#like the saw series in no ways lives up to the thematic intrigue that was set up in saw 1 and arguably 2 and 3.

[anticmiscellaney]

no pressure to answer and im sorry if you've said this before but where did the title new/old/rare come from?

It's named after a very average record label compilation that I bought way back in 2002 because it included a song I couldn't get anywhere else by a band I used to go see all the time. I always liked the title and it seemed appropriate for this project for a range of thematic reasons, but also Blueline Medic came from a band called Caustic Soda, who wrote a song called Photocopied, which was the first song I successfully turned into visual artwork, and I discovered Jawbreaker from the sticker on the bass guitar when I saw that video on Rage one night as a teenager, and then when I finally saw Jawbreaker in April 2022 I came home and wrote this comic about Louis seeing them in March 1996, which led to me figuring out the overall story of what had up until then just been a series of loosely connected drawings.

Before everything was available on the internet, releases being old or rare often meant you couldn't get them, you might not ever hear/see them, and new releases may take months or even years to become available to you. Part of being into film and music was searching, archiving, collecting, sharing, bootlegging, waiting, and speculating. These days I likely wouldn't have to buy a whole CD just to hear one song. Smalltime local band singles are available on Bandcamp, not just at their shows. Archives of old or niche films are often hosted on streaming sites, or even lovingly restored and rereleased. This is all cool and I enjoy it, but it's new. Please remember that it's new, that in my relatively short lifetime it has changed hugely.

People have always cared and now it's so much easier to share these things, but there's still value in things being tied to times and places, in parts of life being ephemeral and transitory. I think you need external markers of times in your life that you can revisit or avoid as you choose, otherwise you'll end up adrift. Something being rare or limited isn't always bad; of course we don't get to experience everything we'd like to and it's important to pursue and value what you can. I pursued live music single-mindedly from when I was 12 or 13 until I moved overseas at 19, and while I've never stopped going to see bands or being very into music, that particular time of my life was unique. I can't replicate it and I don't want to because as much as I joke I've not changed (and wear band t-shirts I bought in 2001), I'm not the same person. I still remember though.

This story is partly about the balance between digging through the past and making space in your life for new things, about handling change and choosing what to let go, what to archive, what to keep, what to keep looking for. It's also literally about music and film.

Most of the places I used to go are gone now of course, and most of the bands have broken up and moved on. I'm gone too, I live on the other side of the world, but I like to put references in my work. I guess it's my way of saying this happened and it was important to me, these things other people made, those places, that time, they were small and brief but they mattered and I remember. Some things don't come back and all you have is memories of them, but sometimes bands who broke up in 1990 do a reunion show and you score a ticket.

Don't count on it though. Enjoy what you can when you have it, and if you miss it, don't dwell too much. Looking for the next thing to be excited and intrigued by is the best way to find it.

In the comic linked above, when Neil says they'll have a chance to see Jawbreaker together soon, he's wrong: Jawbreaker broke up a few months later and didn't play again until 2017. I think they would have gone together then though, I think they both remembered.

[ed-e]

another saw movie down another step closer towards watching jigsaw. agony

[acid-vanir]

Ok, Theory

Ok so in the webcomic Aurora, the “main” character Kendal is an entirely new uncategoriseable entity, a god’s incarnation that survived the god leaving it and developed its own mind and personality. 

Now the god that this happens to is the hero god of the city Vash and, like the Ancient Greek Eros or Nike is named after his domain. So what we know about Vash is that he cut his teeth in this god business by defending his city from and defeating the storm god Tynan, the way he does this is explained here with an in universe telling of the story. What we know is that an alien metal and jewel was worked into an incarnation of Vash at a thematically appropriate moment and became an extremely effective power up, enabling Vash to defeat the hitherto undefeated Tynan. 

Now how this works in the world built magic system of Aurora is really interesting. So in Aurora it appears they're are two (or eight depending on how you count it) fundamental substances of magic, the elements and soul energy, now we know where elemental magic comes from as a central piece of lore in the main storyline so far has been about the ancient war between the elementals and a Void Dragon and how the elementals died defeating this Void Dragon and their bodies meshed together supplying the materials as the world, but the elements still count, and can be persuaded to act, as one body essentially unique to the other elements and so because they belonged to a living entity with a soul can exist in two states, the material element and a sort of potential/soul element held in other materials or channeled by mages to enact elemental effects.

 Now soul energy is something very different and despite the excessive amount of time I've spent explaining the elements, is what we’re focusing on here. Soul  energy is what living things are “made of” being literally the material of souls, now I could be wrong but from I can figure out everything alive contains and in someway uses soul energy, and soul energy has a connection with other soul constructs allowing for an in any capacity uniform group of living things to develop a larger social soul that becomes a god. Vash for instance is a city of people and so through the interaction of their soul energy, construction of early incarnations, and people assigning these incarnations personality or motivations became the hero god the city imagined, as the god itself is made up of the whole cities population who once saw incarnation interpreted them a certain way and influenced some of their aspect. Basically, because the god is their domain how they are viewed by the creatures in their domain effects their personality and most comfortable form. 

So what does this really have to do with Kendal. Well if Vash’s sword was constructed from an alien metal, a solid substance, which issomething almost impossible to make without an elemental, after Vash worked his soul energy into like soul shaper monks do with human prosthetics, which would more than likely work some of this starmetal soul energy into his own soul lattice. Then its likely that Kendal’s soul is made of what little of soul star metal was in the solid material of the meteor. And it’s not just background lore magic systems backing this up.

In the series of pages telling the mythical story of Vash’s Sword we find out that it’s being told through the framing device of the smith god who forged it, to a similar style god to Vash of the Fire influenced race of Ignans. Now while why they're talking and what this incredibly effective smith who uses the arcs and emotional journeys of the wielders of his weapons in his smithing process is doing with a god of fire and fire people directly related to one of our adventuring party is incredibly plot important and personally intriguing, there is something else I wanted to focus on here.

In these panels Tahraim appears to be talking about Dainix, a character Kendal is currently imprisoned with and who are jelling suspiciously well. Now we can see that Tahraim is using his Xanatos gambit forging technique of social engineering to forge out a weapon and fighter for Caliban (probably to fight the fire demon from Dainix’s backstory (who is probably another elemental emissary for Fire (like two other characters currently being heavily associated star metal soul Kendall (I see you Red, with each subsequent layer of brackets I get closer to the truth, witness as my bracketry grows)))) and describing some of the forging fires he’s using fo this weapon (who is probably Dainix, if not definitely)calls one of them “the divine blade”, referring to Vash’s starmetal sword currently held by Kendal, but the blade its self is isnt world shaking, its been around for millennia and everyone is very familiar with its power and prowess as a sword because Vash is an incredibly well known god. But that’s only as a sword, and we know Kendal is world shaking after his discussion with Ilia here where he is told explicitly that the gods fear what he represents but respect the fact that he is an incredibly powerful being with all the strength and ability of a godly incarnation but with no responsibilities of upholding a domain or the limits of staying within they’re domains range. And so the theoretical soul that is Kendal in this incarnation must be made of whatever remainder of star metal soul is left from the solid  star metal in the sword. That had been given the shape and properties of a human/incarnation soul by being weaved into and by Vash and then had the Vash soul ripped apart from they’re shared incarnation leaving the star metal soul to have to develop as its own being in this body

And if all you wanted is proof of this theory you can honestly stop reading here. So far this is dense and a lot and I wanna run through some stuff with this head cannon to nerd out. So if you don't wanna have to read anymore, my argument for this theory is basically through

Kendal being the star metal soul can provide a reason for, guess plot dent instead of plot hole? when Vash takes Kendal to where he is being held by the Collector. The reason this could be a plot dent is that one of the working theories for why Kendal exists can be found in the Sentinels. Essentially building sized stone statues animated by a god semi incarnating in them, its hard to explain so if your interested read here (Also read the comic, it’s really, really good. Like really good. If you get into the extra lore on the website and then scroll through Red’s Aurora Tumblr answers you get to appreciate how truly spectacular her worldbuilding and magic systems are. I mean clearly they’re cohesive and well thought out enough that just off of the magic system you could make a (if I don't say so myself) well reasoned prediction for a major character reveal.) the theory being that because these Sentinels can develop these echoes after being un-possessed by a god over time, the unique way Vash was taken out of his incarnation without dis-corporating it that the body developed a similar echo and is now ambient soul energy drawn into the empty body. However, this wouldn't make sense with Vash taking Kendal to the Collector’s hideaway in his sleep, as if Kendal is made of ambient soul energy he has no actual connection with Vash’s soul and so Vash shouldn't be able to bring him to the crystal he is being held in. But, if Kendal is in fact the star metal soul then he would still have that connection with Vash, as they are the same soul but different parts made of different materials, and so ca operate separately whilst still being so intricately connected.

On one final note, there is one character that already seems to know all this, Tahraim. That Kendal in everyway is the weapon he forged, that they're is a capacity for new elements and therefore different soul energies, that Erin has been possessed by the Void Dragon, and that the Collector has revived life, who has taken Alinua as an emissary, and is using this information not for his own divine or dastardly machinations but on commission. Which is A) a potential threat if Tahraim turns out to be a tad more amoral than he first appears, working as effectively for the next customer instead of esoterically guiding events for the cause of good and B) show cases an incredible mesh of world building and character work with gods being influenced by how their perceived and a god perceived and heralded as an unachievably proficient smith knowing more than any other character or entity we’ve ever seen before and doing exactly what is necessary to forge his commissioned weapons into the most powerful and effective instruments they can be almost only because of how in the magic system some gods are made from ideals and interpretations instead of groups of living things and actually fits the way they are most commonly perceived

[multi-lefaiye]

sAME ANON! I really do think there was a deal made in that moment, especially in the context of the pages. We see Scoob remembering how Shaggy gave him his life, a friend, EVERYTHING, and it almost directly parallels how Deedee got her powers, so I rlly do think Scoob made a deal to save Shaggy- lmk if im remembering wrong, but the Toones think that bc Shaggy has no Ballyhoo, he has like an empty equipment slot for Ballyhoos right? But to me it just seems Scoob's ballyhoo got boosted to apply to living beings too, it's probably gonna be a huge plot-twist when Shaggy cant use any other ballyhoos?

ALSO I SAW ON A COMMENT ON ONE IF THE PAGES THAT SHAGGY IS GONNA GET SUCH A BIG POWER BOOST WHEN MICK/SHAGGY 2 DIES BC WE AS THE VIEWERS GIVE HIM BALLYHOOS. I also have a huge theory about how their universe's humans cant give Ballyhoo but OUR universe (as in irl) can but im gonna Avoid writing a 5 page essay for now until later unless u wanna hear it

ANON I AM SHAKING YOU BY THE SHOULDERS (affectionate). Literally these asks are making me SO excited omfg I'm so excited to talk about this series!!!! It's SO fucking interesting and exciting and I think it deserves so much more attention.

Okay because I have mutuals n' besties who want to read Scoob and Shag, I'm gonna put my thoughts under the cut for ~spoilers~. But just know anon I am so delighted by these asks thank you for this food

First, I 100% agree with you about the deal--I feel a little silly that I hadn't considered this before, but I think you're right and that's what I think happened!!! Even if it hasn't been confirmed in the sense of us actually SEEING Cyan directly, I do think that's what was intended here. The parallels!!! I'M LOSING MY SHIT.... Also I don't think you're remembering wrong at all, and these are all good points--my brain's kinda mushy rn but I cannot stop thinking about Daphne's dialogue in the new update, as well as some of Shag's dialogue earlier in part two.

The ambiguity surrounding why Scoob's Ballyhoo was able to work on Shag is SO FUCKING FASCINATING to me!!!! I think you're onto something that it was expanded to work on living beings, because that aligns more with the themes and story we've been giving so far than literally saying that Shag isn't really a PERSON, if that makes sense. Daphne referring to him as a thing seems to be more her personal perspective than anything, and I'm really intrigued to see this explored more going forward. Because I really want to know--HOW personal to Daphne is this? Has she always felt that way, to some extent? Because at this point we don't know how many Shag clones there've been. Idk I'm just so interested. Shag being a clone is something I really want to see be explored more going forward, honestly.

ANYWAY BACK TO THE POWERS. I'm actually wondering a bit now if Cyan's deal is meant to tie Scoob and Shag together in some way? I don't know how much sense that makes b/c brain mushy, but idk I think that'd be really interesting thematically.

ALSO YEAH THE ISSUE OF SHAG'S BALLYHOO...... VERY INTRIGUED TO SEE WHERE THIS GOES. And also I think you're onto something with the idea of Us The Viewers giving him a Ballyhoo--the comic has broken the fourth wall before, especially with Bugs in her first introduction, and I think that'd be a fun way to tie that all together. I don't think it's going to happen for a while, but I also have no idea how long Dingo is planning for this story to be, so I guess we'll find out :)

Also GRASPS YOUR HANDS GENTLY... PLEASE SEND ME YOUR ESSAY..... I REALLY WANT TO KNOW YOUR THEORY..... (no pressure ofc but genuinely I'm really interested to know your thoughts)

this is me rn

[Image Description: The Pepe Silvia meme, which is a screencap from the TV series It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia. The meme depicts a man with dark hair and a beard, wearing a blue button-up, khakis, and a large tie, with a frantic expression on his face as he gestures towards a wall covered in papers connected with red lines and string. End ID.]

[mc-critical]

Hey it's me again XD

I don't know if this question has been asked before, but who is your favorite Sultana not by blood (not part of the royal family) and why?

(Mild spoilers ahead!)

My favourite non-dynastic sultana of the show and actually, of the whole franchise, is Mahidevran. She may not be the most likeable character in the beggining, but she grows and matures in a truly amazing way and I love her development throughout the narrative. Everything about her (even her view on Hürrem) evolves constantly and continually.

Despite of her early rash and irrational actions, you can understand her motives very well. It's hinted right from the start that Süleiman has been everything to her and she has lived calmly and peacefully in Manisa. It's devastating to witness the loss of all that, how one part of your world breaks completely apart. Especially when, as far as we see, SS never really loved her and in the audience's eyes, she had to grasp that truth, as well. The way we saw her switching her focus from Süleiman to Mustafa, the way she fell out of love with him and only cherished their memories (see E55 and E74) and then how she later realized that he's grown into a bad person that is able to do anything to reign supreme and keep his people under control, is an arc I loved watching unfold. Such an arc is also something you rarely get in a franchise where the adaption to the harem system is more explored and diving deep into the toxic mindsets of their environment as a result is exploited as a central theme and key for gaining power and rising in the hierarchy to the point it reached its logical extreme. Seeing someone getting out of that instead and actually given the narrative favor regardless in the later seasons... is awesome, can't lie there, and is exemplary of Mahidevran's perceptiveness of the system we saw bits and pieces of in the beggining and then became a big part of her arc.

Speaking of which, the theme of adaption is still used with Mahidevran regardless and I love the result. I loved seeing her move forward, as much as I sympathized with her struggle to move forward. She was such a human character with so many understandable emotions. She knew she had to suppress these emotions for the sake of her own wellbeing, for the sake of Mustafa, for the sake of her loved ones... and yet, sometimes she just couldn't or simply didn't know how. It was like sometimes, no one around her could understand or alleviate her pain simply because they were so used to this environment and she felt lost and helpless in her situation with finding out what to do. Mahidevran's experiences are probably the ones I connected with the most in MC/K and I was looking forward for her to develop and learn from these experiences. And it all paid off in the end! [What helped even more in my case, is that I actually began watching the show with S03, with having a bit of context before that, of course, being aware of Mahi's mishaps, and seeing her developed S03 self was so refreshing to see and encouraged me even further to watch more of the series!] She was even more graceful and diligent in the sanjacks and the way she wanted the same rules that she previously was against to be applied, was very interesting to examine and also a hint of her character development.

What shone in Mahidevran the brightest and the earliest for me, were her relationships. I love how nurturing and loyal she is. I love her relationships with Valide, Hatice, Ibrahim, then Fidan, Taşlicali, etc. and they truly show the best in her and make up for very fresh interactions, contrasted with any and all problematic deeds of hers. (that's mostly S01, but still) I love how caring she is with all the people she loved and wanted them to be genuinely happy. I love how willing she is to share with them and work together with them. I love how devoted she is to her alliances. I love how her interaction with them was filled with so much heart and emotion, whether it was happiness, sadness, surprise, anger etc. These interactions all came from a real place.

All in all, I love her motherhood, despite that it isn't perfect. I love her moments with Mustafa which show her as open, sincere, decisive and mature at the same time. I love how she evolved as a mother overall. (more on how unique I feel her development was in that regard here.)

I also loved how her in her worst (S02B and especially when she ruled the harem, IMO) is precisely when she seemed to have detached from every single thing to admire about her, the pinnacle of her strenghts, which culminated in her biggest flaws, and having her actually let it all out and overcome it is very poetic for me.

I love Mahidevran's strenght. She's strong in a different way from quite some characters, but her strenght is still as immense and makes an impact. It's not easy to overcome all she's gone through and still keep it together and keep on for the sake of a hope of a better life and justice. She found solace in Mustafa, but in the end, she found solace in herself and took on what fate had to offer with as much dignity as possible.

I love how complex she is. I love analyzing her actions, because they can be very ambiguous and questionable, yet there's always nuanced reasons behind them the fandom doesn't seem to grasp sometimes. I love how much of a thematic antagonist she's to Hürrem and how they both change, almost in a contrasting parralel.

She's not perfect, nor is she always written in the best way (I admit that S02A Mahidevran is pretty bad to the point of near one-dimensionality and the early narrative voice didn't always do her justice), but I love her overall arc and I feel her journey is worth watching, no matter how much of an antagonist she is to the main beloved character. Mahi is a character you come to get even more on rewatch and it's like you see things about her you didn't firsthand. And she's probably the biggest offender of this out of all the characters in my eyes, because you already know how her arc wraps up and how much she ended up realizing about the environment she was put in.

So basically, I love my girl to bits and she deserved to say screw it and live a happy life with her son somewhere far from all the tension and intrigue, no matter how impossible it may seem, periodt. 💗

[aion-rsa]

George A. Romero’s Twilight of the Dead: 13 Directors Who Could Helm the Zombie Sequel

https://ift.tt/eA8V8J

Legendary filmmaker George A. Romero may have left this plane of existence in 2017, but his legacy — the post-apocalyptic zombie movie genre that he created — lives on. According to the THR, Romero was working before his death on Twilight of the Dead, a film that would have been his final statement on the subject and the last installment in the series that included the groundbreaking Night of the Living Dead (1968), Dawn of the Dead (1979), Day of the Dead (1985), and others.

Now Romero’s widow Suzanne, who has been developing the script that her late husband started with three other writers, is ready to meet with directors for the project. Details on the plot remain secret, except for this tantalizing line: “The story is set in a decimated world. Life has all but disappeared. But there still may be hope for humanity.” Romero reportedly wanted to explore what came next after the end of 2005’s Land of the Dead, which saw the arrival of an intelligent zombie leader.

Romero’s zombie universe has been expanding recently — at least on the page. His son, George C. Romero, is currently writing comics for Heavy Metal magazine that tie into his father’s mythology, while The Living Dead, an epic novel started by the elder Romero but never finished, was completed by author Daniel Kraus and published last year. It’s only fitting that his final cinematic iteration see the light of day as well — even if he can’t direct it. The question is, who can?

We thought about who’s hot in horror now, who has the skills and talent, and who could have the vision, and came up with a list of directors we think could do Twilight of the Dead justice. See if you agree with our picks, and if you have some of your own filmmakers you’d like to see bring Romero’s last Dead film to life, let us know in the comments!

Well Go USA

Justin Benson/Aaron Moorhead

The pair behind the recent, excellent Synchronic — as well as other efforts like Spring and The Endless — have shown an increasingly ambitious vision over the course of their four feature films. They’re currently working on their biggest project to date: directing six episodes of Marvel’s Moon Knight series. We suspect that Twilight of the Dead would hit a genre sweet spot for this pair.

Universal Pictures

Nia DaCosta

Like Benson and Moorhead, DaCosta showed an incredible grasp of atmosphere and tone with her independent debut, Little Woods, which in turn led to her landing the upcoming Candyman sequel. Candyman isn’t even out yet, and DaCosta has her next job lined up: directing the Captain Marvel sequel, which is officially titled The Marvels. We’d love to see DaCosta combine the moody intimacy of Little Woods with Romero’s dystopian vision.

Neon

Michel Franco

He’d probably never do it, but after seeing Michel Franco’s devastating new film, New Order, we’d be very interested in what he would do with Romero’s material. New Order was a dark vision of a collapsing society (set a few years in the future in Franco’s native Mexico), hinting that what comes afterwards is only worse. The intense brutality of his film might shock even Romero diehards, but Franco has not shown much interest in genre films — at least not yet.

StudioCanal

Rose Glass

Glass made her directorial debut last year with the stunning Saint Maud, which wowed audiences at several festivals before finally being released earlier this year on demand. The deeply disturbing mix of psychological and visceral horror was a mix of the profane, the grisly, and the surreal, topped with an astonishing performance from Morfydd Clark in the title role. We have no doubt Glass would bring the same distinctive style to the conclusion of Romero’s story.

Universal Pictures

David Gordon Green

David Gordon Green directed comedies, dramas and thrillers before revitalizing one of horror’s most iconic brands with his 2018 sequel to the original Halloween. With two more Halloween entries and a follow-up to The Exorcist on his schedule, it only seems obvious that the filmmaker get a chance to bring his gritty, down-to-earth approach to the Romero mythos.

Shudder

Brea Grant

A talented actor, writer, and director whose big break came in the role of Daphne Millbrook on Heroes, Grant recently directed the pitch-black comedy 12 Hour Shift, and both starred in and wrote the darker Lucky. The former in particular showed her flair for juggling both the grisly and the humorous, as well as a sizable cast on a smaller budget — resources she’s probably ready to bring to a larger canvas.

IFC Midnight

Natalie Erika James

James blew us away last year with her first feature, Relic, a dread-inducing yet ultimately moving story about the grief and horror of watching one’s parent slowly deteriorate from dementia. James’ devotion to character and the film’s central metaphor — the house in which the parent lives slowly rotting and twisting in on itself — bode well for James’ ability to handle the more epic scope of Twilight of the Dead.

IFC Films

Jim Mickle

Jim Mickle has made a string of striking independent films like We Are What We Are and Cold in July, but the one that we should talk about is Stake Land, an epic tale of humans struggling to stay alive amid a pandemic of vampirism that was similar in some ways to Romero’s Dead films. He’s currently the creator and showrunner of the upcoming Netflix series Sweet Tooth, another post-apocalyptic allegory, and it’s not too much of a leap to see him helming one final zombie spectacle in Romero’s name.

AMC

Greg Nicotero

Greg Nicotero got his first makeup effects job on Romero’s classic Day of the Dead, so it would only be right in some ways for him to take the torch and direct his mentor’s final work. He’s still one of the top makeup effects wizards in the world, and he’s also directed some 31 episodes of The Walking Dead, so his experience with both zombies and filmmaking is vast — perhaps more than almost anyone else on this list.

YouTube

Jordan Peele

Jordan Peele’s brand of socially conscious horror has already been on display in two excellent movies — Get Out and Us — and jibes strongly with Romero’s own use of the genre as social criticism and commentary. Plus Romero cast Black men as the heroes in the first three Dead films — which was pioneering in horror even as late as 1985 — and arguably helped in some small fashion to pave the way for progressive filmmakers of color like Peele to do the same decades later.

Netflix

Remi Weekes

Making his feature directorial debut with His House, a frightening tale of two South Sudan refugees who discover evil lurking under their decrepit London flat, Remi Weekes showed an amazing flair for filmmaking soaked in dread and atmosphere. Weekes used a ghost story to tell an underlying tale of immigration, assimilation and racism, so we’d be intrigued to see what kind of direction he would take Twilight of the Dead in.

Blumhouse/Universal

Leigh Whannell

After working for years with James Wan on the Insidious films and others, Leigh Whannell directed the knockout The Invisible Man last year, imbuing the time-honored tale with a twist on the original narrative that made the story both fresh and genuinely frightening. Whannell knows not just how to tell a cracking good story, but how to extend and transcend the horror genre to break new thematic ground. His Twilight of the Dead would no doubt put a new spin on Romero’s themes and narrative.

cnx.cmd.push(function() { cnx({ playerId: "106e33c0-3911-473c-b599-b1426db57530", }).render("0270c398a82f44f49c23c16122516796"); });

Netflix

Ben Wheatley

Come on: who wouldn’t want to see the director of Kill List, Free Fire and the new In The Earth tackle the deeply pessimistic world of George A. Romero? Ben Wheatley has shown a willingness to tackle all genres in all sizes (his next film is The Meg 2), but he’s especially adept at horror — and at visceral violence that makes one squirm. He can also handle action, epic sequences and character moments, and knows how to tell a story…and the final story of the living dead is one we’d like to see him tell.

The post George A. Romero’s Twilight of the Dead: 13 Directors Who Could Helm the Zombie Sequel appeared first on Den of Geek.

from Den of Geek https://ift.tt/3aYsSUM

[betweengenesisfrogs]

After the End (Again)

Despite all the words I’ve poured out on the subject, I don’t think I ever completely cracked Hussie’s endgame.

One year out from the Epilogues, and the question of what The End of Homestuck means feels even more complicated.

Granted, there’s a lot I feel like I understand (I’m so happy to see most of the fandom be on the same page about stuff like Dave’s arc or the meaning of the Gnostic references), but Hussie’s goals for the original end of the comic remain elusive, much like the man himself. Possibly deliberately. I’m eagerly looking forward to his final batch of commentary, where, in many years, we’ll finally get his own take on the subject. Probably.

I saw someone say recently that the Epilogues improved Homestuck – that as an ending, Act 6+7 is incomplete, and relies on the Epilogues to give Homestuck a definitive final statement.

On the other hand, I’ve also heard plenty of people say that the Epilogues ruined Homestuck, altering its final meaning to something unrecognizable.

Maybe there’s a way to make sense of both of these things?

The more time goes by, and the more I read of Hussie’s own thoughts on his work, the more I become convinced that Homestuck’s central thesis is the rejection of existing narratives. Or, to put it in other words: Fuck clichés.

This takes many forms, from Dave’s “there’s a vampire in the closet oh fuck get in the minivan” riff to Hussie’s emphasis on women as active drivers of plot to Dave’s own rejection of toxic masculinity.  It’s also the main plot arc of Act 6 + Act 7: we escape Lord English, controller of the total narrative.

But these inherited narratives are insidious things. It’s hard to escape their hold over our brains. We live in a society, even when we start all over and try to build a new one. We might, for instance, see someone echo the same toxic ideas about authority and power out of a feeling of necessity. So the theme of the Epilogues is Act 6+7’s theme inverted: how are we still bound by these narratives?

From Divine Comedy to Divine Tragedy, revealing and reflecting each other.

My feeling is that Hussie wanted to express both of these things as Homestuck entered its final stages. He chose to tackle one, wait a while, and then tackle the one that was far more difficult to render compellingly.

This is how I make sense of the utopian, gnostic themes of late Act 6 + 7. They present a sincere aspect of Homestuck’s message: tear off the ideological chains of your mind. Transcend to the Pleroma. Build a new world. But this Gnostic hope was always going to be followed up by a statement on the difficulty of doing just that. For the power of the Demiurge is great, and his illusions deeply rooted in your mind.

I used to get in all sorts of debates as to whether Act 6-6-5-Act 7 (Ending 1 of Homestuck, if you will) was good or bad. Maybe that’s not the right question, though? Maybe it doesn’t matter anymore, or it never mattered.. I think it would be kind of impossible to tell, anyway. Because what Hussie left us with in 2016 was a thick stew of fascinating ideas to dig into and discuss and try to understand. Act 5 was a mechanical puzzle, challenging us to figure out how the world of SBURB worked; Act 6 a thematic one, challenging us to become better readers who engage with Homestuck’s metaphors and themes. Given the level on which we understand these things now, I think we resoundingly succeeded.

And when we started to ask the right questions, then—only then—were we ready for the Epilogues.

It’s true that the Epilogues have a certain feeling of primacy now. That’s inevitable, given their role of deepening the conversation and their at times shocking content. But I think it would be a mistake to read them as more important than the first ending.

Because I think Homestuck genuinely believes in the importance of that escape. The other reason for that three-year pause? Maybe it was to give us time to draw our own conclusions. Both in the sense of wrapping our minds around Hussie’s thematic puzzle, and in the sense of creating our own stories to follow the ending. Because if English’s narrative, aka Homestuck, is the thing we’re escaping from, then to follow the gnostic vision of escape is to enter the Pleroma of fan creation. The actual, canonical nature of Earth C is a multiverse of fan interpretations, reaching in every different direction, many of them offering hope, a utopian society, and/or the possibility of major growth for our characters. Those didn’t go away after the Epilogues. For my part, I read quite a few Davekat fics that still stick with me after all this time, informing how I understand the characters. Guess what? Homestuck explicitly grounds them as significant.

To put it in Rose’s terms, these timelines and stories may not be essential, but they are true and relevant.

Now, fandom is not perfect. (Understatement of the century.) Fan writers hold onto clichés and toxic narratives as much as anyone. One of the goals of the Epilogues is to offer a counterpoint to that vision as well—to show the dark side of redemption arcs, marriage proposals, and coffee shop AUs.

But at the same time, the three-year feast of storytelling made possible by the Final Pause remains an important, and explicitly heroic part of the Homestuck multiverse.

(It’s been a treat to see how the community has responded to the darker points raised by the Epilogues as well. A great example is Sarah Zedig’s Godfeels series, which returns to the idea of Earth C as a place of meaningful growth and change (for June Egbert, especially), but recognizes the difficulty of making that change when the people you know are stuck in their own ideas of what the world should be. I’m looking forward to reading more works in this vein going forward.)

All this suggests an intriguing possibility: that the dissatisfied feelings many walked away from the original ending with may have been deliberate. Not to say that there aren’t some pretty satisfying arcs in Act 6. But perhaps some were left open and ambiguous, even frustrating, on purpose: to point us in the direction of filling those gaps. Fertile, untilled ground for the fanonical imagination.

Is that good storytelling? I have no idea. What I do know is that there’s nothing else like it out there.

And honestly? I’m really glad something as weird as Homestuck exists.

And that we get to be a part of it.

<3 Ari

[zdbztumble]

“Kingdom Hearts II” revisited, Part I

Seeing as how Kingdom Hearts II is quite a long game, with quite a bit packed into it, I figured I’d chop this retrospective up. As I go through the game, I may come back and revise certain things here, but for now, let’s just look at KH II’s extended prelude with Roxas.

A lot of people say that this section of the game is overlong; a lot of people are right. The breaking point for me was the “seven wonders” episode. Everything in that day - story content, thematic underpinning, character beats - had already been stated by that point. One could argue that these all saw minor advancement during the “seven wonders” episode, or that DiZ showing some kindness by giving Roxas a glimpse of one of the wonders while also plotting Namine’s death in the same scene was important to his character. I wouldn’t disagree on the latter point, but I think finding a moment in the Struggle tournament for DiZ to have a flicker of kindness would have allowed that scene, or one very close to it, to happen after that day, without creating the lag on the pace of the game that the “seven wonders” episode creates.

However, that is my only major complaint with the Roxas prelude. Not only does it hold up well in spite of that lag, but in some ways it’s better than I remember.

I’ve mentioned before that I didn’t know Chain of Memories existed the first time I played KH II, and I thought it was one of the most impressive and daring feats of narrative I’d seen pulled in a series using such high-profile, mainstream characters. So many series have time jumps between entries - some of them longer than the year between KH I and II - without any major changes in the characters. Now, here was this E10-rated video game from Disney with an entire untold chapter that lands its hero in hibernation, his magical weapon in the hands of a total stranger! It blew my mind that they would do that, almost as much as it blew my mind that they’d end the first game on such a bittersweet note!

Of course, CoM does exist, and I can’t go back to a time where I didn’t know that. But I think that, if I’d somehow stayed ignorant of CoM all these years, I’d still ultimately applaud KH II, both for the idea of starting in such a different place from the end of KH I (when they had to at least suspect that a lot of players wouldn’t have caught the GBA title), and for the execution of that idea. And the key to the execution is that, ultimately, the player is given enough information to figure out the essentials of what happened to Sora without needing to know everything. That is - within that Roxas prelude, you see and learn enough to figure out that, at some point after KH I, Sora ended up in a conflict that cost him his memories, that a witch named Namine has power over his memories and has been working to restore them to Sora while he sleeps, and that this boy Roxas is somehow connected or derived from Sora and must reunite with him in order for Sora to be whole again. You can also safely deduce that the “Ansem” working with this character DiZ isn’t Ansem, Seeker of Darkness as you know him from KH I. If you really thought about it, you could probably figure out that it’s Riku, but going just on what the prelude shows you, that’s a bit more of a stretch.

If memory serves me well, this is the case throughout KH II. The events of CoM, and the (then) untold story about Roxas and Organization XIII, are revealed piecemeal over the course of the game, never in full, but just enough to make the story and character relationships work within this story. This is the way to have mystery in your plot and an open-ended quality to your world lore without it becoming needlessly confusing or detracting from the actual story.

If you had played CoM and Reverse/Rebirth, the deduction about Riku would be much easier to make, and Namine’s reappearance would be much more meaningful. I think her reappearance is handled very well, establishing her as in league with DiZ and “Ansem” in some way but possessed of more independent agency than she showed in CoM. Her ties to Kairi are also nicely reintroduced, as is Kairi herself. She’s the best character to choose IMO for showing how the events of the past year have affected the memories of Sora in the worlds, and how they’re being restored. And since Kairi is the one member of our original character trio of protagonists who hasn’t gone through extreme changes between games, this is a great way to get her involved in the story again. How all these things tie into Roxas’s connection to Sora, while allowing for a recap of the events of KH I for those who needed it, is very well-handled. Though I must admit - I didn’t remember that the Xemnas battle in Hollow Bastion from Final Mix being thrown into the flashbacks. If, like me, you’ve stuck to the vanilla versions of these games, that could be pretty confusing.

DiZ and “Ansem” make for an intriguing odd couple in this prelude. It was wonderful to hear Christopher Lee’s voice behind DiZ again. Why he wasn’t brought back for R/R, and why they redubbed his 358/2 Days material, I will never know. I can’t say much more about them now, because I can’t remember much more without having played more of the game XD

As far as Twilight Town and the people within it go - this is one area where the game is definitely better than I remember, because I really couldn’t recall much about Hayner, Pence, and Olette. Their material in KH III was so dull that, after playing that game, I wondered if they’d always been that way, and that’s why I didn’t remember them. But they’re actually a pretty good trio, with nice echoes of the Destiny Islands characters without feeling too derivative of them the way some later groups will. Olette, admittedly, isn’t all that fleshed out as a character, but Hayner is (Pence is somewhere in the middle). The parallels with Riku are fairly obvious - the self-appointed leader status, the petty jealousy over friends hanging out with others - but he shows maturity that that character didn’t, in his quiet acceptance of the passage of time drifting some friends apart. His dynamic with Roxas is very good - much more so, I have to say, than anything I’ve ever seen between Roxas and Axel.

I don’t have a whole lot to say about Roxas just now - partly because I want to play more of the game, and partly because I have some fairly unpopular ideas about Roxas I’m saving for a later post. But for now, I do want to push back on a critique of this prelude that I’ve seen tossed around: that Roxas had no choice in his fate. He is, I grant you, backed into a very tight corner when he reaches Sora. The digital world that he’s been living in no longer recognizes or interacts with him; he can’t remember his frienship with Axel or his time in Organization XIII, but intuits that they were a bad bunch; this girl Namine he’s started to forge a connection with and get answers from has been taken away; and he’s been psychologically hammered with the idea that he was never meant to exist. But up until the last, Roxas displays a lot of anger and fight. He could have used the Keyblade to attack Sora, or at least destroy the pod he was in, just as he’d been attacking DiZ’s projection. He could have turned around and fled, escaping (though he couldn’t have known it at the time) into the real Twilight Town. He could have asked Axel to take him away in their last encounter. But he doesn’t do any of those things. He chooses to go back to Sora. It’s a very resigned choice, made by someone not in a great state of mind, but if I remember the rest of this game correctly, things end up working in such a way that Roxas, and the player, can be at peace with that choice.

Not much more to say at this point, except: as someone who came to this series by way of Disney, and doesn’t know much about Final Fantasy, Vivi was so confusing to see the first time I played this game.

[hocats-blog]

7 Lord of the Rings Fan Theories to Rule Them All

As you probably remember, Gollum wasn't always Gollum. For a time he was Smeagol, a Hobbit quickly corrupted by the power of the One Ring. It was his "precious" that afforded him an extraordinarily long life, and warped him into the scrappy half-naked mangoblin that becomes the bane of Frodo and Sam. Though he's been Gollum far longer than he was Smeagol, at times there seems to be a war of identities going on within the sad creature. We assume that the centuries he's spent under the ring's influence has created this rift within the character, but that might not be the case at all. One intriguing fan theory claims that Gollum is actually a personality inside the ring, an entity that can possess anyone. The identity isn't unique to Smeagol, meaning that if someone like Aragorn held it long enough, he'd turn into a pasty diaper-wearing wretch just the same as you would. Think about those we know who have held the ring for an extended period of time. Right off the bat, there's Bilbo Baggins. He seemed relatively chill about the ring and managed to hold onto it for years without going nanners, but we definitely saw some cracks forming in his psyche when Gandalf came to town. Bilbo was less than thrilled about having his "precious" taken away. That, right there -- Bilbo unconsciously "gollum'd." That's the "Gollum personality" breaking through, its infection spreading within Bilbo. The possession gets a bit more overt later on during a conversation with Frodo, at which point Bilbo's face makes a hellish transformation. Looks a lot like Gollum, doesn't it? Bilbo doesn't just call the ring his "precious" just because he heard Gollum say that -- that's actually Gollum talking through Bilbo. For more proof, we have to look no further than Isildur. Remember Isildur is the one who lopped Sauron's fingers off and took the ring? Isildur is also the same shitbrick who, given the chance, didn't toss the ring into the fires of Mount Doom. Instead, he wore it around his neck, which is more or less the Middle-earth equivalent of treating a nuclear warhead like a piece of bling. The corrosive power eventually killed Isildur, but not before he wrote about the ring in a series of creepy journals. Gandalf discovered these writings, and found one particularly disturbing passage. Could it really be a coincidence that a dude who lived thousands of years before Smeagol would used the same word to describe the One Ring? Probably not. It seems a lot more likely that Gollum is a personality inside the ring that infects its host and possesses them to protect the ring and do Sauron's bidding. If Isildur's hubris hadn't ended him, it may well have been his wispy form that Bilbo came across on his initial adventure in The Hobbit. Now, the name "Gollum" is merely the name given to Smeagol after his neighors kept seeing him hacking up a lung every day, so it's probably not the actual title of the deity inside the ring. But the name "Gollum" has significance, in that it's pretty close to "golem," the mythological creature which is made of inanimate materials, but given life from an outside force. It's a compelling theory not because it dramatically changes the story, but because it gives you a new perspective on what the ringbearers must have been going through. That, and it's fun imagining a crazed Viggo Mortensen wearing a diaper.

This is a stupid idea. No one's going to actually come out and say that J.R.R. Tolkien created Albus Dumbledore and the world of Harry Potter. But it's a testament to the strength of fan theories that some beautiful bastard could come up with a convincing explanation that links Hogwarts and Middle-earth. It all relies on the fact that there are five Istari -- better known as "wizards" to people who have seen the sun in the last two weeks -- in the realm of this fiction. You probably already know three of them: Gandalf the Grey, Saruman the White and Radagast "That Forest Hippie Who Refuses to Clean the Birdshit Out of His Beard" the Brown. The missing pieces of this magical grandpa pie are the two "Blue Wizards," which Tolkien glossed over briefly but never really followed up on. Last we heard, they were sent into Mordor to quell the threat of Sauron. They weren't seen again, but there's also no explicit mention of their deaths. The two blue wizards could be anyone, which is why it's entirely possible that they are in fact Albus Dumbledore and his nemesis/boytoy Gellen Grindelwald. All it would take is a temporal or multidimensional mishap, and they'd be in the modern world of muggles. How they got to Earth from Middle-earth isn't as important as the thematical connections. Dumbledore says that "It is important to fight, and fight again, and keep fighting, for only then can evil be kept at bay, though never quite eradicated." Meaning that he wasn't going to give up once Sauron was down for the count. Though Grindelwald fell to the "dark side" like Saruman before him, Dumbledore kept up the fight and was eventually upgraded from "Dumbledore the Blue" to "Dumbledore the White." It fits, especially because in Latin, "Albus" literally translates to "white." It makes sense that Dumbledore took the job at Hogwarts, as that was the place he could best mount his defense of the world. Once there, he builds an army of wizards to do just that. And yet, he still remembers where he came from, which explains why there's a portrait of Gandalf the Grey hanging in Dumbledore's office. Dumbledore had already assembled his wizard defense force, so he passed off into the undying lands in the most fantastical way possible. The entire theory sheds new light on Dumbledore's words: "Ah, music. A magic far beyond all we do here!" As it so happens, the world of Middle-earth was created via song by the Illuvatar. Did J.K. Rowling write Dumbledore with Tolkien's lost wizards in mind? It's not impossible, but it's probably unlikely. It doesn't matter, because veracity isn't the point of this fan theory. The real strength of this tangled yarn is just how creative it is in weaving two disparate but similar fictions together. These two worlds don't exist anyway, so why can't they they exist in the same place?

Though it's not featured in a big way in the films, the books go into a little more detail about the death of Frodo's parents. Drogo and Primula Baggins drowning during a freak boating accident is tragic, but storywise, it gives Frodo less of a reason to be tied down to the Shire. But one fan theory suggests there's a darker undercurrent to this story, that Frodo's parents were in fact murdered. The culprit: Gollum. We all know that creepazoid is capable of murder. It's arguably the first thing Smeagol ever did as Gollum. After the events of the Hobbit, Gollum set about finding the his precious stolen ring. Problem was, Gollum really only had two things to go on when it came to finding the ring: "Baggins" and "Shire." It's not out of the question that he might come across the Brandywine River on his quest, and he would certainly kill any Bagginses he found there. The theory is propped up by the questionable circumstances of the deaths. There seems to be a question among the Hobbits as to just how Frodo's parents passed. Whatever the case, both Drogo and Primula were pretty experienced boaters, so it's more than a little surprising that they would just fall in the water and die. No, it makes more sense that an angry Gollum murdered them straight out, giving up on his mission once he found nothing on their person. The only real damper on this theory is Gandalf, who claims that Gollum never made it to the Brandywine. That would seem to put an end to this theory, but put yourself in Gandalf's old man shoes for a minute. You're talking to Frodo, the guy who is going to lug the world's most dangerous weapon across a continent, and he's pretty fragile as it is. Now imagine if Gandalf decided to tell Frodo that the same guy who guides him through Mordor is the one that deprived him of his parents -- he'd undoubtedly lose himself to rage at some point, and as a result succumb to the power of the ring itself. If Gandalf hadn't pulled off an Obi-Wan-tier lie, our story would be over before it began. To be fair, at least that one ending is preferable to like seventy.

This almost feels like cheating. This "fan theory" is so perfect, fits so well into the mythos of the series that it's basically canon. But that's exactly the reason it can't be ignored. Just after the Fellowship is formed, the angelic Lady Galadriel offers each member of the group a special gift. Legolas got a rad new bow, Pippin and Merry each received sweet daggers, and Boromir was bestowed with a tacky gold belt that did not go with his bracers. The most interesting gift was that given to Gimli, the dwarf. While most others just took what was handed to them, Galadriel actually asked Gimli what he wanted from the elves. After a bit of stammering, Gimli gave in and requested his greatest desire. Others were naturally curious about this mystery gift. Asking for (and actually GETTING) a strand of Galadriel's hair might sound creepy, but it's really a huge deal. To explain why, we have to rewind a few thousand years. Several millennia before the War of the Ring, there was this shitbird named Feanor. Now, Feanor is a grade-A dickweed, but even he can see how lovely Galadriel is. As the legend has it, Feanor too asked for a single strand of Galadriel's hair, but he was denied. Twice more Feanor made the same request, and twice more he was shut down. Dude wasn't worthy of Galadriel's crusty toenail clippings, much less her luscious locks. Flash forward to the Fellowship, and Gimli's wish for a strand of Galadriel's flawless hair is granted threefold. Though Gimli is likely oblivious to the significance of the gesture, Legolas' smile tells us he understands. Up to this point, dwarves and elves had an uneasy relationship, like co-workers that hate each other but stay cool because they have to be in close proximity every day. But Galadriel saw the innate goodness in Gimli, and rewarded him thrice over. You can almost hear Feanor grumbling "It still only counts as one."

[lit--bitch]

On Tom Bland, ‘The Death of a Clown’ (2018) (NSFW, if you’re at work).

(Disclosure: I’m good friends with Tom Bland. We came to know each other after he published some of my work in his former online zine, Blue of Noon. I read parts of this collection in some of its earliest drafts. Whilst it might seem nepotistic (and a bit late in the day to talk about The Death of a Clown), I thought it would be good to kick off with a positive review about someone’s writing I really love. As for Bad Betty Press, it is ran by Amy Acre and Jake Wild Hall, both of whom I’ve met on a few occasions but don’t know them v well).

Tom told me in a text he sent me last summer: “I stole ‘the death of a clown’ from The Kinks, do love that song”. You can read the lyrics here. It also ought to be noted that Tom did actually practice as a clown for a while. As for the publishers, Bad Betty Press is small, new, and fantastic. I think they’re a breath of fresh air for contemporary literature in the UK, with a clear, unique identity and a really strong focus for what they’re looking for. They’ve published some amazing writers. 

This is a book of moodswings and contradictions. It’s a glimpse of humanity in all its filth, and it deserves recognition for the unflinching honesty with which it is written. 

The Death of a Clown oscillates between serious and unserious. It can be funny, and then perturbing, yet all the while in possession of a certain solemnity. To me, the book’s cover (designed by Amy Acre) is synonymous with the writing in that it embodies similar contradictions: there’s the comical illustration of a clown face with its clown-smile on a gravestone engraved ‘RIP’. Then there’s the title—this juxtaposition of death and clown—an explicit introduction to death of something born to be funny (supposedly). All of this is pegged by Bad Betty Press’s (current) statement livery: black background, white font(s). All these visual elements counteract each other, which is a cornerstone to this collection’s literary thematics. You wouldn’t think it when you pick up the book, but after you’ve read it, you find that contradiction is all part of the book’s nature; a performance which self-negates and wildy flagellates itself, over and over. The cover is a clue, a graphic segue for what you’ve not yet read, which is, (and I’m going to try and commit to the following description) a series of undulating, anecdotal thoughts as opposed to “poems”. And they waterfall as one great stream of consciousness. 

Amy told me masturbating was not the same as meditating. But the cult of masturbation had already found its way into … no one can make you come like yourself … a manifesto of poetic intent. Millions of potential lives wiped away in a tissue down the toilet drain.

There’s no other titles within this work but the book title. Or so I think. Tom doesn’t entitle; he emboldens the first lines, or sometimes the first couple of words in an opening sentence. The book’s pagination is the only indication of a separation, apart from that, I can’t always tell if this is indicating the start of a new thought or the end of an old one. But I guess that’s the point, Tom’s writing is in essence, thinking, and thoughts resist titles, of course they do. So to embolden is an intriguing choice, because it gives the great effect of writing eating itself from page to page. The title becomes indiscernible from the actual first line of the thought itself. 

Perhaps I’ve read into this too deeply but honestly, in any artistic practice, it is so difficult to articulate a body of work under a single header. Even ‘The Death of a Clown’ is both so vague and specific a title. Every thought in this collection considers and recalls so much, so Tom just doesn’t do the thing of entitling every piece. I found that refreshing; we live in a world where everything yearns after a name, and a lot of the time we’re compelled to entitle our work, ourselves, our things, as if that would somehow give us clarity or meaning. But as you’ll read, Tom intimates that a lot of the time, there is little clarity to our thoughts, our perceptions, to anything. It’s only when dragged to the most severe and deafening of human experiences do we then, occasionally, achieve the briefest moment of mental clarity. 

my adrenaline induced out of body looking back at my pulsating limbs; that self-aware speck

jittering or jumping between the two, like being dead/born once again.

Ranting so fast all my words blurred into rapid hand gestures, the very shapes of my early tongue-tied jabbering.

Something I love about The Death of a Clown is the self-awareness of the writing, which I think is inherent in “writing which appears as stream of consciousness”. I think it’s further developed by the scrupulously researched references to things which have indelibly influenced or affected the ‘I’ here. It’s so telling of a person in what they choose to reference, it intimates what piques their interest, their attention. The thing I find interesting about Tom’s references however is the way they’re presented as odd dualisms. There’s Sufism and then The Satanic Bible. Then there’s Jesus and Ted Bundy. There’s Taylor Swift, Edward Erdinger and the disintegrating self, then there’s Fuz Sxx (a sex shop in London) and the act of public masturbation. You would think these figures, beliefs and concepts oppose each other, but when they collide within the same piece, it seems that they elicit the same emotional responses and memories. These things don’t really so much oppose each other, but rather they’re of each other. 

Bob Rogers always began the Sufi circle with, ‘The goal here is                                to                   create and destroy the idols of the self,’ then he glared at me,
 ‘but this is not an apocalyptic vision.’ At first, this unnerved me, but quickly, it started to annoy me, so much so, I had printed on             pink badges, a feminine figure and the words,                   LIFE IS DEATH. I gave the badges              out to the group to their discomfort and/or amusement. He asked me to leave. He said, ‘Sufism isn’t               about death but a new beginning.’ 

I also think these references signal personal perceptions and therefore, options. The array of religions, religious figures, celebrities and serial killers, mentioned in The Death of a Clown, is demonstrative of the many lifestyle choices, beliefs, idols, values we have to choose from. As we investigate through this pile, we eventually come to identify with a select few, most of which resonate in our personal experiences. In one piece, Tom writes: ‘Michelle called pain (her pain) the sun god Ra. / Ra equalled pathos. [...] I remained still, outside on my steps, looking up at the moon. / Sometimes I call my pain Hekate.’ Lines like these underpin the core of this work, which is that everybody’s perception is their own perception. Their choice in what to experience, believe and feel is entirely their responsibility. It’s a bit of a tangent but I’m reminded of that scene in Rick and Morty, the ‘Pickle Rick’ episode from Season 3 where the therapist says to Rick, ‘You are the master of your own universe [...] Each of us gets to choose.’

Living is in essence a kind of performance. Our choreography is sculpted by what we read, believe, consider and feel. It can be a laugh, but ultimately, we’re all still fools. Hence the impetus for the clown’s presence in this collection, or the part of us which acts the clown. In The Death of a Clown, choreography comes through performing in drag, bending sexualities, bending observations, defining fetishisms, reading religion and murder, thinking about religion and murder. The fact that all these things are being mentioned in the work, suggests the profound impact and lasting effects they imprint upon the ‘I’ of this work, the clown’s psychology, who laughs more than ever, and less than ever. 

[...] I

waxed my body, splattering body paints, wearing faux- leather corsets, see-through knickers, and PVC cowboy boots. It was and wasn’t fetishism; it was and wasn’t sexuality; it was and wasn’t perversion; first was the vision, the one in my head, the one I saw across my body, my body morphing into my androgynous Satanic self.

The collection is ravaged by sex, the frenzy of drug-stuffed London, the English sort of realism found in onion sauce, or ‘Hertfordshire surrounded by trees and red noses’ (not red roses), and more pertinently, the exhaustive performance of inhabiting these things, being these things. For me, I feel like these references function as both containers and artefacts to this ‘human-ness’ Tom is unpacking and reconstituting, and how they’re instrumental in self-alienation but also help with self-identity. It’s a bit, “the school of life” thing; whether it’s erotic asphyxiation, or racking up lines of ketamine before doing a live performance, it seems that these various extremities are an education in what it means to be truly vulnerable, and therefore in being able to call ourselves human. 

And yet at the crux of each “poem” lies the ultimate therapy to all of this, which is the safe insecurity in knowing that we are all dying. And what is more human than our conscious attempt in knowing and embracing that? 

[…] ‘Some
 people think the clown is a performance I put on and take off, but no, I must be a clown 
at all times. I can’t stand slipping back 
 into that thing...’

HUMAN.

I read a beautiful review from R J Dent on The Death of a Clown where he noted, ‘Tom Bland lists some of the stimulants and depressants that humans use to dull their awareness of their own mortality: acid, coke, speed, ketamine, cigs, Weston’s Old Rosie cider, and brandy.’ This was the only point I felt inclined to disagree. I don’t think this is 100% what Tom is doing, I don’t agree that it’s a form of listing per se, and I don’t think that we should necessarily believe that the mere function of these substances, in the collection’s case, is a human’s way of dulling the knowing surrounding the inevitability of death. Rather, they’re chunks of detail, which amplify and exaggerate that knowing, rendering the user as used… I mean this as in, it’s not that they’re taking drugs. Perhaps, it’s the drugs are taking them. And in these delicious, and often arduous experiences, a delightful indifference about life and death occurs, where user and substance are locked in mutual indulgence. Or at least, that’s my interpretation of it. I’m just not convinced the clown is resisting death here. I think the clown, or the part of us which acts the clown, has already died and sometimes I find the writing works not just as thought, but as a strange eulogy, sometimes even self-inflicted therapy. I’m still guessing.

About a year ago, I found myself snorting lines of coke, but I hated doing it with other people, only alone. Blue in the face. Breathing blue. Heart racing. Near heart attack. Was this orgasm? Was I even hard?

I loved the intensity of being on my own—

It is easier to attribute this writing, as I’ve already stated, as being a series of ‘thoughts’. Where The Death of a Clown may, in form, resemble poetry, ultimately this isn’t poetry. It defies category. Since I started this review, I’ve felt increasingly perplexed, in that the more I attempt to ascertain what kind of writing this is, the more indecipherable it becomes. 

It’s for this reason that The Death of a Clown is unabashedly weird and it kind of leaves you feeling disoriented. To me, this work is like an endless cycle of waking up with a hangover/comedown and going to the next party. It sticks to the skin like a latex suit. It’s the endless fixing and wiping away of makeup. It ruminates on itself and begs not to enquire further, and then does it anyway. It has both sharp and curved edges. It is literal, it doesn’t sugarcoat or tease, it doesn’t fuck with unnecessary, flowery metaphor or imagery (unlike this review lol). It doesn’t cater to you or pander. It is a deeply cutting exchange with oneself—which makes it all the more deliciously complicated. And I’ll leave you with one of my fav bits: 

[…] I stood perfectly still,   announcing the words I imagined scribbling  onto an A3 cardboard sheet, 

‘Do they really see (in the white of the eye) the unveiling of the whole history of a life?’ 

If you’d like to buy The Death of a Clown, you can buy it here. In addition to this, you can find out more about Tom through his zine, Spontaneous Poetics.

[dillydedalus]

december reading + top10 of the year

books.

a feast for crows, my main man grrm (#4 asoiaf) tbh i think this one is underrated - i understand feeling a bit underwhelmed on a first read bc it’s so much slower than asos & half the major characters aren’t in it & you get a bunch of new ones instead, but the thematic depth here! brienne seeing the devastation of the riverlands, thinking about outlaws & broken men & vigilante justice, sansa & arya both embarking on their apprentice arc & losing their identity in the process, the political intrigue in dorne, & the fucking hilarious shitshow that is cersei’s kings landing.... love it. 4.5/5

herkunft, saša stanišić (audio, sadly abridged) really good memoir/reflection about belonging, origin (national, ethnic, linguistic, familial, emotional), family, and living in germany as a refugee.  it’s really smart, really heartfelt, really funny, and i’m sooo annoyed that my library only has the abridged version. oh yeah it won the german book prize shortly after peter ‘serbian war criminals’ #1 fanboy’ handke won the nobel prize, which was nice. 4/5

a brief history of seven killings, marlon james (uni) marlon james probably laughed his ass off at calling this 700-page book (very small print) a brief history. anyway, this is about the attempted assassination of bob marley in the 70s, the cultural and political context in jamaica at the time, and the fallout of that event. honestly, reading this on a tight schedule for uni was just wrong for this book bc i had to rush thru it & ended up skimming quite a bit. it’s an impressive achievement, but i can’t say i enjoyed it very much. 3/5

she would be king, wayétu moore a magical realist story about the foundation of liberia, told thru three characters - an indigenous woman, an ex-slave from the us, and a mixed-race jamaican - all of whom have magical abilities. i really wanted to like this, but while there are a lot of good ideas, structurally this is kind of a mess (the first part, which introduces the characters is way too long & not very interesting, the connection between the three is supposed to be super significant but it really doesn’t come across, one character gets way more page time than the others), the writing is occasionally p awkward, and there is an odd thing where the narrator (kinda a ghost, kinda the wind) intrudes literally only to call one of the characters her darling or whatever & it’s irritating af. 2.5/5

a dance with dragons, grrm (#5 asoiaf) tbh this is by far my least favourite of the series.... it’s just way too long, a bit of a slog (especially the tyrion chapters...) & there is not a single sansa chapter which is fucked up. a lot of the storylines are really good tho (jon, THEON, asha, jaime...). i ended up liking the parts i used to dislike a bit more this time around tho if i ever read it again i will probably do the combined affc+adwd read bc that sounds fun & interesting. 4/5

the sellout, paul beatty (uni) smart & pretty funny satire about the idea of a post-racial america, in which a black man in the LA region tries to segregate the local community. there’s a lot of cool stuff in here and i really liked the ambiguity & refusal to present any clear-cut answers, solutions, or closure. 3/5

tamburlaine must die, louise welsh fun little novella about the last days of kit marlow, which made for an entertaining 2 hours altho the ending is pretty weak imo & the language slips into entirely too modern occasionally. kinda disappointed because based on the blurb i’d assumed that tamburlaine actually, literally came to life out of marlow’s plays which. is not the case. but would have been super cool. 2/5

radiance, grace draven not to reveal how profoundly problematique i am: this is a book about a human noblewoman entering into an arranged political marriage with a dude from the off-brand dark-elves dynasty & it is. way too wholesome, there is little angst, ildiko & brishen get along very well from the start & like, where’s the fear, the tension, the delicious, delicious ANGST?? 2.5/5

water shall refuse them, lucie mcknight hardy atmospheric witchy folk horror set in a small village in wales during the '76 heat wave - narrator nif’s family comes to live in a cottage there to take some time off after the accidental drowning of nif’s younger sister - the mother is consumed by grief and guilt, the father is trying to hold everyone together, and nif is constructing a witchy creed out of bird eggs and bones and magical thinking to cope, comparing weird witchy practices with local outsider mally. i liked this & altho i saw the twist coming miles away, it still makes for a pretty disturbing ending, and the way the book evokes the dizzy blurry heat and nif’s state of mind - detached, angry, confused, compulsive - is really effective. 3.5/5

a knight of the seven kingdoms, george r.r. martin dunk! is! babey! (except for moments where he displays staggering BDE) anyway these are three novellas set about 100 years pre-asoiaf, about dunk/duncan the tall & his squire, egg/aegon, the OG secret targaryen. the stories are wholesome, funny, cute, have a lot of dunk being a true knight but not a real knight which is extra-sweet when you realise that he’s almost definitely true-but-not-real knight brienne’s (great?)grandpapa. 4.5/5

my cousin rachel, daphne du maurier philip ashley, our narrator, really is like ‘hmmm have i been misogynistic yet today?? better get on that’, he’s awful & so is his older cousin ambrose, who marries distant cousin rachel in florence & then gets ill and dies, making phil rather suspicious about rachel. did rachel poison ambrose? is she trying to seduce and/or poison philip? or are they both just paranoid assholes who hate women (they def. hate women)? this is some good psychological thriller type stuff, what we can construct out of philip’s distorted view of rachel is intriguing (and like, if she poisoned ambrose? #goodforher), the narrator is an ass but well-written, and the first/last lines.... chills. 3.5/5

top 10 of the year (no rereads!)

antigonick, anne carson

a canticle for leibowitz, walter m. miller

dedalus, chris mccabe

the complete maus, art spiegelman

the artificial silk girl, irmgard keun

o caledonia, elspeth barker

the sparrow, mary doria russell

sleep of the righteous, wolfgang hilbig

how to survive a plague, david france

rain wild chronicles, robin hobb

(the last three are kinda randomly picked from the high-4s based on my mood in the moment but they’re all really good so.)

[kreuzaderny]

BGG 2019 Reviews

whole ton of BOARD GAME THOUGHTS from BGG Con 2019 after the jump

Wavelength

Rating: Strongly Recommended

Genre: Party

Players: 2-20 (played with 6-8)

Quick thoughts: Use a “psychic” (I guess I didn’t need to put quotes around that?) dial to secretly pick a point on a spectrum between two concepts, then name something that should allow your team to guess where on the spectrum the SOMETHING would be. Trouble is, it’s all highly subjective (what year is ¾ of the way between “worst era to time travel to” and “best era”?), so much spirited debate should and does ensue. Game of the convention for me, and moving forward will be my go-to party game (sorry Jackbox, but this is incredible).

Quacks of Quedlinburg

Rating: Strongly Recommended

Genre: Family

Players: 2-4 (played with 3)

Quick thoughts: Make risky potions with an elegant simultaneous bag drawing mechanic! Try not to get too much of the crap ingredient in that makes your potion blow up! Acquire points to be the best snake oil salesman around! (e.g. this is a pretty light Euro-style). I want to put more stuff here but honestly just go play the damn game.

#Artbox

Rating: Recommended

Genre: Party

Players: 3-8 (played with 7)

Quick thoughts: Hilarious drawing-with-limited-shapes mechanic. Everyone gets a secret subject to draw, but everyone must use the same set of circles, lines, triangles, you get the idea (also there’s only 4 per round!). You haven’t lived until you’ve been forced to draw a globe with only a triangle and 3 lines.

Who Goes There?

Rating: Mildly Recommended

Genre: Thematic

Players: 3-4 (played with 3)

Quick thoughts: Based on The Thing without having to spring for the license (by licensing the short story the film was based on), it captures the paranoid survival horror of the film better than Infection at Outpost 31 from a few years ago, and since I love base under siege stories I was super thumbs up for the main game mechanics... but the endgame rules are somewhat confusing and threaten to undermine the rest of the experience on the first playthrough. Plus, I'm not sure how fun it'd be if the theme doesn't land for you (maybe not at all!), so in the interest of caution I'm giving it a general mild recommendation. Recommended if the above sounds intriguing to you though, strong recommendation if you're Dustin.

Blackout: Hong Kong

Rating: Mildly Recommended

Genre: Strategy

Players: 1-4 (played with 3)

Quick thoughts: Kinda weird to play given current events, but the premise has Hong Kong experiencing a major power outage, and the disaster management must be… well, managed. By you. And the other players. Has a LOT of different systems (card management, area control, resource acquisition, objective completion), but once I got my head around it, the latter part of the game was neat

Altiplano

Rating: Mildly Recommended

Genre: Strategy

Players: 2-5 (played with 4)

Quick thoughts: I’m not sure what’s unique about this game with respect to other Euros, but you’re gathering resources and turning them into other things or using them to buy stuff for points. Fun and seems elegant/balanced... I just don't play Euro genre games often enough to be very good at them; recommended if you really love Euros, but if you do you've probably already played this and have an opinion on it.

Clank!

Rating: Neutral

Genre: Strategy

Players: 2-4 (played with 3)

Quick thoughts: Adventurers go into the dungeon to fight a dragon, get treasure, and ideally come back out alive using card decks the players build as they go. Didn't finish a complete game but liked what I saw - will try to play again in the future.

Trismegistus: The Ultimate Formula

Rating: Neutral

Genre: Strategy

Players: 1-4 (played with 3)

Quick thoughts: “I have no idea what I should be doing right now.” Have every player say this multiple times in a single playthrough and you have Trismegistus! You’re an alchemist trying to create the Philosopher’s Stone through judicious use of alchemy (surprise!). Complex game where it's very difficult to discern what one's immediate goals/moves should be due to constrained options and far-reaching consequences in future turns; however, feels like with enough playthroughs a really clever fun game could emerge... I just doubt I'll ever spend enough time with it to get there.

Startups

Rating: Neutral

Genre: Card

Players: 3-7 (played with 6)

Quick thoughts: Invest! Disrupt! Innovate! Venture capital! Regulation! Very fast, easy to learn card-based game, but didn't click with me - possible I'd dig it more if I play it again.

Castello Methoni

Rating: Neutral

Genre: Strategy

Players: 3-5 (played with 5)

Quick thoughts: Area control and very light town building. Not a bad game by any means, but nothing really jumped out at me about it either.

Sagrada

Rating: Neutral

Genre: Abstract

Players: 1-4 (Played with 4)

Quick thoughts: Reminds me of Azul (build a beautiful stained glass window by drafting parts). Would need to play this again to really form an opinion on it, as I was pretty distracted on my playthrough, woops.

Die Hard: The Nakatomi Heist

Rating: Neutral

Genre: Thematic

Players: 2-4 (played with 3)

Quick thoughts: It’s Die Hard (the first one, with the Christmas party – so of course all the game parts are red and green). Goofy, had fun, and the asymmetry of the Hans Gruber squad vs one player as McClane was well executed - but I don't think it'll hold up under multiple playthroughs (not much depth).

Choose Your Own Adventure: War with the Evil Power Master

Rating: Neutral

Genre: Thematic

Players: 1-? (played with 3)

Quick thoughts: I guess there’s a whole series of these games – this one has the players portraying various members of a HEROIC SPACESHIP CREW to stop a mad space wizard. I was a robot that was bad at doing the robot (the dance). Had a good time, and definitely evokes the spirit of the old books, but would not pay for it or play it again either.

Zendo

Rating: Avoid

Genre: Abstract

Players: 3-5 (played with 5)

Quick thoughts: Rule guessing game (place parts on a table according to some rubric and then be told if you’re right or not) that just wasn't very fun.

Dungeons and Dragons: Temple of Elemental Evil

Rating: Avoid

Genre: Thematic

Players: 1-5 (played with 3)

Quick thoughts: Inspired by the infamous (I assume – I have never played many pen and paper RPGs but I’ve heard of it?) D&D module, this tries to distill the dungeon crawling experience into a probably-too-oversimplified (mechanic-wise) board game. Arbitrarily difficult (monsters were spawning constantly) and while I can totally tolerate losing on a first playthrough, the journey wasn't enjoyable either. The BGG site rating for this is high enough to where I suspect others may appreciate it though – certainly possible the amazing game Gloomhaven ruined this for me.

[poorquentyn]

did you like the movie prometheus? when i first saw it i was completely unaware of eldritch horror and i just rewatched it and considered that they may have been going for that... but the people acting like idiots and some of the "sciencey" things they do still sucks

Ah, Prometheus. Haven’t thought about that overeager slice o’ nightmare-fueled cheesecake in a while. 

Alien and its successors constitute my very favorite film series. The first two movies are immortal nigh-flawless classics, basically defining horror and action respectively in my li’l mind, succeeding so thoroughly and uniquely on every level from character to structure to above all the glorious aesthetic coherence (every shot, sound, and prop in its right place) that they both achieve the genre-film holy grail: making everything else in your genre look like crap. Alien 3 is my pick for Most Underrated Movie; the Assembly Cut reveals a gorgeous contradictory self-devouring abyss of a film, returning to Alien stylistically but building on Aliens’ resonant thematic core, sticking the landing with Ripley’s arc. Alien: Resurrection is too goofy to achieve the sublime dread and sinister gravitas of its predecessors, but it incorporates new, interesting ideas and it’s fun to watch Joss Whedon sneak a Joss Whedon script into this particular franchise. The Alien v. Predator movies are unquestionably trash, but IMO watchable, enjoyable trash. I’m on board with an Alien in pretty much any context; I’ve had stickers and sweaters and countless other objects featuring a xenomorph’s grin. 

All of which is to say I anticipated Prometheus with equal parts eagerness and dread, because not only did it have to live up to that history, but it also marked the convergence of multiple sinking ships. You’ve got Sir Ridley Scott returning to the franchise despite having long since abandoned the razor-sharp narrative cohesion and intimate, improvisational approach to character that have allowed Alien to age so well, the hamfisted smush-multiple-movies-together scripting plaguing a lot of modern blockbusters (in this case, Prometheus tries to be both a prequel to Alien and its own distinct thing, and ultimately achieves neither), and the general trend of bumbling resurrections of 70s/80s genre classics by a studio system terrified of risk and failing to understand that what made those movies great were specific collaborative creative sparks among the people making them (at every level), which cannot be recreated. In other words, Prometheus represents the modern studio CW that if you want another Alien, you make a semi-prequel to Alien and ape the look and sound and pacing of Alien, rather than funding and amplifying more of those collaborative creative sparks that can deliver the equivalent of another Alien. 

“Prometheus Is What’s Wrong With Hollywood” is a little harsh, though, because there’s a lot to enjoy about it. Again, I love this film universe more than any other; even in its silliest incarnations, the ice-cold awe and sense of trapdoors constantly opening up below you to reveal something worse sets this world apart, and Prometheus contributes to that legacy on a purely visceral level. There’s so many gorgeous shots, impressive sets, clever bits of sound design, and even a genuine scare or two.

But the script is a mess. It’s confusing and frustrating instead of pleasurably mysterious, and it gestures in the direction of the dreadful sublime rather than actually presenting it onscreen as the original film so peerlessly did. To your question regarding the nature of its horror: the one new element Prometheus introduces is an explicitly religious terror, that of finding out God hates you and wants you dead. It’s a potentially worthwhile concept on its own merits…except wait, this is also a prequel to Alien, kind of! So we also have to do a rushed, simplistic version of the first three movies’ central dynamic: how it feels to be the individual caught between the alien maw and the corporate greed pushing you into that maw. Not only does that theme pale in Prometheus relative to said first three movies, but it gets in the way (in terms of both time and emotional focus) of the intriguing cosmic horror elements. In the end, the latter is so much gossamer and suggestion with no payoff; it’s open-ended, but not in a structurally solid “excited for the sequel” way, nor does it earn an abstract “meditate on life and such” conclusion. It just kinda stops explaining itself at a certain point. Which couldn’t be farther removed from the exquisite slow build of Alien and Aliens, the patient way they doled out information, the slow circling of the drain leading to doom…

And anyway, like you say, by that point we’re already tuned out regarding the characters and their mission because there’s so little attention to detail and the basic bones of the premise. Another huge part of what makes Alien and Aliens work is that they both set up this class of cynical-but-largely-content professionals (Truckers In Space and Marines In Space, respectively), take their time with the dynamics and the setting, and only then apply the screws. Prometheus lacks that weary likability which is so crucial to making us feel it when the monsters (along with The Company) start killing people off. The religious and sci-fi bits don’t gel, which as well as throwing off the tone and themes, muddles the characters who are supposed to be built around the collision of those elements. I just didn’t connect to anything happening onscreen, even that which I could appreciate in terms of craft. As I said, I enjoy wandering Prometheus’ halls, but that’s what it feels like: a stately museum exhibit about this great movie that got made in 1979. 

[mc-critical]

(Okay head’s up, I’m going to be on your blog a lot since I absolutely LOVE your takes and analysis’.) Do you think (strictly theatrically speaking, not in the non-fictional and historical sense) Suleyman really loved Hürrem? As I watched the show I found it very silly how other characters of the show would remark how Suleyman “loved Hurrem so much he refused to ever take another concubine again” because..he did? And multiple times from what the viewers have seen too. Majority of the times the concubines/other women in Suleyman’s life (Isabella, Firüze etc) were only removed from his life via Hurrem’s intrigues, not by Suleyman’s decision. What do you think?

Aww, thank you so much for the nice words! 💕 Be here as much as you wish, absolutely no problem! (there are some takes I've had in the past that are quite passive-agressive in retrospect 😅, so I might as well also give you a heads up.)

As for your question, I think yes, SS loves Hürrem, but in his own, sometimes honestly incomprehensible (even outright toxic), way.

The writers perhaps wanted to hint at love at first sight in the beggining, due to the way she fainted in his arms in the first episode and how he kept thinking about her (that Ibrahim had to tell him that where he was supposed to go was the other direction) and the wave of excitement and anticipation he felt while waiting for her. But when they spent two nights together and he truly got to know her, was where it was at. Her uncanny ability to make him laugh, entertain him in a way no one else had before, was what impressed him first. He felt calm, safe in her presence, and wanted to keep this probably forever, along with him doing whatever else he wanted in the meantime regardless.

I feel the point of contention of whether he truly loved her or not comes from the fact that, the show wanted to make their love story integral to their both historically thematic and narratively soapy story - what I mean is, they wanted to make it the central plotline. And as a central plotline, it creates and/or extends on the other plotlines, having to show the other characters' reactions in excessive detail and even center parts of their motivations around it. You see how S01 and S02 of the series played this aspect of Hürrem and Süleiman's story completely straight - it presented it as The Love, this big, (thematically and narratively) unprecedented thing, this vital aspect of the series' DNA, the very tool that moves the story forward, that is only bound to have consistent narrative opposition: and I'm not referring only to Isabella and Firuze and all the other concubine arcs that force love triangles suited for the genre, it all is also about the continuous, frequent attacks on their love, that only stopped when the show made a complete genre shift by the second half of S04 and didn't have much time left. They worked with the idea that the more this love is attacked and antagonized, the stronger it becomes and the more shall people root for it. That's where the problem comes, because in retrospect, you can honestly see that these attacks played a major part in provoking a bunch of stuff SS did for Hürrem. Mahidevran beating her to death and poisoning her? SS gives Hürrem a chamber only for herself. (the other one she shared with Ayşe.) Them accusing her incessantly? Valide complaining about her? The various attacks? He continues to care even more for her. Valide and Ibrahim arranging that attack with the bandits? He married her. And one would wonder: is this even genuine or does the writing simply use her enemies' failings to lead Hürrem to SS? Is that the only reason he actually cares? What does MC want to achieve?

There are people who say that the entire point of SS loving her was that she was so different from everyone else (and that the concubine arcs ruined it), and yes, it was like that, in the very beginning. First impression is important and he truly began to enjoy her a lot since their first two nights, for her bringing him something new. However, both of Hürrem and Süleiman's characters and their relationship overall, drastically evolved throughout the show. When the first impression had passed and Hürrem gained SS's utmost attention and she became pregnant, she very quickly started taking stuff for granted, considering him only hers (the demonstration of the ring in front of Mahi; the twinge of jealousy towards Ibrahim.) and as a parallel, him still being a Sultan, having to follow the customs anyway, and calling Gülnihal in his chambers twice. Both of their ways of living clash, because Hürrem wants a monogamous relationship and takes every sign of care for him at face value, while SS lives in an environment that wants him to do what is expected of him.

SS both loves and hates when Hürrem stands up to his will. There have been times where she acted rashly, making borderline silly accusations (like blaming little Mustafa for the fire in E10), where she made moves out of jealousy (like stealing Isabella's pendant) and where she was complaining to him for something she didn't succeed to get (like Valide's chambers in S03). Süleiman sees her rebellious nature and goes out of his way to do moves to spite her. (this guy invited Isabella on a halvet out. of. sheer. spite and nothing else! smh honestly..) But there are as many times where he simply covers what she did (like killing Isabella) and caves to her demands anyway! Why would he cave to her demands and close his eyes on so much stuff she did, if he doesn't feel at least something for her?

The different treatment she gets also comes into play, because no matter how many times she's attacked and he seemingly stood by and watched aside from more serious cases, all it honestly does, is trigger his protective instincts. Despite of all the bumps on the road, Hürrem always was his darling, his special snowflake, whom he clearly felt something for. If anything, he wouldn't have freed her and this isn't something he would do to just anyone. (as we see how he refused to free Mahidevran when she desperately begged him to in E45.; and what's important, him freeing Hürrem wasn't provoked by someone else attacking her.) And when she makes all these jealousy fits, he listens, because Hürrem's character development represents full adaption to the circumstances of the harem, and by that, getting just like the others and learning their tricks. This has turned him off numerous times and when she shows that rebellious side of hers yet again, he couldn't help, but listen. What he said to Ibrahim after he sent off the Russian concubines, is especially telling: "No. (I don't love Hürrem as much as she loves me.) But now I fell in love with her even more." This summarizes extremely well what he thinks of her at this point, because while he's ready to cut her some slack, he's still helpless to her.

Though, later down the line, it gets very abundantly clear that if he loves her, he doesn't love her because she's different and she's rebellious, but because she's loyal to him. Infinitely loyal. She loves him this much, that she's not only ready to willingly drink poison and kill herself for him anytime, but she doesn't even want to give up his throne. It is all very well highlighted by his infamous line to Fatma: "Hürrem is not an angel, but she has something that none of you have. Loyalty! Absolute loyalty... / "She never saw anyone else on the throne but me." Over the years, SS began to live with the dramatically increased paranoia of betrayal, turning his natural ego from a strength, to an everlooming weakness. It destroyed every single relation of his, except for Hürrem. She's the only person that wasn't targeted by this crippling paranoid fear, he perhaps found piece and tranquil in her presence, because he knew that she wouldn't ever turn her back on him. And all these times he got mad at her, he had halvets to spite her, he caused her to prove to him how much he loved her, it turned out to be not only because his ego was tempered with, he wanted to test her loyalty the entire time. And all the times he prevented her from digging deeper into him and told her to stay out of political matters, now in S04 he no longer does that, since she actively joins every single conversation. Hürrem and Süleiman's relationship was put in a thorough deconstruction in S03 and S04, because after the slow Cerebus Syndrome transition began occurring and Yılmaz Şahin fully took over the script, the narrative stopped playing the love story completely straight and it put in the impression that it isn't focused on as much as it was before. So its more problematic aspects began showing even more down the line and it all lead into this very realization. The last episodes of Hürrem's life, while seeming like a cop-out, are genuine love letters for the fans and for Hürrem, with having Süleiman realize who he will lose and what will happen next, giving her the attention he never did. (I think the best Hürrem and Süleiman scenes we got, were in these episodes, along with the ones in the beginning episodes and right after the wedding, in E43-44.)

[And the episodes after Hürrem's death also make us question whatever he cares for her, because all he did there was straightforwardly betray her dying wish. Still, we should keep in mind that SS was at the peak of his downward spiral and it was Hürrem's death that sealed everything for him - losing the person who loved you dearly and was the most loyal one to you in your book, only caused catastrophic and devastating results, with SS going in her chambers in E136 and begging her to forgive him, right before the big fight between Selim and Beyezid began. There is everything else he did, yes, but losing HER is what caused him the truly neverending misery and what pushed him to such extremes, the loss of her loyalty broke him and finished him.]

Isabella and Firuze and Nazenin also add to these tests of loyalty, as well as being love triangles, added in for the drama. I feel SS did this not only to spite Hürrem, but also because he liked her unpredictability and he truly never expected for her to be this loyal in his eyes. It is possible he thought at some point due to his paranoia that she would give up on him, betray him, knowing that she also has her own ambitions. But seeing that none of that happened... perhaps all these continuous rifts in their relationship strived to show how strongly she loved him after all and maybe he came to appreciate that, even if it were too late. {note: the others said that SS loved Hü not exactly because of him refusing to take in concubines, but rather not taking concubines in for a long time. It illustrates more their hopes and beliefs (Mahidevran in E61: "Did you really think that his majesty couldn't be with other women?") and arguments presented when they need to win someone over for their cause to get rid of her. (like Hatice with Afife in S03) I always considered the Firuze arc more of a thematic tool than a dramatic one: aside from showing an actual continuous rift between Hürrem and SS, it breaks Hürrem's season two finale victory in half, enforcing even further that there isn't just any true long lasting victory that the themes won't condemn in this franchise. Nazenin was more for the parallels (Nurbanu - Nazenin; Hürrem - Gülnihal), while I never fully figured out what Isabella Fortuna was for, tbh.}

{He regarded Isabella as more of a toy, unfortunately, even with him saying that it was all somehow "a political game" with her and we had only him succumbing to his "manliness", protecting her from the snake and inviting her to a halvet only to spite Hürrem. With Firuze it was, admittedly, a bit more complicated, because he sure was infatuated with her to some extent, recited the exact same poetry to her, as well, but then again, we have the poisoning as a factor, and we have no idea to what extent it began to affect his psyche, besides him having to lay in bed in E78. I don't think Hürrem's intrigues had anything to do with the feelings he had for both of them, and I believe he would at some point have let them all go, exactly due to his ego and loyalty complex.}

I don't say that Süleiman's love for Hürrem is a healthy one, because oh noo, IT IS NOT, very far from it, in fact. Especially with the writers still keeping the status-quo with them the exact same even after he freed and married her, and for a while, it never made an actual difference. However, it is something that he didn't feel for anyone else in this harem and I would say that he indeed cherished it a lot.

[aion-rsa]

Could Durge’s Star Wars Return Lead to a Role in The Mandalorian or Book of Boba Fett?

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One of Star Wars’ most revered villains from its pre-Disney days of prequel-era stories is poised for a comeback. Durge, the fearsome bounty hunter best known from Genndy Tartakovsky’s 2003-2005 Star Wars: Clone Wars microseries, is set to make his Disney canon debut in the pages of Marvel’s Doctor Aphra #11. And with the upcoming arrival of Tartakovsky’s non-canon Clone Wars series on Disney+, it’s enough to make one speculate that bigger—live-action—plans might be in store for the character.

Durge was indeed immensely popular in the defunct Legends continuity of Star Wars in the early 2000s to the point that Matthew Stover’s 2005 novelization of Star Wars: Revenge of the Sith makes direct reference to the character among other notable shout-outs to the events of Tartakovsky’s series. He was one of the most visible characters during Lucasfilm’s onslaught of merchandising during the mid-prequel era, and even inspired multiple action figures made in Hasbro’s sacred 3 ¾” action figure line. Indeed, Durge was kind of a big deal, which makes him the perfect character to manifest in glorious live-action form on either The Mandalorian or The Book of Boba Fett.

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But first, check him out in all his classic splendor, thanks to a cover by artist Sara Pichelli, just below…

Marvel Comics

It may seem surreal to see Durge back in action after the post-Disney deluge of live-action and animated Star Wars offerings, but he was a crucial Expanded Universe villain during the brief era between the release of 2002 Prequel Trilogy middle act Attack of the Clones and 2005 closer Revenge of the Sith. Besides episodes showcasing the superlative abilities of the various Jedi we saw in the films, season 1 of the microseries also popularized Durge and fellow villain Asajj Ventress. However, while the latter—Count Dooku’s apprentice—became a prominent presence in the subsequent canonical The Clone Wars series, Durge got left behind.

Interestingly, Durge first entered the Expanded Universe when he—along with Ventress—graced the cover of Dark Horse Comics’ Star Wars: Republic #52, which was published on April 9, 2003, seven whole months before his debut in the fourth episode of Clone Wars aired on Cartoon Network. The guns-and-gadgets-toting, jet-pack-carrying bounty hunter character may look like a humanoid when covered head-to-toe in his intimidating grey armor, but he’s actually a 2000-year-old Gen’Dai, an invertebrate alien species that resembles exposed muscular and vascular tissue. He’s notably blessed with the formidable ability to manipulate his body to do just about anything, and can regenerate from any form of physical injury (even being blown to bits), save for being vaporized, which was a fate delivered to him in now-non-canon comic Obsession by Anakin, who had to force-push him into a star to get the job done.

Durge’s appearances on Star Wars: Clone Wars.

Durge’s motivation in the initial lore was a deep hatred—fueled over a millennium—for the Mandalorian race, attributed to (as we’d later learn) his capture during the New Sith Wars, a galactic conflict from over a thousand years ago that saw the Jedi and Mandalorians fight against the Sith. Serving as a warrior for the Sith, he was captured and tortured by the Mandalorians, an ordeal that left the Gen’Dai so ravaged it took nearly a century to reconstitute his body, leaving him permanently insane. However, with the population of the Mandalorians having been practically wiped out by the time of the Clone Wars, Durge became drawn to the idea of taking his bitterness out on the closest available thing: the Republic’s Grand Army, which, of course, consisted of clones of Mandalorian Jango Fett. Thus, he took up a contract with Separatist leader and Sith Lord Count Dooku to do just that, and, as famously seen in his Clone Wars episodes, led the Separatist forces in the Battle of Muunilinst, notably in an assault on speeder bikes, after which his odd arsenal and regenerative abilities gave Jedi general Obi-Wan Kenobi an infamously frustrating fight.

So, where would a forgotten early-2000s Legends lore relic like Durge fit in the modern era? After all, A LOT has happened since he last manifested, with the subsequent The Clone Wars series trampling over everything that happened in Tartakovsky’s series. However, with Tartakovsky’s Clone Wars poised for streaming consumption for an entirely new generation of fans on Disney+, the series—and the undeniable badassery of Durge—might not be left forgotten for much longer. Thus, the answer to the initial question is actually quite obvious: Durge can fit anywhere he chooses.

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How Star Wars: The Clone Wars Forgot About Durge

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How Star Wars: The Clone Wars Retconned the 2000s Clone Wars Series

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Durge’s canon debut in Doctor Aphra #11 is rife with unknown variables, including whether this version of the character even fought in the Clone Wars, but that is not to say that the crucial elements of his classic backstory won’t still manifest in some way—he still has to be a bounty hunter, he still has to be a freaky regenerative alien hermit crab, and he most definitely still has to hate Mandalorians. There lies the potential crucial link for Durge in the Disney+ live-action world, which, of course, is rife with Mandalorians. While the task of translating all the weird abilities Durge displayed on the Tartakovsky series would be intimidatingly exorbitant, it could nevertheless become intriguing fodder for a phenomenal climactic onscreen battle—be it against Din Djarin or Boba Fett.

A Durge appearance on The Mandalorian would certainly represent a radical departure from the show’s initial arc, which seemingly came to an end in season 2 when Luke Skywalker arrived to take custody of Baby Yoda. While Din will inevitably reunite with the Force-powered green tyke at some point, the teased arc for season 3 seems to center on his accidental ascension to Mandalorian leadership after wresting the sacred Darksaber from Moff Gideon. While that scenario presents potential problems, since Bo-Katan Kryze initially coveted the Darksaber (and can only legally attain it by taking it from Din in combat), one would think that Din being leader (even temporarily) of a resurgent Mandalorian people would also make him a prime target for a mind-warped, vengeance-seeking Durge.

On another note, Boba Fett’s teased new status as de facto king of the Outer Rim criminal underworld could also attract Durge’s attention, facilitating a similarly-motivated conflict with the eponymous cloned Mandalorian on The Book of Boba Fett. However, this scenario is far more speculative since we still don’t have official details on the show’s plot. Moreover, if that show ends up focusing on the galaxy’s seedier, “scum and villainy” side (which was how The Mandalorian started), then a villain as fantastical as Durge might not be the right thematic fit, at least initially.

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For now, fans (who don’t want to track down the DVDs) can get their fill of Durge’s classic exploits when Star Wars: Clone Wars—along with classic series Star Wars: Ewoks and Star Wars: Droids—joins the Disney+ streaming library on April 2. Meanwhile, Doctor Aphra #11 arrives June 30.

The post Could Durge’s Star Wars Return Lead to a Role in The Mandalorian or Book of Boba Fett? appeared first on Den of Geek.

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Beauty and the Beast Fic Recs

So! Fandom fic rec days are here (which, no, I totally did not forget about until I saw a post this morning), which means it’s time for me to share some of my all-time favourite BatB fics with you all. Most of these stories are on ff.net - please, don’t let that prejudice you against them. Every single one of these stories is thoughtful, well-written, and delightfully in-character. 

Let’s begin under the cut.

Multi-chap stories

Nothing like a multi-chap to keep you going, well into the night, right? Well, here are some of my personal favourites. 

Kissed By A Rose - SamoaPhoenix9 To begin, one of my absolute favourites, and one of the first BatB fics I ever read. The Beast is older, here - cursed from 15 to 25, with a heartbreaking backstory to why he is so closed-off to love and emotional vulnerability. Belle comes to the castle not just to save her father, but for another reason - she has been raped by Gaston, is now pregnant, and more than anything wants to avoid marriage to him. Her rape is never explicitly described, nor is it seen ‘on-screen’, but the emotional after-effects, and the way Belle and the Beast slowly learn to trust each other again, are touching and respectful. I would be here all day if I recc’d everything I want to by SamoaPhoenix9, so suffice to say that all of her BatB fic is excellent and you should read it now. 

Picture This - TrudiRose A believable Belle/Gaston fic? Where Gaston undergoes character development and changes as a person? And you actually end up rooting for Gaston? On my computer? Jokes aside, this is an absolute favourite of mine - TrudiRose has such a grasp on Gaston, and without fail manages to bring him over to the light side, instead of letting him spiral into the dark. For those of you wondering, there is no Beast in this fic - however, we really get to know the villagers as individuals, many of them based on the characters we see in ‘Belle’.

A Prince in Disguise - TheGreenArcher When Belle does’t get to the castle in time and is dragged back to the village by a victorious Gaston, the Enchantress takes pity on Adam and turns him back into a human. Instructed to find Belle and share her love, he ends up rescuing her from a blackmail-induced wedding to Gaston. Then, Belle, Maurice and Adam go on a road trip to escape Gaston -  neither of the former two realising that her beloved Beast is right beside them. This is described as an ‘alternate ending’, which I for one really enjoy - Lefou gets character development, we see Adam come to terms with his human body, and there’s even a Shrek tie-in!

Tune As Old As Song/Song As Old As Rhyme - So-crates Johnson These stories are closely related to each other, as both share the same premise; Belle, a book reviewer for the paper, meets guitarist for local rock band Adam while helping fellow reporter Chip with a story. While dodging the affections of the sports reporter, Gaston, Belle and Adam find that they have more in common than their tastes in music might dictate. ‘Tune As Old As Song’ has a fluffier storyline, as well as several bonus chapters detailing Belle and Adam’s tour of Europe with the band, and some hidden scenes. ‘Song As Old As Rhyme’ follows the movie’s plot a little more closely, but both are excellent stories. 

The Fairest of Them All, Who’s As Beautiful As Me - TrudiRose Another wonderful Gaston-centric fic from TrudiRose, this time pairing him with Snow White. Yeah - I know it sounds weird, but the two of them actually fit really well together. And there’s still plenty of plot - the Evil Queen wants Snow dead, Belle and Adam have to deal with Gaston still being alive, and a certain Prince shows up, determined to win back the girl he sang to so sweetly in the forest. This is another fic involving the villagers - you really get a sense that Molyneaux is a real town, filled with real people. 

One-shots

All Along - SamoaPhoenix9 Canon Belle and the Prince having a stroll through the gardens - and they both have some explanations about the curse they need to share. 

The Last Dance - TheGreenArcher The elderly Prince must learn to accept his beloved wife’s passing. But Belle always had a surprise up her sleeve to help him. 

Tea For Two - Pushmipullu Maurice and Mrs. Potts share a spot of tea on the evening of Belle and the Prince’s wedding. Cute and fluffy, especially if you ship the two of them. 

The Girl He’s Going To Marry - SamoaPhoenix9 The Prince had met the Enchantress before, as it turns out - and her relationship to Belle is one he finds equally surprising. 

Spring Fever - CarolNJoy A two-shot (?) where the Beast takes Belle out on a picnic to the lake in his castle. 

WIP’s

A Prince in Molyneaux - So-crates Johnson A non-magic AU, where Adam flees his father to avoid a) an arranged marriage and b) work. After a robbery, he’s left stranded in Molyneaux working for Gaston in his tavern. Although he gets off on the wrong foot with Belle, he soon finds that she is intelligent, kind, and intriguing. I love how So-crates gives the Bimbettes characters, and also how wonderfully boorish Gaston is. 

This Idyllic Scene - TrudiRose A sequel to ‘Picture This’, Belle and Gaston have four children and live their lives, interacting often with the other villagers - and occasionally with a certain Prince who lives nearby. I love this sequel, but if you dislike the ‘plotless’ feel of Anne of Green Gables, then this isn’t for you. 

The Mirror of Eden - GreenArcher An Assassin’s Creed crossover. When Belle, Adam, and their young son are separated during a siege of the castle, Adam fears he’ll never see them again. However, when a skilled Assassin named Arno saves their lives, and reveals that Adam’s father was involved with their organisation, the three of them know that their lives will never be the same. This is interspersed very neatly with flashbacks to earlier in Belle and Adam’s relationship, so you really get a sense of who they are and where they’re coming from. 

And of course, I finish by recc’ing my own stuff, like the hack I am. 

Behind A Fair Facade Belle and Adam are college roommates whose dislike soon melts into friendship - and maybe more. But Adam has a reason beyond Belle's smile for pursuing her love, to do with his parents tragic death ten years ago. And Belle has her own motives for choosing a college over a hundred miles from her beloved father. Can their friends get them to fall in love? Or, a modern AU where the curse is in the law, the Bimbettes have characters, for some reason France has been replaced by Scotland, and everything is linked thematically. If anybody drops a review on ao3 I would probably die of joy. 

A Rose’s Thorn (WIP) Because a prince insulted a witch, he was cursed. Because a girl fell in love, the spell was broken. But when a merchant chooses to trust his horse, the prince risks never breaking his enchantment. And the merchant's daughter will be trapped in marriage with a man she doesn't love. Can they find each other, even with all the changes to this tale as old as time? Or, Maurice never takes the fork in the road that leads to the Beast's castle.

The Beauty of a Beast An on-going series exploring Belle and Adam’s lives before, during, and after the curse. a03 - here ff.net - here