#like the remake looks realistic but it also looks less of its own world

[folksy]

it's so funny how movies, televison, and video games all have the issue of "we are so focused on things looking the best as possible that we sideline sound design, art direction, and style in favor of what looks like it could be most visually realistic to real life"

[kittycatblast]

big post about how i've been thinking a lot about final fantasy vii's art direction, graphical style, and a little bit on low-poly graphics

the art direction of ffvii feels very unique from anything in the series since. it's distinctly more exaggerated than most the series afterwards, and especially more than the compilation of ffvii and the vii remake series. i do wonder why this sort of art direction was abandoned in favor of the more realistic looks of later mainline games

this even feels present in the key art, compare the original vii art of tifa to the later artwork of her for dissidia

you can chalk it up to the refinement of nomura's own art, but i think there's subtle things that set em worlds apart. the shorter torso and longer legs make her boobs look cartoonishly larger. her elbow pad sort of popping out a little further appearing a hint more bulky. the more rounded profile of her shoes. her face is a bit round, there's not much detail on her lips and her eyes are bigger

my only hypothesis as to why only vii really had this style going for it was to compensate on the uncertainty of system limits early on in the ps1's life. i think the cast is very much designed with that in mind, let's take a look at cloud

he really is a pretty simple character design, smaller intricacies do exist but they are negligible. with that he works perfectly into both his battle and field models

almost entirely vertex colored, using textures for finer details only where they're absolutely necessary like his mouth and eyes (though iirc, the mouth was actually added in the pc version). it's a very...utilitarian? way of modeling? a lot of early 3d games had a similar way of modeling their characters, mario 64 is an easy example but i also think or the camelot mario sports games

but after ffvii the other mainline final fantasy games on would experiment with the more realistic look of viii and the exaggerated but more finely detailed presentation of ix, both games making use of impressive texture work and far less rudimentary models

like let's look at the concept art of zidane from ix compared to his in-game model

it's pretty much one-to-one in its detail thanks to the texture, it looks great! the charm of vii's models isn't there, but it has its own charm thanks to the already exaggerated style of the art the model was based on. it's comparable to the kind of low-poly stuff people make these days

sufficed to say though i like the blockier, primitive, almost toy-like look of ffvii and the other games i've mentioned. it's the exact kind of look i've been going for with my own 3d work

i'm not sure if i've even gotten my full thoughts out with this post but it's something that's been on my mind for a while regarding final fantasy games, old 3d games, and new games that look like old 3d games

[omegawizardposting]

I watched a video essay today that put into words why I dislike the look of the Reignited Trilogy.

The original Spyro the Dragon had a specific design philosophy, which leaned toward a "less is more" approach. Combined with its surreal architecture and carefully chosen color palettes, this gave the game's levels a dreamy, ethereal, almost liminal aspect.

You rarely ever felt that the places in the game's world were truly lived-in, and this becomes more and more apparent the further into the game you get. By the time you reach Dreamweaver's, you have left all semblance of common sense behind. Towers grow out of the walls like plants. Worlds hover in the sky with no clear connection to the earth below. It looks less like a world once populated by dragons and more like a dream world.

(Hence the name, I suppose.)

The Reignited Trilogy is very good, because it's a remake of games that were already good. It's also beautifully rendered and has its own unique style.

However, it failed to capture what made Spyro's visual style so utterly captivating. When I play Reignited, I can believe that people (or dragons) live in its levels. Everything is intricately detailed, the lighting more realistic, the enemies and landscapes more sensical. I never find myself staring off into the endless rolling hills of Stone Hill or the creeping yellow-green mist of Misty Bog and wondering what is beyond them. The Reignited interpretation of these places are too comfortable, too mundane to spark that same sense of wonder in me.

Spyro's visuals were so striking because they were limited in certain aspects, in a way modern games struggle (or don't even bother trying) to recreate.

[rpgsandbox]

"Only a few understand adventurers. Most consider us insane driven by treasures, ancient secrets, fame, admirers, power, or what comes to mind. It couldn't be farther from the truth."  /Adbjorn Haig/

Enter the cruel and savage world of Atlas, where the ruins of forgotten civilizations are desecrated as the strange bones of the past begin to stir. Dark rituals mixed with corrupt technologies animate the ashes of the dead. As bloodthirsty hordes of barbarians and beasts alike roam the plains, the stern land can never be satisfied by the sweat and tears of the innocent. Mighty despots pass the time with their concubines behind high stone walls. Metal and magic have formed the land, erected floating islands, and twisted the deadly mountain paths. Take all you can before others plunder everything in this land of limitless possibilities! Rise as a mighty warlord or rot away like a maggot! Join us in the world of Atlas right here, right now!

"I have seen many shitholes on my voyages." /Feth Col/

Atlas – Rise or Die is a classic, vintage sword & sorcery tabletop RPG. In its style and mood, Atlas brings about the renaissance of the epic RPGs of the '80s with a modern, clean design and breath-taking illustrations.

If you are interested, don't wait! Get a sneak- peek of the layout right now! Come and look at how we imagined the book's design and the base of the 2d10 system!

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1-e7_UOnNPa2cGsnwsowr55X9J2tFIPu1/view

The campaigns are housed in a brand new, progressive system that facilitates fast-paced and fluid gameplay. The system rests on the following seven main features:

A realistic, d20 compatible 2d10 system with low numbers. We believe that by using the result of rolls with 2d10s, we can eliminate some of the radical distribution of values often associated with d20s. This makes "Nat20" rolls even more epic and memorable, since their chance decrease from 5% to 1%.

We use a three-dimensional (race, class, archetype) character creation system, where by removing the traditional "alignment" aspect of characters and introducing the archetype system, well-rounded personalities can be created and played out.

The Atlas system allows for completely free character advancement, even maxing out a single stat is possible, though not encouraged by the system. It favors balanced characters and allows unique combinations of strengths and weaknesses.

Subsystems for NPC interactions, that allow overcoming obstacles by not only violent means. These make social interactions and investigations as enjoyable and manageable as combat encounters, resulting in immersive role-playing.

The XP system supports actual role-playing, not only combat.

The combat system is fast-paced and not roll-heavy. Alongside customary mechanics for damage distribution, it also emulates the dynamic physical positioning of combat participants. Combat maneuvers, boosts, and the decisions made in a fight scene this way become a fun activity instead of brainless rolls and damage calculation. Aiding our teammates and getting them in position come with substantive strategic rewards.

D&D 5th Edition compatible Setting on a brutal, bloodied, barbarian world of ancient technologies and dark rituals

“A great sword consists of three parts. You grab the grid, you defend with the middle and you kill with the point. It can’t be simpler.” /Adbjorn Haig/

Frankly speaking, ATLAS- Rise or Die, is not one but THREE unique books merged into one revised and united volume.

The first part is the Corebook which contains the basics of the game. This includes descriptions, explanations, added tables, and examples. All the presented sub-systems represent one, merged system that can be used as a core for any alternative games. It is with 5th Edition and with d20 system also compatible.

The second section is the Player's Handbook. This contains detailed information for players to create their character through the Handbook's unique 3D character creation system. Roles, Races, paths, highlighted classes, and much more are included in this book. Everything listed above serves the ultimate purpose of exclusive character creation to ensure that each player generates their unique character that is entertaining and cool to play with.

The third and last book is called Setting, which presents the wonders and dangers of ATLAS, a description of places, creatures, and everything that can be found on this barbaric land. It is full of adventures bringing you forgotten treasure, ancient monsters, and thrilling legends. The descriptions in this edition contain all the information a player needs to survive this brutal world. It is also "5th Edition-friendly".

All this will be brought to you in an old-fashioned hardcover book with the following parameters:

Hardcover, straight spine book

Classic portrait A/4 size

Matte art paper- core pages for stunning looks and to be easily readable

"When Enoon, our Dark Sun, arises, it shakes the calm waves of magic with its power. At such times, numerous disconcerting events manifest themselves all over Atlas." /Magister Athan/

Atlas – Rise or Die is more than another boring remake. Our goal is to bring back the atmosphere of classic game sessions in a unique new format, never seen before, through a completely modern, fresh, and trendy gamebook.

We are aiming to evoke a retro, vintage feeling with our design, all the while using high-quality, contemporary graphics, that would not have been possible in the ’80s.

Our own 2d10 system is less random and unpredictable than the classic d20, but it offers the same ease when it comes to calculation and keeping track of events. By using two ten-sided dice, average rolls are more frequent and exceptional rolls, like natural 20s, even more valuable - but is with D&D 5th Edition compatible.

We were adamant to retain as much as we can from the proven template of classic sword & sorcery RPGs while adding a few twists to make them better suited for the brutal world of Atlas. Our elves for example are sickly, degenerate nobles who rule their people through intrigue. Their savage relatives are bloodthirsty head-hunters, protecting their ancient forests and hunting down all intruders. The dwarves are tyrannical conquerors at the head of an enslaved populous, dwelling in underground fortresses, that they call cities. They often make deals with subterranean creatures only to have their aid in their territorial clan wars.

The fast-paced, narrative, and tactical combat system goes a lot further than the classic, "attack roll–damage roll" format. The combat maneuvers infused in attacks alongside the collected bonuses make combat less hectic, more enjoyable, and realizable.

It is not only the lovers of fight sequences who can find something to please them. We have developed influence and intuition systems to support non-combat situations, which give flexible frameworks for meaningful interactions, information-trade, and realizing player goals through NPCs.

In the world of Atlas, everything is about brutality and blood sacrifice, and so it is with our magic system. It is optimized for coming up with unique combinations, while it supports the creation of your own spells. Magic twists and drains its user, should they become too greedy, the price could easily become their lives.

“Atlas is a cruel violent world, where barbarism, blood, and brutality dominate.  But it wasn't always like that... A long time ago, ancient civilizations, advanced races, and rich kingdoms ruled this world, using their magic and technologies, rather than cold steel and muscle power.” /Magister Athan/

ATLAS is much more than a simple sword and sorcery world. It was shaped by barbaric realms, ancient monsters, and pioneer spaceships from forgotten civilizations. 

Kickstarter campaign ends: Thu, June 24 2021 11:00 AM BST

Website: [Old Mages Games] [facebook] [instagram]

[sleepykittypaws]

Celebrate the Olympic Spirit

Sure, the Olympics aren’t a holiday, per se, but the every-four-year, or two if you count both Summer and Winter editions separately, massive international sporting events sure seems like a reason to celebrate, especially given their recent, unprecedented delay. And what better way to get into the Games mood, than by watching a sports movie?

Here are my favorite motivating, inspirational, and aspirational tales of athletic derring do…

Favorite Sports Movies

The Cutting Edge (1992) - This figure skating romance was released around the 1992 Olympics, and actually name-checks that year's winter host city, Albertville, more than once.  It's not good in the traditional sense of great storytelling or athletic veracity, but I loved it so very much I saw it three times in the theater as a teen. Watching it at some point during every Winter Games is a tradition for me so, yeah, I can’t help it, I love this silly sports movie/romance, which also features a bit of holiday feels.

Wimbledon (2004) - It's a rom-com. It's a sports movie. It's a rom-com sports movie that really should be better known. Notting Hill but set at tennis' best-known event. Paul Bettany and Kristen Dunst have surprisingly great chemistry, and there's more sports-related tension than you'd think.

Friday Night Lights (2004) - A football movie for people who don't really like football. a.k.a. 🙋‍♀️. The TV series it spawned is also brilliant (”Clear Eyes, Full Hearts,” indeed), and well worth a watch, but the original movie, starring Billy Bob Thornton, is, honestly, a masterpiece. Definitely Peter Berg's best work and the original book, written by Berg's cousin, Buzz Bissinger, is a great read.

Muriel's Wedding (1994) - You mean you forgot this Australian export, which made Toni Collette a star, was a sports movie? Yep, one of my all-time favorite movies, of any genre, this absolutely brilliant, ABBA-soaked comedy is not only a girls-night go-to, but also a stealth Olympic sport classic.

Remember the Titans (2000) - OK, football isn't in the Olympics, but it sure does make for a good sports movie setting. Even if this early 1970s-set story is most definitely Disney-fied, Denzel Washington, Will Patton, Ryan Gosling and a baby Hayden Panettiere really sell this sort-of true story.

Invictus (2009)-Rugby isn't an Olympic sport, or even one most Americans know much about, but this Matt Damon-led, Clint Eastwood-directed, based-on-a-true-story tale made me care about a sport I'd only tangentially knew even existed before watching.

Hoosiers (1986)-I grew up in Indiana so, by law, I have to include this basketball classic on any "best of" sports movie lists. Also, it actually is really very good.

Rudy (1993)-Ditto the above. But, again, it's hard not to root for Sean Astin (and Jon Favreau!) in this love letter to the Fighting Irish. Plus, there’s no better scavenger hunt task or TikTok challenge than going into a bar and convincing a patron to allow you to put them on your shoulders and march around chanting, 'Rudy, Rudy, Rudy.' 

Miracle (2004) - Given how much more popular the Summer Olympics are, it's weird that the Winter Games seem to get all the good movies made about them, but this Kurt Russell-led true tale is another Disney sports movie classic.

McFarland, USA (2015) - Disney, and Kevin Costner, just really know how to make a sports movie, damn it! This movie made me care about cross country for which it, too, could have carried the title Miracle.

A League of Their Own (1992)-The best baseball movie ever. Yeah, I said what I said. Tom Hanks, Geena Davis, Lori Petty—even Madonna and Rosie O'Donnell are making it work. 1992 was a weirdly great year for sports movies.

Moneyball (2011) - A movie about baseball, and math, and yet it's also great, I swear. In addition to all of the above, it's also a stealth Christmas movie and maybe Chris Pratt's best non-Marvel, movie role.

Creed (2015) - This surprisingly effective Rocky reboot starring Michael B Jordan as Apollo Creed's illegitimate son has spawned its own movie series which, in many ways, exceeds the original Rocky franchise.

Rocky Balboa (2006) - Maybe it's because I was a toddler when the original Rocky came out, so only saw the ever-worse sequels as a kid, but this mid-aughts return to the character for Sylvester Stallone, as both writer and actor, is a triumph.

Eddie the Eagle (2016) - That Hugh Jackman features in as many movies (spoiler alert) on this list as Kevin Costner surprised me, too. This story of the English ski jumper who became infamous for being, well, less than golden, is one of those non-Olympic triumph stories that really works. If you're going to watch one underdog-at-the-Games movie, I definitely prefer this this to the more ubiquitous Cool Runnings.

Love & Basketball (2000) - Only because I'm an anglophile is this great, chemistry-filled Sanaa Lathan and Omar Epps college basketball romance not my favorite sports-movie-meets-rom-com.

I, Tonya (2017) - Margot Robbie and a nearly unrecognizable Sebastian Stan are perfectly cast in this sarcastic, highly stylized look at the Tonya Harding scandal.

Pride (2007) - Apparently I like this swimming movie, which I think almost no one saw, better than critics, but I found this 1970s-set, Terrence Howard-Bernie Mac-starring story of inner city kids excelling in the pool emotional and entertaining.

Field of Dreams (1989) - This Kevin Costner magical realism baseball classic is often goofy and imminently tease-worthy and yet…It also works. Maybe it's no surprise that someone who loves cheesy Christmas movies as much as I do would have a soft spot for Field of Dreams.

42 (2013) - Chadwick Boseman is absolutely fantastic as legend Jackie Robinson. One of those movies that's ostensibly about baseball, but is really about so much more, except not in a pretentious way.

Race (2016) - Before Jason Sudeikis was Ted Lasso, he was famed track coach Larry Synder in this Jesse Owens biopic that is far from perfect, but still important. Plus, I honestly don't think Stephan James got enough credit for his relatively nuanced portrayal of Owens.

Goon (2011) - This overlooked gem starring Sean William Scott as a semi-pro hockey player whose main skill is his ability to take, and dole out, a beating, is surprisingly great.

Real Steel (2011) - This is a robot-boxing movie starring Hugh Jackman that is basically Rocky meets Over the Top—and yet it's actually really good. Yeah, I was surprised, too.

Forget Paris (1995) - OK, so maybe Billy Crystal playing an NBA referee doesn't really make this a sports movie, but it does begin and end (spoiler alert) at real NBA games, and I will die on the hill that this rom-com co-starring Debra Winger is wildly under-rated.

Bend it like Beckham (2002) - This girl-power sports movie has some highly questionable romantic dynamics (the coach is their love interest???) but this Parminder Nagra-Keira Knightley movie is also a heckuva sports movie and an inspiring immigrant story.

Bonus Pick: The Apple TV+ series Ted Lasso is one of the best things I watched in 2020, and I'm sure of that, because I watched it twice since, just to be sure. Jason Sudekis is absolutely perfect as an American college football coach taking over a UK Premier League team. This sweet show with a heart of gold is smart, funny, and absolutely impossible not to love—even for a cynic such as myself.

More Sports Movies Worth Watching

For someone not very into sports, I am, apparently, into watching movies about sports, so while not a comprehensive listing of the entire, vast genre, here are a few more suggestions I personally think are worth watching.

The Miracle Season (2018) - This movie about high school volleyball champs whose star player dies suddenly stars Helen Hunt and is a lot better than you'd think based on its tiny budget and, honestly, fairly small story. Just missed making my Top 25.

The Way Back (2020) - This Ben Affleck as a drunken high school basketball coach movie is a lot better than expected. Released just as the pandemic kicked into high gear, it was overlooked last year, but worth seeking out.

Fighting with My Family (2019) - Does it count if it's a show, not a sport? Either way (but that's why this isn't in my Top 25), this stealth Christmas movie/love letter to the WWE is a lot better than it ever needed to be thanks to some really great performances from Florence Pugh, Lena Headey and directer Stephen Merchant. Even The Rock reins it in.

Warrior (2011) - You couldn't pay me to watch an actual UFC bout, but this Tom Hardy story of (literally) battling brothers is incredibly compelling and well done.

Win Win (2011) - This movie isn't really enough about wrestling, even though its ostensibly centered around the sport, to make it into my Top 25, but it's still really good, and Amy Ryan gives an outstanding performance.

Fever Pitch (2005) - Drew Barrymore and Jimmy Fallon star in this remake of a UK film whose ending they had to shift when the Red Sox unexpectedly won the World Series.

Fever Pitch (1997) - This Colin Firth-starring, Arsenal-centered original is much smaller, more realistic and arguably better than the big budget Barrymore-Fallon redux.

We are Marshall (2006) - A real-life sports tragedy made into a sports-movie tearjerker starring Matthew McConaughy. And my tears were very much jerked by the end.

Coach Carter (2005) - Samuel L Jackson plays real-life basketball coach Ken Carter and, because it's a Disney movie, doesn't use the F-word even once. Now that's a feat worthy of its own sports movie.

Invincible (2006) - Yes, it's Mark Wahlberg, and another based-on-a-true-story, Disney sports movie that hits all the cliches, but dang it, that works on me. It just does.

Glory Road (2006) - If you're sensing a theme with me and Disney sports movies…Well, you're not wrong. This look at the first all-Black starting lineup at the 1966 NCAA Final Four does, unfortunately, center white coach Don Haskins, played by Josh Lucas (though I always mis-remember it as Josh Charles), making the important story it tells less than what it should be, but it still mostly works.

Million Dollar Arm (2014) - Admittedly one of the lesser Disney sports movie entries, and another that centers a white guy in a film mostly about people of color (not a great look), this Jon Hamm movie about a scout seeking an Indian cricket star who can make it in the Major Leagues still mostly worked for me.

The Mighty Ducks (1992) - One of the few movies on this list aimed directly at kids, this beloved peewee hockey saga actually is cute, and mostly does hold up.

Cool Runnings (1993) - Kind of shocked this movie that is part White Savior-movie and part-wacky kids movie essentially making fun of a real group of athletes of color came out in 1993 and not 1973, but the earnest charm of John Candy and a general Disney gloss keep this from being totally unwatchable and mostly just mildly, rather than extremely, offensive. Not really recommending, but feels like it belongs on an Olympic movie list.

Nadia (1984) - This made-for-TV, mostly true biopic, starring Talia Balsam as Nadia Comaneci, was a Disney Channel staple in that network’s early days. 

Munich (2005) - It's a movie with the Olympics very much at its heart—namely the 1972 Israeli athlete hostage tragedy—that isn't really about the Olympics at all, but this Steven Spielberg-directed movie about national revenge is compelling, if problematic if you think about it for too long.

American Anthem (1986) - Is this Mitch Gaylord-Mrs. Wayne Gretzky (a.k.a Janet Jones) starring movie good, realistic and/or well-written? No, no and none of the above. But did I still watch it 8,000 times as a kid on HBO? Yes. Yes, I did.

Men with Brooms (2002) - Once, on a business trip to Canada, my husband was stuck in a hotel that only got three channels, and one of them always seemed to be showing curling, which actually got him weirdly into this obscure sport. This movie wasn't quite as fun as I hoped, but it's still a mostly charming, if slight, Canadian classic.

Unbroken (2014) - The harrowing and incredible real-life story of Louis Zamperini deserved better than this Angelina Jolie-directed movie delivered, but it's still a serviceable version of a worthy tale.

Chariots of Fire (1981) - I remember being bored out of my mind by this movie trying to watch this movie on cable as a kid, but no denying that, if nothing else, the score is iconic and indelibly linked to sports-movie magic.

Without Limits (1998) - Jared Leto’s Prefontaine beat this one to the theaters, but this Billy Crudup-starring film is the better of the two movies about the life of running pioneer Steve Prefontaine. There’s also a 1995 documentary, Fire on the Track: The Steve Prefontaine Story.

Personal Best (1982) - Mariel Hemingway’s story of ambition at odds with love, is a sports and LGTBQ+ classic. 

Olympic Dreams (2019) - The story of how this small, meandering movie was made during the 2018 Winter Games is, unfortunately, more interesting than the movie itself, but there is some charm in watching Nick Kroll as an Olympic dentist making his way through the real Village, while interacting with real athletes.

Foxcatcher (2015) - This excellently-acted story is more true crime than sports inspiration, but if you're seeking a look at the dark side of the Games—and don’t want to turn on a doc like Athlete A—this is very dark tale indeed.

Seabiscuit (2003) - Every great athlete deserves to have their story told.

Any Given Sunday (1999) - Oliver Stone and Al Pacino take on pro Football. 'Nuff said.

The Replacements (2000) - I mean, the movie isn't amazing, but Keanu Reeves is super charming and Gene Hackman is always worth a watch.

The Program (1993) - Another bit of a dark-side-of-football take, worth it if only for the fantastic cast: James Caan, Halle Berry, Omar Eps, Joey Lauren Adams.

Everbody’s All-American (1988) - Not a movie I particularly love, but this Dennis Quaid-Jessica Lange football story that spans decades has always stuck in my memory.

Bull Durham (1988) - Just let Kevin Costner play actual baseball already.

[agustdef]

With All My Heart

Pairing: Tattoo Artist!Hoseok x Doctor!Reader.

Genre: Established Relationship; Angst; Fluff

Word Count: 11K

Warning: Angsty. Language...?; Mention of Death; Mentions of mental health struggles

Rating: PG15

Banner Maker: @httpangelicjimin​ who was wonderful enough to remake this one after realized the other wouldn’t work and then proceeded to use it for I Found You.

Beta Reader: @suhdays​ who knew I was in a rush and was kind enough to offer to beta it for me without me asking. 

When Hoseok came home from his last appointment, he found the apartment mostly silent and way cleaner than when he’d left that morning. Probably cleaner than after the weekly Sunday morning routine was finished, which was impressing and worrisome. But also made him hopeful.

After discarding his shoes and jacket at the door, he headed to the bedroom where he found YN already settled into bed. She wore a large shirt – with the words fight me with a leprechaun on front – that she’d probably stolen from Yoongi’s closet during their last visit, her bonnet, and a koala face mask. Her eyes were focused on the TV on the wall opposite their bed and she hummed along with the intro to the anime she was watching.

It was the most relaxed he’d seen her in weeks.

“Hey baby,” he said.

That drew her attention towards him, and she smiled when they locked eyes, though that stopped as soon as her mask shifted. She was happy to see him and had missed him after the day she’d spent alone. Not that she was lonely or anything, but it felt nice to break away from being by herself.

“Hi. You’re home early. I thought you had to work on that big piece tonight?” she said.

That made Hoseok annoyed in an instant. He huffed and rolled his eyes while his fingers ran through his hair. The memory of the evening he had before, and after he finished what turned into his last client filled his head.

“She called and said she couldn't make it. Which was fine, because I wasn't up to working on it tonight anyway. I'm still feeling sick I guess. But, then she kept changing her mind, and when she finally decided to come - and said she was on her way - she didn't come at all. No response to calls or any of the messages I sent. But I was scrolling through the shop's feed while waiting for my other person only to see her at some other shop we follow getting a different tattoo. I just told her that if she wasn’t going to honor appointments and give me the run around, then we weren’t the right fit.”

In response YN frowned. It was clear how annoyed and tired he was, even without the added stress of a wishy washy, client who just thought they could do whatever the hell they wanted when requesting someone’s time. She wanted to knock the girl upside her head, but it wasn’t realistic, and she’d never go out of her way to attack someone. Though the idea of cussing her out if she appeared at the shop when YN was around didn’t seem too terrible of a plan.

However, that wasn’t something that either of them lingered on long because Hoseok sneezed five times in a row and by the third he seemed wiped out.

YN took off her mask and threw it in the trash near her side of the bed before hopping up. She opened her bedside table and pulled out a thermometer, which she quickly freed from its little bad as she rounded the bed to where he stood. Hoseok knew better than to argue so his mouth opened before she even raised her arm to stick it in.

They stood there for a moment staring at each other, until they heard the beep and when YN looked at the temperature she winced.

“You went up so much since this morning. You’re practically at fever levels. Go take a shower and get in bed. I’ll get some stuff for you to take,” she said.

There was no way Hoseok would argue with how he felt. It was like once he was at home and stopped moving his body had started to give up. He felt heavy and he ached a little here and there. His head also felt a little weird, but he chalked up part of that to being frustrated. So, once she stepped away from him he dragged himself to the bathroom.

By the time he finished his shower and pulled on some clothes, YN was already back in the room. She’d had a bowl, a mug, and a glass of water sitting on the table near his side of the bed. And she was unfolding a blanket, which Hoseok recognized as one the weighted ones. It was something that YN pulled out whenever one of them was having a tough time sleeping or in general, and when they got sick. Something about the thing eased the body into relaxation that neither of them had ever felt before.

When she noticed his arrival, she smiled at him and patted the bed. Hoseok moved as quickly as his body would allow him and plopped down onto the bed. Before he could do much else she placed the bowl into his hands.

“It’s a mix of the broths from the soup your mom brought and that Mama Min brought. You are to never tell them that I did this. Or that while both are good they taste next level combined. I will not be killed because I took care of you,” she said.

At that Hoseok laughed, and then drank down the broth. YN wasn’t wrong about it being better combined, which was part of the reason he downed it despite the burn he felt. Naturally, YN chastised him as he did because she could see the pain on his face, but he paid her no mind. Once finished, she replaced the bowl with the mug and one look inside had him sitting it down.

“You know I don’t like that version of ginseng. Why can’t I drink the other one?” he whined.

“Because it’s the kind that helps you the most and it hides the taste of the medicine you hate so much. This is your own fault for being a wimp and not wanting to drink it down by itself. So drink it,” she said.

Of course, he didn’t do it right away. Hoseok stared YN down and attempted his best puppy dog eyes and pout, but was met with an unamused expression that became more uncaring as each second passed. That didn’t deter hum though, at least not for about a minute or so when it was clearly she only grew more impatient with him.

With a huff he grabbed the mug and quickly downed the shot of ginseng and medicine. He winced in reaction to how bitter it was and immediately snatched the glass of water up as YN took the mug from him. Once he’d downed that as well she grabbed all the dishes and headed out of the bedroom.

“Get comfortable in bed,” she called back.

Upon return she had both of their 34oz water bottles filled up and ready for them to drink through the night if need be. Which for Hoseok was often while sick and because she’d caught a little of his cold she too needed a few sips at random times if she woke up.

After giving it to him, she climbed into bed and slid under the blanket. It may have been summer but they tended to keep their room on the colder side, which meant that they wouldn’t overheat just because they slept under them; which was good because YN needed to be under a blanket to sleep.

Getting comfortable didn’t take them long, since they were both so wiped out from their days. And despite Hoseok’s sickness they cuddled together, because unlike him YN continued her dose of medicine until it was gone. She knew she wasn’t one hundred percent better even when the symptoms appeared to have left her completely.

They stayed cuddled together for about half an hour watching what YN had on before he’d come home. Nothing felt tense or awkward in their silence, just comfortable and relaxed.

But as time went on Hoseok remembered the feeling he’d had upon his arrival home. The worry that filled him when he saw how much she’d cleaned by herself in the time he’d been gone. And the hope he’d had at knowing she’d found enough energy to even make the effort to clean that much in the first place. She’d been out of it for weeks and it was the first major sign that something changed. Or that’s what he wished for.

Hoseok turned his head to look at her, well more like assess her face. It was relaxed and she seemed genuinely interested in what was on the screen and not off in her own little world. Though once she realized he was staring she turned his way and his assessment was over almost as quickly as it began.

“Can I help you?” she asked, her brow raised.

For a moment Hoseok debated telling her no, but that didn’t sit right with him. He needed to say something or it would bother him until he blurted it out. Or there was a chance she’d bottle it all up and not say anything at all because she was fine or she didn’t want to dump on him because he wasn’t her therapist.

“How was your session?” he asked.

There was a momentary change in her expression, but she didn’t let it linger for long. That made him even more worried, but he waited for her to say something. Though he knew if she was holding back and if he should push her.

“It was fine, I guess. Less crying than usual. We talked about all my other issues and saved how I was feeling about my mom for last. I think she hoped that by keeping me in a time constraint of twenty minutes I’d be forced to get out the main issues first and avoid going off into tangents. She was very wrong about that and the appointment ran for half an hour longer than it should have. I’d gotten so worked up that it wasn’t wise to try to force me down quickly,” she said.

Hoseok nodded along and reached under the blanket to grab her hand but didn’t utter a word. Just like her therapist he wanted her to let things out at her own pace.

“I mean it’s getting easier, but I don’t know. How is one supposed to process the death of their mother? And it doesn’t help that on top of that it’s dealing with how we were estranged. Knowing that my mix of apathy and deep hurt are valid. That it’s okay that I’m not as torn up about her dying as I think I should be. That I’m not torn up about losing a chance at speaking to the sibling that I never wanted to deal with because he moved back to the US. Dealing with calls from a slew of aunts and uncles who regularly give no fucks about me, questioning why I’m not there, and why I chose not to be heavily involved in the process. Why I could only show up. Why I didn’t stay longer.”

The more she spoke the shakier her voice got and it broke Hoseok’s heart. She was getting better and he knew that, but he always knew it was a lot to overcome. The loss of her only parent, despite their relationship, was something hard to deal with or so he imagined it. It had even affected Yoongi a great deal since he’d been close to her before too, but he recovered faster.

More than anything, Hoseok wished he could find some magic way to lessen the pain and confusion for her, but he felt just as helpless as when she found out. She’d come to the shop when she still had six hours of her twelve hour shift left to go and looked in shock. Without a word she’d run into Yoongi’s arms as he’d come out of his room after hearing Jungkook’s frantic calls. There she burst into tears, and through the sobbing told them that her mother had been in a car accident and didn’t make it.

None of them, except Yoongi, had ever seen her cry that hard and he tried his best to be her rock, but he broke with her. They broke down in the middle of the shop, falling to their knees as they cried together. The boys decided to close after that and just let them cry, comforting them when they could. And at some point they called Beau and Mama Min to tell them what had happened.

From there, they had to wait until they were calm enough to get them in a car to head back to Yoongi’s place. There they were met by Beau and Mama Min, who accepted them with open arms. The sobbing started all over again and they slowly got them to calm down enough to eat and shower. Everyone assumed it was a sleepover kind of situation, so they’d gotten Jin and Taehyung to swing by their places to grab stuff for them.

The entire night was just everyone surrounding YN on the makeshift nest they’d made. She never once let go of Yoongi’s hand and he didn’t dare release hers. And as they slept she cuddled into Mama Min’s side holding onto her for dear life with her other hand.

Seeing her shattered like that was eye opening for Hoseok, and he tried his best to make sure she was okay. Work gave her two weeks off, but when she didn’t bounce back quickly they extended the leave for a little longer. Then when that ran out she used vacation time she’d saved up. That was the start of when she actually made progress in not being a shell of her former self and Hoseok would tell her to take off all the time in the world if it meant that she’d be better.

But, as Hoseok sat there thinking about how he wished there was something he could do to fix things he realized there was something he could at least try to make her feel a bit better. And it would allow him to do something that he’d been wanting to for a while.

Smiling at her he leaned down and pressed a kiss to her forehead before pulling away and staring into her eyes.

“We haven’t gone out in a while. So, what do you say about us and everyone going out to the beach for a week? We can do it next week too. Go to the beach house and hang out, have some fun,” he said.

For a moment it felt like she’d say no, especially because she looked so emotional, but then she nodded. And Hoseok watched as a smile worked its way onto her lips, bigger and more genuine than he’d seen in a while.

“That sounds like what I need,” she said.

Happy with that, Hoseok leaned down and pressed a quick kiss to her lips before pulling away and snuggling into her. They continued their comfortable cuddly night in and slowly drifted to sleep together. Hoseok’s mind focused on planning things out perfectly until he knocked out.

The day before they were to leave to head to the beach house YN had planned to spend it packing and relax because the journey was tiresome. However, Hoseok had other plans and just as she finished packing her stuff he called her to come down to the shop for the night. Saying no was an option, but he sounded so excited that she couldn’t help but say yes.

So, on a Friday night when she could’ve been in her home eating and playing video games she found herself in Hoseok’s tattoo room by herself. Upon her arrival she’d been told he’d run out for a second and would be back in a bit. And in that case a bit meant thirty minutes or so after she got there.

Annoyed was an understatement, especially when she saw that he read the texts she’d sent asking him where he was. When it got too much, she got up to leave, but the moment she put her hand on the knob she was stumbling back because the door was being pushed open from the outside.

Hoseok – sweaty and breathing heavily – held bags of food and balanced multiple drinks in a tray. His eyes were wide and his mouth open in that uncomfortable mouth breathing way. Like YN could see the man’s uvula clear as day.

For a while they stood there staring at each other, that was until Hoseok regained control of his breathing.

“Were you about to leave?”

“Yes. You asked me to come at a specific time and you’re not here. Then I have to wait over thirty minutes where you open and don’t respond to my texts. How much longer did you think I was going to stay? Especially since you asked me to come here when I planned to not leave the couch until I absolutely had to all night,” she said.

At that Hoseok frowned. Moving past her a little he placed the stuff down in the tattoo chair that was reclined back. Then he moved to stand in front of her, his hands cupped her face. He stared at her expression and saw the slight bags under her eyes and the lingering sadness. She’d done so well for almost a week following his proposal of the beach trip, but the last day or two something shifted.

Her mother’s husband had found a way to contact her and it had thrown her off. Though the conversation had gone well it had brought her two steps back. Hoseok had woken up to her crying in the middle of the night and through the tears she’d managed to say that she felt like she was doing something wrong despite knowing she wasn’t. Despite knowing she was doing what was best for her and her mental state she felt like it was all wrong. Overthinking her decisions needlessly. The next morning – after he’d gotten her to sleep – she apologized and told him she knew that she was right and having a conversation with her mother’s husband that didn’t go horribly or fill her with anger felt off.

Things got better after that, but it took more than a moment of clarity and a talk with her therapist over the phone to get her back to where she’d been before. And that was why Hoseok had come up with the idea to call her into the shop. Well Jungkook and Taehyung came up with the idea to take her out before they all left, but he came up with what they’d do.

“I know, but I wanted to do something before we left. I swear we shouldn’t be here all night and I got that burger you were craving,” he said, a pout formed on his lips.

The usual thing would be for YN to throw the smallest of fits because she felt so tired, but his stupid face was there and she couldn’t say no. Plus she hadn’t left the apartment much in a week and needed the change of scenery even if it wasn’t a major one.

YN sighed. “Fine.”

With her answer and the small smile he saw fighting to take form on her lips Hoseok finally stopped his pouting. Leaning forward he pressed a quick kiss to her lips before releasing his hold on her face and moving over to the food. He carefully removed everything from the bags and then ran to put two of the four drinks in the tray into his mini freezer.

All the while YN stood and watched him; she hadn’t wanted to get in the way of what he was doing. The man could be anal about how things were handled when he was attempting to make some nice gesture and she’d been on the end of one of his glares before. Though she knew he wasn’t actually mad she knew not to push it further. There was no need for her to deal with a pouty baby later because things veered off plan; especially since she’d shown up before he could get back.

“Okay, so I know you were craving a burger and I went to the place you like and got you a double cheeseburger with extra pickles and a large fry. Also, a sprite and a chocolate milkshake,” he said.

Hearing him list the things made something stir inside YN. After giving into him she’d gotten less annoyed, but that hadn’t meant her mood shifted completely. Despite not being actively sad she felt down and having him get her the thing she’d been craving and getting her out of the house brightened her day. The corners of her mouth even turned up in a smile, something that hadn’t graced her lips once since she’d arrived – or all that day for that matter.

So, she watched as he excitedly continued and reassured her that the things she didn’t like weren’t on the burger and that he thought it would be good for them to sit in his room to eat. There was something about another plan of his, but she barely heard him as she smiled and watched him closely. His smile grew as he excitedly spoke of his idea, causing her own to do the same.

Hoseok was mid-ramble when he noticed that she was smiling at him. A truly genuine one at that. It made his heart beat a little erratically, but he didn’t mind at all. YN’s happiness was his priority and it felt good for him to see that she looked happy, even for a moment.

“Should we start eating?” he asked.

She nodded and he moved one of his chairs over to her so she could sit down to eat her food at the tattoo chair. In many cases she’d object, but the smell of multiple disinfectants told her that he’d cleaned the thing multiple times before her arrival. Plus, he’d laid a paper you’d see when you went to the doctor over the seat, so there was an added barrier from the food and the not so cleanly people who sometimes sat in it.

Though her mouth watered at the smell and the visual of her food YN waited until Hoseok was seat in his own chair across from her. He gave her a pointed look that she knew well from all the times he got annoyed at her not just eating and she dug into it without a word.

Not speaking was something they maintained for a few minutes before Hoseok swallowed a bite that he barely chewed.

“Did you finish getting everything ready?” he asked.

She nodded, because unlike him she liked to chew her food quite a bit before swallowing it.

“Yeah. Everything of mine is packed, as well as stuff we need for the beach, most of the snacks, and I grabbed all your stuff but didn’t pack it.”

Hoseok scoffed. “Good.”

At that she couldn’t help but to roll her eyes.

“You could’ve just let me pack it all for you. That way you don’t have to worry about it when you get home. Plus, you’re going to ask me to help when something doesn’t fit anyway,” she mumbled.

“I can back my own stuff. I’m a big boy. Besides who says I’ll need your help this time, I’m not even taking a whole lot with me.”

There was no verbal response to that, just a shake of the head as she gave up on the topic. At the end of the day she knew she was right and that Hoseok would come to her whining about something not fitting right or being unable to zip the bag. And the solution would be to refold something, rearrange how things sat, or make him realize he didn’t need as many pairs of shoes as he packed. And he definitely didn’t need to bring multiple colors of the same chunky, ugly pair of shoes that she hated.

She wished she could burn them but he loved them too much.

From there silence persisted for a bit and then she randomly turned her head to see a sketch on his wall of an anime she’d watched a long time ago. Naturally, that started a whole conversation about it and how much Hoseok hadn’t liked it as a kid. Something about his sister forcing him to watch it and him not liking the main character. Which led to a discussion about other main characters they both didn’t like. It spiraled into the difference between characters made unlikable as a part of their stories and how some were just not great and people played them off as unlikable on purpose. That didn’t stop people critiquing them though. Definitely didn’t stop YN.

As they talked their food lessened until it was gone. Hoseok took the initiative to clean it up and directed YN to the freezer. She grabbed their shakes and sat the one that was clearly white and black down on his side, grabbing a straw and jabbing it into her own cup. Her lips wrapped around it to pull some of the frozen treat up, but she struggled with how thick it was. When she finally got some out she pulled away with a smile.

“I see it’s up to your standards of thick. Sure you don’t want a spoon?” he asked upon his return to the seat.

YN shook her head vigorously and went in for more. Part of her brain hated the struggle, but the joy that filled her each time she finally got some was too great. The thick milkshakes were always the best.

While she did that Hoseok moved to his computer and turned on some music, his usual tattooing playlist blasted through the speakers. He turned it down when he saw YN flinch and then slid his chair back over to the seat. He grabbed his own straw and milkshake and sucked it down. It was thick, but the normal kind. No part of him had the patience to wrestle with his food or drink, so despite how much creamier it was her way he chose not to suffer.

About half the milkshake was gone before he got up from the seat and snatched YN’s from her hand – despite protest – to put back in the freezer. When he turned around he was met with her pouting and he wanted to give it back but they had other things to do as well.

“There’s another reason I asked you to come,” Hoseok said.

“Which is?”

He didn’t respond, just gathered a few things and prepped his small rolling table for tattooing before pushing towards her. There was no time to process what he meant by the action because then he was whipping off his shirt and taking a seat in the tattoo chair.

His intentions were beyond clear.

“Today?” she asked.

“Today.”

“But I-”

“Aht, no buts. You’re ready to do this and you were so excited to get to tattoo an actual person. So, today you’re going to do me and then Yoongi another time. Probably the others too since they’re all babies who can’t be left out.” He rolled his eyes while he said the last bit.

“That’s so many, I didn’t sign up for that. And why now? I’m not prepared for this. I don’t even have the stencil ready or-”

Again she didn’t get far because Hoseok pointed to a sheet of paper on the table that had various copies of the tattoo they’d agreed on and a pair of scissors.

The man had truly taken the time to make sure that everything was set. Which was sweet, but also spiked YN’s nerves. So much that any sadness that she’d felt was nowhere on her mind.

Hesitation was clear on her face as Hoseok watched her and he worried she was stuck amid her sadness, but then he noticed the nervous glint in her eyes. He found it cute that the woman cut open people for a living and was worried about how her tattoo would come out. Even though she caught onto tattooing faster than anyone in the shop and had the steadiest hand of all of them.

Reaching over Hoseok cupped her face and forced her gaze on him.

“You’ll do fine. We chose this tattoo because it was quick and basic. Line work and some shading. You even did it a million times on oranges, lemons, and grapefruit. It’ll be great,” he encouraged.

There was an urge to protest, but YN didn’t. She rose from her seat and walked out of the room. She went to wash her hands and then came back to slip gloves onto them. She lifted the arm rest and placed his arm on it, careful to look around for a good spot. Hoseok was tattooed almost completely on both arms, but there was a spot on his left forearm that had enough space.

From there she was kind of on autopilot. She cut the stencil and placed it on the spot to double check that it would work. Once pleased she set it back on the table and grabbed an antiseptic wipe to clean the area. She spent way too much time on that, but Hoseok didn’t comment on it. Before she knew it she was actually placing the stencil onto his skin and peeling it off, the thin purple lines transferred perfectly.

By then the nerves had returned and she was ready to back down, but then she made eye contact with Hoseok and he gave her an encouraging smile. She couldn’t stop then, she needed to see the tattoo through.

She got the gun and the ink ready, but the vibe felt off. So, without a word she rolled over to the computer and pulled off a glove. There were several clicks before Jonghyun’s beautiful voice filled the space. It was the first song on her surgery playlist and in a way tattooing was like that, so it was the perfect relaxer.

After replacing the glove she took off with another one she got to work. The tip of the needle dipped into the black ink and using her free hand she pressed Hoseok’s arm down and began the tattoo.

The design was a crescent moon – which would be shaded in – and a sun combined. Where the moon stopped lines and dots of varying lengths were used to make clear that it was the sun. Nothing intricate, but still something she worried about messing up.

Her movements were careful and steady, her hand moving easily as she traced the outline of the moon. It took her shorter than she thought even with her excessive wiping, but she wasn’t pleased with the outcome. It wasn’t bad at all, basically perfect. However, she’d been so nervous that the lines were too thin.

“If you want it thicker you can do it. I know Yoongi worked with you on that the last few sessions. I only taught you to start with thinner lines just in case you’re unsure,” Hoseok offered as if he read her mind.

YN nodded, chewing on her lower lip as she went in again. That time her lines were a little heavier and though part of her worried that it was a mistake to make them that thick, by the time she’d finished and wiped the excess she was pleased with it.

Being happy with her outcome meant that she felt more confident, which meant she went into the next part with less worry. She shaded the moon in with vigor and had to mutter a few apologies when Hoseok whined about her being too aggressive. It was just that she got excited and so into the work.

Which meant that she didn’t notice Yoongi when he’d silently entered the room. He stood behind her, though about a foot away so he wasn’t crowding her. Him and Hoseok watched as she finished the shading and went on to the lines to create the sun. Her hand moved carefully as she did and though there were a few curses when she thought she messed up, there were also those lightbulb moments when she realized she could make up the length with a few extra dots. Nothing ruined at all.

Once finished she set the gun to the side and carefully used the other items on the table to clean it. Seeing the cleaned version had her scared it was a mess, but the more she stared at it the more she liked it.

“You did good. How the hell did you get that to curve so fluidly?” Yoongi said, startling her with his sudden presence.

“She was so worried she’d mess up, I told her it would be fine,” Hoseok said.

Involuntarily, YN rolled her eyes. They enjoyed double teaming her on everything, but self-doubt was by far their favorite.

“Let the man see the new tattoo,” Yoongi said, playful nudging her shoulder.

Her eyes widened as she remembered he couldn’t see it well from the angle he was at and she moved away from the chair so he could get up. Hoseok immediately went over to the floor length mirror hanging near the door. He held out his arm and examined it closely – and for way too long – without saying anything. If he hadn’t smiled before he spoke she would’ve thrown up in fear he hated it.

“I told you, you’d do good baby,” he said.

Tension melted from her body at that and Hoseok watched on in joy. Not only had she accomplished her first tattoo, but she also appeared genuinely happy. There was nothing about her that exuded sadness or showed that she was even vaguely in a low place. It didn’t mean she was completely free from the thoughts, but it did mean that she wasn’t caught up in them enough to show any outward reactions. And since she wasn’t the best at keeping her emotions hidden and bottled up that was a win.

From the eye contact he made with Yoongi for a moment the older male also appeared to think so. Flashing Hoseok a thumbs up when YN wasn’t looking.

The first part of Hoseok’s plan was a success.

The trip to the beach was long and started early. They’d rented a twelve-seater van to drive there and alternated drivers. Jungkook, Yoongi, and YN switched out every two hours so no one got too complacent or tired with the six hour drive. It was trying sometimes because of stupid drivers or someone complaining too much, but they made it there without anyone killing someone else.

A true win.

They arrived at the beach house late afternoon and decided they’d spend that night in. None of them had enough energy from the trip to anything and they had a full week to venture out. Plus avoiding the massive crowd on a Saturday night was a win.

Food was ordered in front various places because everyone either wanted something different or couldn’t make up their mind on what they wanted at all. Dinner was eaten and though it started off with minimal conversation they all eventually started talking about random things and eventually it led to talk of what they would do the next day. Hoseok mentioned something about the amusement park nearby, which got YN excited immediately and everyone agreed with that.

However, the quickness in which they all said yes wasn’t lost on YN despite her excitement. Usually they all took forever deciding what to do on any group outing and when they did there was some sort of whining. But everyone had agreed and then went about eating like everything was fine. No questions asked. No adjustments to time. No concerns about being there for so long. Just compliance.

It was something YN planned to ask about and fight against if they were doing it because she wanted to. Them giving in just because it would make her happy because she’d been so down wasn’t something she was okay with. The thought was nice, but she preferred they did their own things if that’s what they wanted. But she didn’t get to ask because everyone finished and before she knew it Hoseok escorted her to their room.

And like clockwork her body felt heavy the moment her eyes laid on the bed. Not even the pretty view from their balcony could draw her in. Which made it easy for Hoseok to maintain control to get her in the shower and then bed in the matter of thirty minutes.

By the time her head hit the pillow she felt refreshed, but like she’d cried for a few hours straight. The kind of tired where you don’t really feel one with the world and everything is almost like an outsider looking in. Though when she looked at Hoseok he grounded her a bit.

He took a few minutes longer to get into the bed after she did, slipping in wearing nothing but his boxers. Which was fine because she was in short shorts and a crop top. Something that seemed to warrant him poking her stomach every so often, which she allowed to happen because she didn’t have it in her to stop him.

Hoseok knew what he was doing too and that he’d pay for it once she slept, though she tended to forget things when too tired. But he stopped his poking and prodding after a few seconds, preferring to pull her close so they were cuddled together. Her leg thrown over him and their faces resting inches away from each other. He wanted to stay up a little and talk, but her eyes were closed and her breathing slowing.

For once she didn’t argue about it only being 8:00pm and thus too early to sleep. She’d say that every time they went on a trip, but more than anything she’d been saying it since after her mother’s funeral. Even when she looked exhausted and mentally not there she refused to sleep that early. So it felt good to see her not do it for once and after placing a kiss on her lips that thought lulled Hoseok to sleep.

Because they’d fallen asleep so early everyone was up at around seven the next morning. Well, everyone except for Jin, Beau and YN. They’d all woken up and ventured out of their rooms at around five almost six and decided yoga was the move. They gathered on the back patio of the house where you could see the beach and got to work.

Yoga was something that Jin and YN did regularly. The hospital had classes for all the staff to take and they’d gone with no intentions to ever do it again, but then realized how good they felt the days after. From then on they went to the classes or met up in a secluded part of a park early in the morning to do it before going out for breakfast or something. Beau joined in once when YN did it at home and then usually join her anytime he saw her doing it. Sometimes even joining her and Jin when they ventured out.

It was a great first moment of the vacation and one of the few times she’d felt so at peace in a long while.

From there they showered, got dressed, and went down to make breakfast. They’d picked up some groceries before getting to the house so they didn’t have to worry about it later.

By the time they finished everyone was up. Food was consumed at an alarming rate and everyone got ready with the same quickness. They wanted to get to the park at opening so they could have a better chance to get on everything. Which led to a lot of yelling and rushing people to hurry up and get to the van.

Hoseok took it upon himself to drive them there and as the rides came into view the closer they got the more excited YN got. She bounced in her seat and almost opened her door before the car came to a full stop.

That was dangerous and with the way Yoongi looked at her Hoseok thought she’d get scolded, but in fact the older man was upset that she tried to cheat. Which confused Hoseok until he whipped the door open and sprinted towards the entrance, YN hot on his heels and yelling about who was the real cheater.

It was like watching two children and goodness did it make Hoseok feel good.

When the others reached them they both stood there with big smiles and holding wrist bands, all of them the kind that were used for those with fast passes.

Hoseok narrowed his eyes at them, but neither of them looked regretful about what they’d done. In fact, they both appeared way too smug.

“What did we say about you two buying everything before anyone gets a chance? It’s not allowed on this trip or any trip,” Beau said.

Yoongi and YN turned to each other and shrugged, then thrusted a wristband into everyone’s hands. Since it wasn’t their first time out with the two amusement park junkies they all knew to get the bands on quickly, as if their lives depended on it. Yoongi had once wrapped Jungkook’s so tight that it limited circulation in his hand and they had to get another.

No one wanted to repeat that.

Without missing a beat they walked towards the workers scanning people in, leaving the others to catch up. Both of them were several feet inside the park by the time the others caught up again. They stood perfectly still and took in the park. One could feel the excitement that radiated off them.

It took Taehyung clearing his throat multiple times before they turned to face the rest of the group. Though that only lasted for a second before they were focused on each other.

“We meet here in four hours?” YN asked.

Yoongi nodded. “Right here and then I kick your ass in everything.”

That made YN scoff but she refrained from any trash talk in retaliation, there was always enough of that during them playing the games. Besides her focus was on something else.

Off in the distance was a ride that was way too high and moved way too fast – by even her standards – but the expression on her face showed how much she wanted to try it. So, without a word to the others Hoseok walked forward, grabbed her hand, and headed towards it. Everyone else went their own way, except for Jungkook and Taehyung who followed behind them. Hoseok felt like he was going to be sick the whole way, but YN and Jungkook reassured him the whole time while Taehyung poked fun at him, though it was clear that was only to calm his own nerves.

Once on the thing they all were ready to shit themselves but pushed through and as the it reached the first drop. YN and Hoseok made eye contact for a second and there was a reassuring feeling that flowed through them, but the next thing they knew they were sailing through the air so quickly it took a moment for her to breathe properly again.

The entire ride there was no moment to relax or get used to it. Even knowing what was to come didn’t make it any easier to adjust.

It was exhilarating.

That feeling is why Taehyung and Hoseok ended up waiting as YN and Jungkook went on again. Neither of them wanted to relive that and the fast pass line wasn’t that long, so they just sat on a bench a few yards from where the line-up started.

“So, are you going to do it today?” Taehyung asked, his voice a bit strained.

At first Hoseok was confused by the question and then it dawned on him what he meant. A different kind of discomfort settled in him at the thought of saying yes and so he shook his head quickly.

“Definitely not,” he muttered.

Taehyung turned to look at him with a raised brow and confusion.

“I thought that was the plan? Get her all happy and then do it? Don’t tell me you’re chickening out?” he teased.

Hoseok reached over and lightly punched his shoulder, a soft – but nervous – laugh escaping his lips.

“I’m going to, just not today. I want to make sure she’s good first. I’d hate to do it while she’s still wrapped up in sadness. That would make the whole thing much more complicated than it already is.”

At that Taehyung shrugged and turned his attention back towards the ride. They sat in a comfortable silence watching it climb high and then drop, looping a few times before it climbed again. It was more nerve wrecking watching it move like that then being on it, but that didn’t mean that Hoseok wished he was on it instead. He never planned to get on that ride again if he could help it.

About twenty minutes or so passed before they both returned and then everyone was off to other rides. They were all their own level of terrifying, but as they ran from ride to ride Hoseok got used to the fear and thrill that came along with them. He’d even agreed to go on one twice, which made YN beyond happy. Especially since she could see the eagerness was genuine. As if him being the one to request they go again wasn’t clear enough.

They continued on like that for a while, though eventually Jungkook wanted to circle back to get on something they’d all said no to. He convinced Taehyung to go with him and then Hoseok and YN were traversing the park alone.

A few more rides after the departure of the others and Hoseok forced a stop for food. Which wasn’t a whole lot and less than Hoseok would’ve liked her to eat, but it was more than she’d had some of the days from weeks before. A win in his book.

Before they went to get on some more rides they stopped to get a dessert, which was ice cream wrapped in a crepe. The park hadn’t had it the last time they’d come to it and that made YN all the more eager to indulge. They reminded her of ones she’d had in Japan when she’d gone for six months to study in high school. They tasted like them too.

“I don’t know if I should get another one now or later when we’re about to leave,” she said.

Hoseok laughed as he watched her devour it.

“I think I saw a stand with it near the entrance so you can get it when we leave,” he offered.

Though she looked conflicted at first, she smiled and nodded after a bit. No matter how practiced she was at eating and getting on rides too much dairy was a mistake. Fifteen-year-old her learned that the hard way.

After food was consumed, they went on a few more rides and then headed back toward where they were to meet with fifteen minutes to spare. The walk was taken slowly and they intertwined fingers as they went.

It was a moment of peace among the chaos and when YN looked at Hoseok with one of the brightest smiles he’d seen in a while he felt near tears. She’d been so happy and never once did her expression falter or her body language shift negatively. There was so much freedom and joy radiating from her and despite his optimism he’d been scared she’d stay shrouded in darkness for forever. So to have that voice in his head silenced because she was there and existing outside of it was just the best thing to happen to him.

Everything wasn’t fixed, but it was better than nothing.

Yoongi was at the meeting point with an irritated Beau who held a large stuffed bear. Most would question why Beau looked that way, but by the shifting that Yoongi was doing and the wide smile it was clear that he’d challenged his boyfriend to a few games and then mercilessly beat him.

Upon seeing a smiling YN though Beau’s expression shifted to mimic the smile on her face and so did Yoongi’s for a moment. However, YN was in competition mode and when he noticed that he was as well.

Not a word was uttered between them as they left their significant others to head towards the games and neither of them said anything about it. They merely trailed behind them and watched as they tried to one up each other.

Who knows how much time passed or how many prizes were handed over to kids or anyone standing nearby before everyone was gathered together watching them. Though it was tiring to stand there and see them go on forever there was also this mutual contentment as they all looked on. It was as if they were all on the same wavelength with how nice it was to see either of them back to some sort of normalcy.

“Has she been like this all day?” Beau whispered.

Hoseok nodded, his eyes never leaving them.

“Yeah. She’s been so happy and carefree. I don’t think she’s thought about it once all this time. And it doesn’t feel like she’s faking it,” he said.

There was a nod from Beau in response and then all the focus was back on them.

YN being that happy that quickly wasn’t what Hoseok foresaw at all, but it was nice to see that the second part of what he planned worked out well. He only hoped that it was doing some actual, concrete good for her mentally and that the last part of everything would go as smoothly.

Four days into their trip YN decided that Hoseok was acting weird. Though weird was something normal for his behavior it was a different type. He was attentive and kind, but also drifted off into his own head a lot and didn’t put up a fight when asked to do something that wasn’t necessarily in his comfort zone. She hadn’t pushed his limits by any means and accepted no when he said it, but for the most he gave in without a second thought.

Of course, his efforts were appreciated greatly, but that was what worried her the most. She knew how down she’d been and how the call from her mother’s husband had changed her. It was clear as day to her how she was acting and she wished she could snap her fingers and stop, but that wasn’t possible. And since she knew that, so did Hoseok and that meant he’d ramped up on trying to keep her at the very least not actively sad. All his free time was spent trying to help and look after her. The trip was just another one of those things and though she jumped at the prospect of being away from home to enjoy herself – and had enjoyed herself – she feared him taking things a step too far to please her.

No matter her mental state there would be no excuse for any damage she could do to his if that was the case. So YN planned to talk to him about it one morning, but she was redirected by Yoongi to get ready. Apparently he wanted to take her out for the day, just the two of them. Something she happily agreed to on the compromise of her going to talk to Hoseok about a thing first, but that was shot down by being told he’d headed out a few minutes beforehand. Which meant she had no other choice but to do as she was told, but with a pout.

Despite her mopey mood she didn’t take long to get dressed. Mostly because when she’d entered the room she found a pair of shorts and one of her long sleeve tops laid out for her. Yoongi promptly informed her he didn’t want her taking forever so he’d done it for her. It wasn’t out of the norm since he’d done it many times throughout their lives because supposedly she moved too slow or always grabbed the one thing in her wardrobe he hated with a passion. After a while she learned to just let it happen.

Once ready to go Yoongi grabbed her hand and practically dragged her from the house. It took some begging and mild threats to get him to not hold her hand so tight and slow down. From there he was less aggressive, but still held her hand firmly in his. She was fine with that because it was a habit from childhood that they never grow out of. As long as his bony fingers didn’t dig into her hand or squeeze too tight she was fine.

During their walk they didn’t speak, which was fine. They both tended to be quiet people and silences were rarely awkward. Walking for ten minutes to the nearby cafe bookstore was nothing in the realm of how long they could be around each other and not utter a single word.

“I wanted us to relax before dinner later. You know they’re all going to get drunk and it’ll be a mess. So, some peace and quiet for now,” Yoongi said once they entered.

That made YN smile wide. Even without the reason she loved the idea of spending a few hours there.

“You sure it’s not because they let you take naps here whenever we come?” she teased.

Yoongi laughed. “That too. A peaceful nap.”

With that she nodded and finally removed her hand from his. She shooed him away to see if any good seats were open and then headed off to buy their drinks. All of her will was used not to stop and look at books that caught her eye as she walked to the counter. The man wanted a nap, but him waiting too long for his favorite hot chocolate wasn’t on the table. Plus, there was something about being inside the place that calmed her so much that she was a bit tired herself.

After she grabbed the hot chocolates she searched for him and was beyond happy to find him at the reclining chairs in a back corner. Not daring to destroy the nice atmosphere of the space she merely handed him his drink and plopped down into her own chair. Her body relaxed instantly. It was asking her to sleep, but she wanted to drink her hot chocolate first. That lasted maybe ten minutes before she and Yoongi drifted off.

Sometimes she didn’t remember how much having a good time and being happy could drain from a person, no matter how much sleep they got.

When they finally woke up, panic filled YN because she’d misread the clock as saying four hours had passed, but it was barely an hour. The darkness only exacerbated that, but she was thankful her eyes adjusted before she shook Yoongi awake.

Since she felt refreshed from the nap the urge to explore books overcame her again. Instead of ignoring it she left Yoongi to continue his napping and looked around the store.

A lot of what did interest her were things she had read, were on her to read list, or by someone who wasn’t the greatest person despite their excellent writing. The things she did find that didn’t fit into that were all so tempting and she wanted to get them all but knew better than to do that. Her to read list was long and she didn’t need a million more books. So, she settled on getting the top three and took pictures of the others to buy at a later date.

By the time she made her purchase Yoongi had woken up and joined her at the register. He appeared rested and much peppier than he had before, which made her happy to see.

“Should we head back now?” she asked.

He nodded and then they were holding hands and walking back to the beach house.

The silence on the way back didn’t exist. Yoongi asked about what books she’d gotten and some other book she’d gotten a while ago that he’d been interested in. She agreed to give it to him and just as they reached the house and she prepared to ask if he wanted the book’s sequel as well he stopped abruptly.

Confusion coloring her face YN turned her head to look at him and was met with a tense expression. However, before she could question it he spoke.

“You’re okay, right? Actually okay, not the fake okay?” he asked.

YN felt a pang in her heart and her eyes watered for a second, but she pushed that all down. She wouldn’t dare make him more worried than he’d already been, especially when there was nothing to worry about.

“I’m okay. In fact, I’m as close to content as I’ve been in a while,” she said.

His entire demeanor changed when she said the word content. It was a signal of sorts. Something that they’d both learned they wanted through therapy. Happiness was great but being content and not so much good or bad was always the goal. As long as they could reach contentment all would be fine.

Though relaxed he didn’t stop staring her down for a moment and then after a firm squeeze of her hand – that she returned – he started walking again.

Inside the house everyone was putting the finishing touches on the dinner they’d decided on for the evening. It was a night in, which meant cooking and Jungkook had said that meant it needed to be an extra meal. So, him, Jin, Jimin, and Namjoon had spent a lot of time getting everything prepped and cooked. YN had wanted to help and even offered once Yoongi and her returned, but they were done and shooed her out to the patio so they could bring the food out.

Hoseok, who she’d seen maybe twice that whole day, pulled her down onto the seat next to him and immediately moved in for a kiss. That elicited some gagging from Beau which was met with a middle finger from both Hoseok and YN all without pulling away from each other.

They did part when the first of many dishes were placed on the table though. And without hesitation – once everyone was seated and Jin gave his go ahead – they began grabbing the things they wanted or moving them in range.

There was just so much. They’d made kimchi stew, bulgogi, pork ribs, fried rice, curry, and braised chicken. And of course, enough white rice that would satisfy even YN.

Bloated wasn’t even the word that truly captured how YN felt by the end of it all. Though happy was definitely a descriptor. They’d eaten, talked, and down alcohol. Jokes and stories were told, laughed about, and denied with intense vigor all around. It was a peaceful moment despite the chaos and watching her family just be together always filled her with such joy.

She could stay like that forever, but of course that was a no.

About thirty minutes after she’d had her last bite Hoseok suggested they go on a walk while they waited for the others to return with the chosen dessert. No was on the tip of her tongue, but he reminded her walking could help her feel better. Plus, he had a look in his eye that reminded her that she’d wanted to talk to him about something before.

So, they kicked off their shoes and headed down the beach. Hoseok laced their fingers together and led her away from the house. At first they said nothing, but then at the exact same time they spoke.

“YN-”

“Can we talk-”

They both paused and looked at each other with wide eyes before descending into laughter. It took a moment or two, but they collected themselves soon enough and continued their trek.

“You first,” he said.

YN nodded. “I want to thank you for all of this. It was what I needed and I’m so happy to have all this time with you and everyone else. Being with the people I loved most and who love me. Having fun that I haven’t had in a while. Having moments where I feel content, even if it’s fleeting. I haven’t had a bad day for the last few days and I haven’t even thought about anything really. And even if I did it was such a fleeting moment that I only barely remember it happened at all.”

“But?” Hoseok said when she paused.

“But I worry about taking advantage of all of you. I know that I’m not and everyone is happy to be here for a good time and to offer all the support in the world. I know that that feeling is for naught. But I realized how much you’ve given into me the last few days and it makes me feel like I may be crossing a line. You’ve had to deal with me being distraught and not myself for weeks. Never able to escape that unless out at work or I’m with someone else. And then you plan this and you give into my every whim. You do things that I know make you uncomfortable. Even if I’m not pushing you on certain things and I know I’m not crossing any hard lines it still feels wrong. And I’m sorry about that,” she said.

That ended in them coming to an abrupt stop. Hoseok released her hand and moved to stand in front of her, his hands moving to cup her face.

“Baby, you don’t have to worry about any of that. You have not crossed a line or made me do anything I didn’t choose to do. I’m fine. Did I agree to a few things that scare me or make me cautious? Yes. Did I do them partly because they made you happy? Yes. But like I said, it was my choice. I wanted to try them and that was an extra incentive. Seeing you smile or be in the moment was the greatest incentive in the world. I wouldn’t change doing those things. And I know you’re worried about what all this or your behavior could have done to my mental health, but I’m good there too. It hurt me to see you like that, but I processed that in therapy. Dr. Seo was more than willing to take me in more than once a month to process all this. I swear to you I’m fine.”

There was clear uncertainty in her eyes despite what he said. Hoseok could see it and though he wished she’d just believe him he knew that wasn’t how the mind worked. Sometimes things took a while to process or a little more assurance needed to be given.

After taking a deep breath he leaned down and pressed a gentle kiss to her lips, one she returned without hesitation. When he pulled away one of his hands slipped from her face as their foreheads pressed together.

“I love you,” he whispered.

“I love you too.”

The next few moments happened in a weird space where everything moved too fast and too slow. Hoseok’s other hand moved from her face and he pulled away from her, but before anything could be said or done on her end he was down on one knee with a ring in his hand.

YN had no time to process it before he started talking.

“This week was about making you feel even an ounce of happiness, but it was also about finding the right time to ask you. YN you know I love you with my entire being. How you love yourself, me, and our little family brings me such joy. How you live to be the best you and know that you’re not always going to get it right. How you know yourself enough to know how to handle your problems. You realize how off you’re being and take the time to self-assess, not just because of you but because of me. So you’re not doing anything that could affect me. That could lead to unintentional behavior that could harm me. You grow so much all the time and it feels impossible for you to put forth any more effort than you already do.

“You just make me feel so happy. Doesn’t matter if it’s from watching you be that way, you making me feel that way, or the reminder that I can be happy on my own despite you. That I can stand alone in happiness that doesn’t revolve around you or anyone else. Something I struggled with so much before. You’ve helped so much by just being you. And though I know that we have cemented our relationship already, I still want to do this. It would truly be the best thing in the world if you married me, baby.”

YN had worked through the initial shock and was much calmer than when he’d started talking. Her brain fought to keep up with the words and her heart soared as she took them in. It’s why she didn’t hesitate in responding with a yes.

Without missing a beat Hoseok slipped the ring on her finger and rose onto his feet. He pulled her into a tight hug and whispered ‘I love you’ over and over. In the distance there were cheers from their friends who had watched on from the back patio. She hadn’t even realized they’d turned and walked back towards the house once she’d started talking. But that didn’t matter at all. At least not in that moment.

The calm that she felt mattered. The excitement she felt mattered. The content feeling that washed over her mattered.

[erictmason]

The Road To “Godzilla VS. Kong”, Day Four

(Sorry for the delay on this one, Life proved just a bit too busy the other day to finish it; my “Godzilla: King of the Monsters” review is gonna be pushed back as a result too.  But!  No worries, on we go. ^_^)

KONG: SKULL ISLAND (2017

Director: Jordan Vogt-Roberts

Writers: Dan Gilroy, Max Borenstein, Derek Connolly, John Gatins

Starring: Samuel L. Jackson, Tom Hiddleston, Brie Larson, John Goodman, John C. Reilly

Technically speaking, Gareth Edwards’ “Godzila” from 2014 was the first entry in what is now generally referred to as “The Monsterverse”, an attempt by Warner Bros. Studios and Legendary Pictures to do a Marvel Studios-style series of various interconnected movies (and which, like most such attempts to cash in on that particular trend, hasn’t really panned out; “Godzilla VS. Kong” seems likely to be its grand finale as far as movies are concerned, the only two “names” it had going for it are Godzilla and Kong themselves, and even at its most successful it was never exactly a Powerhouse Franchise).  But the thing is, when that movie was made, the idea of a “Monsterverse” did not yet exist; it was only well after the fact that Legendary and Warner Bros. got the idea to turn a new “Kong” project into the building block of a Shared Universe of their own that they could connect with the 2014 “Godzilla”, with a clear eye on getting to remake one of the most singularly iconic (and profitable) Giant Monster Movies of all time.  As you might guess from that description, however, said “Kong” project also had not originally been intended for such a purpose; it would not be until 2016 that it would be retooled from its original purpose (a prequel to the original “King Kong” titled simply “Skull Island”) into its present form, which goes out of its way to reference Monarch, the monster-tracking Science organization seen over in 2014’s “Godzilla” and which includes a very obviously Marvel-inspired post-credits stinger explicitly tying Kong and Godzilla’s existences together.  

The resulting film is fun enough, all things told, but that graft is also really, distractingly obvious.

Honestly, I wish I knew why I’m not, generally, fonder of “Skull Island” than I am.  It’s not as if, taken as a whole, it does anything especially bad; indeed it does a great deal that is actively good.  Consider, for example, the rather unique choice to make it a Period Piece; that’s decently rare for a Monster Movie as it is (indeed one of the only other examples that springs to mind for me is Peter Jackson’s 2005 remake of “King Kong”, which chose to retain the original’s 1933 setting), and it’s rarer still that the era it chooses to inhabit is an immediately-post-Vietnam 1970’s.  Aesthetically speaking, the movie takes a decent amount of fairly-obvious influence from that most classic of Vietnam-era films, “Apocalypse Now” (a fact that director Jordan Vogt-Roberts was always fairly open about), and it results in some of the movie’s strongest overall imagery (in particular a shot of Kong, cast in stark silhouette, standing against the burning sun on the horizon with a fleet of helicopters approaching him, one of a surprisingly small number of times the movie plays with visual scale to quite the same degree or with quite the same success as “Godzilla” 2014).  It also means the movie is decked out in warm, lush colors that really do bring out all the personality of its Jungle setting in the most compelling way and, given how important the setting is to the film as a whole, that proves key; Skull Island maybe doesn’t become a character in its own right the way the best settings should (too much of our time is spent in fairly indistinct forests especially), but it does manage to feel exciting and unusual in the right ways more often than not.  The “Apocalypse Now” influence also extends to our human cast,  which is sizeable enough here (in terms of major characters we need  to pay attention to played by notable actors, “Skull Island” dwarfs “Godzilla” 2014 by a significant margin) that the framework it provides-a mismatched group defined by various interpersonal/intergenerational tensions trying to make their way through an inhospitable wilderness, ostensibly in search of a lost comrade-is decently necessary.  Though here we already run into one of those aspects of “Skull Island” that doesn’t quite land for me.  Taken as a whole, it sure feels like the human characters here should be decently interesting; certainly, our leads are all much better defined and more engagingly performed than Ford Brody, to draw the most immediately obvious point of comparison.  Brie Larson (as journalistic Anti-War photographer Mason Weaver), Tom Hiddleston (as former British Army officer turned Gun For Hire James Conrad), and John C. Reilly (as Hank Marlow, a World War II soldier stranded on Skull Island years ago) definitely turn in decently strong performances; I wouldn’t call it Career Best work for any of them (Hiddleston especially feels like he’s on auto-pilot half the time, while Larson has to struggle mightily against how little the script actually gives her to work with when you stop and look at it) but they at least prove decently enjoyable to watch (Reilly especially does a solid job of making his character funny without quite pushing him over the edge into Total Cartoon Territory).  I likewise feel like Samuel L. Jackson’s Preston Packard has the potential to be a genuinely-great character; his lingering resentment at the way the Vietnam War played out and the way that feeds into his determination to find and defeat Kong is, again, a clever and compelling use of the 70’s period setting, it gives us a good, believable motivation with a clear and strong Arc to it, and Jackson does a really solid job of playing his Anger as genuine and poignant rather than simply petulant or crazed.  But there’s just too much chaff amongst the wheat, too much time and energy devoted to characters and ideas that don’t have any real pay-off.  This feels especially true of John Goodman’s Bill Randa, the Monarch scientist who arranges the whole expedition; the Monarch stuff in general mostly feels out of place, but Randa in particular gets all of these little notes and beats that seem meant to go somewhere and then just kind of don’t.  Which is kind of what happens with most of the characters in the movie, is the thing; we spend a lot of screen-time dwelling on certain aspects of their backstories or personalities, and then those things effectively stop mattering at all after a certain point, even Packard’s motivations.  A Weak Human Element was one of the problems in “Godzilla” 2014 as well, though, and you’ll recall I quite liked that movie.  There, though, the human stuff was honestly only ever important for how it fed into the monster stuff; it was the connective tissue meant to get us from sequence to sequence and not much more.  Here, though, it forms the heart and soul of the story, and that means its deficiencies feel a lot more harmful to the whole.

Still, those deficiencies really aren’t that severe, and moreover, like I was saying before, there’s a lot about “Skull Island” to actively enjoy.  The Monsters themselves do remain the central draw, after all, and for the most part the movie does a solid job with that aspect of things.  It does not, perhaps, recreate “Godzilla” 2014’s attempt to make believable animals out of them (even as it does design most of them with even more obvious, overt Real World Animal elements), but there is a certain playful energy that informs them at a conceptual level that I appreciate.  Buffalos with horns that look like giant logs with huge strands of moss and grass hanging off their edges, spiders whose legs are adapted to look like tree trunks, stick bugs so big that their camouflage makes them look like fallen trees…the designs feel physically plausible (especially thanks to some strong effects work that makes them feel well inserted into the real environments), but there’s a slightly-humorous tilt to a lot of them that I appreciate, especially since it never outright winks at the audience in a way that would undercut the stakes of the story. Kong too is very well done; rather than the heavily realistic approach taken by the Peter Jackson version from 2005, this Kong is instead very much ape-like but also very clearly his own creature (in particular he stands fully erect most of the time), with a strong sense of Personality to him as well; some of the best parts of the movie are those times where we simply peek in on Kong simply living his life, even when that life is one that is, by nature, violent and dangerous.  Less successful, sadly, are his nemeses, the Skullcrawlers; very much like “Godzilla” 2014, Kong is here envisioned as a Natural Protection against a potentially-dangerous species that threatens humanity (or in this case the Iwi Tribe who live on Skull Island, but we’ll talk more about them later), and while they’re hardly bad designs (the way their snake-like lower bodies give them a lot of neat tricks to play against their enemies in battle are genuinely fun in the right sort of Scary Way), they’re also pretty bland and forgettable, even compared to the MUTOS.  That said, they serve their purpose well enough, and their big Action Scene showdowns with Kong are genuinely solid.  Indeed, the movie’s big climactic brawl between Kong and the biggest of the Skullcrawlers has a lot of good pulpy energy to it (particularly with how Kong winds up using various tools picked up from all around the battlefield to give himself an edge), likewise there’s a certain Wild Fun to the sequence where our hapless humans have to try and survive a trek through the Crawlers’ home-turf.

Where things get a bit tricky again is when the movie attempts to put its own spin on “Godzilla”’s conception of its monsters as part of their own kind of unique ancient eco-system. The sense of Grandeur that gave a lot of that aspect such weight there is mostly absent here, especially; there are instances where some of that feeling comes through (Kong’s interactions with some of the non-Crawler species, for example, do a good job giving us an endearing sense of how Kong fits into this world), but far more often it treats the monsters as Big Set-Piece Attractions.  Which is fine as far as it goes, it just also means a lot of them aren’t as memorable or impactful as I might like.  Meanwhile, the way the Iwis have built their home to accommodate, interact with, and protect themselves from the island’s bestiary feels like a well-designed concept that manages to suggest a lot of History without having to spell it out for us in a way that I appreciated (I would also be inclined to apply this to the very neat multi-layered stone-art used to portray Kong and the Crawlers except that the sequence where we see them is the most overt “let’s stop and do some world-building” exposition dump in the whole movie).  But the Iwis in general are one of the more difficult elements of the movie to process, too; it seems really clear there was a deliberate effort here to avoid the most grossly racist stuff that has been present in prior attempts to portray the Natives of Skull Island, and as far as it goes I do think those efforts bear some fruit; we are, at the very least, very far away from the Scary Ooga-Booga tone of, say, “King Kong VS. Godzilla”, and that feels like it counts for something.  I just also feel like there’s some dehumanizing touches to their portrayal (in particular they never speak; I don’t mean to imply that Not Speaking equals Inhuman, but the fact that we are not made privy to how exactly they do communicate means we’re very much kept at arm’s length from them in a way that seems at least somewhat meant to alienate us from them), especially given their role in the story as a whole is relatively minor.  

At the end of the day, though, all the movie’s elements, good and bad, don’t really feel like they add up together coherently enough to make an impact.  And I think if I had to try and guess why, even as I find it wholly enjoyable with a lot to genuinely recommend it by, I don’t find myself especially enamored by “Skull Island”.  It has a lot of different ideas of how to approach its story-70’s pastiche, worldbuilding exercise, Monster Mash-but doesn’t seem to quite succeed at realizing any of them fully, indeed often allowing them to get in each other’s ways.  It isn’t, again, a bad movie as a result of that; there really isn’t any stretch of it where I found myself bored or particularly unentertained.  But I did paradoxically find myself frequently wanting more, even as by rights the movie delivers on basically what I was looking for from it.   

[yue-muffin]

Fire Emblem: Genealogy of the Holy War Review

It took months for me to complete, but at least I can finally say that I have played this game. Of all the older Fire Emblem games (pre-3DS era), this is the one that I have wanted to play the most and whose story intrigued me the most. It is, probably, now my favorite game in the franchise, and this review is the really, really long why.

Gameplay/Story Integration

Before I even mention the story, it’s important to address the mechanics that both make this game a wonderful experience of gameplay/story integration...and make it rather annoying, depending on your perspective. This game’s greatest flaws are also its greatest strengths, which makes me glad that it was produced so long ago. I still love modern games, and most have come a long way in making the player experience much less painstaking to an annoying degree, but there is also a lot of charm in older games like Genealogy, where the player is definitely made to suffer a little.

Like all Fire Emblem games, Genealogy is about a war involving dragons, invading nations, and legendary weapons. Unlike most Fire Emblem games, this one went out of its way to make the player feel like they are embarking on a campaign across a continent, spanning multiple years of nonstop fighting and traveling. Most FE games choose to focus on one battle per chapter, with the story segments in between explaining how we progressed from point A to point B. Genealogy chooses instead to make you move your entire frontline across a HUGE map, from castle to castle, crossing distances that span countries.

It’s a unique feature of this game, and I loved it, no matter how annoying it got to lug the army from the south to the north and back down again to defend a previous position from attack. It made you feel actively engaged in the progression of the conflict, made it easy to track your journey back to the beginning and see just how far you traveled. The tedium makes it feel, in the best way a mere video game can, more realistic.

By far one of the weirder and more annoying aspects of the game is the inability for units to trade money and goods between each other. In most games, there is a single pool of money and anyone in the party who purchases an item draws from that fund. In Genealogy, each unit has his/her own money, which cannot be shared with another unless that person is a spouse or the resident thief. This does make some sense because your army is basically a volunteer army built from people of multiple nationalities and affiliations. Many make it clear they’re here to lend a hand, not join you forever, so it makes sense that they don’t all fork over their money for the army to use. Still makes this part of the game annoying if you are micromanaging the army.

It was fairly difficult getting used to this game’s mechanics, which are way, WAY different from any other in the franchise. But I value the attempts made to integrate story with gameplay (another example is the ability to fix/repair broken or damaged weapons for a price, instead of them disappearing into the ether) far more over the frustration it caused me along the way.  

Story

Finally, the actual story! **Spoilers onward**

The story of this game is initially no different from any other Fire Emblem game, and it’s similar to many fantasy stories. A main character’s homeland is invaded by the bad guys, main character fights back and eventually leads a resistance force against the masterminds behind the conflict.

Genealogy turns that story progression on its head in the first half, then plays it straight in the second half. The second half is undoubtedly the weaker of the two, but it’s not bad - just not quite as interesting compared to the absolute curveball the first half throws at you.

I don’t think I’ve ever played a game that had the guts to do what this game does. The closest example is Aerith from FFVII, but at least that was one character, not the entire playable cast. This game would be devastating if it had more room to develop its characters. Honestly, it does a really good job with the limited “screentime” its characters get. Most of them are given reasons for joining that are sensible enough. The game makes sure to lay out the stakes and consequences of the choices the characters make (at least in the first half).

I think one of the reasons I like it so much is that it makes sure you feel the heavy costs of a conflict like the one unfolding in the game. It makes you feel the loss, and not only through the permadeath mechanic. Let’s be real, many players reset if they lose a unit. But even if you reset, or just are good at the game and don’t get anyone killed, the game still makes sure you see the consequences of war.

Actually, it makes you see the consequences of a simple, well-intentioned action. If makes you see how a conflict can quickly snowball out of one man’s control.

The second half of the game is, admittedly, way more typical and less impactful. The world is suffering because of the failure of the first cast to resolve the conflict, so now it’s up to the main cast’s children to finish it.

There are interesting tidbits revealed randomly and at the very end that give the story more life, so I wish they would’ve utilized these parts a little more.

Characters

A lot of people find Sigurd, part 1′s main character, kind of boring. And that’s fair. He’s a typical noble knight, very loyal and an all around good person. And he falls in love at first sight. His ultimate flaw is...well, that he is a bit too trusting or just lacks foresight.

Which is all true of our main character. But he’s also a good example of a tragic hero. His greatest strengths are his nobility and sense of justice. He starts the story only aiming to rescue a childhood friend from the invaders who have kidnapped her. But those are the same things that lead him far from home, on a campaign that snowballs out of his control and soon comes to look very much like a man working on conquering the continent, putting him in conflict with the major power on said continent who doesn’t like what he sees is happening.

He also falls into a love that will lead to disaster, so. Very tragic hero-y of him.

But I lowkey love Sigurd. I love that moment he looks back and realizes oh shit, he’s way in over his head but he literally can’t turn back anymore. The only way out is forward.

I think Seliph, Sigurd’s son, is largely forgettable. The revelation at the end, and implication that he hasn’t truly chosen his own path this whole time but was led down it was a plot point I wish was expanded on, as well as his own feelings about it all. But it kind of fits that he...doesn’t have much substance to him. In the end, he really feels like a pawn, which makes that lofty title he later gains feel all the stranger in retrospect.

This game is good at making its characters feel small in the larger setting of its world. I appreciate that. 

It has a large and largely forgettable cast of named enemies and npcs. I think it helps make the world feel lived in, rather than an empty place run by like 20 people. idk, I’d rather the world feel more realistic than every named character standing out like a sore thumb. 

The game gives you a lot of units, some more memorable than others. This is where a remake could really help flesh out these characters, but I felt that in most cases their motivations and personalities were realistic and believable. The downside, on the gameplay side, is that mounted units really do dominate this game. The few units on foot that stand out are the ones with outstanding performance in one aspect or another, while the rest just fall by the wayside since it can be so difficult to get them to join the action.

However, I am a boring person who loves mounted units, so. I was very happy.

Overall

As you can tell, I loved this game. It can be a bit janky in some aspects, but it’s definitely one of the more adventurous of FE games (seeing as it came out before the series really settled on a “style”). It’s not a game for beginners, I would say, given its somewhat odd mechanics that aren’t explained very well from the outset. The pacing can be feel rather long and arduous, which is on purpose, but also keeping in mind that you can save at the start of every turn - it wasn’t designed for you to bang out a chapter in a single sitting but come back to chip away at your progress.

[cosmic-navel-gazin]

This is something a bit different from me, but in light of the recent announcement from Ubisoft that there’s going to be a remake of Prince of Persia: Sands of Time coming out in January 2021, I thought I’d share some thoughts.

(This started out small but got outta hand so super long post incoming, no spoilers for the games)

So first off, a bit of my history with the original game.

 I’m a big fan of the Prince of Persia (PoP) franchise, and I’ll fully admit that nostalgia plays a big part in it. You see, in many ways this 2003 classic was my real entryway drug into the world of videogames.

It wasn’t the first videogame I had ever played. My friends had consoles, there were some games on the school computers, but I didn’t own games as a kid. As far as my parents were concerned, these were all the spoils and soul damning devices of Lucifer himself. You know how it is, every generation goes through this thing of blaming all the world’s problems on a new artform: rock and roll, comic books and then videogames.

So yeah, a gaming console or buying games for the home computer was a BIG NO-NO! 

But of course, the more an authority figure says you can’t have something, the more you want and crave it. It was only a matter of time until the opportunity presented itself to me.

And then the day finally came.

It was just me and a couple of friends, going to this new magazine store near the school. And there it was: the dvd case that came with a gaming mag for like 5 euros if I remember correctly, stupid cheap for such a great game. 

There was doubt, there was fear, there was anxiety. I didn’t know much about the game, only the old 1989 DOS Prince of Persia:

This had the same name but looked different. I was seduced immediately.

The case stared longingly at me:

 It’s not my fault, I was bewitched and I bought it.

My symbol of rebellion, my first big transgression, and my first real treasured posession that I bought with hard earned money.

PoP:The Sands of Time was my original sin so to say:

Accurate representation of what happened that day

I furiously installed the game as soon as my parents left the house. Played it for a couple of hours and stood in awe at the thing - the cinematics, the cool parkour moves, the arabian nights setting, the time manipulation to undo mistakes when platforming or in combat, the Prince breaking the fourth wall saying:”no no no, that’s not what happened, let me start over” whenever I died and got a game over…

You have not experienced true fear if at some point in your life you didn’t feel the cold sweat running down your back as you hear the very distinct sound of your parents’ car arriving when you’re doing something “prohibited”.

 As soon as I heard that sound, I quickly quit the game, uninstaled it (I could not run the risk of them finding out I had tainted their machine with a videogame *gasp!*), and ran to my room to hide the game before opening the door for them. 

Neetheless to say, I never made much progress since I had to start over every time after quitting and uninstalling the thing. I would just play those first couple of hours over and over, never knowing how the story progressed, but I was happy all the same. At one point I knew every line of dialogue, every music cue, every sound effect of that beginning part. It would be some years before I got my first laptop and finally managed to complete it. 

All of this to say that the game means a lot to me. Not just as a product or piece of entertainment. This wasn’t casually playing on someone’s gameboy advance or PS2 to have a bit of fun and pass the time.

 This was more intimate.

 It was just me; the game; a dark room and a blanket; and a sincere and charming, simple but compelling story told seamlessly through mechanics that only enhanced it. This was me witnessing gameplay and storytelling going hand in hand in a way that even many of my other favourite games don’t do, or don’t do as well (there’s usually some disconnect where a game only manages to really excel at one but not the other).

Ok, so on the announcement and trailer:

As a big fan you might think I was super hyped for this. 

But I gotta say…no, not really.

I’m not super angry, but I’m not really excited either honestly. And I don’t think it’s just the rough and uncanny character models and animation that people are pointing out all over (although that doesn’t help).

I guess to talk a bit on that, I should stress out that my problem isn’t that it doesn’t look realistic enough. To be honest, and this is going to sound rich from a big Witcher 3 fan, I think that the gaming industry overall, moreso big tripple A titles, seem to have this unhealthy obsession with photorealism. Like, I don’t need to see the characters’s pores to care about these polygon people. Strong art direction is what I feel is more valuable. I just don’t think this arms race to photorealism is sustainable. Games are taking longer to make and fund, and I’d rather have dev teams spend more time polishing and refining the games’ mechanics and/or story if the trade-off is less “realistic” graphics.  

It might just be personal preference, but I wish we were getting more stylized character and world design. Go look at some screenshots for Pathologic 2, a game that came out last year that hits that sweet spot between full-blown cartoony/caricature and realistic by today’s standards:

And I think that is somewhat what they were going for with this remake’s character models (or I hope it was). But it’s still not quite there, hopefully they’ll work on improving those so they can hit that sweet spot also.

(in defense of my hipocrisy and love of The Witcher 3, I think the more realistic look was appropriate for the world they were portraying, it benefits from it. However I don’t think I would love it any less if it had less detailed models and environments)

One last thing on the graphics.

I will say this though, at least from the footage we see in the new trailer the team seems to be capitalizing on colour. Big vibrant reds, blues, whites and yellows in the environment look great, and really captures the 1.001 nights/arabian nights feel that I absolutely love. I appreciate that since there’s always this tendency for remakes to suck all the colour and life from the original (in both games and movies), regardless if it fits the setting and tone or not.

Anyway, I think the reason I’m very much without a big reaction is that I believe the 2003 original is a true classic, a masterpiece even - I guess I should stress out that when I say masterpiece, I don’t mean it’s perfect. Just that the whole is bigger and better than the sum of its parts, that the things it does right, it does so right, that it completely overshadows the flaws. 

The story, the art direction, the gameplay (the holy trinity of platforming, combat and puzzle solving), the brilliant introduction of the dagger of time as a gameplay and story mechanic (one of my favourite mechanics in all of gaming), the music, the charming duo that is the Prince and Farah, the tight pacing with the game being just the right length and not overstaying its welcome, the outstanding level design where you’re never stuck doing one thing for too long (the game is always juggling between combat, story, platforming and puzzles, mixing and matching)… 

Looking at all these things, I just really don’t think we need a remake because I don’t think there’s that many glaring terrible flaws that could justify it. 

Adding more scenes and content could be good, or it might backfire: bloat and ruin the game’s already excelent pacing and fluidity (which I think is the main keyword that better describes the original, everything flows superbly). The original was only 6-8 hours long and it is better for it. I’m not confident that adding dozens of hours of gameplay like the big tittles today would help at all.

The only real improvements I can see are: 

tweeking and perfecting the combat (I’ve seen it mentioned that they’re implementing a targeting system which sounds good); 

perhaps also better Farah’s A.I during combat when you have to help protect her from swarms of enemies;

Maybe throw in a couple more enemy types? The cut sand tigers for example? 

usual things like adding the option of subtitles, add the ability to skip cutescenes;

But other than that…

I don’t even think the graphics of the original look bad. They’ve aged of course, with the game being 17 years old, but still. I installed it last night and played through the first hour to take some screenshots and I think they’re still good:

I can understand the MediEvil remaster, the Spyro remaster or the more recent FFVII remake in terms of wanting to update the graphics. I can understand that not everyone can easily go back to these low poly lads:

 But this game? I know I’m influenced by nostalgia and all, but I don’t think it needs that makeover that badly, especially when compared to these other remakes and remasters. Funnily enough, I just noticed that these examples I just listed were all PS1 games. PoP: SoT was a PS2 , PC and Xbox game. PS2 era games have aged far better visually and don’t need that big a makeover in my most humble opinion.

It would be one thing if the original was out of print like a Rule of Rose scenario ,where you can’t find the game unless you go to ebay or something and it’s stupid expensive. Or if it was a pain to get running on modern systems like it was with Grim Fandango, until it got a remaster. 

But no, you can find the Sands of Time trilogy and the PoP (2008) reboot on GOG and Steam (on Steam only there’s also the PoP:The Forgotten Sands midquel). So there isn’t the usual problem of the game no longer being accessible to people who want to play it, which helps justify the need for a remake.

The original still plays nice, sounds nice and looks nice, so I guess this all goes to show that at the end of the day, this remake just feels a bit unnecessary to me, at least from what little the trailer showed (I would love to have my bitter cynical ass proved wrong though!). 

 Maybe I just have a superhuman tolerance for older games and how they look, I really don’t have that big a problem if the game itself is good or interesting, so I don’t always think older games need remakes.

Maybe my falling out of love with Ubisoft in this last decade has curbed forever any hype I might have for their announcements, even when they pull out my  son, my baby boy Prince of Persia out again.

 Maybe I’m just burnt out and too pessimistic about remakes, remasters and adaptations (although game remakes usually do better than film ones).

And this makes me a bit sad because I don’t want to sh*t all over the first piece of “new”  Prince of Persia content we’ve had since 2010??? Oof, it’s been a while.

Especially knowing that Yuri Lowenthal is coming back and excited to voice the Prince again. And I also don’t want to be too harsh since we’re looking at an alpha of the game. But so far I’m just very numb to this, I do seriously hope it turns out good and that they don’t rush it out the door. But I’m not convinced we need a remake in the first place. The original is a milestone, a game changer. I’d rather see a game that had great ideas and poor execution being remade than something people already love and consider a masterpiece.

 Guess we’ll see how I feel once more news and footage come out.

Oh and feel free to share your own thoughts on this remake. I’m curious to know what both fans and newcomers alike think.

small edit: I can’t believe I was just watching this Sands of Time playthrough on youtube and at one point it is said: “Another game that is designed similarly to this is Soul Reaver actually.” 

Of course! I didn’t even see it! All of my favourite things are connected!!! Maybe that detail was another thing that helped me getting really into Soul Reaver as I was first playing it.

[aion-rsa]

The Losers: Chris Evans, Idris Elba and Zoe Saldana’s Forgotten Superhero Movie

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Even The Losers get lucky sometimes. Before the DCEU was formed to compete against the ever-expanding, cash cow that is the Marvel Cinematic Universe, the approach at Warner Bros. was far looser. With the booming business of comic book adaptations in full swing, the studio was throwing money at several eclectic comic book titles like Watchmen and Jonah Hex, trying to stay competitive and seemingly more adult than their rivals. Hence before leaving to create his own superhero project, Hancock, wrier-director Peter Berg started penning an adaptation of DC/Vertigo’s The Losers, bringing in French director Sylvain White to helm the picture.

Produced by Joel Silver, The Losers centered on a team of elite, black-ops Special Forces operatives betrayed by their handler. Director White connected with the material immediately. 

“What appealed to me about The Losers was that it wasn’t the typical superhero-with-superpowers thing,” White told MTV. “It was based on real characters—realistic characters—and based in reality, like a lot of the European graphic novels that I had grown up reading.” The director worked with creators Jock and Andy Diggle to refine the script and lend their expertise with design to give the film a distinct visual palette that changes with new locations.

Frequent Silver collaborator Idris Elba was cast as Captain William Roque, with the cast being rounded out by Jeffrey Dean Morgan, coming off his turn as The Comedian in the studio’s adaptation of Watchmen, Zoe Saldana, fresh off of starring in the highest-grossing film of all-time, Avatar, Chris Evans, still mainly known for playing the Human Torch in Fox’s early Fantastic Four films, and rising actor Columbus Short. While current audiences would go on to become intimately familiar with most of this cast, their names didn’t generate enough buzz in 2010 to get folks into the theater. The Losers only made about $30 million on a $25 million budget.

Of course a tepid response at the box office does not mean that a movie is destined for obscurity. Just recently hitting Netflix and ready to capitalize off its now A-list cast, The Losers is currently the most popular film on the streaming service. Besides the even greater interest in comic book properties, the cast of The Losers have gone on to such success that they revitalized interest in one of DC’s almost-forgotten adaptations. Let’s look at where the cast of The Losers have been since the film’s release in 2010 to explain the sudden spike in love.

Idris Elba

While Elba, a star of British television via Luther, had already made an impression with American audiences by 2010 thanks to 28 Weeks Later, Guy Ritchie’s RocknRolla, and a guest stint on The Office, Elba’s star would rise considerably after his appearance in The Losers. In 2011, Elba would join the MCU as Heimdall in Thor, who’s role in the Thor films would expand as the franchise progressed. Elba would also pop up in prominent roles in blockbusters like Prometheus, Pacific Rim, The Jungle Book, and Star Trek Beyond. Away from blockbusters though he really broke out with a SAG-winning performance in Beasts of No Nations, and starring in fare like Aaron Sorkin’s Molly’s Game.

More recently, Elba stole scenes away from Jason Statham and Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson as the villain in Fast & Furious: Hobbs and Shaw. Finally, things have come a bit full circle for Elba, as he’s set to appear in another DC adaptation over 10 years after The Losers, portraying Bloodsport in James Gunn’s The Suicide Squad.

Jeffrey Dean Morgan

In 2010, Jeffrey Dean Morgan was probably most well-known for his roles on television in series like Supernatural and Grey’s Anatomy. That all changed after Morgan was cast in an adaptation of the “unfilmable” graphic novel Watchmen as The Comedian. While his time onscreen in the Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons adaptation was minimal, bringing such an iconic comic book character to life earned Morgan a deeper cachet with the Comic-Con crowd. Morgan would work steadily in films like The Possession and the Red Dawn remake, but he arguably made a bigger impact on television portraying yet another iconic comic book character on AMC’s The Walking Dead, Negan.

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Morgan received critical acclaim for his portrayal of the villainous Negan upon his debut, earning the Critics’ Choice Television Award for Best Guest Performer in a Drama Series, MTV Movie and TV Award for Best Villain, and Saturn Award for Best Guest Starring Role on Television. He’s been going steady as Negan since while doing other occasional comic-con friendly projects like Rampage.

Zoe Saldana

Zoe Saldana was on top of the world in 2010, and in the time since, she’s only become more successful. After appearing in the buzzy Star Trek reboot in 2009 and a little film called Avatar, the former Center Stage star would go on to headline her own action film Colombiana. However, that would seem like small potatoes compared to what would come in 2014. Saldana was cast as Gamora in Guardians of the Galaxy, Marvel’s riskiest adaptation to date. Would audiences get onboard with an off-beat space opera featuring C-tier Marvel characters? Turns out, yes. Gamora not only became the heart of the Guardians, but the character would feature prominently in the grand Phase 3 finales Avengers: Infinity War and Avengers: Endgame.

In the shadow of that, Saldana has starred in more Star Trek sequels, an ill-advised TV remake of Rosemary’s Baby, and as Nina Simone in in Nina, a performance did come under fire for due to the lightness of her skin. Still, Saldana now has leading roles in the two highest grossing films of all-time, and is still expected to star in Guardians and Avatar sequels. Not too shabby.

Chris Evans

Speaking of the MCU, Chris Evans wasn’t floundering in 2010, but he did seem to be stuck in a bit of a rut, typecast as handsome smart alecks prior to The Losers. In fact, his big mainstream break is probably the less than classic spoof comedy, Not Another Teen Movie (2001); afterward he played Johnny Storm in Tim Story’s lukewarm Fantastic Four movies in the mid-2000s; in fact, arguably his most amusing role up to 2010 was when he appeared as a douchebag movie star in Edgar Wright’s genre-bending comedy, Scott Pilgrim vs. the World (2010).

Read more

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Knives Out: When Murder Makes You a Better Person

By Natalie Zutter

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$400 Million Knives Out 2 Deal Gives Netflix Major Movie Franchise

By David Crow

That said, The Losers found him playing against type as an awkward tech expert. Perhaps his chance to show a different side of himself led to his life-changing role as Steve Rogers in the MCU’s Captain America. Anchoring the Avengers franchise for eight years, Chris Evans rose to the top of the A-list, and used that newfound celebrity to help get passion projects like Bong Joon-ho’s Snowpiercer and Rian Johnson’s Knives Out made. Evans is one of the most popular celebrities on social media right now and looks to continue his profitable relationship with Disney by voicing Buzz Lightyear in the animated origin film, Lightyear. 

Columbus Short

Perhaps the only member of the cast not to launch into the stratosphere after The Losers, Columbus Short has had a few issues that have prevented his rise. Short booked a role on the popular ABC series Scandal, but personal issues derailed his involvement in the show. In 2014, as part of a no-jail plea agreement, Short pled guilty to misdemeanor domestic violence and performed 30 hours of community service. Short also avoided jail by pleading no contest to a felony assault charge after throwing “a running punch” at his in-law during a family gathering at a bar.

In an interview with Access Hollywood Live, Short shared that substance abuse due to the stress of family issues and personal loss had led to his departure from Scandal. However, Short has appeared to move past his personal struggles and can next been seen portraying Martin Luther King Jr. in Remember Me: The Mahalia Jackson Storyand returning as Quadir Richards in True to the Game 3. 

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[tlbodine]

Pandemic and Pandemonium: Sickness in Horror

Well, it’s official: Novel Coronavirus, COVID-19, has been declared a pandemic -- ie, a new and widespread infectious disease actively infecting people throughout the world. For most of us currently alive, this is the first time we’ve seen a pandemic. It’s certainly the first time any of us have seen the kind of city-wide or country-wide quarantine measures currently being employed. 

It’s an anxiety-inducing situation for sure. And people are dealing with that fear in different ways. Some folks are hoarding bottled water and toilet paper. Some folks are checking the news compulsively. Some folks are finding 20-second-long songs to sing while washing their hands. 

And some of us are looking for horror fiction that might just mirror our anxieties and give a momentary but welcome catharsis. 

Germs have existed since, well...the beginning of life as we know it. And for as long as humans have been alive, we’ve sometimes gotten sick from these microscopic invaders. It’s just a part of being alive. Everything gets sick sometimes, and humans -- who live in large complex groups and have a lot of casual contact day-by-day -- get sick a lot. 

There’s a lot to fear from widespread illness: 

Germs are invisible to the eye, so you can’t necessarily see the threat coming for you

Because infection is carried from person to person, mistrust and even hostility can grow toward people who appear ill (whether or not they really are sick)

Controlling the spread of disease often requires social isolation and can invite a loss of rights (ie, confinement)

The disease itself can have terrifying effects, from gross symptoms to death 

If enough people get sick, it can disrupt the machinery of society, causing problems with food, electricity, healthcare, law enforcement, you name it. 

Now, in real life, things don’t usually get that bad, especially in modern times when we have advanced healthcare and science and great communication. History’s greatest pandemics, from the Black Death (bubonic plague) of Europe in the 1300s to smallpox in the US in the 1700s to the worldwide Spanish Flu epidemic in the early 1900s, have been devastating -- but obviously, humanity has survived them all, and the numbers have been less terrible each time. With the power of antibiotics and vaccines and anti-virals and advanced medical interventions, we can save a lot of lives. 

But we can’t save all of them -- which is why anxiety still lingers, and why stories about pestilence remain compelling. 

The Magic of Fictional Viruses 

When it comes to fictional illness, viruses usually end up in the spotlight. Some of the nastiest diseases in history have been bacterial infections -- Bubonic Plague, syphilis, typhoid, tuberculosis. Now that we have antibiotics, these once-deadly illnesses are essentially wiped from the modern consciousness. 

But viruses are trickier. We have not yet developed a singular treatment as effective against all viruses as antibiotics are against bacteria. Instead, we rely on vaccines to immunize us against them. But vaccines are individualized, working only for the specific disease they’ve been developed to treat -- and if a new virus pops up, it takes time to craft the response against it. 

Viruses also function in ways that make them especially attuned for horror: 

They are smaller and less complex than other microorganisms, and it’s debatable if they are even, strictly speaking, alive.

Their only method of reproduction is by invading a cell and injecting it with its own genetic material; viruses cannot reproduce without a living host.

Because they reproduce quickly and rely on their host cells, viruses can swiftly mutate and change 

Some people can be carriers, able to spread the virus without ever knowing that they’re sick or showing any symptoms 

It’s little wonder then that viruses in fiction can cause all kinds of things -- zombies, werewolves, insanity, infertility, even turning your body to stone. In modern horror fiction, viruses often fulfill the role previously occupied by magical curses. 

Horror Recommendations for Disease Fiction 

With a global pandemic currently active, the CDC is recommending that people self-isolate whenever possible -- working from home, avoiding large crowds, and abstaining from touching people. So do your part to protect yourself and the vulnerable people around you by staying home and watching movies or reading a book instead. Here are some thematic lists. 

“Realistic” Contagion Stories

If you’d like to watch a tense medical thriller rooted at least partly in realism, try one of these: 

Outbreak - A california town is quarantined to stop the spread of an Ebola-like virus.

Contagion - A woman brings home a deadly virus that triggers a quarantine, complete with social upheaval and looting.

Pontypool - A radio disc jockey reports on a dire, apocalyptic pandemic while in isolation in Ontario

Containment - A TV series about a city that falls under a quarantine to prevent the spread of an Ebola-like disease; it's partly medical drama, partly commentary on social conflict

Apocalyptic Stories 

Curious about what happens after the fall of mankind? So are a lot of authors and filmmakers. 

The Last Man - Did you know Mary Shelley wrote an apocalypstic novel about a world-ending epidemic as a way to process grief about her husband's death?

The Stand - Perhaps Stephen King's greatest epic, the book details the fall of civilization as we know it and its brutal, power-struggle-fueled rebuilding in the wake of a devastating flu.

Oryx and Crake - Margaret Atwood conceived of a trilogy of near-future dystopia focused on genetic engineering, a plague, and the horrors of technology. Start with this one and read all three if it grips you.

I Am Legend - Richard Matheson's short novel is often adapted, but you can't beat the original. A plague novel, a zombie novel and a vampire novel all rolled into one.

It Comes At Night - A story of isolation following a deadly outbreak, and also a question of sanity and the choices people make in difficult positions. (full disclosure: I didn’t like this movie much, but it’s very well-reviewed so you might like it more) 

Weird Chaos Viruses 

I’ve talked about zombies before at great length, so I won’t recommend anymore traditional zombie tales -- just go read my other list for those recommendations! But sometimes apocalypses come by not-quite-zombies, so let’s talk about those: 

Bird Box - The novel by Josh Malerman or the film starring Sandra Bullock, take your pick. Both are about a woman trying to survive in a world torn asunder by a an eldritch evil that drives you to madness if you see it.

The Happening - One of M. Night Shyamalan's more ridiculous films, but one I can't help but guiltily enjoy. An unexplained event drives people to commit suicide (in increasingly ridiculous ways), creating a world-threatening pandemic.

The Crazies - The original 1973 film and the 2010 remake both deal with an outbreak of a bizarre illness that causes people to go, uh, crazy. In a murder way.

Cabin Fever - Eli Roth’s directorial debut, this is a classic gross-out film franchise about a flesh-eating virus that chews its way through a bunch of young campers. 

Dreamcatcher - Basically exactly the plot of Cabin Fever, except with aliens and some It cross-over cosmic horror. A decent Stephen King novel and a fun, if cringey, film, take your pick. 

Mimic - A sci-fi approach involving cockroaches, genetic engineering, and bad ideas. Did you know this was co-written and directed by Guillermo del Toro and was the first Norman Reedus movie? 

Cold Storage - A wonderfully gross debut novel by David Koepp featuring mind-controlling fungus. 

The Troop  - Nick Cutter’s gross-out novel is billed as “28 Days Later meets Lord of the Flies” which is basically everything you need to know. Monstrous tapeworms + boyscouts = bad times for all. 

The Thing - A research team encounters a terrible alien parasite in an isolated frozen wasteland. 

Historical Horror

The Black Death is one of the oldest, best-known, most-historically-significant illnesses in the Western world, so lots of people have told stories about it -- but it’s not the only epidemic in town. If you prefer your disease horror with a side of history, try one of these: 

Black Death - Not a great movie, but it has Sean Bean and Eddie Redmayne and some exceptional gore, so it gets a vote just for that. It’s not about the plague so much as it’s about witchcraft, but it fits. 

The Masque of the Red Death - One of Edgar Allan Poe’s finest stories, in my opinion. You can read this online in multiple places if you don’t have a Poe collection handy, and there’s a lot of audio and short films for it too so take your pick. 

Love in the Time of Cholera - Like it says on the tin, this is a book about life and love and a cholera epidemic. Gabriel Garcia Marquez is a masterful writer, so this is well worth picking up for the quality of prose and storytelling alone.

The Plague - Part social commentary, part plague story, this Albert Camus novel is heavy on philosophy, if you’re into that sort of thing. 

Cabin Fever and Isolation 

A lot of the stories already mentioned touch on themes of isolation, quarantine, and cabin fever, but if you’re staring down the long barrel of social distancing and want more stories about going crazy in enclosed spaces, consider adding: 

The Shining  - The Stephen King novel and the Stanley Kubrick film are both excellent in their own ways, and I recommend both. A family makes the unwise decision to stay alone in a haunted hotel through a long snowed-in winter. It ends badly. 

Devil - However bad your life is, it’s probably not as bad as being trapped in an elevator with the literal devil, which is the premise of this film. 

The Cabin at the End of the World -- You didn’t think I’d write about apocalypse scenarios without finding a chance to plug my favorite Paul Tremblay novel, did you? Part home invasion, part psychological horror, part cosmic apocalypse, 100% terrifying. 

Now, go forth and enjoy many a movie night, or curl up and treat yourself. Social distancing never felt so deliciously spooky ;) 

[mytwitterisdogtoast1]

Yugi’s decks and some other odd stuff that just makes sense.

This is a weird double kind of post where I focus on many things because of a little project I’ve been working on. So as anyone who has ever grown up and has been into Yu-Gi-Oh knows you just can’t not like the anime. From the ridiculous duels and cards to the ridiculous hair on every single character and I’m not talking about the newer shows so much as just the original show because that’s probably the “best” one to most people (partial to GX myself even though I know it’s not the best and Konami kinda messed up on it at the end of the series in USA). See if you watch the show a simple easy thing that anyone who gets it would like would be to get the decks of a character. Heck even if it was Weevil people would be a little excited but not as excited as if they got one of the main characters. Which was great because even though it’s old news I was very excited to buy the legendary decks for Yugi. See that is an amazing product idea that can bring in everyone who likes Yu-Gi-Oh. You bring in the casuals by giving them his decks, you bring in the collectors for cards that don’t exist yet here in the west or even those who have missed out on older cards, and you bring in the more serious crowd for cards that are in archetypes that might be harder to find maybe (probably not because the game has evolved to such a degree that even mirror force isn’t good anymore.) but still 2/3 ain’t bad. Let’s be honest though. This is Konami so they’re gonna find a way to fuck it up and I’m a decent guy so I usually try to have some faith in things. Even things like Konami who ruin most of their IPs in general but hey, I keep that faith. This was a simple thing to do but in the end they messed it up with really easy to do things. Now let’s just be really honest about this. if this product interested you. You would buy it if it hit the sweet spot of cost = product. I know I would and I’m sure many others would as well. Let’s assume Konami does its best in that it not only releases every single card Yugi has ever used before but also makes each card that doesn’t exist, to exist. They would have to make a handful of cards yes, but people would probably go and buy that product cause every deck he’s run is in it in their entirety. We can assume they would use his actual deck lists and make his actual decks. Yeah, his decks are not good but let’s face it fan, cosplayers, kids, adults and everyone and their grandma would buy this product. Nostalgia is a huge thing nowadays and even if we can’t play it in a tournament and hope to win we could just roll up, throw down a fiver and just play that sweet sweet celtic guardian. Now let’s be a little more realistic. Let’s assume we take the middle road which is absolutely the best idea. Heck we’ll take both sides of that road and give two middle road ideas that are the best idea. Make his actual decks and only use cards printed while printing about 5 cards that haven’t been made. That electromagnetic turtle is pretty dope not gonna lie. Point is even then we would still get a 4 card deck from each main part of the journey. 120 cards, 5 promos, the art cards for duelist kingdom, the god cards (playable or not even) would not set anyone back hard in printing since they’re all stuff already made in real life and would even bring cards like torike and horn imp into the west which haven’t even come here. Heck don’t even make decks. Throw in every card from every single season he has ever used. We don’t need to have 2 giant soldier of stones. (yes he uses two at one point) It would however be nice if we just got the cards the way he has them in looks and what he has. Call it Yugis legendary collection and it is the same exact thing. The worst thing you could do is just make his deck and just add in random shit like 3 dark magician girls. Which is what they did. Like This is a simple thing to make man how could you mess up by adding cards he didn’t use in decks when they didn’t exist then? Even detonate which is a card Kaiba uses. Look man it’s not the biggest of deals but the fact that the next set was stuff “based on their main cards” and Yugi had exodia? HE USED IT IN ONE DUEL. Make a dark magician deck. Sure it would reprint some of the same stuff but lets face it. THAT’S WHAT PEOPLE WOULD WANT. We don’t want something LIKE it. We want that thing.  Why does this matter? Honestly besides how sad the product was it really made me want the thing I didn’t get and it is near impossible ( at least I assume) to get torike and horn imp in the west when I believe it has had one printing in the east only and the only way to buy the cards are to go buy Orica stuff. Which in their own way is nice too. Support artists. So I took it upon myself to make those exact decks and to in general just make it a small side project in my life. Duelist kingdom deck was mostly easy to do and I am missing just 3 cards so I can buy 2 of them no problem and the others are torike and horn imp. Cards we never got (fuck you Konami). That’s when I started to see the other seasons which are not cannon in comics but are technically cannon in the show. Filler is a very iffy thing to use but I’m super casual and actually like filler in things I like. Hell DBZ has some of the better filler in the side stuff it puts in because it never really changes much. However sometimes you can have too much filler or filler that changes the series totally (stares at bleach, Naruto, and one piece. You all know what you did).  Now why does this also matter? Because it raises a ton of questions about the series in general when you look at a characters decks. Did you know that as iconic as Gaia the fierce knight is he doesn’t show up past duelist kingdom? Even in the manga he only has it in duelist kingdom. This raises a ton of questions. Like Gaia the dragon champion is really good in the anime. Because let’s face it. If you are going to use chimera in your duels than why not have Gaia in there as well to make a stronger monster? It’s one of his boss monsters. I mean he still uses curse of dragon in every deck except waking the dragons which again I know it’s not fully cannon but that shouldn’t stop them from using him. Unless there was a decent enough reason. I think that reason is you don’t need the monster itself in duelist kingdom to make the fusion. Which I can actually make an argument for. Yugi has 2 monsters in his deck. First is Black skull dragon and Dragon master knight. I know one is filler but it would fit the same argument regardless because even if we take from the anime it might be a little different in the manga and comic for battle city but that is indeed cannon. So the point I’m making is it’s a little strange Yugi would have either of those mosnters in his deck. He never knew he was going to work with Joey or Kaiba ever so why would he just have them? Trade doesn’t really work that way in the show cause we never see it and I know that dude isn’t carrying around cards because let’s face it. He didn’t bring anything but his cards and a glove. He didn’t have replacement cards. Which makes you wonder where the time wizard was from when he gave it to joey. He isn’t carrying extra cards cause the world doesn’t have packs the same way and cards would be more diverse or shittier and packs are like 5 cards per pack. So having such a rare and powerful card like that and it just “being around” makes 0 sense. Which makes you believe that it came from his deck. So time wizard was an original card. We have to remember that the reason he never played it is he never drew it in his duels and then gave it to Joey. Which makes the most sense. So if we go by that logic it would be understandable that since time wizard doesn’t fuse into baby dragon that you don’t even need thousand dragon in the extra deck. That also means dark sage isn’t even in Yugis deck because if it was meant to pair with time wizard he’d have taken it out or he just simply never ran into it or was a jerk and threw it in to counter Joey. So by that logic the reason Gaia never made a return is he never had the fusion in the first place. This makes me assume many things about the decks written are kind of misleading. Firstly the fact that Yugi has the same deck kind of but changes it every season. It makes 0 sense that he would in a world where cards are not a common supply even though it is the most common thing in his world to have that he would just always remake his deck mostly alike and then in general change 10 cards out only to put them back in to only take them out again. So when mysical elf is in his deck in virtual world but he doesn’t put 2 giant soldiers of stone in makes me question if he actually even doesn’t have mystical elf in his deck normally but sure as heck has feral imp. I came to the conclusion that in every season Yugi is just running the same deck with no differences. If there are differences it would be he added them in later on because he got the card and the only reason we never see it is that the man has over 80 cards in his deck. No it’s not 40 no matter how many times he says it because anime rules. It makes even less sense to change the deck not just for every season but every duel that he would have life shaver in against Kaiba only and then never play it in a duel ever again or something along those lines. Why does this matter? If I am going to make his decks I want to be as “accurate” as possible and am going to make his decks but it’s not like anyone wants to just make 7 decks for the dude. Especially when you take the Pharaoh into account as well. And who even wants to actually just make a Yugi themed deck? It’s not the same as having his decks themselves. It is much cooler in the end to actually have his deck. Even if it is 4000 cards large.

[mamcollection]

Artist Gina Beavers Satirizes Our Insatiable Appetite for Personal Beauty in Her New Show at Marianne Boesky

Makeup as Muse: Gina Beavers

November 28, 2020

Despite my art history background and general love of art, I am less than eloquent when writing about it.  Nevertheless I will continue soldiering forward with the Museum's Makeup as Muse series, the latest installment of which focuses on the work of Gina Beavers in honor of her recent show at Marianne Boesky Gallery. Beavers' practice encompasses a variety of themes, but it's her paintings of makeup tutorials that I'll be exploring.  Since I'm both tired and lazy this will be more of a summary of her work rather than offering any fresh insight and I'll be quoting the artist extensively along with some writers who have covered her art, so most of this will not be my own words.

Born in Athens and raised in Europe, Beavers is fascinated by the excess and consumerism of both American culture and social media. "I don't know how to talk about this existence without talking about consumption, and so I think that's the element in consuming other people's images. That's where that's embedded. We have to start with consumption if we're going to talk about who we are. That's the bedrock—especially as an American," she says.  The purchase of a smart phone in 2010 is when Beavers' work began focusing on social media.  "[Pre-smart phone] I would see things in the world and paint them! Post-smartphone my attention and observation seemed to go into my phone, into looking at and participating in social media apps, and all of the things that would arise there...Historically, painters have drawn inspiration from their world, for me it's just that a lot of my world is virtual [now]."

But why makeup, and specifically, makeup tutorials?  There seem to be two main themes running through the artist's focus on these online instructions, the first being the relationship between painting and makeup.  Beavers explains:  "When I started with these paintings I was really thinking that this painting is looking at you while it is painting itself. It’s drawing and painting: it has pencils, it has brushes, and it’s trying to make itself appealing to the viewer. It’s about that parallel between a painting and what you expect from it as well as desire and attraction. It’s also interesting because the terms that makeup artists use on social media are painting terms. The way they talk about brushes or pigments sounds like painters talking shop."  Makeup application as traditional painting is a theme that goes back centuries, but Beavers's work represents a fresh take on it.  As Ellen Blumenstein wrote in an essay for Wall Street International: "Elements such as brushes, lipsticks or fingers, which are intended to reassure the viewers of the videos of the imitability of the make-up procedures, here allude to the active role of the painting – which does not just stare or make eyes at the viewer, but rather seems to paint itself with the accessories depicted – literally building a bridge extending out from the image...Beavers divests [the image] of its natural quality and uses painting as an analytical tool. The viewer is no longer looking at photographic tableaus composed of freeze-frames taken from make-up tutorials, but rather paintings about make-up tutorials, which present the aesthetic and formal parameters of this particular class of images, which exist exclusively on the net."  The conflation of makeup and painting can also be perceived as a rumination on authorship and original sources.  Beavers is remaking tutorials, but the tutorials themselves originated with individual bloggers and YouTubers.  And given the viral, democratic nature of the Internet, it's nearly impossible to tell who did a particular tutorial first and whether tutorials covering the same material - say, lip art depicting Van Gogh's "Starry Night"  - are direct copies of one artist's work or merely the phenomenon of many people having the same idea and sharing it online.  Sometimes the online audience cannot distinguish between authentic content and advertising; Beavers's "Burger Eye" (2015), for example, is actually not recreated from a tutorial at all but an Instagram ad for Burger King (and the makeup artist who was hired to create it remains, as far as I know, uncredited).

Another theme is fashioning one's self through makeup, and how that self is projected online in multiple ways.  Beavers explains: "I am interested in the ways existing online is performative, and the tremendous lengths people go to in constructing their online selves. Meme-makers, face-painters, people who make their hair into sculptures, are really a frontier of a new creative world...It’s interesting, as make-up has gotten bigger and bigger, I’ve realized what an important role it plays in helping people construct a self, particularly in trans and drag communities. I don’t normally wear a lot of make-up myself, but I like the idea of the process of applying make-up standing in for the process of self-determination, the idea of ‘making yourself’."

As for the artist's process, it's a laborious one. Beavers regularly combs Instagram, YouTube and other online sources and saves thousands of images on her phone. She then narrows down to a few based on both composition and the story they're trying to tell. "I'm arrested by images that have interesting formal qualities, color, composition but also a compelling narrative. I really like when an image is saying something that leaves me unsure of how it will translate to painting, like whether the meaning will change in the context of the history of painting," she says.  "I always felt drawn to photos that had an interesting composition, whether for its color or depth or organization. But in order for me to want to paint it, it also had to have interesting content, like the image was communicating some reality beyond its composition that I related to in my life or that I thought spoke in some interesting way about culture."  The act of painting for Beavers is physically demanding as well: she needs to start several series at the same time and go back and forth between paintings to allow the layers to dry.  They have to lay flat to dry so she often ends up painting on the floor, and her recent switch to an even heavier acrylic caused a bout of carpal tunnel syndrome.

But it's precisely the thick quality of the paint that return some of the tactile nature of makeup application.  This is not accidental; Beavers intentionally uses this technique as way to remind us of makeup's various textures and to ensure her paintings resemble paintings rather than a photorealistic recreation of the digital screen. "The depth of certain elements in the background of images has taught me a lot about seeing. I think I have learned that I enjoy setting up problems to solve, that it isn't enough for me to simply render a photo realistically, that I have to build up the acrylic deeply in order to interfere with the rendering of something too realistically," she explains.  Sharon Mizota, writing for the LA Times, says it best:  "Skin, lashes and lips are textured with rough, caked-on brushstrokes that mimic and exaggerate wrinkles and gloppy mascara. This treatment gives the subjects back some of the clunky physicality that the camera and the digital screen strip away. Beavers’ paintings, in some measure, undo the gloss of the photographic image."

Beavers also uses foam to further build up certain sections so that they bulge out towards the viewer, representing the desire to connect to others online.  "Much of what people do online is to try to create connection, to reach out and meet people or talk to people. That is what the surfaces of my painting do in a really literal way, they are reaching off the linen into the viewer’s space," she says.  This sculptural quality also points to the reality of the online world - it's not quite "real life" but it's not imaginary either, occupying a space in between.  Beavers expands on her painting style representing the online space: "It’s interesting because flatness often comes up with screens, and I think historically the screen might have been read like that, reflecting a more passive relationship. That has changed with the advent of engagement and social media. What’s behind our screen is a whole living, breathing world, one that gives as much as it takes. I mean it is certainly as 'real' as anything else. I see the dimension as a way to reflect that world and the ways that world is reaching out to make a connection. Another aspect is that once these works are finished, they end up circulating back in the same online world and now have this heightened dimensionality – they cast their own shadow. They’re not a real person, or burger, or whatever, but they’re not a photo of it either, they’re something in between."

Let's dig a little more into what all this means in terms of makeup, the beauty industry and social media.  Beavers' work can be viewed as a simultaneous critique and celebration of all three.  Sharon Mizota again: "[The tutorial paintings] also pointedly mimic the act of putting on makeup, reminding us that it is something like sedimentation, built up layer by layer. There is no effortless glamour here, only sticky accretion.  That quality itself feels like an indictment — of the beauty industry, of restrictive gender roles. But an element of playfulness and admiration lives in Beavers’ work.  They speak of makeup as a site of creativity and self-transformation, and Instagram and other social media sites as democratizing forces in the spread of culture. To be sure, social media may be the spur for increasingly outré acts, which are often a form of bragging, but why shouldn’t a hamburger eye be as popular as a smoky eye? In translating these photographs into something more physical, Beavers asks us to consider these questions and exposes the duality of the makeup industry: The same business that strives to make us insecure also enables us to reinvent ourselves, not just in the image of the beautiful as it’s already defined, but in images of our own devising."

This ambiguity is particularly apparent in Beavers's 2015 exhibition, entitled Ambitchous, which incorporated beauty Instagrammers and YouTubers' makeup renditions of Disney villains alongside "good" characters.  Blumenstein explains: "So it isn’t protagonists with positive connotations which are favoured by the artist, but unmistakably ambivalent characters who could undoubtedly lay claim to the neologism ambitchous, which is the name given to the exhibition. Like the original image material, this portmanteau of ‘ambitious’ and ‘bitchy’ is taken from social media and its creative vernacular, and is used, depending on the context, either in a derogatory fashion – for example for women who will do absolutely anything to get what they want – or positively re-interpreted as an expression of female self-affirmation.  Beavers also applies this playful and strategic complication of seemingly unambiguous contexts of meaning to the statements contained in her paintings. It remains utterly impossible to determine whether they are critically exaggerating the conformist and consumerist beauty ideals of neo-capitalism, or ascribing emancipatory potential to the conscious and confident use of make-up."

More recently, Beavers has been using her own face as a canvas and making her own photos of them her source material, furthering her exploration of the self. "Staring at yourself or your lips for hours is pretty jarring. But I like it, because it creates this whole other level of self,” she says.

This shift also points to another dichotomy in Beavers's work: in recreating famous works of art on her face, she is both critiquing art history's traditional canon and appreciating it, referring to them as a sort of fan art.  "I think a lot of the works that I have made that reference art history—like whether it's Van Gogh or whoever it is—have a duality where I really respect the artist and I'm influenced by them, and at the same time I'm making it my own and poking a little fun. And so, a lot of these pieces originated with the idea of fan art. You'll find all sorts of Starry Night images online that people have painted or sculpted or painted on their body. It comes out of that. And I just started to reach a point where I was searching things like 'Franz Kline body art,' and I wasn’t finding that, so I had to make my own. Then it started to get a little bit geekier. I have a piece in the show where I am painting a Lee Bontecou on my cheek, that's a kind of art world geeky thing—you have to really love art to get it."

Ultimately, Beavers perceives the intersection of makeup and social media as a force for good.  While the specter of misinformation is always lurking, YouTube tutorials and the like allow anyone with internet access to learn how to do a smoky eye or a flawlessly lined lip.  "I think for a lot of people social media is kind of like the weather. We don't have a lot of control of it, it just is. It gives and it takes away. There's no doubt that it has connected people in ways that are great and productive, allowing people to find communities and organize activism, it can also be a huge distraction...I approach looking at images there pretty distantly, more as a neutral documentarian, and I come down on the side of seeing social media as an incredibly useful, democratic tool in a lot of ways," she concludes.

On the other side of social media, Beavers is interested on how content creators help disseminate the idea of makeup as representing something larger and more meaningful than traditional notions of beauty. "I was super fascinated with makeup and all of the kinds of costume makeup and things you can find online that go away from a traditional beauty makeup and go towards something really wild and cool...I also had certain paintings in [a 2016] show that were much more about costume makeup, that were going away from beauty. That’s the thing that gives me hope. When I go through makeup hashtags on Instagram, there will be ten or twenty beauty eye makeup images and then one that’s painted with horror makeup. There are women out there doing completely weird things, right next to alluring ones." In the pandemic age, as people's relationships with makeup are changing, "weird" makeup is actually becoming less strange. Beavers' emphasis on experimental makeup is more timely than ever.  I also think she's documenting the gradual way makeup is breaking free of the gender binary.  She says: "I mean with makeup, and the whole conversation around femininity and makeup—I think for a long time when I was making makeup images, there were people that just thought, 'Oh, that's not for me,' because it's about makeup, it's feminine. But it’s interesting, the culture is shifting. I just saw the other day that Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez did a whole Instagram live where she was putting on her makeup and talking about how empowering makeup is for trans communities...some people see make-up as restrictive or frivolous, but drag performers show how it can be liberating and life-saving."  Another point to consider in terms of gender is the close-up aspect of Beavers's paintings.  With individual features (eyes, lips, nails) separated from the rest of the face and body and removed from their original context, they're neither masculine nor feminine, thereby reiterating that makeup is for any (or no) gender.

All I can say is, I love these paintings.  Stylistically, they're right up my alley - big, colorful and mimicking makeup's tactile nature so much that I have a similar reaction to them as I do when seeing makeup testers in a store: I just want to dip my hands in them and smear them everywhere! I also enjoy the multiple themes and levels in her work. Beavers isn't commenting just on makeup in the digital age, but also self-representation online, shifting attitudes towards makeup's meaning, the relationship between painting and makeup, and Western art history.

What do you think of Beavers's paintings? 

[wonderfulworldofmichaelford]

Michael After Midnight: C.H.U.D. & Us

Do you like horror? Do you feel for the plight of homeless people? Do you despise Ronald Reagan and everything he represents? Well congratulations! You have a functioning heart and mind! But you also might be in to the B-movie cult classic that is C.H.U.D. This is a film that has at least partially wormed its way into the cultural consciousness as the titular monsters have become something of a go-to descriptor for any sort of sewer-dweller as well as an insult used to describe alt-righters and other nasty bastards (it works too since alt-right people do often look like they crawled out of a sewer). Unless you’re a cult film aficionado though, you may not have actually sat down and watched this film, which is a shame, as it definitely has quite a bit to offer.

But you know who almost certainly HAS watched this film? Beloved filmmaker, comedian, and actor Jordan Peele! And I know this because his second feature film Us is pretty much a semi-remake of C.H.U.D. No, I’m not joking. I would never fuck around about something as serious as trashy B-movies and Jordan Peele films. This is serious business right here. These movies are pretty similar thematically and even slightly plot-wise, but at the same time their different approaches really help set them apart and make each film great in their own right.

The big thing with C.H.U.D. is its function as a criticism towards the Reagan-era treatment of the homeless and the mentally ill. Homeless people are portrayed very sympathetically, with them going missing being what really kicks things off… or it would be, if anyone in power gave a damn. No, the people in power only start caring when people they start caring about go missing. Things go from bad to worse when it’s revealed that the C.H.U.D.s are not only mutated homeless people, but that the United States government is complicit in their transformation, having decided to dump toxic waste into the sewers. Aside from giving Jason Takes Manhattan’s ending some level of plausibility, this is a pretty brutal showcase of how society treats the less fortunate, and especially how the government treats them. As far as B-movies go, this one has the most instantly believable problem causing the monsters.

And it is similar with Us. The film has a much broader application than Peele’s previous film Get Out, which is pretty blatantly about left-wing condescending racism. But the way the Tethered function, their nature as failed experiments left behind by the government to rot, and their desire to simply be given all that they had been denied because the powers that be deemed them less worthy is not just stellar thematically, it is the sort of message that in this day and age is needed more than ever. Reagan is long dead and burning in Hell, but the evil he perpetuated still stands.

The big reveal at the end – which I WILL refrain from spoiling – changes the entire perspective of the film and showcases the Tethered as not just victims, but people who if given half a chance could easily excel in the upper world. But they were denied this chance, shunned as mindless monsters, and then are we to vilify them when they rise up to take what they deserve? Both of these films certainly show their “monsters” as vicious and violent, but ultimately they are merely scared, terrified beings lashing out at those who have oppressed and hurt them, intentionally or otherwise.

Both films certainly do show the oppressed commit monstrous actions, but it never really stops sympathizing with them, instead (rightfully) demonizing the government and the people who constantly put them in those positions of oppression. C.H.U.D. certainly is more cathartic, featuring the major government antagonist being not only shot but blown up, but it also tends to feel a tad more exploitative, what with literal homeless people being mutated, though I must stress the movie doesn’t demonize the homeless and paints them as sympathetic victims of a cruel, unfeeling government who just decides to kill ‘em all to cover up their own fuckup. This is one of the single most realistic depictions of government ever put on film, and for that C.H.U.D. deserves some praise. Us certainly paints a more sympathetic picture for its “monsters,” beginning with the story Red tells her captive audience, and while the reveal of their true nature is a bit more sloppily executed than the reveal of C.H.U.D. it still manages to bear down with the full weight of its allegorical impact with late-game revelations.

Another interesting thing with C.H.U.D.: the monsters don’t even appear all that much. When they do, they look absolutely fantastic; the suits are stunning achievements of practical effects, though the scene where one stretches its neck out is a bit dubious. But for the most part, even at the film’s climax, the C.H.U.D.s are mostly absent, with a “less is more” approach being used in regards to them. I don’t recall there ever really being more than four or so onscreen at once, and there’s no massive invasion of monsters. Honestly, it helps keep the film from feeling like a bloated spectacle, and the fact the film slowly builds up to the monsters appearing after a brief appearance in the start really helps them feel more memorable and iconic than other forgotten throwaway monsters of the 80s, while at the same time letting the mystery, atmosphere, and grimy New York backdrop congeal and allowing the message of the film to just ooze over and permeate you.

Us, on the other hand, keeps the Tethered front and center starting at the second act, but in this case this is a good thing; the Tethered have a lot more personality, seeing as they are essentially fully human, where the C.H.U.D.s are mutated humans whose last vestiges of humanity were washed away by the waste the government hid beneath the streets. Lupita Nyong’o in particular is masterful as Red, and is incredibly skilled to be able to pull off playing two roles who frequently share the screen and who are essentially copies of each other while still managing to make them distinct and different. Tim Heidecker and Winston Duke too really do a grand job as their Tethered counterparts, in Heidecker’s case probably more than his regular person character (not to say he’s bad, but seeing Heidecker selling a creepy killer is a lot more impressive than seeing him play a douchebag husband).

Out of the two, I think it goes without saying that Us is the better film. It has all around better acting, it has the most incredible foreshadowing I have ever seen with every little thing foreshadowed getting a satisfying payoff, it has a great soundtrack, it has some moderately enjoyable humor, it’s paced very well… but here’s the thing: C.H.U.D.s big reveal of the true nature of its monsters is a bit better executed. A lot of people get hung up on how Us overexplains the origin of its monsters, and while it certainly doesn’t bother me because the Tethered are still an effective allegorical implement regardless of their in-universe origin, I can’t help but feel the reveal that the government mutating homeless people into cannibalistic sewer monsters and then just… not giving a shit about it was just a bit better executed. However, I feel like watching C.H.U.D. actually helps improve the big reveal at Us by token of being so similar that the latter’s twist becomes far easier to swallow.

Both of these movies are great for what they’re going for. Jordan Peele’s Us is a fantastic horror film that uses the genre as a way to showcase the effect privilege has on those without it, whether you intend it to or not; C.H.U.D. is a classic B-movie that, while perhaps still a bit exploitative, is ultimately incredibly sympathetic to the plight of the homeless as well as extremely critical of the government that would put them in such danger. Both films are fantastic in their own right, and I highly recommend both to any horror fans, especially those who love some sweet, sweet allegory alongside their brutal murders.

Both of these films are some of my favorites for really pushing the boundaries of what a horror film can do, story-wise. I think C.H.U.D. is a bit more ambitious in some ways, being a pretty direct attack on the Reagan-era government, as well as being relatively sympathetic to lower class people in a time when that wasn’t really the norm. For its time, it really is an impressive work, while Us, while certainly delivering a message that has strong impact, is a bit more open to interpretation and honestly lacking a bit of the gut punch that Peele’s Get Out had in terms of conveying and delivering said message. Still, I think Us is just better for refining what C.H.U.D. was trying to do and delivering it in a more polished form with better actors, a better budget, and just overall more intelligence and visual flair… which is not to say C.H.U.D. was lacking either, as it paints an incredibly dark and grimy picture of New York that I absolutely love, it’s just that it’s hard to deny that Peele is just a better filmmaker than the director of C.H.U.D. and really knew what he was doing. But again: both fantastic films in their own right, and both definitely worth watching.

[newstechreviews]

In a slightly different world, Fargo season 4 might never have happened. After the FX anthology drama ended its third season, creator Noah Hawley admitted that he didn’t have an idea for a follow-up. And, he figured, “the only reason to do another Fargo is if the creative is there.” So, if there was to be a sequel, Hawley estimated it would take three years. That was in June 2017.

Thirty-nine months later (it would have been 34 had COVID not temporarily halted production), the show has reemerged with a story whose timeliness is obvious. It marks a significant departure from the earliest seasons of Fargo, which pitted good and evil archetypes against each other in arch, violent crime capers that ultimately erred on the side of optimism. Season 3 flirted with topicality, from an opening scene that hinged on Soviet kompromat to a hauntingly inconclusive final showdown between the latest iterations of pure good—represented by Carrie Coon’s embattled police chief Gloria Burgle—and primordial evil (David Thewlis’ terrifying V.M. Varga). Five months into Donald Trump’s presidency, that ending simultaneously reflected many Americans’ fears for the future and suggested that the battle for the human soul would be an eternal one. You can imagine why Hawley might have considered it a hard act to follow.

Instead of trying to top the high-flown allegory of its predecessor, the fascinating but uneven new episodes tackle conflicts of a more earthly nature: race, structural inequality, American identity. To that end, Fargo season 4 ventures farther south and deeper into history than it has gone before, to Kansas City, Mo. in 1950. For half a century, ethnic gangs have battled over the midsize metropolis. The Irish took out the Jews. The Italians took out the Irish. Finally, just a few years after a brutal World War in which fascist Italy numbered among the United States’ enemies, the Great Migration has brought the descendants of slaves north to this Midwestern city whose complicity in American racism dates back to the Missouri Compromise.

This upstart syndicate is led by one Loy Cannon (Chris Rock in a rare dramatic role), a brilliant, self-possessed power broker who doesn’t relish violence but is determined to exact reparations from this country, on behalf of his beloved family, by any means necessary. Loy’s deputy and closest friend is a learned older man by the name of Doctor Senator (the great Glynn Turman, all quiet dignity). In an early episode, the two men walk into a bank to pitch its white owner on an idea they’ve been testing out through less-than-legal means in the Black community: credit cards. (“Every average Joe wants one thing: to seem rich,” Loy explains to the banker.) He turns them down, of course, convinced that his clientele would have no interest in purchasing things they couldn’t afford. We’re left wondering how the ensuing saga might’ve been different if Loy and Doctor Senator had been allowed to channel their considerable intelligence into a legit business.

Elizabeth Morris/FXSalvatore Esposito and Jason Schwartzman in ‘Fargo’

The Italians, meanwhile, are starting to enjoy the rewards of their newfound whiteness—a largely invisible transformation marked in The Godfather by Michael Corleone’s relationship with naive WASP Kay Adams. (In keeping with previous seasons’ allusive style, Fargo often playfully evokes Francis Ford Coppola’s trilogy.) In the wake of their capo father Donatello’s (Tommaso Ragno) death, two brothers battle for control of the Fadda clan—a crime family that has Italian-accented patriarchalism written into its very name. Crafty, spoiled, crypto-corporate Josto (Jason Schwartzman, doing a scrappier, cannier take on his Louis XVI character in Sofia Coppola’s Marie Antoinette) has long been Donatello’s right hand. But his younger brother Gaetano (Salvatore Esposito, imported from Sky Italia’s acclaimed organized-crime drama Gomorrah), a brawny brute who came up in Sardinia busting heads for Mussolini, stands between Josto and the consolidation of power.

Generations-old tradition dictates that if two syndicates are to share turf in Kansas City, their leaders must raise each other’s sons. These exchanges are supposed to be a sort of insurance policy against betrayal; never mind that they never work out as planned. So Loy very reluctantly trades his scion Satchel (Rodney Jones) for Donatello’s youngest (Jameson Braccioforte). The boy finds a protector in the Faddas’ solemn older ward, Patrick “The Rabbi” Milligan (Ben Whishaw, humane as always), who double-crossed his own Irish family in an earlier transaction.

Ethelrida Pearl Smutny (E’myri Crutchfield from History’s 2016 Roots remake) is the show’s other innocent youth, a bright and insightful Black teenager whose parents (Anji White and indie rocker Andrew Bird) own the poignantly named King of Tears funeral home. Every Fargo season needs a personification of goodness, and in this one it’s Ethelrida. Not that her virtuousness makes her life any easier. In a voiceover montage that opens the season premiere, she tells us that she learned early on that, as far as white authority figures were concerned, “the only thing worse than a disreputable Negro was an upstanding one.” Her inscrutable foil is Oraetta Mayflower (Jessie Buckley), a white nurse neighbor whose patients tend to die before they can experience too much pain. Oraetta’s quaint Minnesota accent (another Fargo staple) belies the racist views she politely but unapologetically espouses; she seems fixated on making Ethelrida her maid.

Elizabeth Morris/FXE’myri Crutchfield in ‘Fargo’

It’s fitting that Oraetta is both the most tangible link to Fargo’s home turf and the first character who ties together the mobster’s story with that of the Smutny family. As her loaded last name suggests, she seems to embody a particular form of evil that has been a constant in American life since the colonial period: white supremacy. Oraetta harms, kills and plunders with minimal consequences. No wonder she has eyes for Josto, the first Fadda who knows how to wield his white identity, building alliances with government and law enforcement that would be impossible for the Cannon syndicate. (Josto’s version of Kay Adams is the homely daughter of a politician.) “I can take all the money and pussy I want and still run for President,” he boasts at one point.

The reference to our current President’s briefly scandalous Access Hollywood tape is so flagrant as to elicit an involuntary groan. It’s lines like this that expose the limitations of Hawley’s attempt to fuse the topical and the elemental. Fargo still creates an absorbing, cinematic viewing experience, with painterly framing, pointedly deployed split-screen and arcane yet evocative needle drops. A not-at-all-gratuitous black-and-white episode could almost stand on its own as a movie. And, as in past seasons, the show gives us many remarkable performances: Rock may seem an odd pick for a gangster role, but the same shrewdness and indignation that fuel his stand-up persona also simmer beneath Loy’s measured surface. The pain Whishaw’s character carries around in his body goes far beyond what can be conveyed in dialogue. Bird broke my heart as a meek, loving dad. But in his eagerness to make a legible, potent political statement, Hawley struggles to find the right tone and keep the season’s many intersecting themes straight.

Elizabeth Morris/FXJessie Buckley in ‘Fargo’

The show is simply trying to do too much within a limited framework. Fargo wouldn’t be Fargo without some eccentric law enforcement, so an already-huge cast expands to fit a crooked local detective with OCD (Jack Huston) and Timothy Olyphant—whose roles on Deadwood and Justified made him prestige TV’s quintessential cop—as a smarmy, Mormon U.S. Mashal who snacks on carefully wrapped bundles of carrot sticks. Yet Hawley also realized that he needed to break from previous seasons that, like the Coens’ film, cast a white police officer as the avatar of goodness; hence Ethelrida, whose investigation into her city’s criminal underworld takes the form of a school assignment, and whose soul is stained by neither corruption nor white privilege. She’s a wonderful character, but her and Oraetta’s story line can feel peripheral to the gang war.

With such a crowded plot, it’s no wonder the show can’t maintain a consistent tone. Each season of Fargo creates a hermetically sealed moral universe, doling out divine and definitive justice to each character according to their position on the spectrum spanning from good to evil. In the past, its archness has served as a self-aware counterbalance to the sanctimony inherent in such a project. And there’s still plenty of irreverence in season 4, particularly when it comes to Hawley’s depiction of the Faddas, Oraetta and the other white characters. But there’s nothing funny about the oppression and discrimination that Loy, Doctor Senator and Ethelrida face. Each of their fates is shaped at least as much by a society that is hostile to people who look like them as it is by the moral choices they make as individuals. So the scripts give them the dignity they deserve at the expense of inflicting earnestness—along with frequent reminders, such as Schwartzman’s Trump line, that the story’s themes remain relevant today—on a format that isn’t built for it. Realistic characters and absurd ones awkwardly mingle.

Hawley’s attempt to correct his show’s political blind spots is laudable, and some pieces of the allegory work well; the ritual of ethnic gangs trying—and failing—to work together by raising each other’s sons makes an inspired metaphor for America’s fragile social contract. Even so, Fargo seems fundamentally ill-equipped to address systemic inequality. Though that failing may well render future seasons similarly flawed, if not impossible, in our current political climate, it doesn’t negate the pleasures or insights of what remains one of TV’s most ambitious shows. Like this nation, the new season is a beautiful and ugly, inspiring and infuriating, a tragic and sometimes darkly hilarious mess. As frustrating as it often was to watch, I couldn’t look away.

[intersex-ionality]

I read your post on your other blog complaining understandably or you mention the photorealistic animals on his dark materials and the lion king. I am not sure I like over- I do not mind hyperrealistic paintings but- I think you mentioned its harder for photorealistic animals to emote and they kind of look freaky. Pikachu looked more expressive in Detective Pikachu. Though I guess he is photorealistic in those trailers? Havent seen the movie. I wish the lions had more expressive faces

There’s a set of terms for describing this visual trend, and I don’t actually know it. So I’m using my best approximations, because I lack the technical terminology. In fact, I so thoroughly lack it that when I try to look it up, I end up being given weird unrelated resources because search engines aren’t telepathic.

But, there’s different kinds of realism. Which, I mean, that sounds so fuckign stupid when I say it like that?

But there’s realism in the sense of, “this is live action stuff that can and does exist in real life, albeit sometimes touched up in effects to make it more visually coherent.” That’s stuff like the sheep herds in Brokeback Mountain, which were at the time considered a breakthrough achievement in CGI. They’re visual re-creations of real things that really exist in the real world. So, realism.

Photorealism, as I use it in that post, refers to making versions of fantasy things that don’t actually exist (such as talking lions, or pikachu), but which have physics and designs that are approximately compatible with our perception of the real world. Much like taking a photo of a sculpture of something that doesn’t actually exist. In the picture, it makes sense. It looks like it fits. It matches our sense of realism as it applies to visual media, even if there’s no equivalent thing in actual reality.

This degree of... I guess fictional realism?

This degree of fictional realism doesn’t necessarily have to conform to anything about actual reality, however. It’s lions that can make human-like vowel shapes with their lips, it’s a robotic suit of armor that a normal ass man climbs into and becomes deific, it’s whole ass pokemon. It’s clearly a fantasy element, but it blends well with our expectations of reality within the medium. Much like the physics of Captain America’s shield tosses don’t actually match real world physics. They just look normal enough that the average audience member doesn’t question their presence in the art piece itself.

Hyperrealism goes one step further. It doesn’t merely concern itself with looking good enough not to disrupt the average viewer’s focus. It wants to make these fantastical elements as close to indiscernible from the real world as possible.

That’s where we start running into trouble.

Because, they’re fantasy elements. They’re not real. They can’t behave realistically, because there’s no real for them to approximate.

So, someone decides on what the “realness” they’re trying to achieve “should” look like.

And those someone’s are often not concerned with how well these effects integrate into the actual story being told, the emotions trying to be evoked. They’re often concerned more with pushing the boundaries of technical achievement. 

And, let me be clear: pushing the boundaries of technology is a good thing. It’s how we develop better tech!

But, if you push those boundaries based only on making an even better version of the thing you did 5 years ago, then stagnation is inevitable because you aren’t pushing the boundaries in the direction of what you need to do now, but what you needed to do in the past. Likewise, eventually, you move out beyond what is actually useful.

Using the lion kind as an example, because it’s just so very rife with good examples.

Ten years ago rendering a full coat of multiple-hair-colors and multiple-hair-lengths fur was an ungodly process. It was expensive, it was difficult, and the results were often clunky.

However, the resurgence of film franchises like Star Wars and the MCU have spent the last decade doubling down on hair-and-fur techniques in CGI, to the point that they’re.... basically solved? I mean there are obvious failures, but the techniques and tools now exist, where they didn’t before.

Compare the modern Lion King big cats to the at-the-time groundbreaking big cat in Life of Pi. The difference is staggering, right? It almost makes you think, holy shit, the Lion King remake actually did open the medium up to a whole new level.

Except... did it?

Compare the modern Lion King now to a modern peer, say Rocket Raccoon in Avengers, and you can see that the “great technical strides” aren’t actually that significant in terms of the utility they bring to story telling.

By focusing on making the animals as realistic as they possibly could, they sacrificed a lot of the empathy-building expressiveness needed to make an audience connect with their characters.

It’s not bad, but it works more as a tech demo than it does as a story.

And then, because of the deep conflict between the fantasy elements and the intense sense of “real world” physics and limitations that they’re going for, flaws that wouldn’t even be noticeable in a less obsessively engineered product become so obvious as to be jarring.

For example, the dance sequence in Hakuna Matata. Because we have these animals that are designed to be so realistic that even actual footage of actual lions doesn’t look as crisp and integrated into the environment, the fact that they’re singing and dancing is really jarring. And then the singing and dancing is also, necessarily, limited by the heavily restricted ranges of motion that the models are allowed to perform...

It’s an attempt to make something too real, to bring into reality something that cannot exist in reality, and it often comes at the expense of basic storytelling techniques.

Now, this is not to suggest that hyperrealism cannot be used for artistic and storytelling purposes in its own right. Of course, it can!

But shoving it where it was neither warranted nor wanted creates a conflicted, muddied end product that doesn’t express what it needs to express.

In short, let fantastical elements be fantasy. Accept that they’re not going to look like the stepped out of the real world, and then take advantage of that necessary disconnect to create something that really expresses and emotes.

Now, again, I don’t think these are necessarily the best words to describe the phenomena I’m trying to describe. But I don’t know what those words are, so I’m doing what I can with what I have.

If you happen to be more involved in visual media and the technical aspects thereof, and you can help me out here by telling me the actual right words, I would appreciate that a lot.