#it's not even just that i prefer steven! i would have been fine with wallace being champion if they had changed the eighth gym

[torterragarden]

Twiins iink putting out their video on the Hoenn designs while I play through oras is perfect timing but calling Wallace a better champion than Steven is a personal attack on me

[mooneyedandglowing]

Z

It’s late, everything is jumbled and cast in a sick green light and it’s late. I hear things outside, but the neighbors are gone -- kicked out at the first chance the landlord was given. Normally, I’d feel awful and anyone would and should unless they knew those people. It’s sadly a relief for the small street. Quiets it down. No one pulling up in the middle of the night screaming racial slurs (all of them white). I’d prefer not to hear some white girl yelling out slurs for other races at another white boy as she and a group of others zoom past my house from the false safety of their vehicle. All of this over a teen egging a car. Ahhh, this place. Violent, violent, violent. Steeped in that blood. Some progressives often like to pretend (rarely being from that deep poverty in the hills where the church traumatizes you and a fight breaking out on the school bus is just a normal Tuesday. They never know how you stop flinching eventually. You think it’s all regular) that this place is a place where that sort of behavior is rare and that people are unified in class struggle. It’s not. They’re not. I always grow weary of the lies that are made to revitalize the rotten. And I say that while still loving the wild place despite the reasons not to. 

Anyway, I’m avoiding the point like usual. I wrote a poem once with some line like “I don’t want to write of my life.” There was some mention of a long hallway, the I, I, I. Some dark thing of the mind is something I’d like to keep to myself. All of it, I’d like to keep for myself. Y’all remember how my dad passed suddenly this year? I was working 7 days a week, saving lives and trying to make my minor impact. And I went on like that alone. In a relationship but alone because the person I was with began an affair only a month or so after my dad’s death. Exchanged little I love you sentiments to one another on my birthday even. I only know because someone else told me after it had all imploded. And I didn’t notice a thing because of who I am -- taking care of myself, not looking to others to meet my needs, expecting them not to, thinking it “the way the world is”. I still think that. I’m grown. I supply myself with what I need. I do it again and again. I’d been forced to do it since I was a child. Take care of yourself. Mind yourself. Take care of your brothers. Take care of the father. Take care of the mother. Take care of yourself. And I’ve always been fine enough in that. It’s a straightforward role to be the elected patriach of things - to be provider for the self and for others. Authoritarian yet magnanimous.

I’m still not getting to the point and my eyes are a bit blurred.

In this world, relationships center themselves around practical matters and little else. I’m lenient with certain disloyalties (I care little about the body as possession), but to allow another to believe they are a threat to me/my relationship is a line not to be crossed and yet it was. My ego, my pride. I have both in good measure. Maybe I shouldn’t, but I do. And I’m already burning at the throat just writing this disgusting diatribe. It seems so pity me when I’d prefer to barely be perceived by anyone much less pitied by them. And I feel no pity for man’s proclaimed loneliness (or really their desire to be complimented by a woman who does not know them, who cannot yet or may never be able to perceive the truth of them and there I am loving the truth of them and it’s I suppose as horrific as where I come from), when here I am islanded and drifting and not causing damage, for my own gain, to strangers who skip my way.

I want to live my life with another who is living their own life, another who is like me and able to get on with it - to not be so weak and small and repellent in their lack. No strength of character is found hardly anywhere these days in another. No courage of one’s own convictions. Rather, a separation happens between the self and the self’s actions - a chaotic dissonance. I hate being lied to. I hate being tricked: taken for a ride. I don’t cry -- and I haven’t cried over love in many years -- but what I think I feel is pain. A tired out sort of pain. A light, fatigued heartbreak. I think of Wallace Steven’s “Re-Statement of Romance” - how it is so ideal to me as a perfect intimacy and yet is perhaps so unattainable: “So much alone, so deeply by ourselves, / So far beyond the casual solitudes, / That night is only the background of our selves, / Supremely true each to its separate self, / In the pale light that each upon the other throws.”

“In the pale light that each upon the other throws.”

[evajellion]

Jelli’s problems with ORAS

@subbydations said: Which decisions?

Hohohohohohohooooo… *rubs hands together* where do I begin with ORAS?

Firstly, let’s get the obvious out of the way which is removing the Battle Frontier and just copypasting the extremely boring Battle Maison from X/Y, lacking in any sort of interesting challenges that gens 3 and 4 presented. 

GameFreak never patched it in either in spite of having the technology to do so now. Insult to injury is the fact that Anabel made it into Sun/Moon, which makes me theorize they planned designs for BF leaders but just didn’t put them in ORAS.

But that’s just one small thing, I mean, I could let it go if not for all of the other flaws ORAS presents (especially when put next to HG/SS or Emerald)

The Gym Leaders

When ORAS was announced, I figured “oh cool, the gym leaders might all get a buff by using mega evolutions”… and they did not. No, they all have their parties from the original Ruby and Sapphire, some of which, well, let’s face it, are pathetic compared to Emerald.

Wattson just has his Magnetson, no Manectric or Mega Manectric-- y’know, the signature Electric-type of Gen 3? Something that would have been cool and challenging?

Winona doesn’t have a Mega Altaria either, again, stuck with the mediocre party she had in the original R/S, no Tropius in sight. Giving her a Mega Altaria would have been a good challenge because people who come into the gym with electric types would have no idea how to deal with Dragon/Fairy.

And oh boy, how can we forget Tate and Liza? You would think ORAS would have changed something to make them a bit more challenging, but no. You just double battle their Solrock and Lunatone, probably wiping them before they get a chance.

Also, unlike in Emerald or HG/SS… you can’t even rematch the Gym leaders (except for Wallace in the Delta Episode). You just fight them once with their pathetically weak teams, then that’s it, no more from them ever again.

The Elite Four members got the better end of it mostly, but their initial teams are still weak. I also hate Steven’s rematch team. Why does he have Carbink and Aerodactyl? There are plenty of Steel-types, one of which is a fossil Pokémon! Carbink is weak to Steel anyway!

Wally’s party also made me sad. GameFreak didn’t like the idea of a boy trainer having a male Gardevoir I guess, so they forced a Gallade on him prior to getting National Dex or whatever. :\

Legendaries

While I already hated the roaming legendaries (seriously GameFreak, remove these), simply handing over Latios and Latias with their Mega Evolution and zero effort to obtain them was… pretty awful. It makes the entire game pathetically easy from there on out if you do speedrunning. I dunno about you, but I like getting my legendaries through a challenge.

Remember in gens 3, 4, and 5 when certain legendaries, when found, would give you a cool event? Well, ORAS just hands everything to you by flying around on Latios/Latias to certain areas, and you go to dimensional rips and rings created by Hoopa.

I have a feeling Hoopa was just made to create the excuse of randomly dropping Pokémon… I don’t know why they didn’t make a small, new area for each legendary available. FireRed/LeafGreen and Emerald did that for Lugia, Ho-Oh, Mew, and Deoxys. Simply recycling assets from the already existing mystery lands from soaring would have worked just fine.

Of course, this is a minor nitpick compared to actual issues I have. I’m glad that Pokémon like Zekrom are in the game at all, but I wish a little more effort was put in.

The Audio

I don’t like the soundtrack ORAS introduced compared to the original gen 3 games. The Champion theme against Steven, in particular, feels neutered of its GBA trumpets.

Honestly, I would be fine with it-- if they programmed in the GB Sounds, an item that was available in HG/SS! Gee, imagine that, an item that lets you play classic sounds if you prefer some of the original, classic soundtracks!

“Jelli they can’t program in old music!” Is what you’re going to say, and I’m going to prove you wrong, because somehow GameFreak managed to copypaste the themes of Lugia, Ho-Oh, Giratina, etc into ORAS… from their original DS sound fonts.

Wanna know what’s even funnier about this? In ORAS, Ho-Oh and Lugia have their themes from HG/SS, but the legendary beasts all have their Pokémon Crystal theme as opposed to the separate ones given in HG/SS. Sure, it’s nostalgic, but it clashes horribly given the others themes being from DS games.

I think if they cropped out all that legendary music (and simply made one song for all of them), they could have fit the GB (or rather GBA) Sounds into ORAS.

“But Jelli, that sounds like it would be too much for the 3DS.”

Definitely not, but if it was, here’s my last point.

The Delta Episode

I hated this, lol. I was fine with the remake up until this point. This was a poor excuse of post-game, it’s basically one big, handheld cutscene where you go from place to place and put up with the most annoying character in the world; Zinnia. (who is an even more obnoxious jerk in the manga if one can believe that)

Honestly, they should have cut this entirely and allowed the players to find Mega Rayquaza on their own so they could use the remaining data to put in the Battle Frontier, GB Sounds, and Gym leader rematches. I don’t play Pokémon to watch a short movie with poor story-telling, sorry.

I know it sounds like I’m being harsh for the sake of shitting on GameFreak but… that’s not true. I’m saying this because I absolutely love Gen 3! It’s my favorite Pokémon generation next to 5 and Hoenn is probably my favorite region. I still go back to Pokémon Emerald sometimes (I recently transferred my shinies to SoulSilver) and just embrace everything.

ORAS… I have not gone back to. It made me feel empty from how unfinished this was. This game didn’t have the love put into it like HG/SS or FR/LG did, and as someone who did want Hoenn remakes, that makes me extremely depressed.

It makes me worry for the people who want Sinnoh remakes, they’re going to be stuck with the Gym leaders having terrible parties like in the original Diamond/Pearl rather than Platinum, with no post-game content.

Sorry if this was a long read and if people don’t agree, again, I’m just super passionate about Gen 3.

[tumblunni]

Randomly a list of ships i ships

Cos i dont think ive ever written it down? I've probably forgot some from older fandoms.

Jupiter x Looker or Jupiter x Mars (pokemon dppt) oddly she's the only one of team galactic i ship anyone with!

Dia and Pearl (dppt manga: pokemon adventures version)

Steven and wallace, maxie and archie (pokemon rse) these are my ships with the most canon evidence so far!

Lillie x protag (pokemon sun and moon)

Oikawa and Cody's dad (digimon season 2) ALSO CLOSE TO CANON YO! It makes his whole plot even sadder if you read him as he's in love with his best friend but never confessed and then had to watch him die shortly after marrying someone else...

Oh and also ken and davis from the same season because SERIOUSLY 'our hearts beat as one' when their digimon unlock a new rainbow sfx fusion transformation

Alphys and Undyne from undertale are EVERYTHING GOOD IN RELATIONSHIPS

Protag daughter x Cube (princess maker)

Protag x Yosuke (persona 4) FUN FACT in this case we have actual proof the creators copped out on making it canon, there's fully voiced dual language audio for a scrapped romance route. But instead they ditched it and then the next game in the series was somehow also empty of lgbt options and also regressively homophobic all over the place...

SPEAKING OF WHICH yusuke and protag from persona 5. Srsly wtf why does this guy have such a similar name when theyre nothing alike? Aside from the fact poor yusuke is way more out about his sexuality and gets to be the butt of a million jokes...

Protag x ellen, protag x victoria, the hypothetical polyamourous triad of all the witch girls that exists within my heart (magical diary)

Maka x Crona, black star x soul (soul eater)

Chrom x specifically male protag (fire emblem awakening) female protag version is actually canon but i always HATED how her scenes with him are all cliche anime 'whoops fell into boobs' and 'nobody likes a woman who doesnt cook'. Male protag route is infinately more romantic just cos it actually shows their personalities! I mean if they both had the same dialogue just like most other scenes, i woulda been fine with the fem protag romance geez..

Virion x Panne (also fire emblem awakening) i have no idea why this obscure pairing grasped my heart and why more people dony like it! I like it cos panne snipes back at virion and takes none of his shit like sully, but without the whole 'girl who says she doesnt love him in the first scene eventually loves him if he keeps wearing her down' thing. And i like all the interesting cultural exchange that comes from a really pompous nobleman clashing with a rough and tumble stern fighter from an ancient lost lineage of lapinthropes. I dunno, his development into appreciating women just seems more genuine when you have this sort of auxilary sign that he's changed. He's willing to drop his pompousness and go on a big mountainclimbing adventure just to get her a traditional courtship flower amoungst her people! And its really adorable to see that like.. Its his first time ever getting nervous around a woman, cos this time the feelings are genuine instead of just lust and nothing else. And it was hilarious that he tried to get drunk to get over his fears, and then he fumbled the confession because of it! They have so many great sarcasm battle scenes, its hilarious AND adorable! Oh man and the scene where they actually got really emotional and panne talked about hoping her dead family is watching from the moon, and virion being vunerable about his past and just... AAA its such an unexpectedly good couple for such wildly different charries!!

Avery x Mason (hustle cat) mason is the most badass lady ever holy shit everyone should date her and she should lift them all over her head and maybe seven cars. She's a biker gang badass and a super cake chef and can turn into a cat and just EVERYTHING IS PERFECT ABOUT THIS CHARACTER THANKS FOR COMING TO MY TED TALK

Husky and Cooro (+anima) i know theyre just kids but i totally get a precocious crush vibe from cooro, and like it only ever seems that husky gets embarassed over 'but what will everyone think' rather than because he doesn't like him. And husky has a lot of issues with internalized 'i need to be super manly' type anxieties and all.

Quale and Quan (ff9) okay i guess not really a ship but a past ship? I kinda saw them as a toriel and asgore type divorced couple from how stuttery and awkward quale is about how quan left and betrayed qu society. Headcanon that really it was more like 'my boyfriend wants to go adventuring and i wanna stay and live in this safe town, and he decided that adventure was more inportant than me'. I prefer this headcanon cos really neither of them would be at fault here, yknow? Complexity! Also grandpas shipping! Both great things!

Cloud and barret (ff7) cmon yo they have a load of chemistry and have so much in common backstory wise and in terms of putting up a grumpy front and being scared of letting themselves ever love again. And barret is the handsomest character in the game! And he's super tormented and in need of love just ss much as vincent geez, even if he isnt a funky fashion vampire. But he's a BIG HUGS BEAR MAN!! And he has a sweet little daughter! And there's several opportunities for cloud to act nice to marlene and seriously imagine him as a dad!! And barret even does get a 'date' with cloud if you play the game super precisely to unlock that easter egg but its clearly meant to be a joke and all. I hope maybe they could make it more legit in the remake now we're in an era of more lgbt representation and all. Also i feel bad but i never felt any chemistry between cloud and any of the female characters? It seemed like tifa was intended to be his canon love interest and all but i never liked it, and i never felt anything more than bffs with him and aerith. Plus aerith and zack is classic sweet star torn lovers! And then literally no clue why people ship him with yuffie and elena from the turks (???) Try barret sometime. We need more barret fanart in general, even of nobody else likes this ship! Appreciate him!!

Bebop and Rocksteady (ninja turtles) look, 6 year old me wanted them to get married before i even learned that That Thing Is Supposed To Be A Man And A Woman Under God or whatever. Proof that lgbt headcanons of children's media arent just 'adults polluting innocent things'. (Srsly what is that logic? A man and a woman kissinh isnt too sexual for tv but a gay kiss is?) Anyway these weird trash mutants were good together, courtesy of the ancient small me of the past.

[brokehorrorfan]

Blu-ray Review: Popcorn

You probably wouldn’t guess by watching it, but Popcorn suffered from a number of production troubles before its release in 1990. The director was replaced midway through production, and the lead actress suffered the same fate soon after. Producer Bob Clark (director of Black Christmas, A Christmas Story, Porky's) is said to have had a lot of input on the direction as well. Shooting in Jamaica also proved to be problematic. It's amazing that the film turned out as good as it did.

When a college's modest film department needs to raise money and awareness, the students devise a plan to host an all-night horror movie marathon as the last show at a historic local theater before its torn down. More than a simple screening, the students make a full experience out of the swansong, complete with costumes, decorations, and re-creations of the campy films' William Castle-esque gimmicks. The packed and excitable audience filled with rowdy college kids eats it up.

Among the collection of vintage movie memorabilia loaned to the students by local film historian Dr. Mnesyne (Ray Walston, My Favorite Martian) is an old film print. It contains the only existing footage from an infamous movie in which its director, Lanyard Gates (Matt Falls, one of the film's special makeup effects artists), killed his family in front of a live audience. This strikes a chord with Maggie (Jill Schoelen, The Stepfather), one of the group's aspiring filmmakers, who has been seeing the man in her dreams.

Popcorn was clearly inspired by the success of the A Nightmare on Elm Street franchise; it features a hideously burned killer who appears in a girl's dreams, and her parents know more than they let on. Even the eerie musical cue, composed by Paul Zaza (A Christmas Story, Prom Night), is vaguely similar to Freddy Krueger's theme. But Popcorn exhibits several advantages that make it more memorable than the glut of Elm Street wannabes.

I'm not sure it would be entirely accurate to classify Popcorn as a horror-comedy, as it doesn't often play for laughs, but the material is approached with its tongue planted firmly in cheek. The clips from the films within the film - the titillating lineup includes Mosquito in 3D "Project-o-Scope," The Attack of the Amazing Electrified Man in "Shock-o-Scope," and The Stench in "Aroma-rama" - are just as entertaining as the main movie. They're pitch-perfect send-ups to 1950s B-movies.

Not unlike Scream, being a movie buff adds a layer of fun to Popcorn. The film also looks better than many of its peers, thanks in no small part to cinematographer Ronnie Taylor (Gandhi, Tommy). It's not particularly gory, but there are some fine practical special effects, supervised by Georgio Ferrari (Lord of the Flies) and Robert Clark (Godzilla, Starship Troopers). Zaza's score mixes orchestral music to match the '50s movies with then-current electronic compositions.

Bob Clark initially tapped his longtime friend and horror collaborator Alan Ormsby (Cat People, Children Shouldn't Play with Dead Things) to write and direct the film. Roughly three weeks into production, however, Ormsby was removed from the director's chair and replaced by Mark Herrier (who’s better known for playing Billy in Porky’s). It's also speculated that Clark also had a heavy influence on the direction, similar to Steven Spielberg's involvement in Poltergeist.

To muddle things further, original star Amy O'Neill was replaced after filming for about a week, with the capable Schoelen filling her shoes. The cast also includes quintessential '80s mom Dee Wallace (E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial, Cujo) as Maggie's mother, Derek Rydall (Phantom of the Mall: Eric's Revenge) as Maggie's love interest, Kelly Jo Minter (A Nightmare on Elm Street 5: The Dream Child) and Malcolm Danare (Christine) as members of the film club, and Tony Roberts (Annie Hall) as their professor.

After being out of print on DVD for many years, Popcorn is available on Blu-ray and DVD from Synapse Films. Released as a limited edition SteelBook earlier this year, standard Blu-ray and DVD versions are now available. Well worth the wait, the release boasts a new 2K scan of a 35mm interpositive vault element and a 7.1 surround sound mix (as well as the original 2.0 audio), along with reversible artwork.

A 57-minute documentary discusses the film's production troubles, featuring input from Herrier, Schoelen, Rydall, Wallace, Danare, Falls, Zaza, actors Ivette Soler and Elliott Hurst, and distributor executive Jonathan Wolf. I always prefer edited-together featurettes over individual interviews, and this one plays nicely. An audio commentary with Herrier, Schoelen, Danare, and Falls is a bit slow and repeats a lot of information from the interviews, so if you only have time for one stick to the featurette. Bruce Glover (Chinatown), who stars in one of the films within the film, is the subject of a separate interview. Extras are rounded out by trailers, TV spots, and a still gallery.

Living up to its title, Popcorn is a good popcorn movie. When else will you hear Police Academy 5 compared to the work of Ingmar Bergman? The film goes beyond the prerequisite slasher tropes by offering a little more substance, even if the story is needlessly complicated. Overcoming the hardships faced in production, Popcorn is a cult classic that deserves to be celebrated like the films within it.

Popcorn is available now on Blu-ray and DVD via Synapse Films.

[stillellensibley]

The ambiguous pleasures of Puritanism, William Scott at Tate St Ives

DAVID ANFAM

William Scott (1913–1989) is known for his still lifes, landscapes and nudes produced over a 60-year period. A friend of Rothko and de Kooning, he deftly blended mid-twentieth-century American and more historic European influences in his paintings, which oscillate between figuration and abstraction. To coincide with the first retrospective of his work in more than twenty years, David Anfam reveals the complex emotional ambiguity in Scott’s art that aimed for ‘beauty in plainness’

William Scott, Berlin Blues 4, 1965

Jean Sibelius once made a famously acerbic remark about his sparse Sixth Symphony: ‘Whereas most other modern composers are engaged in manufacturing cocktails of every hue and description, I offer the public pure cold water.’ In effect, Sibelius was only stating in starker terms a position he had already taken when Gustav Mahler met him in 1907 on a tour of Finland. To Mahler’s expansive Romantic notion that ‘the symphony must be like the world. It must embrace everything’, Sibelius countered: ‘I admire the symphony’s style and severity of form, as well as the profound logic creating an inner connection among all of the motives.’ There is more than a hint of Sibelius’s inward-looking austerity and cohesion about William Scott’s achievement.

Often, Scott’s universe might be regarded as a kind of pictorial counterpart to that of the composer whose Fourth Symphony was dubbed the Barkbröd in reference to a nineteenth-century famine during which Scandinavians mixed ground-up birch bark with flour to survive. Read Ulster for Finland and one begins to get the flavour of the painter’s roots (born in Scotland, he spent his hard-bitten youth in Northern Ireland). Of course, this was not ultimately a question of economic deprivation alone, although Scott’s beginnings were humble enough and his hallmark empty pots, pans and lone mackerel on a plate hardly suggest Gordon Ramsay (in fact, the artist couldn’t even cook). Rather, it was more like a self-imposed aesthetic diet, a willed mortification of the spirit.

As Sibelius’s stance grew partly in reaction to the extravagances of atonalism and other Continental avant-garde developments, so Scott came to distance himself from European and American modernism per se, notwithstanding his well-documented personal ties to Mark Rothko and other contemporaries. The waters of the various harbours that he painted and the recurrent pale colours or grisaille are cool in more than literal temperature, chill in a sense closer to what Sibelius said he had offered the public instead of cocktails. Scott put the whole matter bluntly: ‘I was brought up in a grey world, an austere world: the garden I knew was a cemetery and we had no fine furniture. The objects I painted were the symbols of the life I knew best and the pictures which looked most like mine were painted on walls a thousand years ago.’ In short, he had a preference for the primitive.

William Scott, Pears, 1979

The preference for the primitive has been a recurrent trend in art and life since antiquity: E.H. Gombrich traced its fortunes in his last book of the same name published posthumously in 2002. Much in Scott’s vision fits the recurrent patterns of taste that Gombrich’s study uncovered. For example, Scott had a deep aversion (confirmed to me by his son James) towards a too-slick, virtuoso handling of paint and draughtsmanship – a tradition epitomised in Britain by, say, the brilliant touch of a William Nicholson – instead opting for blockish forms, coarse surfaces and an anxious line. This sentiment is as ancient as the Roman rhetoricians who, in Gombrich’s words, contrasted ‘the hard and angular shapes of archaic art to the supple grace of Hellenistic masterpieces’. Like Scott, they found a virtue and sincerity in plain speaking (carefully as it might have to be crafted). In turn, Scott said: ‘I find beauty in plainness.’ In his estimate, Ben Nicholson bettered William.

To be sure, Scott’s was not the loud variety of modernist primitivism familiar, for instance, from Picasso’s practice circa 1907 and Die Brücke, or even Dubuffet’s. It seems nearer to the quiet archaism of Gauguin, Moore or Matisse’s simplifications, albeit with faint traces of the post- war ‘geometry of fear’ look – not to mention ‘the plain sense of things’ espoused across the water in Wallace Stevens’s poetry. The apparent voids in Scott’s paintings – from the rectangular planes of his table tops and the quasi-abstractions of the 1950s to the pervasive chromatic fields during the 1970s – tend to feel as immanent as Rothko’s ‘emptiness’ or that in Stevens’s The Snow Man: ‘For the listener, who listens in the snow,/And, nothing himself, beholds/Nothing that is not there and the nothing that is.’ Scant wonder, too, that in his final decade or so, Scott was drawn to the stripped-down art of ancient Egypt and its hieroglyphics. Again, a venerable precedent springs to hand. It was Cicero who warned about the double-edged delights of the overly sophisticated senses: ‘How much more brilliant, as a rule, in beauty and variety of colouring are new pictures compared to the old ones. But though they captivate us at first sight the pleasure does not last, while the very roughness and crudity of old paintings maintains their hold on us.’ The same applies to Scott’s idiosyncratic dour awkwardness. Whether it is his earlier seated nudes – their crudely spiky, reductive cast reminiscent of Lear’s exclamation, ‘Is man no more than this?… a poor, bare, forked animal’ – or the grainy, ramshackle images typified by White, Sand and Ochre 1960–1, his work tends to linger in the mind precisely because of its introversion and doggedness. To echo Sibelius on his melodic concision, all its visual motifs resemble the members of one extended family, as still life becomes landscape, figures turn into objects and back, and the little and the large fuse. Akin to a relative whom we half recognise, a latent propinquity haunts Scott’s compositions, prompting us to wonder about the impulse that alike drives them.

William Scott, White, Sand and Ochre, 1960–1

Before Scott pared his effects down with Occam’s razor, as it were, simplifying them into signs, one or two fledgling efforts give a clue as to what he would subsequently turn against – to borrow Gombrich’s phrase, the nature of his ‘avoidance reactions’. A little-known Still Life from 1935 depicts a lemon, apples, a pear or two, a white cloth and what must be a Bénédictine bottle. Surprisingly sophisticated in its painterly touch and evoking Chardin, this exercise hints at the route not taken, the sensuousness that underlay Scott’s later sobriety. Indeed, the multifarious pears and the occasional egg that he painted in the 1970s are about as edible as revenants, which is what they are: mental transformations of old empirical observations. To reach this rarefied state, he took to painting from photographs and from recollection.

Was the thing in itself, the French liqueur and the deft strokes of pigment (evident again in the Cézanne-influenced Girl at a Table (Figure and Still Life) of 1938 with its lush blue shadows playing against orange fruit), too seductive and, hence, distracting for the serious arena of two dimensions? If so, this was why Scott wanted a ‘time lapse’ between what he saw and how he painted it, “a waiting time” for the visual experience to become involved with all other experience. That is why I paint from memory’. It is this distance that separates Scott, even at his most exuberant in the late 1950s, from the lusty immediacy of American gesturalism and Abstract Expressionism in general, despite some superficial parallels. The exceptions to this rule are Philip Guston and Rothko. The former moved between representation and abstraction, immediacy and memory, in ways analogous to Scott, by the late 1940s submerging objects and anatomies into traces and schemata, then a decade or so later wrenching them back from a painterly morass. In Rothko’s case, Scott’s affinity with his American friend hinges less on a shared passion for colour or its lack – the large still lifes that erupt into lush golden and azure tonalities, alongside the monochrome, rectilinear figure abstractions that are his counterparts a decade beforehand to Rothko’s final ‘black and grey’ canvases – than on inner purpose. Namely, the urge that Rothko defined: ‘Tension: conflict or desire which in art is curbed at the very moment it occurs.’ In both artists, there is a case to be made for concluding that they were closet sensualists.

Little else explains the weird role of metamorphosis in Scott’s imagery, which derived not from Surrealism, but rather from the inherent mutability of psychic forces that are liable to be repressed or channelled so that they elude overt recognition. Here an admission by Scott about a picture he executed in 1948 spoke volumes: “It is probably one of the first instances when I make a double image… These objects now take on another meaning, which is obscure, and I don’t personally like to point it out.” A Freudian reading would seize on this statement and such instances as Scott’s erotic sketches for Private Suite 1973 with relish. Perhaps, though, his reticence is just as relevant. Following Rothko, he preferred ‘the simple expression of the complex thought’, as opposed to the blatant self-repression and dualism that the former had discerned in Mondrian: ‘A Calvinist who spent his life caressing canvas.’ Anticipating later artists such as Donald Judd and Agnes Martin, who walked a tightrope between severity and the senses – witness the rainbow hues that the former secreted within his boxes and the latter’s minimalist odes to joy – Scott’s art is a strangely memorable testimony to the ambiguous pleasures of puritanism in a disenchanted world.

Source

[maguneedsalife]

C, L, and Z!

C - A pairing you wish you shipped, but just can’t

MAN do i have a ton of these lmao.... as far as “fandoms i’m currently in”, my answer to this is Okita swords (Yamatonokami Yasusada and Kashuu Kiyomitsu) from Touken Ranbu. I’m just.... not a fan? I like the boys on their own well enough but their interactions in canon just don’t grab me. I wanna ship Yasusada with other swords (bc i want my swordboy to be happy and loved) but i feel like most people pair him with Kashuu lmao

Oh, and for Pokemon - I can’t ship Steven with anyone other than May. Lots of ppl pair him with Wallace or Zinnia or Cynthia or a myriad of other people and i just. May is his wife and I will die on this hill

L - Your favorite fanartist/author gives you one request, what do you ask for?

This one probably depends on which fandom I know them from lmao.... like if it was an artist I found through ShuAke, I’d request that. (I know I personally prefer getting requests/commissions/suggestions that align with things I already care about, so I’d want to pay it forward lmao)

Z - What's a ship that you want to ship publicly, but everyone on tumblr hates it so you keep your mouth shut about it?

The good thing about staying in my own lane wrt fandom is that to my knowledge i dont rly have any ships that “everyone on tumblr” hates. Like, I know there’s a dedicated anti- group for ShuAke (and for Akechi generally) but I’ve been lucky enough never to interact with them, so i typically never shut up about ShuAke anyway.

I’m pretty public about all my ships and don’t really have any that are “guilty pleasures” anymore lmao. There was a time when i got flak for Sycamore/Serena (still ship it, btw, if ur following me and that bothers you feel free to unfollow) but that’s about all the “anti” contact i’ve had. I didn’t even get hate when i was drawing Mink/Aoba, which is also a pretty polarizing pair. Maybe I’m not “big name fan” enough to draw that kind of attention, and tbh I’m fine with that. I’ll shut up about my garbage ships when i’m dead

Now, are there ships i would talk more about, but they appeal to maybe 3 people other than me? oh, absolutely. See: Dawn/Giratina, PMD2 Protag/Dusknoir.

[shesgottawatchit]

Sorry to Bother You (2018) dir. Boots Riley

Searching For Detroit: “Sorry to Bother You’s” Female Lead More Symbol Than Person by Jourdain Searles

There’s a phrase that comes to mind when I think of Tessa Thompson’s character Detroit in Boots Riley’s debut feature, Sorry to Bother You: symbolic disrupter. She wears the clothes of a revolutionary. Literally—her clothes are part of her performance-art aesthetic. In one scene, she wears earrings designed to look like penises; in another, a shirt that reads “the future is female ejaculation.” No one comments on it. Even her name, Detroit, invokes a legacy of racial and economic inequality, as well as the rich legacy of organizing to fight it. Detroit carries herself as the physical embodiment of radical Black female resistance, and it seems to be Riley’s intention that she is. Still, it’s a resistance no one in the film, including her boyfriend Cash (Lakeith Stanfield), the film’s protagonist, seems to fully acknowledge or address.

I can’t blame the characters for not taking her seriously, though, because at no point in the film are her values made plain to the audience. Sorry to Bother You is a film that openly critiques and lampoons whiteness, as well as the capitalist structure that upholds it and the ways people sell out for success within that structure rather than actively dismantling it. Cash’s sellout opportunity comes when he realizes that adopting a “white voice” (provided by David Cross) at his telemarketing job catapults him to a world of privilege that requires rejecting his friends and coworkers. This seems like the exact sort of behavior Detroit would clock early and critique immediately, but she doesn’t do it until much later. Her own art takes on a guerilla sensibility—everything is a secret, including her opinions.

Detroit’s artistic and revolutionary sensibilities remind me of the current incarnation of Nola Darling in Spike Lee’s Netflix series reboot of his 1986 classic She’s Gotta Have It. In one episode, Nola (DeWanda Wise)—also an artist—is dismayed by a thoughtful critique of her work by a seasoned critic (Wallace Shawn). He rightfully calls Nola out for not really having an intention for her work and an inability to succinctly explain her message. The episode highlights my biggest problem with Nola, and by extension, Detroit: They are not fleshed-out characters so much as they are figureheads—collections of radical Black iconography, symbolism, and buzzwords all signaling vaguely to rich concepts on which we never see them build. Detroit is a Black radical who doesn’t seem to spend time with any other Black women and is fine taking a backseat to men at every turn.

This has been a component of Black female characters in television and cinema dating back to the blaxploitation era. In movies like Foxy Brown, Sugar Hill, and Coffy, the titular characters were not written to be members of the black community, but rather emblems of it. Foxy, Sugar, Coffy, and their sisters in blaxploitation cinema were written as ordinary women who became vigilantes to avenge their fallen brothers and lovers; their resilience and loyalty to their communities made them icons of Black female power. In the 1970s, when blaxploitation helped spread the ideals of the Black Power movement and highlight socioeconomic realities of Black urban life, such archetypes made sense. But it’s frustrating, in 2018, to feel as though Black women in film are still so often deployed to symbolize their community and support Black men.

What does Detroit stand for? Is she a feminist? Womanist? Communist? Socialist? A combination? It’s almost like the film would prefer that Detroit’s “political” fashion do all the talking. In one telling scene, Cash visits Detroit at her studio and asks what her new art exhibit is all about. But once she begins explaining, he starts to fall asleep and we barely hear what she says. Is it because her rambling spiel is meant to suggest to viewers that Detroit herself doesn’t actually know what her art is about, or is the scene a way to shorthand the distance that’s growing between them? Why make Detroit’s art a plot point at all if we aren’t supposed to know its mission, and her values?

The film’s art-opening scene is even more confusing because, once Detroit takes the stage to address a crowd of woke gallery attendees, it quickly becomes clear that, like her boyfriend, Detroit also uses a “white voice” (that of British actress Lily James). This only leads to more questions: Has Detroit been using a “white voice” longer than Cash? Did she develop hers after he developed his? Is it okay that she uses “white voice” because she only does it occasionally? Is “white voice” only truly insidious when you use it all the time?

These are the questions I wish the film would address in Detroit’s interactions with Cash as his life, and his priorities, quickly change. The conversations they do have are so opaque—mostly due to Cash’s constant deflection—that I wonder why Detroit puts up with him. The film establishes that they have a history dating back to their teen years, but offers no hint of why this dynamic woman is devoted to a man who seems to have no political leanings whatsoever, or why she stays with him even after discovering that the job Cash has such aptitude for involves selling slave labor.

And that’s the problem: Detroit’s passion for Cash never pushes her to challenge or act in direct opposition to him. Sure, she participates in the strike against Cash’s employer, but never calls out her man in public even when he crosses the picket line. That faceoff is delegated to Cash’s former coworkers Squeeze (Steven Yeun) and Salvador (Jermaine Fowler), who exchange tense words with Cash as he betrays his working-class brethren in favor of a slave-peddling establishment. We know that in real life, Black women have been at the forefront of protests past and present; it’s frustrating and disappointing to see a Black woman function as a passive actor in this narrative. Worse yet, she becomes a sex prize: the unnecessary, confusing plot point where Detroit hooks up with Squeeze seems to exist mainly to give her something to do. But there’s already plenty to do. She could be working side by side with Squeeze—or better yet—organizing the protests herself.

Since seeing Sorry to Bother You, I’ve wondered what it would look like for Detroit and Cash to face off on picket line, imagined the thrilling possibility of the pair’s ideological differences taking the form of debates that happen in public as much as they do in private. (Especially so characters like Squeeze, who clearly underestimates Detroit at every turn, could see she’s really about the struggle.) In a Newsweek interview, Thompson noted that Detroit “is just trying to figure out the intersection of the art that she makes and activism,” and implies that Cash doesn’t care much for her art or see its relevance to revolution. An argument about that would not only enrich the film, but give us a peek into Detroit’s head: Behind all the symbolism, we could have seen the person.

Sorry to Bother You is a hilarious, intelligent, and socially relevant satire of American business and capitalism, and hands-down one of the best films of 2018—which is why it’s so frustrating that this critique feels so necessary. But social relevance has to encompass more than posturing, and it’s well past time for media to reckon with the way that it marginalizes Black women. With some tweaking, Detroit could have been a great, fully-realized character. It just didn’t happen this time.

[rhnuzlocke]

Episode 19

Scene 9:

[It is a bright, clear evening, though not as striking as the one before it. Sootopolis bay is still mirror of the sky, reflecting the first few starts as they emerge. Roma swims silently through it, cutting the surface like a blade. She pulls up to the island in the middle of the bay and Ren disembarks. The small, domed island is just barely large enough to accommodate the gym and an elegant manor house. Ren walks up to the house and stops at the door. She looks up at the fancy molding around the doorway and then down at her outfit. It is a little nicer than what she wears most of the time, but maybe not quite fancy enough for the occasion. She shrugs and sends out Tāraki before knocking on the door. Wallace opens it and true to her fears he is impeccably dressed.]

Wallace: Welcome! [waving her inside] Come in. [calling down the hall] The guest of honor is here! [leading her and Tāraki down the hall] Any idea where Senri is?

Ren: Oh, no, I haven’t—

[Ren is cut off by raucous applause and cheers as they enter a large parlor. Ren freezes in the doorway and flushes at the overwhelmingly warm greeting. Most of the Hoenn League and their pokemon are already there, sitting on couches and chairs or scattered about the room. The coffee table in the  middle is full of drinks as are the side tables. Wallace strides in past her and picks his drink up off the table. The others follow his example and everyone raises their glasses high.]

Wallace: To Ren!

All: To Ren!

[Steven catches her eye and smiles at her over the rim of his glass and Ren goes a deeper shade of red.]

Wallace: And to not being dead yet!

[That gets a couple chuckles and they all drink.]

Wallace: [to Ren] Can I get you anything?

Ren: [a bit shell-shocked] Do you have plum wine?

Wallace: Somewhere, I’m sure. Just give me a moment.

[Wallace disappears down a flight of narrow stairs in the back corner. Ren glances around and is somewhat comforted to find that besides Steven, who is practically always in a suit anyway, no one else is particularly dressed up. There is an empty space on the couch next to Steven and Ren takes it. Meanwhile Tāraki goes to drink from the huge bowl of sangria set out for the pokemon. He slides in next to Roxanne’s kabutops and strikes up a conversation. Steven’s excadrill shuffles over and joins in. Winona withdraws the shiny swellow perched on her shoulder and sends out Māia. The taillow spots her former teammate right away and flies over to him, landing on top of his head. After the initial fright, Tāraki is quite pleased to see her and his tail sways back and forth, almost tripping a passing shiftry.]

Steven: How are you?

Ren: Okay, I guess… [Ren glances around again, but no one is looking at her, instead talking amongst themselves] A lot better actually. This is just a little weird. How are you?

Steven: Much recovered. And don’t worry about them. We’re all trainers here, so we’re all more than a little eccentric.

Roxanne: Truer words were never spoken. [She perches on the coffee table in front of them.] And I’m including myself, obviously. I can’t believe you two got to see the inside of the Cave of Origin. What was it like, geologically I mean? Wallace won’t tell me a single thing and I’ve been grilling him for years.

Steven: [face lighting up] It was incredible, like no place I’ve ever seen. I can say for certain that Rosenthal’s hypothesis is true.

Roxanne: What?!

Steven: It’s obviously a lava tube but an ancient one. There is limestone coming through every crack.

Roxanne: So it must have sunk at some point.

Steven: [nodding vigorously] For millennia! [motioning with his hands] Then the whole island got pushed back up again and the new volcano erupted right over top of it! And this cave survived!

Roxanne: No!

Steven: Yes!

Roxanne: You have to talk to Wallace again. We need samples. We need them!

Steven: Believe me, I’m working on it.

Roxanne: [gasp] What about all of those quakes yesterday?! Do you think…?

Steven: No! No. It’s damaged sure, but not collapsed.

[Roxanne slumps in relief and Ren smiles as she watches the two of them yammer back and forth. Māia flies over and lands on Ren’s shoulder.]

Ren: Hey Māia!

Māia: [rubbing against Ren’s cheek] I’m so happy you’re okay! I fought Groudon too with Winona before they got to Sootopolis! Boomburst-ed ’em right in the face for ya!

Ren: Hell yeah!

[Ren holds up her fist and Māia bumps it with her foot. Wallace returns with a glass of plum wine for Ren and hand it off. Steven and Roxanne both start talking to him at once.]

Wallace: [holding up a hand to silence them] Upp-up-up, no. This is a party and we are celebrating and we will not be discussing anything to do with my position as Lorekeeper at any point this evening and that is final. [They both scowl but say nothing. Wallace hands Ren her drink.] I’m sorry about them, they are absolutely incorrigible on this particular subject.

[He seems about to join them when the doorbell rings and he sweeps out of the room again. He returns with Senri, Kaspa and Dizzy and their ursaring, umbreon and ninetails respectively. Everyone who is sitting stands up to greet the Sekiei Champion.]

Senri: Sorry we’re late.

Kaspa: Thank you all. Please be at ease.

[Everyone goes back to what they were doing. Kaspa and her umbreon claim an armchair while Senri goes to sit next to his daughter on the couch. Kenta gives Ren a nuzzle before joining Tāraki. Dizzy sort of stands in the corner near the doorway looking as though he would rather not be present.]

Wallace: I’d like to take this moment to remind everyone that you may only have one pokemon out at a time and if I see Jeffrey even for an instant, you are getting thrown out of here faster than if you teleported.

[Ren turns, eyebrows raised, wondering who that comment was directed at.]

Steven: [explaining] Jeffrey is Pheebs’s sableye. He ate some of Wallace’s contest jewelry. Twice now as a matter of fact. I think Wallace might actually kill him and Pheebs if he ever does it again.

Roxanne: Honestly she’s lucky he lets her come to these things at all anymore.

Steven: Certainly she’s not invited more than is necessary.

Senri: [putting an arm around his daughter and giving her a squeeze] Happy birthday, kiddo.

[Māia flaps a few times, buffeting Ren, before switching shoulders so that she can have more space.]

Ren: Oh, uh, thanks. I sort of forgot.

Senri: Did you call your mother?

Ren: Yeah, of course.

Steven: Arceus, I completely forgot.

Ren: That’s okay—

Roxanne: [hissing] Senri! Why didn’t you say anything!

Senri: What?

Roxanne: [slapping his knee] You know I love you but you are completely impossible sometimes. [She gives him one last censuring look before shifting her attention back to Ren and smiling.] Happy birthday.

Ren: Thank you.

Roxanne: Give my best to Asuka next time you talk to her. I’m sure you already know this, but she is such an amazing writer. I just finished her book and to be perfectly honest it’s not my genre, but I was completely blown away. I want to read the one she’s working on now so badly. Maybe she’ll let me at it sometime.

Ren: Probably not until the first draft is finished, but it couldn’t hurt to drop some hints.

[Wallace comes back and hands Senri a drink before plopping down in the armchair to Steven’s right.]

Ren: Thanks for having us all over. Your house is very nice.

Wallace: Thank you. My mentor Juan—[gesturing with his margarita] he’s right over there— built it and the gym. There was just a little cottage on this island when he became Gym Leader. Of course, I have added on a little. Sorry if I caught you off guard with the toast. I figured it would be better to make it brief and get it out of the way.

Ren: That’s okay. Better actually.

Wallace: Has Steven been behaving? Other than his rock talk, I mean.

Ren: Very much so. The charm offensive is at a minimum.

Wallace: [laughing] That’s a nice word for it. I keep forgetting you’ve already spent a lot of time with our League Champion.

Ren: Yep. It’s been an experience.

Wallace: Well, as his friend let me just apologize for how much he has flirted with you.

Ren: What?

Steven: I didn’t—

Wallace: [rolling his eyes] Please darling, you flirt with everyone. [to Ren] Anyway, he doesn’t mean to. It’s like a nervous tick. He can’t help himself.

[Ren is trying to smile and trying not to blush and failing spectacularly at both. To top it off she can feel her father staring at her and Steven and she tries to sink into the couch.]

Wallace: [with a haughty smirk] Fortunately, some of us have a resistance to his charms.

Steven: [sipping his drink] Seemed to work on you just fine in university.

Wallace: [face dropping into annoyance] Below the belt, Steven.

Steven: I think that was more than fair, Rire.

Ren: [realization dawning] Wait, you’re Rire?

Wallace: Rire is my first name. I prefer to go by my last name, but Steven started calling me ‘Rire’ while we were dating and could never seem to break the habit. So I still call him ‘darling’ out of spite.

[A lot of things are starting to sink into place for Ren and her brain is pretty much in full panic mode, which shows on her face. Fortunately Tāraki comes over to deliver her.]

Tāraki: Hey Ren, Steven’s excadrill was saying we should maybe let Kōtai and his sandslash hang out for a while. I’ve already had a bunch of that great juice stuff and the kabutops showed me this awesome slicing technique, so I don’t really mind.

Ren: Okay. Sure thing.

[Tāraki waves goodbye to Māia as Ren withdraws him and sends out Kōtai. The sandslash looks a little puzzled until he sees Steven sending out his sandslash and he perks up. Kōtai winks at his trainer before shuffling over to talk to her. Tate and Lisa enter the room, clearly let in by someone else. Wallace gets up to greet them and Tate gives him a hug.]

Wallace: So glad you could make it. How are things? Have your students stopped misgendering you yet?

Tate: Yes. Or at least out loud.

Wallace: Well that’s something, I guess. [Wallace’s milotic slithers into the room followed by a politoed.] And that will be the food. Excuse me for a minute. Steven, come help me with this.

[Steven grumbles and gets up.]

Senri: I’ll give you a hand too.

[They all head out, followed by the politoed. The milotic stays behind, coiling himself up in a corner. Dizzy approaches him and starts a conversation, which Ren thinks is a little odd, especially when his ninetails, who she assumed was translating, gets up and goes to sit with Kaspa’s umbreon and the two continue speaking as if nothing happened. Ren decides she needs another drink and gets up. The twins take her place on the couch and start gabbing with Roxanne as Ren pours herself some more plum wine from the bottle Wallace left out for her. Pheebs and Sidney join her by the liquor cabinet, still in the midst of their own conversation and pour themselves shots. Ren watches them shotgun whatever it is and doesn’t notice Flannery walking up on her other side.]

Flannery: Hey Ren.

Ren: Hi.

Flannery: [looking a little nervous] I’m sorry about what I said yesterday. I didn’t mean—I wasn’t thinking—I just…

Ren: It’s totally fine. Brawly said it best: none of us were digging that situation. But it all worked out in the end, so let’s not worry about it anymore.

[Ren raises her glass and Flannery smiles as she clinks hers against it.]

Flannery: Happy birthday.

Ren: Thank you.

Sidney: Yeah, happy birthday. Which one is it?

Ren: My nineteenth.

Phoebe: Damn. You’re like an ovum.

Sidney: [grinning] Hey, you’re only a year younger than Flan. [smirking even wider] Fancy that.

Flannery: [flushing bright red] I have to use the restroom.

[She puts down her drink and flees.]

Ren: [watching her go, concerned] Is she okay?

Phoebe: Flannery? Oh yeah, she’s fine. She just had a major crush on you after that gym battle.

[Ren turns back to Phoebe and Sidney, eyes widening. They both do another shot and Sidney sways a little as he slams his glass back down on the table. He is clearly quite inebriated already, but Phoebe shows little evidence of being anything more than tipsy.]

Phoebe: [shrugging] She was trying to be subtle about it in the chat but—

Sidney: It was hilarious.

Phoebe: Completely transparent.

Sidney: And then Senri came on.

Phoebe: [cackling] And he was like: “just to clarify, you are interested in dating my daughter?”

Sidney: So Flan is scared shitless, right? And most of us have commented by this point, so we’re all culpable. Shit is very tense.

Phoebe: But Flannery is Asuna’s granddaughter, so she does the only honorable thing and admits to it.

Sidney: Even I am flipping my shit at this point.

Phoebe: [very matter of fact] You flip at everything. You’re the designated drama queen of this League.

Sidney: True.

Phoebe: [turning back to Ren] So then your father is just like: “well she’s never had an actual boyfriend or anything before, so she could easily be gay, but she hasn’t told me so I don’t actually know.” No “my daughter is off limits” or threats or any of that papa ursaring bullshit. Just: “my daughter hasn’t discussed her orientation with me, so by all means give it a go and see what happens.”

[Sidney is dying laughing and Phoebe chuckles quietly, clearly amused but in a more understated way. Ren has no idea how to respond except that she is blushing crimson.]

Glacia: [drifting into the circle] Ren’s lucky if you ask me. How is it Senri’s business anyway? When I was her age, my father was forever trying to scare off anyone who showed even the slightest interest. And did that stop me from getting embarrassing amounts of ass?

Phoebe: We all know the answer to that.

Glacia: No it didn’t. I would have been much better off if we could have just had a frank discussion on the subject instead of him insisting that I could never have sex with anyone ever.

[Phoebe is nodding.]

Glacia: [sarcastic] And yet, miracle of miracles, I was capable of making my own decisions and made it through just fine anyway.

Phoebe: So yeah, Ren, your dad is pretty chill. He’s not on that often, but it’s usually a good time.

Roxanne: [walking over] Pheebs, are you talking about the chat? The first rule of the chat is that you do not talk about the chat!

Phoebe: You’re the reason she already knows about it in the first place.

Roxanne: [whining] That was an accident!

Sidney: Oh! Tell us about that time that you were dating like five dudes at once and then they all wanted to take you to prom.

Phoebe: Classic Glacia.

[Ren looks as though her soul has flown out of her body and into another plane of existence as the others continue to talk around her.]

Glacia: [wistful] Hmm. I don’t really have the energy for that kind of thing anymore, but it was fun. Anyway, where to begin? First there was Chad, or maybe it was Scott first? Who can remember these things? I started going with them around the same time so it doesn’t really—

Roxanne: Not another one of your sexcapades, Glacia.

Glacia: They asked about it! You are free to listen and enjoy or not as you please.

Roxanne: But consider that Ren may not want to listen.

Glacia: Oh I’m sorry, dear. [pating Ren on the shoulder] You do look a little green around the gills. I apologize, I wasn’t paying attention.

Ren: [squeaking] It’s fine.

Roxanne: Come, let’s wander over here for a bit. Sidney won’t be satisfied until he gets the rest of it out of her.

[Ren waves as Roxanne leads her away and catches sight of Sidney mouthing “thank you”. Roxanne walks over to join Brawly, who is leaning back against the wall with his hariyama.]

Brawly: Yo Ren! How’s it?

Ren: Pretty good.

Brawly: Does the grass dude still surf?

Ren: Every chance he gets.

Brawly: Awesome!

Ren: We actually found a pretty good spot north of Lilycove.

Brawly: Wailmer Bay, right? I’m a born and bred Dewford dude myself, but I’ll admit there’s some pretty nice waves to be had up there.

[They talk for a while and Roxanne brings Winona over to join in. After a bit, they wander over to the central coffee table to get food. Ren, Steven and Senri get into a discussion with Kaspa in Kantonese while Wallace splits his attention between the twins, Dizzy’s ninetails, and keeping half an eye on everything. Pretty soon everyone is in the middle of the room, eating and talking and laughing. Everyone is also drinking, except maybe Wallace and Dizzy, who mostly sticks to the corner with Wallace’s milotic. Sidney is predictably the first to give up on the vertical plane and lays down across Glacia, Phoebe and Steven on the couch. Ren is perched on the arm of the couch next to Steven and leaning back against him for support while Kaspa continues to talk to her and Senri, who has dragged a chair over to sit next to her. Flannery is sitting on the floor in front of the couch and she slumps over the coffee table with a big, exaggerated sigh.]

Flannery: [groaning] Women are just so pretty, you know?

Steven: [nudging her shoulder consolingly with his foot] I know.

Sidney: Steven! Show us your tattoo!

Steven: Why is it every time we get drunk together, you try and get me to take my clothes off?

Sidney: You know I’m not trying to get in your pants, man. Just under your shirt.

Steven: Mmhm.

Sidney: I wanna see it for the artistry! You’re all about looks so it has to be bitchin’. [appealing to the rest of the assembled] Like there is no way Steven’s tat is ugly. We all agree on this. Wallace has seen it. It’s bitchin’, right?

Wallace: Just accept the homoerotic subtext of this desire and move on. You’ll feel better.

Sidney: Alright. [he takes a deep breath, then chants] Take off your shirt! Take off your shirt! Take off your shirt!

Phoebe: [joining in] Take it off! Take it off! Take it off!

Steven: [shoving her] Knock it off! I’m not showing you all my tattoo.

Sidney: [whining] Whyyy noooot!

Phoebe: I can’t believe the man who took my title won’t even do me the slightest favor. I mentored you for a year.

Steven: First of all, you were required to. And second of all, you so completely did not.

Sidney: Come on, Steven.

Steven: It’s personal.

Phoebe: After all we’ve been through together?

Steven: Don’t start, or I’ll go there and you know where there is.

Phoebe: You’ve known me long enough that you should know you can’t shame me.

Sidney: Yeah, give it up. There is no shaming the Pheebs.

Steven: I am not taking my shirt off with the Sekiei League Champion sitting right there!

[Steven snaps his mouth shut, suddenly realizing that said Champion probably heard him. Fortunately for Steven, Kaspa is currently glaring at Wallace, who looks truly uncomfortable for the first time. Dizzy’s ninetails is pointedly looking away from him, slender snout in the air. Meanwhile, Sidney and Phoebe continue to badger Steven, undeterred, and Ren decides to intervene.]

Ren: Lay off him! [a little quieter] I want to see it as much as the next person, [vehemently] but it’s not cool to force him.

Steven: [laughing] Are you defending my honor right now?

Ren: [defiant] So what if I am?

Phoebe: [flatly] Steven’s the Champion.

Sidney: What are you gonna do?

Ren: Need I remind you all that I just defeated Groudon? I’ll take any of you! I’ll take you right now!

Sidney: [sitting up] Whoa! Them’s fightin’ words!

Flannery: Oh Arceus, I love you.

Lisa: [patting her on the back] That was audible, Flannery.

Flannery: You mean I thought so loud that you heard it?

Lisa: No, I meant it came out of your mouth.

Flannery: [staring into the abyss] Yep. That is my life.

[Lisa and Roxanne coax Flannery off the coffee table and she leans back against the couch between them. Her head lolls on Roxanne’s shoulder and she falls asleep. Glacia has vacated the couch in favor of an armchair where she sits talking to Juan, also in an armchair. Meanwhile Ren and Steven are still debating Phoebe and Sidney across the couch with Māia gesturing threateningly from Ren’s shoulder for emphasis. Brawly and Winona are sitting in front of the coffee table discussing something wind and wave related judging from the way Brawly is moving his hands. Wallace is back in his original chair across from them and deep in conversation with Tate. Kaspa and Senri have gone more or less quiet and are half listening. Kaspa looks over the gathering and gives a rare, soft smile.]

Kaspa: This is a good party. [She squints and looks around again.] Wait… Where is Dizzy?

[sage-nebula]

If you are still doing the ask meme, can you do the TSME trio + Wallace please?

I’ve already answered for Alan and you can find that response here, but I can do the others!

—Manon—

General Opinion: 

fall in a hole and die | don’t like them | eh | they’re fine I guess | like them! | love them | actual light of my life

Aesthetic Attractiveness Level: 

get away from me | meh | neutral | theoretically aesthetically attractive but not my type | pretty aesthetically attractive | gorgeous! | 10/10 would bang

Okay, I feel the need to clarify … on the one hand, I think that Manon’s design is nice (insofar as her hair and eyes, et cetera), and I do like the fact that she likes green since I headcanon her as being a grass-type specialist when she’s older. However, I despise the colors green and red together. Honest to god, it looks like Christmas. She looks like Christmas. So like, on the one hand, I like her design! But then my brain kicks in and sees the red and green and is like “why this, she looks like an elf.”

So like, I like her design, but also my brain sometimes screams “CHRISTMAS” whenever I look at her, so. The conflict is real.

Hogwarts House: 

Gryffindor | Slytherin | Ravenclaw | Hufflepuff

Finally, a Slytherin! And yes, Manon is very, very Slytherin. I’m 100% sure of this. (Which is another reason why green is very fitting for her, but with her hair … !)

Best Quality:

Undoubtedly, her loyalty and devotion to those she loves! One of the things that makes Manon so very, very Slytherin is that she is very attached and devoted to those she loves. She’s very much one who is there for her people, which may be a small little group, but that is her small little group. And when a Slytherin defends their people, they defend their people, both in the sense that they will literally defend them from danger and they will champion for and promote them as well. (So like, Manon being so excited about Alan winning the finals? Manon always, always rooting for him no matter what? Throwing him a party? But also, despite her own terror, risking her life to go save him in TSME 3? All hallmarks of a Slytherin.) Whether it’s Alan or Hari-san or someone else dear to her, Manon will throw everything else to the wind until she’s sure that they’re safe. It’s not that she doesn’t care about the world, but it’s just that, to her, the world is less important than her loved ones. The world can wait, as far as Manon is concerned. Her people come first. And I definitely think that this is both one of Manon’s better qualities and one of the most interesting aspects of her character.

Worst Quality:

That said, Manon has a very bad tendency to disregard what others want or feel in comparison to what she wants, and has a very bad understanding of boundaries. This is best shown in her relationship with Alan, actually, in that they became friends because she wore him down until he said yes, ignoring every “no” and “stop following me” and “go away” that he threw at her. This finally culminates in their fight in TSME 4; while he was trying to push her away for her own protection—while he put an ocean between them in an effort to protect her—Manon refused to take “no” for an answer. And while on the one hand it’s amazing that she had the agency to do that (and good writing to give her the agency to do that), on the other, it’s absolutely, unquestionably wrong for her to ignore his boundaries and refuse to let him end the relationship, regardless of his reasons for doing so (because both parties don’t have to agree—so long as one person wants out of the relationship, that is enough). Manon wasn’t listening to him, wasn’t considering things from his point of view. She listened only long enough to have her turn to speak and argue. That whole thing spiraled horribly, but the point is that Manon was relentless in what she wanted (quite Slytherin, once again!), to the point of ignoring how he felt. It’s a definite flaw of hers, but one she can hopefully learn from even if the show refused to acknowledge it and give her the chance to do so.

Ship Them With:

Serena, though preferably when they’re a little older and Manon has matured a bit more.

In To Devour the Sun—well, slight spoilers for the upcoming chapter, but she has the biggest crush on Lillie, pretty much from first sight. So, while it’s one-sided at the moment, Manon/Lillie as well.

She could probably have a fun relationship with Shauna, too, tbh.

Brotp Them With:

Hari-san, obvs

Alan

Steven Stone

Bonnie

Needs to Stay Away From:

LYSANDRE, though Bonnie and Squishy killed him, so that issue has been dealt with.

In To Devour the Sun, staying away from Lusamine would be a good idea (this is good advice for literally everyone tbh), despite Manon’s precocious crush on her.

Misc. Thoughts:

I like Manon a lot, but I’m really disappointed in the way the anime concluded her arc. I would have appreciated not only having Manon realize her own mistakes which led to Hari-san’s condition as well (because taking responsibility for her own faults would help her grow as a person and a trainer), but also have her set off an independent journey with her pokémon so that she can learn independence and self-confidence, since I think she has very little confidence in herself as a trainer and depends pretty much wholesale on Alan (which he points out in TSME 4, albeit she was not in a place to hear it, and he wasn’t being gentle in his delivery, and so the whole thing was just a poorly communicated mess). I think she’s an interesting character, but the anime definitely dropped the ball.

—Steven Stone—

General Opinion:

fall in a hole and die | don’t like them | eh | they’re fine I guess | like them! | love them | actual light of my life

Aesthetic Attractiveness Level:

get away from me | meh | neutral | theoretically aesthetically attractive but not my type | pretty aesthetically attractive | gorgeous! | 10/10 would bang

Note: Tbh, it’s the anime that moved him to “gorgeous / silver-haired dreamboat” for me, and it’s less because of his appearance (and magical boy tendencies), and more because of the sheer badassery that he showed in the Flare arc, my god, Steven’s moment of “I came out to attack people and I’m having such a good time right now” at the Flare base was AMAZING. He would probably just be “pretty aesthetically attractive” if not for that.

Hogwarts House:

Gryffindor | Slytherin | Ravenclaw | Hufflepuff

Best Quality:

He is an excellent judge of character. Well, in the anime at least.

In the games he behaves rather terribly toward Zinnia, but in the anime he knows that something is off about Lysandre pretty much immediately, and goes along in TSME in order to try and keep an eye on Alan and Manon. He contacts Professor Sycamore (with Manon’s help) to pull him into the loop as well. And though he has that, “Oh woe is me, Lysandre fooled me” line in the Flare arc—that is goddamn bullshit, Lysandre never fooled him for a second, but Steven is going to high-key enjoy getting to lay waste to the Flare base as vengeance for Alan and Manon. >) Revenge is a dish best served with MEGA METAGROSS.

Worst Quality:

In the games, he does exhibit some micro-aggressions toward Zinnia which are … not cool. Specifically, I’m referring to the fact that Zinnia introduces herself to him once, but when they meet again later, we get this exchange:

STEVEN: “You’re the—!”ZINNIA: “The Draconid, yup. Or you could just call me Zinnia.”

Zinnia’s being a bit passive-aggressive there, but tbh she has every right to be. It’s outright stated in-game that the Draconids used to be more spread out across Hoenn, but now they all live at Meteor Falls. It’s very heavily implied that they’re Hoenn’s indigenous people. So it stands to reason that Zinnia may have experienced racism, casual or otherwise, before (especially since she seemed very aware of what he was about to call her). For her to introduce herself once, yet then for Steven to start to call her the Draconid, is not intentionally malicious on Steven’s part (like, I don’t think he’s consciously racist or anything), but it is passively so and is a micro-aggression, and that’s not cool. He might harbor some internalized racism, especially if it’s systemic in the Hoenn region.

On a more broad scale, however, I think that Steven probably has a tendency to be somewhat … caught up in his own affairs, sort of … distant from others, as a result of his upbringing. Steven is very wealthy, and we know this, and we also know from his interactions with Wallace in-game that Steven has a tendency to come across as kind of selfish, what with just expecting Wallace to cover for him as Champion as he does his own thing. I think that Steven’s social skills are rather lacking, that he didn’t have a lot of friends growing up (especially since so few people would treat him like Steven rather than like the heir of Devon, and even now, so few people treat him like Steven rather than Hoenn’s Champion that Alan not recognizing him at first was probably something of a relief), and so at times he can be a bit inadvertently thoughtless, even though he tries his best not to be.

TL;DR: He’s a good guy, but he has made and does make mistakes, and this isn’t even getting into all the shady nonsense that Devon Corporation is up to.

Ship Them With:

Wallace

Brotp Them With:

Alan

Manon

Professor Sycamore

Needs to Stay Away From:

Zinnia and Steven do not mix well. It’s very entertaining for me, however.

Misc. Thoughts:

TSME made me appreciate Steven far, far, far more than I did before. Before I didn’t care about him, with a side order of >/ for the way he treated Zinnia. Now I really like him, and it’s all thanks to the anime. Thanks, anime!

—Wallace—

General Opinion:

fall in a hole and die | don’t like them | eh | they’re fine I guess | like them! | love them | actual light of my life

Aesthetic Attractiveness Level:

get away from me | meh | neutral | theoretically aesthetically attractive but not my type | pretty aesthetically attractive | gorgeous! | 10/10 would bang

Hogwarts House:

Gryffindor | Slytherin | Ravenclaw | Hufflepuff

I honestly don’t remember enough about his characterization to Sort him accurately, so tbh I took a stab in the dark based on what I do remember.

Best Quality:

Mmm, that he’s not as immediately judgmental as Steven? And that he treats Steven as a person rather than just the Devon heir/Champion.

Worst Quality:

Nothing that I can think of, tbh.

Ship Them With:

Steven Stone

Brotp Them With:

Isn’t that one Contest Spectacular idol his niece?

Needs to Stay Away From:

???

Misc. Thoughts:

I honestly haven’t played through AlphaSapphire in years, haha. My memory of Wallace is not that strong. I just remember him sassing Steven a bit and it was great.

[djrelentless]

Martin Luther King Day 2015

(Selma, Ferguson, Staten Island and Other Destinations)

January 14, 2015 at 6:46am

It took me a couple of days to ponder what I was going to write in this blog. Being a gay black man married to a gay white Canadian man watching the film, Selma in a Toronto theatre on one of the coldest days of 2015 (so far), I cried a little for all the people who fought and died for me to have the right to be who I am today.

To say that Selma is required viewing is an understatement. It's phenomenal that in major cities across the United States businesspeople came together to ensure 7th, 8th & 9th graders to see the film for free. I recall back in 2006 when 50 Cent was quoted as saying that Oprah's demographic was little ol' white women and how that must have really affected her. She buried the hatchet with him in 2012, but has really put her money where her mouth is. Since his comment, Oprah introduced the common American to Barrack Obama. She's produced important films like The Butler and now Selma.

It's strange to me that so many black people and award shows (as far as giving her an award goes) dislike Oprah. It almost seems like if her name is attached to a project that theOscars automatically disqualify her efforts. I hope and pray this is not the case this year. Perhaps they are upset with her because she left daytime TV. But she has definitely made a huge impact on American Culture in general. I love that she is doing her part to ensure our history is preserved and shared.

When I think about the history lessons that Public Enemy rapped about in the 80s and how dumbed down the rap game is today, I cry. It saddens me because I don't think that this is where we as black people (especially African Americans) should be. This obsession with The Housewives of Atlanta and World Star Hip Hop is such a distraction from Dr. King's dream. I mean….wouldn't you prefer to watch NeNe & Kenya fighting at a dinner party than understand how our civil rights leaders of the 60s had to walk the fine line that Obama has to walk on a daily basis? (Yes, that was sarcasm).

The entire time I was watching the film I couldn't help but see the parallels between the police brutality of yesteryear and today. Watching the police kill Jimmie Lee Jackson echoed the shooting of Michael Brown or the chokehold of Eric Garner. The more things change the more they stay the same. But do things have to stay the same? The main point of this march in Selma was the right to vote, but statistics say that most African-Americans don't. Did all those people fight and die for today's black young voters to ignore their right to vote? Did all these people of different races and faiths come together for club promoters to useMartin Luther King Day Weekend for twerk contests?

Back when MLK Weekend came up and I was part of the Tea Dance from 1998-2010, theSunbeam Sundays team at Escuelita in New York City, we would hold contests to see who could actually recite the "I Have A Dream" speech. We focused on Black History in our trivia. But I think all that has been lost and forgotten. Today's club-goers could care less about the history of their culture. And because much of today's Hip Hop Culture is not engaged in Black History perhaps that's why there are so many British black actors playing African-Americans in these historical pics. I guess that's what seemed weird to me as an African-American watching this film in Canada (where MLK Day is not observed in any official capacity). My husband and I noticed that the theatre was not packed and didn't have very many black people in it. Probably because the black community here in Toronto are mainly from the Caribbean and feel that this is American history and not theirs. Interesting that the film starts with Dr. King in another country about to receive his Nobel Peace Prize, but his legacy is not celebrated around the world. I find it ironic because the racism that still exists today seeps across the border in many different forms.

I loved Selma! Every detail was exquisite. Probably the only detail that I questioned was a scene where Martin is changing a garbage bag in the kitchen and Coretta handed him a clear plastic trash bag. As far as the casting…..David Oyelowo was Martin Luther King! And Carmen Ejogo embodied Coretta Scott King. Tim Roth had me convinced as George Wallace……all British actors. I hope that David and Carmen both get best actor and actress nominations. I felt happy for Common and John Legend as they won best song at The Golden Globes.

http://youtu.be/ZzbKaDPMoDU

When my husband and I sat down there was a very chatty white couple who sat behind us. I have never understood in situations where the place is not crowded why people will come and sit right next to another couple or group (including waiters and hostesses who seat guests right next to your table). I was worried that they were going to talk through the entire film. But from that opening explosion of the four girls who were killed in their church, you could hear a pin drop throughout the theatre. Quite a difference from watching a movie in the states (no matter what it is…still having nightmare of the white girl masturbating her boyfriend during Oprah's "Beloved" back in the 90s).

Another thing that occurred to me was my joy that we now have all these historical films likeSelma, The Butler, 12 Years A Slave, Get On Up, Ray, Bamboozled and Malcolm X. Remembering a time when there was the us and them films when blacks were not allowed in mainstream films and marveling over daring films like Pinky and Imitation Of Life that took chances by presenting black characters in major roles. And I'd like to applaud Steven Spielberg for making The Color Purple before embarking on Schindler's List. And another remarkable thing about Selma is that it actually had some of the real people who were actually there on that day of the march. One in particular was Amelia Boynton Robinson(played in the movie by Lorraine Toussaint who reminds me of Macy Gray for some reason) who was born on August 18th, 1911. Imagine all the things she has seen in her lifetime. All the news of Civil Rights to our first Black President……what an amazing journey to call a life. Unfortunately she was unable to attend the Hollywood premiere, so they brought the film to her and held a special screening just for her. I love the fact that there are still people here who lived our history. In this youth obsessed culture that exist today, nothing compares to the wisdom and experience of someone who was there. We should honor all of our elders.

http://www.cnn.com/2015/01/09/us/selma-civil-rights-matriarch/

The other thing that occurred to me that the release of this film is perfect. We need this film more than ever after the turn of events of last year. So many of our black youth clashing with the police in the states. It almost seemed like it was hunting season….all because of the hatred of the fact that a black man was elected into the biggest office in America. And unfortunately it is not over. It won't even be over when he leaves office because the bar has been set very high. The parallels between the Obamas and the Kings are so apparent throughout the film. The elegance and resilience of Coretta and Michelle makes me happy and sad at the same time. I remember when Ossie Davis and Ruby Dee died. Both marched with Dr. King and were activist for Civil Rights. That African-American royalty seemed to have lost its shimmer when they passed. Who would replace them? They, theKings and the Obamas were like the Kennedy(s) to Black Culture. Who are the people who replace these historical couples? I would say Beyonce and Jay Z would be in line, but her music videos and the video of him slapping some African woman on YouTube might hold them back. If you let Harry Belfonte tell it…..they don't do enough for the Black Community, but I see the work they do behind the scenes. Slowly they are investing in the future of Black Culture. Top 5 (the movie), Fela (the Broadway Musical) and giving Christmas gifts to all the kids in The Marcy Projects where he grew up……Jay Z gives back. And say what you will about Beyonce, she handles all of her business with grace and I did enjoy her remake of "Carmen" and her in "Dreamgirls" and her as Etta James in "Cadilac Records". You won't find any videos or tweets of her dissing anyone. So, I guess they are the closest to black royalty in Hip Hop America at the moment.

I hope that everyone goes out to see Selma. It's probably one of the most important films of the past five years. I would say it and 12 Years A Slave are required viewing to get a true grip around what the racial divide is all about in the U.S. today. I don't believe any racist could watch either and not leave with a different perspective of what it is like for the African-American. Shirley Bassey once sang "It's just a little bit of history repeating" and no truer words ever passed anyone's lips.

Here's my MLK Weekend Mix: http://www.mixcloud.com/djrelentlessny/martin-luther-king-weekend-mix-2015