#lowkey think that movie altered my brain a bit

[livelaughliushen]

Bingqiu nation how are we feeling about a loose Secretary(2002) AU?

[cogcltrcorn]

I was tagged by @flippy-floppy , and I have maybe taken this a bit too seriously.

hmmm. this is actually very hard bc I am very bad at remembering things. also I very frequently obsess over books that are like, objectively Bad (like have I spent a solid 2 months thinking about it by stephen king and only about it by stephen king? yes. is it good? no. did I like it? no. did I still analyze it thoroughly? yes. next question). so. yeah. anyway

I will for sure wake up tomorrow like "OH MY GOD HOW COULD I FORGET [BLANK]" but I am at peace with that fact

in no particular order:

Fathers and sons, Ivan Turgenev - well. it's a book about russian nihilism, it's a book about the political schism between the generations in 19th century russia, and it's a book about idolizing reason and then being forced to contend with the fact that you are still a human being that is both capable of love and craves it deeply. also it is lowkey about being a college student homoerotically enraptured with your very smart and charismatic friend who is an absolute dick. and what happens if you bring this guy to stay with you and your family during the break.

chronicles of amber by roger zelazny - I am gonna be honest with you I do not remember half of that series. including this might be cheating bc it's like. 10 books. whatever. rules are made up. it's good. it's very fucking good. just writing about it right now makes me want to reread it. anyway it's fantasy and there's reality shifting and there is complex lore and yeah no I think this book has radically altered my brain chemistry when I read it.

twenty thousand leagues under the seas by jules verne - look. 9 yo cog fucking Loved boring descriptions of marine wildlife. I was fucking Entranced by this book. this book started my years long obsession with jules verne novels. I may or may not be autistic. like really I can put like. 5 jules verne books on this list. are they incredibly dated and filled to the brim with trademarked 19th century classist and racist bullshit? yes. are they boring as fuck if you do not care about like, the mechanics of building a kiln on a deserted island? yes. but I did. I did care about building a kiln. I wanted to know how traveling to the center of the earth would go. and I wanted to know if the gentleman could get around the world in 80 days. whatever. the important things is that I loved those books and I still love them and they are, at their core, about how fucking cool humans are and how we are capable of great achievements if we apply ourselves and how incredible the world around us is.

do androids dream of electric sheep? by philip k dick - once again there could be like. 4 books on this list. I fucking love his stuff actually. the man has spent his entire life doing coke, getting scared as a result, and then writing kick ass novels about what scared him. he got really into gnosticism by the end of his life. he thought that god talked to him through a spot of light. I fucking love his books. anyway. this specific one is about the way human spirit sirvives in a future that is rendered nearly uninhabitable by capitalistic greed. the world of do androids dream of electric sheep is artificial, obsessed with its own artificiality, and obsessed with proving itself to be Not artificial, ironically, inventing increasingly artificial ways to prove it. plot twist! the only real thing in the world built for profit is the human connections you build! anyway. I have beef with blade runner the movie bc it is NOT A GOOD ADAPTATION OF THE BOOK and has NOTHING TO DO WITH IT. I AM SICK AND TIRED.

actually I lied. here is another philip k dick novel

a scanner darkly - well. how do I explain. ok so basically this is a deeply biographical novel about the loss of identity and connection to reality as a result of drug usage. I fucking love it. reading it makes me go fucking insane. I highly recommend this to all of you, my darling succession mutuals

interview with the vampire, anne rice - made me insane. a theological and philosophical discussion with the guy with the weirdest moral code you have ever seen, with the added bonus of him complaining about his stupid greedy whore of an ex-husband

obligatory mention of 1984 by george orwell - well sorry. he did spit some facts here. also i need to re-read this bc I last read it like 6 years ago and I miss it. I feel kinda unoriginal by saying I love it but like. it Is good. I want to kill the protagonist with hammers, but it IS good... I think of her (1984 by george orwell) often....

red dragon, thomas harris - ok well you see I don't actually have to explain anything to you, do I? I just love it. don't know why. will graham is like a bug to me.

the count of monte cristo, alexander dumas - YET AGAIN!! GOD IS THIS BOOK ENCHANTING IF YOU ARE A CHILD NERD. it has everything: prison escape, complex revenge plot, brooding hero, a long ass side story that seems to have no connection to the main plot but eventually connects back to it, 19th century orientalism. man.

seeing the things other people have posted for this thingy made me realize I need to diversify my reading habits. mayhaps a man should not exclusively read postmodernist sci-fi and 19th century adventure novels. oh well.

anyway. if you wanna do it you can and you should. also go read philip k dick he is underrated as fuck

[hopeymchope]

Godzilla Singular Point

I came into Singular Point with some trepidation because Godzilla’s history in anime is both very recent and extremely bad. The three anime movies released between 2017 and 2019 are easily the worst work of famed writer Gen Urobuchi and honestly contain more bullshit than I can even get into here. Those movies and this series were both Godzilla anime properties commissioned by Netflix, which didn’t get my hopes up very much. Thankfully, Singular Point is a very different beast from the anime trilogy. One could argue it’s very different from most Godzilla media, actually — at least from my perspective. And I’m still a pretty entry-level fan of Toho’s Big G, all things considered.

Let me just warn you right up front: This smartphone-based virtual assistant is basically the breakout star of the series. 

When you think “Godzilla,” you probably don’t think “incredibly dense sci-fi concepts,” but with the big G’s first-ever anime series, the writers clearly set out to change that perception. Before the first kaiju even appears, the lead characters are plucked from obscurity and dropped into a mystery that involves fourth-dimensional time travel, physical objects that look different from all sides, theoretical math concepts, self-propagating A.I., and a whole lot more. And it’s NEVER made clear how all of it connects to the rampaging kaiju! Although we spend a lot of time investigating a red dust or sand that is very obviously tied to the monsters in SOME way, no one ever makes a connection that explains the relationship. Maybe we’re supposed to wait for a later season to connect the threads... but let’s get into the idea of “another season” later.

I like to think of myself as someone who typically enjoys hard sci-fi, but even with the characters spending loads of time trying to explain the high concepts driving the story, I was never able to fully wrap my head around what was going on in the mystery at the center of GSP. I rewound and rewatched a few explanations, but I still walked away feeling lost. I eventually settled on some vague, loose understandings of most of the ideas mentioned, but those understandings were subject to being ripped apart in subsequent scenes when I was shown or told something completely at odds with what I thought I knew. I can’t say I was ever bored with the thick, dense scientific concepts on offer — trying to find purchase with these far-out ideas kept me glued to the screen — but damn, I sure wish I was able to comprehend them.

What do we want?! DENSE SCIENTIFIC DISCUSSION AND DEBATE! When do we want it?! AFTER THOROUGH RESEARCH, TESTING, AND PEER REVIEW!

Another weird thing about this show is that the lead characters remain in separate locations and on separate tracks for the entire duration. We have Yun — a mechanical engineer and programmer who has an amazing grasp on physics and human behavior. And we have Mei — a grad student who is deeply invested in theoretical science, UMAs, cryptids and other far-flung concepts. Both of them are basically geniuses in their fields, and even though they take opposing views of just how flexible reality is, their shared ability to think “outside the box” becomes the crucial component in solving the mystery at the core of the series. Because they don’t even know one another (despite being separated by like, ONE degree), they only ever interact via text messages and behind screen names, which feels pretty damn weird. At least  I immediately liked both of them, with Yun being the standout to me because of how his lowkey reactions to crazy shit generates a lot of humor.

This soundtrack cover LIES; you will never see these characters in a room together like this. 

Alas, we don’t get to know the characters a whole lot beyond what we learned of them in the first two episodes. It’s not long before they’re trapped in a series of complicated exposition dumps, endlessly attempting to explain the high concepts of the show to other characters as well as my dumb ass in the audience. The fact that I liked them in the first couple of episodes carried me through more than half of the show, but I was always hoping to see them share more of themselves or just display more emotion. Anime as a medium excels at emotional storytelling. But despite the major, world-altering events the characters are constantly warning us about, none of them seem to have many emotions about said events. 

Further complicating matters is how, when major events finally occur in this show, they are often kept off-screen. One character shockingly dies, but the portrayal of that death is so piss-poor that I didn’t even realize it’d happened until someone mentioned their death in the next episode. After that vague death, I was particularly sensitive to anything that looked like it might possibly be lethal. Yet a later event that is played up as a tragic, fatal occurrence ends up... fine, somehow? It’s not clear how the character survives, because — even after one of our heroes is left screaming their name in despair as they seemingly die — nobody ever talks about or explains how he’s just fine a couple of scenes later. And near the end of the series, there’s a major transformation that occurs for one of the characters, and we never see it happen nor do we understand HOW it happened. It’s just that suddenly, this character is extremely different due to off-screen reasons that are only vaguely verbalized.

I guess these two really bonded at some point for some reason? And what you are seeing here is literally the height of emotion shown in the entire show.

Even though the overarching story of the series so far pretty clearly wraps up in episode 13, we then get a post-credits tease for a potential second season. So the question becomes: Would I watch that?

Well... Godzilla Singular Point is a series with a lot of issues that kept me at arms’ length from it — tons of extremely confusing dialogue, highly frustrating choices in direction that lead to baffling storytelling, characters who are mostly exposition-dumping — and yet there’s still some foundational work here that I appreciated a lot. When the action occurs, it’s pretty cool/fun. And when urban destruction occurs, it can be awe-inspiring. The human characters, though little-explored, have likable and interesting foundations to them that could be expanded upon. And I didn’t even mention the soundtrack, which features a variety of musical styles combined with the classic Ifukube theme music and an OP that is an absolute banger. (I have a weakness when it comes to music; a good soundtrack can carry me through even the blandest series sometimes.) Even the core idea of centering a Godzilla series around hard science and mathematical concepts is a compelling one, I think! I just hated the execution of it; they went waaaaay too far on poorly explaining incredibly complex, mind-bending concepts for my pea brain to handle it. They spend so much time trying to explain things, yet somehow they never succeeded for me. 

Ultimately, I’d probably give the show another chance. But if I do give another season a chance, it’ll be on probation. I wouldn’t watch the entire season unless I could see within four episodes that they’d definitely improved things.

Would I recommend that anyone watch the series as it currently stands? I mean... not really? I guess if you really dig complex math, hard theoretical science, and/or Toho’s stable of monsters, then maaaaaaaaaaybe give it a shot. But otherwise? Naaaahh. It’s not good enough at anything to make it stand out from the anime crowd. I didn’t hate it like I hated the Godzilla anime films, but Singular Point is still something that both casual viewers and most fans can comfortably ignore for the time being. It’s not a complete disaster, and it’s not without its highlights... but it’s definitely disappointing in my opinion.

OKAYOKAYOKAY, so let’s talk about the kaiju for a bit! 

Below will be SPOILERS revealing all of the kaiju that appear in Godzilla Singular Point and giving my feelings on them. 

Godzilla — It’s interesting to see a version of Godzilla that borrows some ideas from Shin Godzilla. Shin G has been incredibly unique until now, but this Godzilla manages to fold some of Shin’s distinctive aspects in with the more classic/typical versions to build a fun new depiction. Be forewarned that Godzilla doesn’t show up until the series is halfway over, and he doesn’t get a ton of screen time, either. He’s used quite sparingly and kept in hazy settings, often framed from the neck-up when they show him. It’s a little frustrating that they felt the need to shroud him so much, but I respect the fact that whenever Godzilla is shown, the destruction he causes is on a scale far beyond anything that the rest of the kaiju ever do. He is pure devastation. 

Rodan — He’s easily the biological kaiju with the most screen time in Singular Point. Rodan is first introduced as one gigantic pterosaur, but if you���ve seen ANY trailers for this show then you already know that his depiction transitions into an asston of smaller pterosaurs, all of whom are also called “Rodan.” (Apparently the word Rodan is both singular and plural, like the word “buffalo.”) Although he looks kind of cool at first, pretty soon Rodan showing up isn’t special or threatening anymore. Rodan appearances go from “a big goddamn deal” to “some bland background noise” before the series is even 1/3 finished. The design might be a little too far removed from the original for my own taste, but even if I didn’t think that, I wouldn’t be able to care for this Rodan simply because he’s rendered so unimportant and unimpressive.

If you go out in the woods today, you’re sure of a big surprise... 

Anguirus — Now check this guy out! Anguirus gets one of the coolest fights in the show and also demonstrates some powers that are well beyond anything we’ve seen him do before. Because he sticks to unpopulated areas, we never see him do much damage to Japan, but he is definitely holding all the attention when he’s on-screen. He’s a highlight for me — a total badass who is very unique in his abilities. And the stated origin for his name is goddamn adorable.

Manda — Yup, Manda is in this series... but I don’t have much to say for him. It seems like the creators of the anime didn’t have much to say about him either. His role amounts to little more than a repeated cameo, and in most of those cameos you only ever see his tail. When we finally see his full body, it’s done so briefly and kept at a distance, leaving me with no real impression. I had to look up his design online and... yup, that sure looks like Manda. Final score: MEEEEHH.

Kumonga — I definitely did not see this appearance coming! Kumonga is much smaller here than you may be used to, but she gets to star in the most suspenseful sequence in the series and easily earns the most exciting cliffhanger moment at the end of an episode. I was utterly glued to the show during her screen time, which comes with a lot of icky twists. Good ones! I honestly like Kumonga here more than I ever have previously.

NEW PHONE WHO DIS

Salunga — Uh, who? This is the one monster that isn’t based on a classic Toho kaiju but instead is a brand-new creation. I suppose that everybody who touches the Toho Kaiju franchise wants to make their own mark on it in some regard. But a big part of the fun of this series for me personally was the anticipation of seeing new interpretations and designs of classic Toho monsters. And so, given that he kind of resembles both Baragon and Gabara, I never stopped wishing they’d just used one of those guys as the basis and namesake. Taken on his own, however? He’s... pretty neat. Not unique or exciting, but solidly above par.  He resembles a cross between a lizard/dinosaur and an ape, plus his head has some nifty coloration. 

Our Jaguar!

Jet Jaguar — I guess Jet Jaguar isn’t exactly a kaiju in the traditional sense because he’s a Giant Robot. However, if you want to consider him one, then I wager he probably gets even more screen time than Rodan! We meet him almost immediately when the series begins. Initially an odd pilot-driven robot that was constructed at the whim of a quirky old factory-owner with too much disposable income, Jet Jaguar grows and changes over the course of the show, ultimately undergoing a transition in episode 7 that makes him pretty damn impossible to dislike. In fact, I utterly adored him by then. This is definitely the best Jet Jaguar I’ve ever seen. His design is recognizably similar to the original yet utterly distinct, too. Like many of the other kaiju here, he’s not nearly as big as he was when he was first introduced to the movies, but his size is ideal for battling the smaller-scale monsters that we spend most of the series on.