from separate Volumes that contrast one another beautifully. Whether intentional or not, you did so in such a fluent manner, nice work.

How did you link up with Lakeside Collective in the first place? What do you feel the collective is trying to share through music? And what were the following tracks like to make? Finally, what inspired their creation and names?

I think I joined Lakeside about two years ago. I can't really remember the process or what motivated me to link up, but it was really one of the best decisions I've made in my music career. 

The dudes over at Lakeside are very supportive and always gave me valuable feedback on my music and helped me to get better and grow as an artist. The collective is releasing mainly chillhop/lofi beats but there are no strict boundaries. 

The main focus of the collective is to help other producers in production and growth and to give them a place to share their music.

Anakin: This is one of my favorite tracks I have produced. It features a dark, grimy sample that was just a perfect fit for some bars of a dope vocal artist. 

No wonder Yzl hit me up and wanted to rap over it, as he is a fan of this type of beats. Maybe we can see another collab with me and him in the future.

For the decision on the name, you need to ask Yzl about that one.

Liquid Motion: I can’t really remember the process of producing the track. (Maybe because I am a “fast producer” – most of my beats are “done” in about 2 hours max -).

 All I can say is that it fits the whole vibe of Volume 2 and is a nice addition.

Essentials: Same like above. I think this beat is almost 3 years old, therefore I am listening to it with “new” ears. There are some things I would do differently today. But it’s a sweet little bump I like to hear every now and then.

Tell us a little bit about Austria and your culture? What is it like to live in Vienna? Food and lifestyle and such? Finally, does the community and culture in Vienna reflect on your music?

This is a difficult question for me because I loathe national identification of any kind and form. Explaining the reasons for that would take too much time and misses the aim for this interview.

Nevertheless, I am grateful to live in a beautiful city with countless green and remote places. Food-wise, Vienna is not the best place to live in. (for me at least). I am a much bigger fan of eastern cuisine, which I also like to cook with my girlfriend at home.

In my mind I feel all music is influenced by the environment an artist lives in. Therefore yes, I think the culture and community do reflect on my music.

Thanks for that, So I wanted to spend a bit of time on another release of yours. "Belegte Beats" released last year. It is a musical escape in its self. Thank you for this 18 track project. There is so much variety present in this release and the drums drew me in on every track. The change-ups as the album played made this a genuine cope for versatile ears. "Unknown" had beautifully daunting vocals finished with this necessary pause that allowed "Free" to come through aged and chilling, something I love about the lofi tweaks you make in your music.

With restraint, you pieced together something that I feel shows the possibilities available to beat-smiths when they find their niche. Special mention to your tracks "Relieve" and "Good Night ". If you're looking for ideal study and laxing tracks check these two out.

On the topic of this project as a whole, what was it like to create? And over what timeframe were you working on it?

When KADV (kick a dope verse) hit me up with the opportunity to release my first physical tape I was so stocked. The process of producing the tracks took place in summer 2018 where I locked myself in and produced every day for about 2 to 3 weeks till I was satisfied with 18 tracks, which you can hear today.

 BTW: The tape got re-pressed and is available for purchase again.

Can you breakdown what your favourite tracks from this release mean to you as their creator? What inspired their creation? And finally what it was like to put each track together?

As I already mentioned in the previous answer, the process of producing all 18 tracks took place in summer nearly two years ago. Therefore, I can’t really break down all the tracks. In the gap from back then to now, I would estimate that I produced nearly 200 beats or so.

Furthermore, there are many things I would change today, or things I could do better now. Nonetheless, I want to highlight my favorites from this release:

Free: Unfortunately, I forgot which sample I used for this beat. I really like the chops I have used and the brushes in the background which gives the track a nice atmosphere and emphasizes the drum rhythm.

Chip: I love how I treated the sample with the effects and the modulation of it. A really grimy/jazzy mixture I am more than proud of.

Back on the mvnitou singles bandwagon, I have to mention your track "Buzzy Nights" a collaboration that you created with Axian, a beat-smith that blends into creation some truly dreamy tracks just like yourself - link to Axian's Spotify below.

(https://open.spotify.com/artist/3sdeNhCYLAMuRVsJPMNYO6)

How did this creative collab come about? And what sound and expression were you going for with "Buzzy Nights"?

Axian messaged me and offered me to collab on a track, which filled me with ambition and joy. 

I laid the melody down and sent it over to Axian, who added all the nice background sounds and a beautiful saxophone melody, This gave the track the theme of a buzzy night in a foreign country. All in all, this was one of the best collabs I have ever been part of. Shoutout to Axian 

You also teamed up with Austria based taste blending curator and collective "Pueblo Vista". The track you put together for Pueblo Vista is "gift" created for the "Last Summer: Lo-Hop Essentials" compilation and its name speaks for its self. Its dreamy vocals and sweet night-time vibes are a present to all ears, thank you for your contribution to this compilation that features other musical talents such as Naif, Enkae and n o r m a l.

Magic was made with this Pueblo Vista release, nice work to all involved. What inspired the name gift? And how did you go about putting "gift" together? Finally, what did you think of Last Summer as a whole?

(Link to the Last Summer Compilation: https://open.spotify.com/album/1NeN0rEtlqF802p4EFLfe5)

Gift was the first track which got released on all digital platforms. 

To this day I'm still releasing my music mostly only on Soundcloud. 

This track was well-received on Spotify and I got really nice comments on this beat. This track is quite old, due to that it's hard for me to recall the titling of this track.

In last summer I was visiting Greece two times, where I found much inspiration and relaxation for myself. On top of that and having my laptop with me I was able to produce some beats there.

On the subject of collaborations. What draws you in about a creative that makes you want to build an artistic relationship?

In the past what has been enjoyable for you during collabs and what have you found challenging about blending your works with other creatives?

I really love working with other people. What I really love and what drives me to build an artistic relationship is, when I am learning something new. 

Everyone I have worked with has a different method and approach to producing music, which can be extremely inspiring. 

That’s why I am always keen to work with other creative people because you can’t foretell what the end product going to be like.

You have also put together your first Drumkit Sample Pack - "MVNITOU DRUMKIT Vol.1" yet another way you've let loose and shared your creativity with the beat community, much love. Packed with snares and all, this was a release that I thought showed another side to your craft, appreciated.

What encouraged the idea to give a drum-kit a go? and what was it like to get a positive response? Can you explain what this project was like to put together?

Many drumkits you can buy on the internet are lacking quality. Especially when you are searching for dusty 90s style or Lofi Drums. My motivation for releasing a drumkit was to give aspiring beat producers a quality kit with sounds, which were made for instant use.

On top of that, I was really trying hard to screw on a effect-chain which you can easily load up on FL Studio that emulates the popular and often replicated SP404 “Lofi” – Effect.

What is next for mvnitou and do you have any upcoming releases, shows, or creative projects you would like to share?

In the upcoming weeks there are many releases from me. 4 singles will be available for streaming in May. 

In June I can proudly announce that my second physical tape will get released with KADV. This one is more Boom Bap orientated, so keep an eye out for that.

Also last week my little ep “State Of No-Mind” with broken flavor got uploaded on Soundcloud. 

The Ep is available on all streaming platforms on 16th May.

Thank you for that. Can you recommend creatives from any field that you feel people should check out?

There are many people I want you to check out, as they make great music and definitely inspire me.

Figub Brazlevič https://soundcloud.com/figubbrazlevic

Wun Two: https://soundcloud.com/wun-two

Devaloop: https://soundcloud.com/devaloop

Made in M: https://soundcloud.com/madeinm

Upper Class: https://soundcloud.com/upperclasslofi

ESC: https://soundcloud.com/esckkrpsdlkkt

Broken Flavor: https://soundcloud.com/bflavorrrr

Audi Bamer: https://soundcloud.com/audi-bamer

Any Last Words?

Thank you again for the opportunity!

Since I am not a big fan of posting personal stuff on social media (lazy/ cant see the sense of it) this Interview is a great way to get to know the person behind mvnitou better. Thank you for that!

Support mvnitou Here:

Soundcloud - https://soundcloud.com/mvnitou

Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/mvnitoulofi/

Bandcamp - https://mvnitou.bandcamp.com/

Website - https://mvnitou.pw/

[adjameson]

Like a lot of people my age, I just missed out on seeing the original Star Wars movies in the theater. Instead, I grew up with them on VHS. And right around when I was really getting into them, in 1986, Star Wars went away.

Which perplexed me at the time. Why did Star Wars disappear in the mid 1980s? And why did it come back, and come back differently, starting in 1991? These questions haunted me so much, I eventually wrote a book about the subject: I Find Your Lack of Faith Disturbing: Star Wars and the Triumph of Geek Culture. Because it’s an interesting story, I’ll explain what happened in this series of blog posts.

Let’s start by going back to the beginning. The first Star Wars film came out in 1977, and was followed by two sequels: The Empire Strikes Back (1980), and Return of the Jedi (1983). Because they were big hits, they spawned a lot of peripheral products. For instance, there was the Star Wars Holiday Special, which aired on 17 November 1978.

There were also Star Wars comic books, published by Marvel, and featuring characters like Jaxxon, a giant green rabbit.

In ’84 and ’85, respectively, there were two television movies starring the Ewoks: Caravan of Courage: An Ewok Adventure …

… and Ewoks: Battle for Endor.

In addition to Ewoks, the latter film featured Teek, an annoying alien who pestered Wilford Brimley.

And there were cartoon shows, like Droids and Ewoks, which first aired on 7 September 1985.

Droids didn’t last all that long, ending in June 1986. Ewoks made it to the end of the year, wrapping up on 13 December.

As you can see, there were a lot of Star Wars tie-in products released between ’77 and ’86. But after 1986, there was … nothing. The movies, the TV shows, the comics—as well as the action figures—they all came to an end. (In fact, the toy line, beloved by children at the time, ceased production in ’85.) When the Ewoks cartoon went off the air in December 1986, that was it. The following four and half years were Star Wars free.

At the time, I couldn’t understand it. Wasn’t Star Wars the biggest thing ever? Weren’t there going to be more movies, more toys, more comics, more TV series? How could something like that go away, disappear, less than ten years after it started? Weren’t they even going to mark the ten-year anniversary of the release of the first movie?

No. The four-plus years that followed were the Dark Times …

Of course, as we all know today, that wasn’t the end of the story. Star Wars returned in May 1991, with the publication of Timothy Zahn’s novel Heir to the Empire.

  It was followed by two more novels, and then dozens more, going on to become what was known (at the time) as the Star Wars Expanded Universe.

Meanwhile, in December of that year, Dark Horse Comics picked up where Marvel had left off, publishing the miniseries Dark Empire.

Just like with Zahn’s novels, this opened the floodgates, and led to a great many more Star Wars comics.

There were also Star Wars video games: Star Wars for the Nintendo in ’91 (finally!), then Super Star Wars in ’92 for the SNES. Both of those games got sequels, and the following year saw the release of X-Wing, which led to a whole line of Star Wars-themed flight simulators for PCs.

And that’s not all! There was also a series of technical guidebooks, the Essential Guides, which started in 1995, giving fans a wealth of information about the franchise’s weapons, vehicles, planets, aliens, and more.

All of those product lines were successful, and are, more or less, still in production today (though some of them changed publishers, and some of them changed form—the Essential Guides, for instance, were supplanted by the Wookieepedia). Unlike the Ewok movies and Droids cartoon, they didn’t fade away.

What’s more, looking back now, it’s easy to see that the 1990s products were categorically different from the stuff released between 1978–1986. All of that old merchandising was aimed at kids. And a lot of it was goofy, looking to us today out of character for Star Wars. Most of it’s been forgotten, and if it’s remembered today, it’s mostly considered campy, or cringe-inducing.

So what happened? Why did Star Wars disappear, and why did it come back? And why did it change when it came back?

The obvious answer is that the kiddie Star Wars fans (like me) were growing up. But I couldn’t help but think there was more to the story. Because adults had been into Star Wars, too, back in the 1970s—everyone had liked it. (That’s what made it such a hit!)

It’s important to understand that, back when Star Wars first came out, it appealed to three different groups—three different demographics. First, it appealed to general audiences, people like my parents, who went to see it in the theater (how lucky). They had a great time, but they didn’t become big Star Wars fans. For instance, they didn’t go see the next two movies in the theater, and they sure as hell didn’t watch things like the Star Wars Holiday Special, or the Ewoks cartoon.

Star Wars also appealed to children. Lucas clearly realized this, because he made a lot of products for those fans—nearly all of the Star Wars merchandise released between 1977–86 was designed for them. But here’s the thing. Kids grow up quickly, and they age out of kiddie products just as quickly. In the mid-1980s, I wasn’t into things like the Ewoks movies or the cartoons. Baby stuff like that embarrassed me, Star Wars connoisseur that I was. (I wanted to see Darth Vader duel Obi-Wan on a planet made of lava. How awesome would that be!)

In addition to general audiences and kids, there was one more group that liked Star Wars—a third demographic. Namely, geeks!

In my book on geek culture, I argue that geeks aren’t just fans of all things science fiction and fantasy. Geeks tend to be techie people, people who like the STEM disciplines. As such, they like seeing those disciplines—science, technology, engineering, math—applied to fantasy. They don’t want fantasy that’s childish, or hokey, or campy, or goofy. Rather, they want realist fantasy.

This is another important point to understand. People routinely think of realism and fantasy as opposites, but they’re not. Realism is a mode, or a way of making art, while fantasy is a genre. Any given artwork in any given genre can be made to be more or less realist. It all depends on what kind of choices the artist makes. (If you’re interested the relationship between realism and fantasy, so am I, and I write extensively about it in my book.)

George Lucas was himself a geek, someone who first got into cars as a kid, then got into cameras and filmmaking equipment (which is what led him to develop Industrial Light and Magic, as well as things like the THX audio company). At the same time, Lucas loved fantasy. In particular, he loved the Flash Gordon serials, which he watched on television in the ’50s.

By the mid-1970s, Lucas couldn’t help but wonder what Flash Gordon might look like if it were remade, and done in a more realist style. His inspiration was the realist movies being made around him—the so-called “New Hollywood,” of which Lucas was a part—in which a number of filmmakers were busily applying realist techniques to staple Hollywood genres, such as crime films …

… and “creature feature” monster movies.

Today, people often think of Star Wars and Jaws as the films that brought an end to the New Hollywood, killing off realist, adult films like Bonnie and Clyde and The Godfather. But the reality is more complicated, and that argument misses the fact that Jaws and Star Wars were themselves classic products of the New Hollywood. Just like movies by Arthur Penn, William Friedkin, and Francis Ford Coppola, Jaws and Star Wars derived their power, and became smash hits, in large part by applying realism to popular genres, and thereby revitalizing them.

The realism of Star Wars appealed mightily to geeks. At the time, geeks were mostly underground, but they were out there, and they were starting to find one another through things like Star Wars conventions and fan zines. In the late ’70s and early ’80s, they embraced Star Wars. But they thought about it differently, and approached it differently, than kids did, and general audiences did. Indeed, they immediately began embroidering Star Wars, and expanding it, the same way they’d done with Star Trek, speculating about how lightsabers worked, and what the Kessel Run was, and what the Wookiee home planet was like—which are the kinds of things that geeks do.

… To be continued in Part 2!

The Death and Rebirth of Star Wars: Part 1 Like a lot of people my age, I just missed out on seeing the original Star Wars movies…

[beyondsims]

The Sims 4 Parenthood Game Pack was announced the other week and has the Simming community extremely excited. It’s been a long time coming, but it finally delivers some much needed family-oriented gameplay that The Sims 4 needed. Until now, other content has focused more around parties, gatherings, activities and jobs.

Game Packs are a great way for EA to plug the gap with content as they’re essentially mini expansion packs. The Sims 4 Vampires, for example, was impressive and in my view it seems to be the new path EA are going down. Especially as we only have 3 expansion packs, which isn’t many considering The Sims 4 will be 3 years old in September.

So what is The Sims 4 Parenthood, you ask? I was a bit confused until I read further into the game description as to what it actually consisted of, and in a nutshell I would say it is the spiritual successor to The Sims 3 Generations. And of course, the question on everyone’s mind is whether it’s good and worth your money, and that’s what we’re about to tell you in our review.

New Hairstyles, Clothing, and More for All Life Stages

Create A Sim offers a variety of new items for your Sims, and not just for adults either! Children also have a variety of new clothing and outfits to select from, which is great to see.

Let’s start off with the negative – I am disappointed that there isn’t really anything new for toddlers. Sure, they are still new to the game but this pack would have been the PERFECT opportunity to really give them some new things to wear. There are two new outfits for your tots, and one accessory, but apart from that. I feel it’s a missed opportunity.

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Kids have one brand new hairstyle and a selection of new trousers, tops, and outfits – including a new bear costume which I am sure many will be happy about! This particular outfit comes in a variety of different colours so you can create your Sims-inspired Care Bears if you wish. I also really like the feminine denim dungarees included for children, this has to be one of my new favourite items which I will be dressing all my Sims’ kids in.

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Teens, Adults, and Elders also have quite a few new clothing and hairstyle options to choose from, so every age group has something new to wear in The Sims 4 Parenthood.

Like I mentioned earlier, it would have been nice to see less for these life stages and more for toddlers, but perhaps that void can be filled in the future with a stuff pack.

For Men/Masculine Sims, there is also the addition of new facial hair too, which is a nice addition.

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For Female/Feminine Sims, there’s a nice mixture of clothing and some really good hairstyles too that I like and can see myself using often when playing The Sims 4.

The hairstyles with the highlights are quirky and may be appropriate for storytelling with rebellious teens, or young adult Sims and their new families. You can thank me later for giving you that idea.

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As you can see, there’s a lot of new items in Create A Sim that come with The Sims 4 Parenthood. Most of them are decent, some are not so great, but overall it’s a nice offering and I think many will be happy with it.

Build, Buy, and Stylised Rooms

The Sims 4 Parenthood is jam packed with new items in build/buy mode! The pack contains a good selection which will allow you to deck out your home in style.

From new kitchen cabinets (finally!), to nice coffee tables, clutter, and new items that bring along new gameplay, it’s all found in this pack.

One of my FAVOURITE items is the new coffee table, which you can see in the image above to the left. It’s 2×2 tiles in size and is a great addition to any home, and perfect for popping plenty of clutter and decorative items on top. For those laundry fans, there’s also a decorative laundry hamper too 😉

You may notice lot’s of boxes as well. This is new gameplay and is essentially projects that kids can work on, and their parents can join in to help them! This is a great way for them to build relationships, work on their skills (e.g. motor skill), and create something awesome, such as an erupting volcano like you’d expect at a science fair!

This can increase character values for kids, such as responsibility, and the parenting skill for adults (more on both of these later!)

In addition to this, there’s some new items in build mode too. This includes a new door and wallpaper for your home.

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There are also four new stylised rooms that are in build mode to make it easy for you to create the perfect build for the Parenthood Game Pack, or for inspiration of how you can use these new, colourful items. The Maxis team have done another great job at designing these rooms, which are perfect for people like me who are awful at creating interiors!

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These stylised rooms consist of a new dining room, a living room, and two new bedrooms for your Sims.

Overall, I am happy with the new items in build/buy in The Sims 4 Parenthood. To be honest, it’s worth it alone for that coffee table that I am obsessed with. But not only that, so many of these objects are bright, colourful, and fit in nicely with the theme of Parenthood, allowing you to upgrade your Sims’ family homes.

Parenting Isn’t An Easy Task

The Sims 4 Parenthood introduces the brand new parenting skill, which all adults can now learn. This is important for any of your Sims who are looking to raise children that are well behaved, as your parenting now has consequences if you don’t do it well!

There are a variety of ways in which Sims can increase their parenting skill. This includes researching on the computer, reading skill books, or by doing actual parenting itself. And this is the only way you can reach the top levels of the skill.

It’s down to your Sims to now decide what behaviour they want to encourage, or discourage, which will help shape how your child will end up. If your toddler is making a mess, for example, you can choose between two options – a calm approach, or a more stricter yelling, depending on how you wish to parent.

You can also now guide your children through particular tasks, and like before it can be done in a calmer way where you try to influence them to clean the dishes or go to bed. But the more troublesome kids may need a more stricter approach, so you could give them no option but to do as you say!

Now one thing which I think is pretty awesome is that you can also use these new found abilities to temporarily solve some of their needs, such as hygiene or hunger. You could influence your child to have a snack, to hold off their hunger, or dust themselves off so that they’re quickly cleaned up.

You can also teach your toddlers and children new things, for example, the addition of teaching them to say please and thank you, or how to say sorry, helps their character values in a positive manner.

This new parenting skill is a fantastic addition to The Sims 4, and I think it will be adored by generational players. Parenting in the real world is a skill and you get better with the more experience you have, so it only seems logical to have a similar system in The Sims.

Character Values Change Sims’ Behaviours… For Better and Worse

Character Values are another new addition with The Sims 4 Parenthood, which we recently shared information about on our website.

Character Values determine a Sim’s ability to adapt and behave effectively in their everyday life, and there are 5 different character values that can be developed positively or negatively:

Manners

Responsibility

Conflict Resolution

Empathy

Emotional Control

Toddlers, Children, and Teens can all gain or lose values based on their actions and how their parents utilise their newly found parenting skills. The really interesting thing about these character values, though, is that once a Sim becomes a Young Adult, these values are locked in and they will receive a unique trait depending on where their values lie – which is all down to how well your Sims do as parents!

You can access your Sim’s character values within the Simology panel, and you can see how well or bad your Sim is doing. To get tips on how to influence the value, you can simply hover over the value. This is useful as otherwise players may have found it difficult to work out how to influence each of these.

The traits you select for your Sims initially in Create A Sim could potentially influence their character values from the get-go. This is pretty awesome as everyone behaves differently in real life, so this extra touch makes it even more important for you to select appropriate traits and not just dish out random ones. For example, a Sim with the Slob trait will start with a bit of negative manners, but they can be influenced in the right (or wrong) direction.

There are tonnes of behaviours that your Sim’s – both parents and children – can perform to contribute positively or negatively to these five values. For example, to positively contribute to emotional control, you could play instruments when in a negative mood, or jog to clear mind. On the other hand, if you wanted to negatively contribute to it, you could shove or bite another sim, or smash a dollhouse!

Character values, paired with the new parenting skill, really open a whole new dimension to generational and family-based gameplay in The Sims 4 which makes the process more realistic and rewarding, as you have something to show for your Sim’s effort at the end of it all.

There’s so many small tidbits which adds to the experience, even your Sims shouting “forbidden words”. When that arises, you can go one step further and discipline your children now.

Discipline… to the chokey with you!

Now while discipline in The Sims 4 Parenthood isn’t like the approach found in the film Matilda, it is an important part of making sure your children listen to you. While things we’ve previously spoken about, such as discouraging them to do particular things, comes into play with discipline, there’s also more to it than just that.

A child won’t always react to discipline in the same way every time you do it. Sometimes they may listen, sometimes they will try to push your buttons and ignore you, continuing to do what they want.

A new object has been added which gives you some control over things such as curfew. Similar to that found in The Sims 3, this is the time that you expect your Sim to return to the  house by in the evenings. It’s up to you how strict, or lenient, you are and you can select a variety of different times based on this.

If your Sim’s do keep rejecting your calm or strict words of warning, then there is only one other solution that remains… they’re GROUNDED!

Grounding lasts for one day in the game and the parent can choose which one of the child’s favourite activities to ground them from. The more obedient Sims may listen to this and follow the rules now that they are grounded. But, The Sims being The Sims, you can push this if you like and try to get your Sims to get away with more. If they are caught breaking the rules, they can be grounded again.

Are you ready for Parenthood?

The Sims 4 Parenthood Game Pack offers a lot of new content that is clearly aimed at generational players who are looking to expand gameplay for their Sim families.

I’m happy to say that from playing with the game pack, it does just that. By bundling together new gameplay, the parenting skill, character values, and new interactions between children and parents. A pack like this is long overdue with a lot of heavy feedback saying that family gameplay was needed, and it’s good to see Maxis finally responding to that.

I am not a generational playe0r myself, so I am unsure of how much I will take advantage of all of these new features until I play it more over the coming weeks and months, but this is yet another solid game pack that I think everyone will enjoy.

You can find our final score and breakdown for this game pack below. The Sims 4 Parenthood launches on May 30th worldwide on Origin.

Are your Sims ready for Parenthood? Find out if the latest game pack is worth it! #TheSims4 The Sims 4 Parenthood Game Pack was announced the other week and has the Simming community extremely excited.