#so obviously i made it a style savvy reference....

[tenebrous-dream]

finally changed my blog name rip scaritsia

[bubbipond]

Bison had no intention (in the beginning) of being with Kant just as much as Kant/Style had/have no intentions of being with Fadel/Bison. Now this is just my opinion, and in no way, am I trying to be condescending (since I’ve gotten that before when I have made analysis posts). In a general sense, if you are easily defensive, maybe reading people’s opinions is not for you. But if you want to read because you like to read other people’s thoughts, enjoy. ❤️

I am going to use *10 Things as my reference because I think it leans more people have seen that than *Taming. If you haven’t read Taming or watched 10 Things, this may help you understand what a lot of the fandom talks about. For those who have watched or read either of the references for THK we know that the story is that Kat (Fadel) is the impossible sister who will never marry, and that Bianca (Bison) is the sister that everybody wants. In order to get both of his daughter’s married, their father decides to make it a rule that the only way Bianca can get married is if Kat gets married. This leads to the plot of manipulating Kat into being “Tamed” by her love interest in the original text (the movie moves away from this and instead has Patrick love her for who she is).

Going back to Bison, his character reflects that of Bianca; the very popular, beautiful, and wanted little sister (brother). The thing that I think some people are getting wrong about Bison is that he is more of a loverboy than he actually is. In the movie adaption, Bianca has no intention of ever being with Cameron. I’d say she’s not even that into Joey either, just wants the popularity dating him brings. She uses him as a ruse to get Kat to finally date so she can date. In the beginning, she kind of sees Cameron as a cute puppy. Almost like this person that she can manipulate just because she knows they want something from her. She eventually does start to like Cameron, but there are trials that she has to go through to see that. That being said, I don’t think Bison initially wanted to be with Kant. I think much like Bianca he was trying to free himself from what he sees as a lack of freedom and free will.

It’s not that I’m saying he doesn’t want revenge for his parents (he obviously does, but that is seemingly a ruse by “mom” to keep them around). But it is more so that just like Bianca, his brother is an obstacle within itself. The issue here is that he loves his brother (just like Bianca loves Kat) but neither set of siblings truly knows the other. They fight to protect each other, but can’t even do that because how do you protect someone you don’t truly understand? The only person in the reference material who is truly a victim of the plot is Kat (Fadel) as they are the only people in their stories who have genuine feelings for Patrick (Style). At no point is any of it a joke or a game or even a ploy to get what they want. In general, neither Kat nor Fadel are that savvy and both are far too levelheaded to do anything that the other characters do. So when you look at the motivation behind Bison’s attempt at freedom, he has to be far more savvy than anyone around him.

This is because you have to keep in mind that both Bianca and Bison’s goals aren’t to trick or hurt their sibling. They are looking for someone who would love their “difficult” sibling while also getting something in return. Bison didn’t mean for Kant to hire someone to fake like his brother. Just as much as Bianca didn’t ask Cameron to hire someone to fake date her sister. They are both fiercely protective of their older sibling and that is why we constantly see Bison five steps ahead or paying attention to things that even Fadel isn’t. I think what adds to the story is that the stakes are much higher. In 10 Things you have a bunch of high schoolers dealing with pretty high school issues. But in this sense, you have people’s livelihood at stake. So I think it feels like so much more pain is being brought up than in the original media. It’s easier to find fault in Kant, Style, and Bison because we’re watching a bunch of people do pretty terrible things. But I think for this type of story, you have to kind of remove morals because all four are pretty morally gray. None of them are perfect people or, like in the movie, kids.

Anyway, that’s all for me! Bye!

*Taming = Taming of the Shrew by William Shakespeare (play) *10 Things=10 Things I Hate About You (movie adaption of said play).

[ran-orimoto]

Sometimes I find myself thinking how in the 2022 drama Izumi and Junpei seem to be the characters they tried connecting with Train of Hope the most (if not exclusively)? I feel like they tried giving more flesh to the choices of their careers, and I do appreciate it SO much?

The story of Izumi and her waistband is surely a reference to her becoming a reader model in the future. Her conversation with Fairymon does point at that imo, because it seems to be a reference to how she’s certain Izumi will create a sort of trend with that new style of hers (and she will do the same in Digiworld). So I feel like the whole weirdness of that gag wanted to underline Izumi can have an influence on people, can become a model (in another sense of the word this time, help XD).

Junpei and his Detective Shibayama craziness, instead, is a BLATANT way to underline he has developed an even more theatrical nature. Now that he has got friends, he seems to be able to be at the center of attention like he wants to, probably gaining nicknames and building his own fantasies on them thanks to his genre savvy personality (remember the horror tropes he randomly throws into a silly scold to Takuya lmao). In whatever way the Detective Shibayama thing was born, it still shows how Junpei is growing into a person who can aim at entering the entertainment field. He won’t get his detective show, -at least so we know, what a pity, Junpei XD-, but the good news is that opera singers often star in special productions giving opera pieces a cinematographic form…So he’ll have fun, I think so. He’ll have a lot of fun, though that drama kinda made me wish he had ended up being an actor for real, not only indirectly.

And then they just decided to also make a minuscule connection with TOH through Junpei saying “Ah, SO she won’t understand if you don’t confess directly uhm?”, which IS SO OBVIOUSLY RECALLING THE “IF YOU HAVE TO SAY SOMETHING, SAY IT AND CLEARLY” Izumi quote from TOH. And this makes me wonder if Junpei becoming a tenor can’t also be a symbol of him eventually finding his own voice for something ELSE as well. Like ehm writers. EHM.

[woolieshubris]

OKAY im going to preface rant with this- 1) i know none of yall know this game cuz while its popular enough to get a series, its not really popular enough to be part of the general consciousness 2) I've only played the 3rd and 4th installments, so I dont have an extensive knowledge on the series. What I'd want to see in Girls Mode 5 (Aka, style savvy 4, or new style boutique 4) 1) UPDATED TEXTURES. this game has been going on since the DS days, and they just port the old clothes into the new games to pad out the inventory. It's nice because it means you can pretty much move on to the new games with little to no regrets, however the textures on the 3ds XL screen, and emulator (because emulator is the only way to get HD screenshots lol rip) are really really nasty. It's super pixelly but not in a nostalgic way, and it clashes heavily with the newer textures and clothes, making it harder to coordinate outfits. The new game would be coming out on the switch, so the old textures would be even more noticeable when on a TV. You don't need to update the models itself, just the textures on the models. 2) KEEP THE MINI PLOTS. GM 4 has a really cute system with the characters, making it so a handful of them have reoccurring stories and plots! (Not every single one of the characters, because there are tons). I really like this, and it genuinely makes me play day after day. 3) FIX THE DAYS SYSTEM. GM 3 had a day system similar to animal crossing, where the stores and story would only update on a day by day basis. I liked the stores only updating once a day (made it less overwhelming to check for new clothing) but the story progression was longer. GM 3 did have less plot to follow however, so it made more sense. GM 4 has a day system typical of life sim games, where you go to sleep when you run out of tasks to do for the day. I like this system because it doesn't limit the things you can do in one play session, and it can make the story more engaging. It also updates the stores more often, making it easier to 100% and collect all of the clothes, however, it makes the game less engaging over time, and doesn't give an incentive to play day after day. I think a mix between the two could create a more interesting game, but I'm not sure how they would go about doing that. There are pros and cons to each system. 4) BRING BACK RAINBOW Rainbow was a character in GM 3, where by taking screenshots of the game and showing them to her, she would find and unlock hidden colors. I really like this mechanic and think it is interesting, even though it can be a bit tedious at times. Maybe a system where instead of you showing the pictures, she automatically tells you if you unlocked them + shows you the photo that unlocked it? 5) REMOVE OR CHANGE THE DESIGN CLOTHES The main gimmick of GM 4 was designing your own clothes. The game doesn't really push you to do it at all, and the clothes they have you design don't match the clothes already in the game. Most of these "customization" options in games aren't actually that useful and I personally just ignore them in favor of prebuilt pretty clothes. I think either changing it so that certain clothes can be recolored by you/dyed, or changing it so that you can recycle clothes into new ones would be interesting, and a good way to add the mechanic to future games. 6) CHANGE THE BUILDING EDITING SYSTEM. GM 3 and GM 4 both struggle with a clunky furniture moving system. The design is similar to happy house designer, however the menus feel clunky to navigate through and are overall more difficult to use. I think revamping it a bit to make it smoother would be the way to go. GM 3 had a dollhouse theme, and so changing the furniture and collecting new pieces was referred to as collecting miniatures, which I liked. 7) INCLUDE MORE STYLES OF CLOTHING. One of the biggest draws of the GM series, that brought me to it specifically, was the subculture themed clothing! They have punk/emo, classic/sweet lolita, gothic lolita, "retro", preppy, decora kei, and probably more. Adding more styles, such

as Mori, would be a good move for the series, and also a good way to market it to a young teen demographic, especially as dress up games become more popular. 8) REMOVE/CHANGE THE BOHO-CHIC ITEMS. A lot of the boho-chic items in the game are actually just culturally appropriated from native americans, which while true to the style it is trying to emulate, is a bit weird to see, and could cause controversy later in the line. This game is made by a japanese company and translated to english, so I understand why they are still in a game that came out in 2017 but still, it isn't a great look for nintendo. 9) ALLOW YOURSELF TO CHANGE YOUR PERSONA LATER IN THE GAME. In GM 4 and 3, at the start of the game, you get to design a character and choose facial features, skintone and height. You should be able to edit the character later in the game, possibly through settings or something. Fixed character customization is a bit of an outdated thing anyways, with most modern games allowing you to change your avatar as much as you want. 10) CHANGE ONLINE PLAY. Currently, in GM 3 and 4, online play usually consists of sharing the building and your personas outfit. I think there should be less of an emphasis of sharing the building, and more emphasis on sharing outfits, since that is what the game centers around. Obviously the boutique interior is the place you are going to see the most in the game, but focusing on outfits you have created makes more sense for the series and genre. There are more additions/changes to the series that I'd like to see, such as a larger male catalogue/allowing to pick a male avatar, a range of body types, LGBT rep, or disability rep, however, I know those are mostly too much to ask for a light hearted dress up game RPG made for a young female demographic, sadly. I think marketing the game largely to young teens on platforms such as instagram and tiktok, and emphasizing the subculture styles such as punk and y2k would be a great marketing strategy, especially since those demographics are flocking to online dress up browser games that have a similar focus. Promoting the shareability of the ingame outfits by having an easy/quick to use photo booth and an easy way to crop the photos/videos to fit a phone format would also be a great way to have the game spread through word of mouth. Of course, nintendo can kind of suck at marketing their games, especially more obscure titles like this, so I don't expect most or really any of this to happen.

[omegatheunknown]

AEW Double or Nothing 2021

In which the spirit of WCW is alive in confusing and delightful ways and we are left to parse whether overbooking and extracurriculars are offset by having actually very good wrestling happening at the same time.

- Lessons learned from Revolution on the production side? Maybe just cool it on pyro, though the rappelling adventure in the Stadium Stampede showed some of that now-characteristic 'trust us it'll look better on TV' flair. Hot crowd tends to paper over most woes, and the crowd was pretty hot. My one gripe is that the casino theme is hanging around like yesterday's takeout containers. Nothing wrong with clinging to a theme, I just think it's time for season 2. My suggestion? Under the Sea.

*Pre-Card Serena Deeb (C) v Riho for the NWA Women's Championship (***1/2) - Serena Deeb's star has finally risen. She's a remarkably consistent technician and she can get a match out of anyone at this point. She's working at the level of Mercedes Martinez or Madison Eagles at this point, it's amazing that she was overlooked or considered fit only to be a coach for so long. With the NWA belt she has this new swagger, she's basically everything Tessa Blanchard might bring to the table with none of the downsides (Serena has a lot of friends and seems like a lovely person, even!) - Riho's back and here to stay. Her time in Stardom didn't do much for my evaluation of her, which is that there are many better wrestlers that would be better representatives of the joshi style and she's merely pretty good. - The match was very good. Serena showcased a champion's aggression against a sympathetic Riho, they really work well against each other, Deeb's technical prowess against Riho's flexibility led to a very dynamic finish.

*Main Card Hangman Adam Page v Brian Cage (***1/2) - Here the shenanigans start. Brian Cage is on Team Taz, Team Taz has nothing else much to do tonight, so why wouldn't Team Taz flex their muscles, bait us with HOOK, etc? (Because it would be nice to have some variety in the card in terms of a match where one competitor stands across from another competitor?) - Hangman is (checking notes) yeah, still over as fuck, as befits the Anxious Millennial Cowboy. Cage terrifies me, he's a child's drawing of a body builder. He do be very agile for a man of his immense musculature tho. They match up well, Page is biggish for a flyer, Cage loves to play catch. Nothing much to write home about, other than Hangman's beautiful moonsault to the floor and what was overall a very good curtain jerker. - Okay fine, I am curious about Cage's reluctance to lean on the goons, Starks can't come back soon enough.

The Young Bucks v Jon Moxley & Eddie Kingston (***) - I will not be referring to Mox & Eddie as (The) Wild Things because it gives me 'he calls it the wacky line' flashbacks for some reason. - The Bucks have to cheat and abuse Rick Knox's attention span constantly to be on even footing with Mox & Eddie, which is a clever sort of thing that gets washed out by the appearance of LG and Karl Anderson, which again, is cool in a vacuum but was the story of the evening. - Pace was weird - repetitive in eliminating Eddie, then Mox fights back, failed hope spot, Bucks team up, Eddie saves x2/3 in a row. - Mox, unlike Cody (in so many ways,) will probably actually be taking some time off with Renee, which is the kind of thing I would prefer not to know in terms of booking, but they really uh, put him down on the canvas here, and it felt pretty finale-esque.

Casino Battle Royale (n/r, but on the balance pro) - Any changes to the theme of the PPV would likely include changing up the nonsense suit format of these largely joyless slogs. - Obviously anticipating a NJPW talent, or... I dunno, actually -- Lio Rush was a surprise. Got in a quick demonstration of his otherworldly quickness, and you know what, there's probably a fun place for him in AEW. He'll need some friends, of course, feel like Team Taz might fit his temperament. I wonder if he was aware of the Mark Henry news... - Christian does not need to win this kind of match to get a title shot, obviously, but that said it was super lovely to use him to give Jungle Boy the shine. Jungle Boy would be a license to print money if he was even as big as Hangman. - Could register some continued griping about how Penta is not getting his due in AEW but he also literally was dressed as the Joker so I'm low on sympathy on this one particular night.

Anthony Ogogo v Cody Rhodes (*) - I did not like this. It's hard for me to read jingoism as a face move to begin with, and Cody's was egregiously tone deaf and kinda silly yet delivered without a trace of irony because Cody doesn't do irony on purpose, ridiculous neck tattoo aside. - Great argument to be made that Ogogo just isn't experienced enough to be winning matches against Cody. But like, what are we doing here? Cody needs to take some time off, maybe. I thought that's what was happening when he had his mini feud with Penta that really just ended in quick decisive Cody win. I though maybe Cody was being turned when QT and The Factory snapped-- sure, they're a group of impotent player 2s, but Cody is an out of touch elitist with a callous and manipulative streak. Alas, also no. America #1. - Cody is approximately 8 times as tough as Billy Gunn based on his weathering of the one punch man. Match ran a bit long given how little there was to go on. Cody gigged? Quelle surprise. - Cody had the best match on the card like, 3 out of the first 4 AEW events or something, and that was all booking and storytelling. I do hope Cody follows Moxley's lead into a little sabbatical.

Miro (C) v Lance Archer for the TNT Championship (**1/2) - Card's hossiest hoss match, a quick burst reminiscent of a car wreck. Absolutely hit on what it should've hit on but a little slow moving considering it went all of 10 minutes. - I will not complain about Jake the Snake, who I love. And also the gimmick spot, with Miro very astutely yeeting what was definitely a snake in a bag (surely.) back down the tunnel.

Dr Britt Baker, DMD v Hikaru Shida (C) for the AEW Women's Championship (***) - Picked up a lot of steam toward the end but seemed a little toothless (heh) until the last five. - Shida 'deserved' some more time as champion in front of crowds but also it's time to let heel Britt reach her peak, I can't even imagine how obnoxious she can be as the champ, it's going to be great.

Sting & Darby Allin v Ethan Page & Scorpio Sky (***1/2) - Such is the power of STING that I feel like I might be underrating this match... I mean it was an okay match about very simply getting some revenge and the sixty year old man did a very subdued Code Red and a slightly less subdued dive. He's also Sting. They missed an opportunity in calling it the 'Scorpio' Death Drop, but the main takeaway here is you see something like this where it's The Icon and you start to understand why WWE trots out their legends to come out of incredibly still kick ass without bending their knees. - The difference, I guess, is that Sting is absolutely being used to build up Darby Allin, whereas it's not like the fed brought back Goldberg and his attendant aura to pump up... anyone but Goldberg?

Kenny Omega (C) v PAC v Orange Cassidy for the AEW World Championship (****) - Off the top I have to say I'm very sad that the rest of the Galaxy's Greatest Friends were seen only very briefly, nice of them to bring OC's backpack. - Also have to point out that PAC's promo featured one of my favourite jokes, that Kenny must be short for Kenneth as a sort of legal/birth name belonging to a professional wrestler. (See also: Samoa Joseph) - And Mr Cassidy certainly did try in this match, ragdoll sells and all. Kenneth and PAC are absurd talents who bring aerial, power and technical maneuvers in equal measure and OC is not doing any of those on the same level, but he picked his spots, showed his genre savvy and hung in there to the point that he wasn't just the fall guy. - The extracurriculars continue in a match that was already a little overboard for silliness due to asymmetry... I think if you're the Invisible Hand it would've made sense to save up all your tricks for this match, but who am I to question the golden goose? - Sure, Kenny and Don ran the classic heel manager interference spot and taking out the ref in desperation spot but having to take out the ref because PAC wouldn't break the hold is fun, as is the stupid/inspired sense in running the 'smash opponent with the belt' spot four times so as none of your heavy gold prizes feel left out. (I love that AAA Mega Championship, they weren't on TV so we get to see it?) - "Fuck You, Don," indeed.

The Inner Circle v The Pinnacle in 'Stadium Stampede II' (***1/2) - This one had to grow on me for two reasons, first that it's usually pretty unforgivable to co-opt the main event spot from the championship match, and second to law of diminishing returns on dumb gimmick matches. - But grow it did. There's a full on meat locker? Commentary will refer to a cardboard cut-out of Shahid Khan as Tony Khan's father (that's canon now,) and Jericho will lovingly pat it? Konnan happened to be the DJ at whatever night club there is a Jaguar Stadium? Spears surrounds himself dramatically with chairs and his hoisted by his own petard? - Ultimately it comes down to letting Sammy shine. His involvement with the Inner Circle has sometimes come at the cost of being able to showcase that prior to AEW he was an ascendant talent in PWG, on his way to Ricochet level feats of acrobatic excess. Still feel like Sammy could've/should've been the one tossed off the cage a few weeks ago, but even better is being the guy getting the pin in the ring.

[curestardust]

if you want: non-conventional character designs and personalities / animation struggles / the process of creating animations / blend of “real world” and “imagination” shown through different artstyles and animation / great music (although repetition fatigue possible)

"Keep Your Hands Off Eizouken!” with Eizouken meaning Film Club of sorts (I believe) is one of the best examples of how the most basic of ideas can be made into something incredibly unique. “Eizouken”’s basic plot is this: 3 girls want to create a club to make anime but they run into a problem in the very beginning. A premise we’ve seen a thousand times before.

But add some non-conventional character designs with great voice actors, a town with odd but stimulating architecture, animation and art style that can change on a whim and a main plot that’s just believable enough yet surrounded with the usual completely fictional stuff you’d normally see in anime and you get something that took a very basic premise and made it its own.

Our main characters are (and I’ll refer to them by their surnames because that’s most often used in the anime) Asakusa, who draws still life and then makes them into a fantastical setting, Kanamori, a business savvy and no-nonsense character who has no interest in anime but sees the money in it and, Mizusaki, a young model who has always been obsessed with movement and later on animation. Kanamori sees the potential in pairing up the 2 but there’s a problem: Mizusaki’s parents won’t let her join the anime club because they want her to be an actor. Which is how the 3 of them take the “Live-Action Film Club” as their own (just forget the “live.action” part). Being a new club they start out with basically nothing besides a rundown old warehouse.

In this anime the gang are going to create 3 anime shorts and we can see them improve and get more and more people involved in the process, like a little start-up indie studio. A lot of the ideas are shown as if the characters were inside the animation they’re brainstorming about. The art style changes in these scenes as well. And as I said, the town they live in has such a weird architecture that it’s often the source of the ideas Asakusa comes up with.

“Eizouken” is mostly for animation nerds. There are a lot of stuff mentioned or shown that I know only people who’ve gone through the same struggles can relate to the most although that doesn’t mean that people with no experience can’t enjoy the anime. What is a problem however is that the focal point is so obviously the animations being created by the gang that the “outside drama” brought up is very, very weak and ultimately has no bearing on anything whatsoever. Another “problem” of mine was that the 3 shorts are very same-ish genre. It’s obvious that Asakusa has her interests but as she is also the storyboarder and the one who comes with the story and the details, the 3 shorts didn’t feel different enough. I really think a 4th main character who works on the plot and storyboard seperately would’ve been great.

All in all, “Eizouken” is an enjoyable and fun to watch anime with quite an interesting cast. Although, I can see the anime easily getting boring to some. 

[8/10] (x)

Recommend: HELL Yeah! | Yes | Eh??? | Nope | This anime killed my parents

[tswiftdaily]

Rolling Stone: Taylor Swift Reaches For New Heights of Personal and Musical Liberation on ‘Lover’

Her epic seventh album is all about big moods, dreamy Eighties throwbacks and evolutionary freedom 

By the time “It’s Nice to Have a Friend” arrives on Lover, her seventh and most epic album, Taylor Swift has entered uncharted territory. For one thing, it’s the 17th song here, and none of her previous albums have run more than 16 tracks. (Lover actually contains 18.) More importantly, it’s not about being 16 or 22 or even her not-insignificant current age, 29. It’s about being six or seven, and walking home from school in the snow: “Lost my gloves / You give me one / Wanna hang out? / Sounds like fun.” There’s no beat, no banjo, no metaphors or coded messages. There is, instead, deconstructed steel drum, horn and cooing voices — Animal Collective as interpreted by hip-hop-savvy pop-producers-of-the-moment Louis Bell and Frank Dukes, the song’s co-writers. It’s like the end of 2001: A Space Odyssey, where a long turbulent journey through outer (and, naturally, inner) space culminates in the sudden appearance of a planet-sized fetus. For two and a half minutes, Swift regresses past all the drama and heartache she’s cataloged since her teen years to curl up in a weird little pocket of beauty. Swift has always been vulnerable, of course. And just as obviously, that vulnerability has been her strength. Female pop stars since Madonna have been expected to constantly reinvent themselves, lest it seem like they’re aging — an impossible standard that vexed Swift contemporaries like Lady Gaga and Katy Perry. In sharing her actual feelings about relationships chronicled by the tabloids — and parrying the entire internet’s judgements of those feelings — Swift helped open up a space for Ariana Grande to directly address Sean, Pete, and Malcolm on “Thank U, Next” (to name one glorious example). When Swift went pop, that wasn’t so much a transformation as an annexation of new territory. Grande might’ve picked up something here, too, with her triumphant embrace of hip-hop-style surprise drops. If Ariana, Billie, Halsey and others seem so effortlessly themselves, it’s in part because Swift worked so hard at speaking her truth and smiting her enemies. Lover is, fittingly, evolutionary rather than revolutionary. But nevertheless it feels like an epiphany: free and unhurried, governed by no one concept or outlook, it represents Swift at her most liberated, enjoying a bit of the freedom she won for her cohort. Made mainly in collaboration with Jack Antonoff, female songwriting ally nonpareil, the album’s dominant sound is sleekly updated Eighties pop-rock. In a bonus making-of track destined for a Target edition of the album, Swift tells Antonoff she wants a “dreamy guitar-y throwback, but not camp throwback” sound for the title track, and that’s pretty much the vibe. (Think recent Carly Rae Jepsen, if she made actual hits.) Swift loads “Paper Rings” up with a “1-2-3-4,” a “hey! ho!” and a key change for a jittery bit of Cars-meets-Eddie Money-meets-Go-Go’s delight. On the terrific “Cruel Summer,” written with Antonoff and Annie Clark (a.k.a. St. Vincent), she tells a simple tale of tortured love in under three minutes of pure pleasure, with what sounds like a smattering of talk box. When she sings “Out the window / I’m always waiting for you to be waiting below,” there’s no question you’re supposed to picture John Cusack in Say Anything.

Swift adjusts her frame of reference as needed. She claims to be “In my feelings more than Drake” in “I Forgot That You Existed,” a pro forma, post-trop-house declaration of her “indifference” to the haters. Thankfully, that’s mainly it for the sassy, winking Swift. Instead, she mostly goes for the big moods. “False God” is as minor-key and seductive as anything by the Weeknd, with a chorus, well — I’ll just leave this here: “Religion’s on your lips / Even if it’s a false god / We’d still worship / We must just get away with it / The altar is my hips.” She zags into oblique political commentary with “Miss Americana and the Heartbreak Prince,” a high school parable where she sees “high fives between bad guys” and delivers “O! K!” interjections in her best cheerleader voice. Like Euphoria,the HBO teensploitation extravaganza, it’s dark, melodramatic and, against all odds, perfect.

There’s plenty more fodder for the Swifties, haters, and bloggers here. Leo takes a proverbial volleyball to the face on “The Man,” a usefully blunt indictment of double standards, and the dub-inflected “London Boy” counts all the ways she “fancies” her boyfriend Joe Alwyn. “Soon You’ll Get Better” was recorded with Dixie Chicks, but giving the country-radio exiles a feature isn’t the point — the song is note-perfect ballad for Swift’s mother, whose cancer returned earlier this year. Whatever there is to be read into these songs, they are for one person and one person alone: Taylor Swift. Finally.

(x)

[risingsouls]

Recruited: Chapter 6

[I love these dorks and I’m glad I finally got to write them having a fairly proper conversation in this verse. Two dumbasses “bonding” the best way they know how.]

VEGETA

"I don't need an escort. You know I'm perfectly capable of handling myself," Nabooru informed him for the fifth time in an hour. She leaned down and plucked a gold tube from a lower shelf, turning it over between her fingers and examining it. Vegeta glanced at the tag: lip color. If this trip accomplished anything, it would end her whining about running out of makeup. "Epecially if I have to listen to you sigh or see you roll your eyes every time I enter a new shop. Why don't you go enjoy yourself? These are your days off, too."

He crossed his arms over his chest and leaned against the nearby wall. One of the few in the cramped store devoid of product. At least the other patrons knew to give them a wide berth, and if they didn't, a displeased glare sent them on their way. "Quit saying that. For the last time, it's not a matter of your ability to take care of yourself. The worst that will happen to you on one of these resort planets is you'll go broke from gambling and wasting your money or drink yourself to death, and I couldn't care less if you do either of those things." He huffed. "I'm here to make sure you don't get lost or do something stupid."

It wasn't a complete lie. More commonly referred to as pleasure planets, these particular prospects in the Cold Empire were set aside specifically for commerce, recreation, and leisure, especially for soldiers and others employed by the Cold family. Cut into sprawling districts--business, recreation, lodging, and headquarters--it was easy for even those familiar with the ins and outs of the hubs to wind up turned around and in a less than optimal situation. Protocol for who could set up shop was loose, the vetting process quick and simple with few questions asked for lack of time. While he had surmised Nabooru was intelligent, strong, and savvy enough to avoid too much trouble on her own, inexperience in navigating the finer and more nuanced aspects of resort planets would be her downfall. The last thing he wanted was to clean up her messes on top of the trouble Nappa and Raditz would no doubt cause in the next three days.

"Mm, so you just have nothing better to do, huh?" She popped the lid off the tube and observed the blood red shade revealed. "Three days of endless liquor and sex isn't your thing?"

Vegeta grimaced. "Tch. Obviously not. I have standards unlike the other two."

"Following me around while I shop is a better option?" she asked, hint of a smirk on her lips.

"Yes," he replied bluntly. She tossed the tube into her basket resting over her forearm and moved on to the next shelf. He followed. "You've seen how they get. It's deplorable."

Nabooru lifted a bottle of what he guessed to be a perfume of sorts and lifted the nozzle to her nose. She sniffed and it immediately crinkled at the bridge, her expression one of disgust. He mentally thanked her for not spraying to test it; if she looked about to retch, his sensitive nose would have him seeking refuge in the crowded streets. 

"Mm, they remind me of my best friend back home. She liked to spend her free time similarly, and tried to drag me along with her more than a few times." 

She blinked and realization flashed across her features, followed by a frown and a hint of regret in her golden eyes. Her attachment to her home world was still far too fresh, he noted. The wound had yet to scar over. Memories still made her long for what she could no longer have. Vegeta could relate to some degree, and the pesky what if thoughts still plagued him from time to time concerning his planet and race. He pushed them away as quickly as they spawned; he had no room for such sentimentality, and the sooner she realized the same, the better off she would be.

"What do you like to do for fun, anyway?"

Vegeta's gaze shifted over to the woman when addressed once more. She had moved to the next section, the action escaping his notice while he considered how her emotions would hinder her performance. "Fun," he repeated with a snort. "As if I have time for fun. At least not by most people's definition of it."

"Try me. And I did ask for your definition of it. It's not embarrassing or something, is it?"

"Of course not," he growled. "The only fun I have typically is in training or finding some poor sap on base to spar, and even then I can only fit in a few hours at best between missions and preparing for them."

Nabooru laughed softly and added another item to her basket. "I never thought I'd say it, but we actually have something in common, Vegeta." She winked from behind the orange glass of her scouter and sauntered up to the counter, unperturbed by the grunt the four-armed cashier gave her. "I hardly ever wanted to do anything that wasn't related to my training or combat. It's where I thrived and felt most alive. Even when I was injured, I was reading about other styles or strategies, observing the others while they trained, or trying to sneak a session or two in without anyone noticing. Like you, I wish I had more time for it…you guys weren't kidding when you said we stay busy."

"Hmpt…" Vegeta watched her complete the transaction with the clerk, the process of paying with her credits sticking after he impatiently taught her in the last store. He kept it to himself, but he could respect that in her. If it stuck in a new environment, she could prove more useful to him than he imagined. And with a perhaps similar soreness toward Frieza and the empire as his that could potentially grow with time…

The pair left the shop and returned to the streets, squeezing past milling passerbys and other shoppers hurrying to find the best deals. Distracted by hoots and hollers meant for the Gerudo and discouraging the annoyance with a snarl, the Saiyan nearly collided with Nabooru's back when she halted suddenly, a display in the window catching her eye. 

He cursed under his breath and followed her gaze to understand what she found so interesting as to nearly cause a collision. On the other side of the glass was a hodgepodge of weapons on display, some he recognized from conquered planets and others foreign and strange. He snorted when he realized where her focus lay: a pair of curved blades resting at the hips of a gaudily dressed mannequin. 

"Swords, woman? You don't need them."

He didn't miss the twitch of her fingers at her side. The tense of her jaw and fire in her eyes. "I know that. Before I learned to use ki, swords like this were my weapon of choice, and--" She cut herself off, shooting him a glare. His smirk widened. "I didn't expect to see something like them here, that's all."

Despite her ill temper, she returned her gaze to the swords. Likely considering purchasing them just to spite him, if Vegeta had to guess. Or lost in memories of her past. Perhaps he would have enjoyed time with Nappa and Raditz if she was going to be bogged down by her damn emotions.

"You can create those with ki."

"What?"

The words left his mouth before he realized he vocalized them, and her confusion proved contagious for a moment. "Ki swords. I've seen it done." He folded his arms. "Why don't you try to figure it out? They would be far more effective than those."

She observed him with narrowed gaze for several seconds before humming and returning her attention to the blades. "It would take quite a bit of control to make them hold their shape. I would want it to look right and not just be shapeless," she mused, raising her hands and flexing her fingers and curling them back into her palms. He saw her eyes shift back to him in the reflection of the glass, suspicion apparent in her pursed lips and hooded eyes. "Why would you suggest it if you think weapons like that are stupid?"

Vegeta scowled, his tail tightening around his waist. "Anything to get your mind off a home you'll likely never see again. It's a waste of your time and energy. A weakness you can't afford," he hissed, ignoring her flinch and the glare that followed. "Besides, if it's a style you're used to, it will only make you more effective in battle." A smirk curled his lips. "And watching you slice people in half might be entertaining. If you're up for the challenge of mastering it, that is."

Nabooru remained silent for a beat longer, chewing her lower lip in thought or perhaps as a measure to keep her from picking a fight with him in such a crowded area. Not that he wouldn't welcome a brawl. Finally, she turned on her heel and began her procession up the street again, spine rigid and chin aloft in stubborn defiance. "Maybe I will. And I'll do it better than anyone else has before me."

"Right. I'll believe it when I see it," he said with a snort.

Nabooru shifted the bags on her arm, but kept her back to him. "I'm going back to my room." She tossed her hair over her shoulder and twisted her head to the side to meet his gaze. "I don't need an escort for a nap, do I? Unless you know some soothing lullabies to sing for me."

Vegeta rolled his eyes. "Go. You're beginning to annoy me anyway."

"We're on the same page then."

He didn't get a chance to sling any clever retorts back at her as orange energy enveloped her as she took off into the sky, leaving the Saiyan amongst the rabble and agitated. And, even as he headed off himself and locked himself away in his own temporary quarters, he couldn't shake it with any amount of pacing or idle research on his scouter. With Nappa and Raditz, he decompressed within moments when they pushed his buttons. But Nabooru seemed to possess a particular knack for getting under her skin. But why? Was it that her power was similar to his own? Him being unused to his subordinates speaking to him as she did? Should he teach her a lesson? Would that do much unless he outright killed her? Was it worth the effort when, deep down, he knew she hadn't done anything especially egregious to warrant the harshest of punishments? Not that he needed a reason to kill anyone. Frieza would likely shrug it off himself. But she had proven herself an asset, powerful and efficient. Capable of completing whatever task she was given despite her moral hang ups to them. Was his agitation worth ridding himself of her, then, when she could aid him in killing Frieza?

His grip on the windowsill tightened and he grit his teeth. The fur on his tail stood on end. Damn her. She danced on the fine line between insubordination and compliance, being a nuisance and a competent warrior, too well.  Flawed, but too valuable for him to kill. If he could find some reason that she deserved it…

Vegeta shook his head and scrubbed a hand over his face. He crossed the room to his bed and stretched out on it, closing his eyes. He hated it, but wasting his time searching for reasons to off the damnable woman was counterproductive. If they existed, they would show up on their own. Or she'd wind up dead on some mission or incur Frieza's or some other general's wrath. For now, he would take advantage of the extra firepower in his arsenal. The decent conversation and wit she offered when he humored her or bothered to listen in on conversations with the other two. The break from staring at eye sores like Nappa and Raditz day in and day out…

------------

His nap lasted little more than a few hours, a call from Nappa checking in waking him from his fitful slumber. After reprimanding the general for it and listening to his drunken attempt to assure him that he and Raditz were doing just fine and had caused "absolutely no trouble whatsoever, not even a single brawl that definitely didn't end in at least two casualties and several injured," Vegeta ended the call and buried his face in his pillow. Sleep had done nothing for his mood. If anything, it left him more sour than when he drifted off. 

The prince growled and punched the mattress next to his head, springing from the bed when he surmised sleep would only continue to evade him. A glance out the window as he tugged his armor violently back on over his head revealed a darkening sky, meaning most would be shifting from the commerce and resort districts to seek out more lively entertainment. He considered joining the rabble or tracking down Nappa and Raditz for a split second before deciding against it, the thought of large crowds a less than stellar situation to be in in his mind. Though, remaining cloistered in his room sounded just as unappealing. 

Deciding a physical check on the other two Saiyans would at least occupy him for a time, he refit his scouter to his face and tapped the button to perform a scan. Sure enough, he pinpointed their scouter models in the entertainment district and, just as he was about to pin the location in his tracker, the scouter pinged a third location in one of the few unincorporated areas of the planet just outside the resort district. Nabooru's. His eyes narrowed, and his tail lashed against the mattress behind him. In the time he slept, she had left her room down the hall to venture off on her own. For what, he couldn't fathom. But finding out sounded better than dealing with the crowds and his drunken cohorts attempting to secure a bed mate for the night.

Vegeta exited the hotel and traced the signal of her scouter and power level to an island in the only prominent body of water left on the planet. He slowed his flight and descended, finding her seated along the shoreline with her back to him. Orange light flickered in front of her and held her focus, masking his landing and approach. As he strode closer, he noted how the sphere of ki at the tip of her index finger wavered as it shifted shape, elongating before sinking back to its original shape. He smirked to himself.

“I see you took my advice.”

Nabooru straightened her spine in a jolt and twisted around, the energy dissipating with the inward curl of her finger. "And I see you followed me again. Couldn't stay away from me, huh?" She turned back toward the water, an unsettlingly still reflection of the sky above. She rested her palms behind her and leaned back into them. "Are you that bored or did you need something? I was kind of hoping to be alone if I'm being honest."

He observed her back and his usual glower settled back into place, the fleeting thought of drowning her momentarily appealing. With her ponytail tossed over her shoulder to the front, he noted she had removed her armor and found it lying in a pile with her boots, leggings, gloves, and scouter off near a rock jutting out of the island’s surface. Vulnerable he couldn’t help but think. He found it odd that, even now, she didn't’ scramble to pull it back on and remedy that in the face of a potential threat. That she could stand to appear even remotely weak in the presence of another, friend or foe.

To spite her, Vegeta shifted to stand beside her, planting himself firmly in place at her side. He was in no hurry to locate the other two, and he hoped she might pick a fight with him if he remained. Physical or verbal, it didn't matter to him. He unfurled his tail from his waist, allowing it to stretch and sway contentedly behind him.

Time passed at a crawl, the sky above them and its reflection in the water a smattering of twinkling stars on black canvas and the planet's two moons now visible in crescent phases. Nabooru remained silent and near unmoving save for a change in position to extending one leg outward and bringing the other knee toward her chest despite his obvious refusal to leave her alone. He chanced a glance over and found her staring out at the water once more, gaze distant and mind obviously elsewhere. He might as well not exist to her from the look of it. His patience waning, his tail exemplifying such with more aggressive and punctuated arcs near his calves, he opened his mouth to degrade her, only for her to finally speak up.

"It's funny, you know," she began, gold eyes never leaving the overly still surface of the lake. Vegeta closed his mouth, lips set in a tight line and gaze narrowing. "I never cared too much for rank or my titles back home. Outside of wanting to be part of the Elite, I wasn't looking for a more formal leadership position. But...outside of missing my home, my people, I think I almost miss them more."

The Saiyan remained silent, uncertain if she addressed him at all, of what to say in general, or if he wanted to entertain a conversation like this with her at all. It edged toward too personal, blurring the lines of leader and subordinate that he was already struggling to keep clear with her. Still, he couldn't deny the curiosity he had concerning her. Nappa had clued him in on bits and pieces of her background, what little bit she shared with him while they trained. But, unless Nappa held out on him, Nabooru had proven scrupulous, smart about what she did and didn't reveal. The months of servitude to Frieza apparently wore her down and made her careless, as she seemed keen on continuing. He did, however, discreetly switch off his scouter and hoped her voice was low enough that her own couldn't pick it up. Habit, he surmised.

"I was second in command of my people and if I had been born in a different time where we didn't have a king, I might have been leader. I was engaged to our king and set to be queen someday, even if it really was just a title and wouldn't have changed much in the way of my duties. I was the best warrior we had produced in decades or longer. And I had worked hard to earn all of it. But now…" A slight twinge of pain twisted her features and she pulled her other knee up to join the other. She draped her arms around them. The pain dissolved and her brows lowered, frown deepening and the initial sparks of anger flared in her eyes. "All of that was stripped from me. My name, my titles, even my race known for being powerful warriors...It all means nothing. I'm nobody here. I have no identity any more. It's something I never knew I would miss since it never felt all that important to me..."

That he understood. Better than homesickness. Definitely more than her moral hang ups. He still clung to his title of Saiyan Prince despite the lack of power it held. How those above him used it to mock him rather than a sign of respect of his station. The prince of two meant nothing in the grand scheme of things, but it was his title. With little left, he refused to dispose of it or let anyone else forget it. Saiyan still meant something among their peers. Most soldiers understood the might of the Saiyan race, how powerful and ruthless a single warrior could be. But Gerudo warrior, elite, leader, whatever...she was right to say it meant nothing there. Her home planet had only been recently discovered. Her people, while he could give her the benefit of the doubt in their skills as warriors, did not have the notoriety of his race. She was utterly alone and truly a nobody, forced to start over and prove herself once more to likely never advance higher than she stood now.

Nabooru suddenly twisted, face tilted upward to meet his gaze. "How do you do it?" She asked. He couldn't miss the hint of desperation in her voice. "How do you...how do you keep going? You've lost so much too, and yet--"

He cut her off with a raised hand and a stern glare. He aimed his index finger at her scouter. Energy shot from his fingertip, and the device exploded in a burst of glass and plastic. He rolled his eyes in light of her protests. "You'll get a new one back at base. Accidents happen. You never know who could be listening, and I'd hate for you to incriminate yourself so soon."

He removed his own scouter and crushed it in his fist. Paranoia, perhaps, since he had cut its power at the beginning of her rant, but he knew Frieza and his goons had higher access to scouter feeds. He didn't know if that extended to ones powered down somehow, but he didn't trust that they didn't.

"I was young when my planet was destroyed. I hadn't built up quite the…attachments to it in the same way as you, I suppose," Vegeta responded, folding his arms over his chest. For him, he never got the chance to fall in love with his planet or form bonds with his people as a whole or even individuals. A prince of seven, he knew little past the walls of the palace personally, save for what his parents, Nappa, or other tutors told him. It did not free him from longing for it, for what could have and should have been, but such thoughts angered him more than saddened him. Rage simmered over the injustice of it, of everything he endured over the years, and all that came to matter to him was revenge. For the abuses, the disrespect, for robbing him of everything he was promised. Placing him in such a position where he felt powerless. Weak and a slave to a tyrants whim. The tyrant he knew destroyed his home and people. Meteor his ass.

"I focus on my goals." He eyed her, unsure of how much he wanted to divulge to her. What pieces he could chance slipping her without sending her running to Frieza, hoping for some sort of promotion if she rat him out for his dream of treason. She had shown her power, a modicum of usefulness that could prove useful in an alliance. But her loyalty had yet to be truly tested, his hard won trust yet to be earned. Thus, he settled on a vague truth: "You've no doubt seen how myself and my cohorts are treated for our race. I focus on showing them how grave a mistake they make underestimating Saiyans. Of underestimating me. I want them all to fear me the way they feared our entire race for generations."

"Not exactly concrete but...a commendable goal, considering. I don't blame you." She snorted. "You know, Zarbon told me to stay away from you three on my first day if I knew what was good for me. Like it would tarnish my nonexistent reputation or something."

"Tch, of course he did. And now you have no choice. How ironic," he drawled, teeth clenched and tail lashing twice behind him.

Nabooru extended her long legs out in front of her and rested her hands on her knees. She gazed out at the water in silence, watched some small, aquatic creature break the surface of the lake, spin in midair, and disappear once more. Finally, she looked back up at him, the ghost of a smile on her full lips. "For what it's worth, I am glad for that. I've met some of the others, seen how their squadrons operate, how ugly they are, inside and out, and even on the worst days of dealing with you three I'm glad for it. Maybe it's just our similar warrior spirits, but you three feel...familiar in some ways. It's a small comfort."

"I didn't realize you were such a suck up." While too emotional for his tastes, at least that perhaps meant she would continue to mesh well enough with them. Cause little more drama than the usual shenanigans Nappa and Raditz got up to. "Are you done being sappy? It's making me sick."

She laughed and rose to her feet, stretching her arms skyward and lengthening her body. "Honestly, I only said any of that because I figured you wouldn't listen anyway." She strode over to the pile of her belongings and picked up her armor. She pulled it on over her head and adjusted it for comfort. "I wanted to let that out, and at least with you standing there I would feel slightly less insane than talking to the water."

"Hmpt. I shouldn't have. All your whining gave me indigestion." His tail swayed with docile calm behind him, despite his words. 

"Aw, your poor thing. Want me to make it up to you?" She pulled a burgundy stocking up the length of her leg to her thigh, and his mind betrayed him with more lewd insinuations behind the suggestion. He turned his attention back to the water, glad another creature hopped out of itto mask the sudden movement. The cursed warmth in his cheeks. 

He chanced a glance back to find her tugging her gloves on. "You said you like sparring. How about it? I'm not really tired enough to go back to my room yet."

A spar. He berated his perverted notions. He unfolded his arms and cracked his knuckles, tail returning to its position at his waistline. "Fine. It's the least you can offer for making me suffer." His smirk returned. "Just don't cry when I kick your ass again since you want to be so emotional."

It was Nabooru’s turn to roll her eyes. “Same goes to you. Nappa says you’re a sore loser.”

“I don’t know how he would know when I never lose.”

“Oh? So I get to take your loss virginity, huh?”

Vegeta growled, but he couldn’t deny his excitement in the wake of a spar. The adrenaline beginning to surge through his veins as he remembered their first. How she had only improved since then. 

“Shut up.” He hovered over the surface of the lake, arms folded. “Let’s see if you can back up all your talk.”

[lostsummerdayz]

Sonic The Hedgehog Movie Review

“Blue Blur or Blue Devil, this speedy flick is very ‘Omoshiroi~!’ indeed!”

By Nay Holland

The Sonic The Hedgehog movie had quite the hype and history leading up to its eventual release. It was around this time last year that the general audience saw first hand what Sonic would look like on the big screen. Needless to say, they were not happy with the design choice. Several months later, a new design for Sonic was revealed to greater approval. The slated November 2019 release was pushed back to a February 2020 release due to the resulting backlash.

Sonic’s design was just the cherry on top for most skeptics at the time. Fans of the classic Sonic animated series will remember Jaleel White as the iconic voice for Sonic. Many of said fans wanted him to reprise his role for the feature film. Ultimately, that role fell on Ben Schwartz of Parks & Recreation fame.

Throughout the trailers, the absence of many other iconic characters from the universe wasn’t ignored. Many had thought that Jim Carrey’s role of Eggman Dr. Robotnik would be the only bright spot in this film of uncertainty. The reputation of video game movie adaptations in the past also preceded any major hope savvy fans would have as well.

However, with the release of Detective Pikachu, I had newfound hope for Sonic The Hedgehog. Detective Pikachu was a movie with an original yet at-times nonsensical plot fueled by star power. Ryan Renolds played the titular character as well as one would expect, though the supporting cast were passable.

Still, compared to the terrible era of horrific fighting video games to movie adaptations earlier on in the decade, Detective Pikachu was a breath of fresh air. It was a fun movie littered with references that fans of Pokemon will catch, yet it was never over-reliant on them. The movie was able to provide its own form of momentum from start to finish. It wasn’t perfect, but it got the job done.

It may seem like I was giving a mini overview on Detective Pikachu, but the same thoughts can be applied to Sonic The Hedgehog as well. It was a fun movie with an original, yet highly nonsensical, plot. I’ll excuse the plot on the grounds that it’s Sonic The Hedgehog. Sonic was never quite known for intricate stories.

I am aware that this game exists, but, this is the exception rather than the rule.

Look who developed the game guys. C’mon.

Whoever was in charge of the script could have watched the entire first season of Sonic X for all I know and based some of their ideas for the film.

My point is, while there is a reason for Sonic to arrive on Planet Earth via his backstory, it’s not the main attraction of the film. The fuel that powers this movie are two dynamics.

The first is the dynamic between Sonic and Tom, the human protagonist of the movie. Remember when I joked about inspiration from Sonic X? The punchline punches itself.

Okay I know I’m not being fair in comparing a kid to a grown police officer but it’s the same energy!

Oh, right. The human sidekick is a police officer from a small town in Montana. Wanna know the name of the town?

Green Hills, Montana! Get it! Green Hill? The introductory zone that will never

Ever

Ever

EVER

Go away in some way shape or form?

I’m not gonna lie I looked it up just to see if such a place exists in Montana. I was sad to discover that was false. Bummer.

Sonic and Tom share most of their screen time together and you have some classic tropes. The “we’re a family!” trope, the “trying to understand someone different than you” trope, and the classic “ROAD TRIP!” trope.

The cliches aren’t bad however. They only seemed to enhance the dynamic that these two characters have with each other. Sonic is filled to the brim and armed to the teeth with pop culture references for centuries. Any reference you can think of is there. 

Several speed puns involving his collection of Flash comics including the movie, Speed, itself? Check. References to The Fast and The Furious? Also check. References to modern gaming such as live streaming and...a certain dance that is honestly dated at this point? Checkmark.

Sonic’s personality is unique to this movie yet key components remain. He’s still very much so impulsive, adventurous, and bold as his other counterparts. One thing I feel the movie does right is his development. He doesn’t know the power of his own strength or his own powers. Sometimes he overestimates his abilities, which leads to trouble for both Sonic and Tom. Other times, he feels out of place and yearning for family. By the end of the movie, however, there are enough seeds planted to promote further growth in the inevitable sequel.

The human protagonist, Tom, was surprisingly as interesting. We’re introduced to his character as a wise-cracking police officer who would fit the role of a cocky protagonist in any other movie. At times he tries to play the straight man to Sonic’s antics, but after a certain part in the movie, he’s not that far from Sonic in terms of impulsiveness.

Marsden, who plays the role of Tom, is no slouch either as he delivers his one-liners, matching the same energy as Sonic. Most importantly, he is able to stand on firm ground with Jim Carrey’s Robotnik. I honestly loved seeing them both on the screen as they tried to show who was the bigger smartass.

Ah! Jim Carrey! The main reason why everyone’s interests were piqued to high levels. This leads into the second dynamic. The man with the master plan! He is the Eggman Doctor.

In trailers and in promotional images, Carrey never looked better. In this movie, it is my honor to say that Carrey looked in rare form. The quirky and zany antics of Dr. Robotnik portrayed by Carrey felt nostalgic, harking back to the days of Liar Liar and The Mask. The hair-triggering jerk reactions, the body language, and the endless amount of quips made Carrey a perfect role for the Egghead. I could literally fill this review with all of his one-liners and dialogue. That’s how subtle yet powerful they were.

Remember when I said that the plot was a tad bit diluted? I’d say that Robotnik’s introduction is where the movie begins to take flight and he’s introduced fairly early. If you look at the movie as an hour and some change of Tom and Jerry style antics, with Robotnik and Sonic respectively, then you’ll get the most mileage out of the film.

Finally I’d like to mention the miscellaneous. The attention to detail to Sonic’s design is amazing, from his fur to his beat-up footwear. The method in which he received his iconic kicks was also adorable.

The special effects were also spot-on. There are two moments in the movie where Sonic is using his speed to get himself out of a disadvantageous situation. In both of these scenes, the rate of speed is exaggerated by a still frame of his surroundings. 

For those familiar with “bullet-time” and “slo mo” effects in video games, these are how the scene plays out. Seeing Sonic manipulate the environment around him only for time to regulate into “normal time” was one of the better touches of the movie from a design standpoint. I honestly wished there were more scenes like that in the movie. 

As mentioned earlier with “Green Hills,” there are several in-universe references as well. I won’t mention them all, but my favorite had to have been the “Hill Top Road” street sign.

This obviously refers to Hill Top Zone from Sonic 2.

There are also references to his moves, from the iconic spin dash, to other niche ones such as his wall kick.

For a ninety-minute movie, Sonic The Hedgehog cuts to the chase, pun intended, with no filler. Post opening credits, every scene in the movie had a purpose for progression. Nothing ever seems to overstay its welcome. 

For a film geared towards the younger audience, it’s enough to keep their attention span with enough content to keep the fans of Sonic in their seats. For the parents of said younger audience, the appearance of Jim Carey in rare form is a treat in itself to see. It’s not a perfect movie, but it is far from the dumpster fire that everyone feared it would be. It is, however, more than good enough to check it out. 

Sonic the Hedgehog is now showing in theaters. This Valentine’s Day weekend, take your Amy Rose out on a movie date and enjoy a fun movie after dinner!

And park your butts in your seats after the credits for a surprise! Don’t leave the theater!

[aegistomorrowtoday]

EPISODE 1: 蜂の巣の繭の蒸気殺人

It has been a week since this group of cyberpunks had all reconvened. The low-level street zeitgeist mourns the loss of one of their most talented tattoo artists, Chouji. The news media didn't give him or the other victims a name - labeling them as misguided youth and Synthetic Rebel Activists attempting to reignite the fires of the civil war of the previous world. Using the anti-synth sentiments of Suginami-ku to broadly paint this as just a nonsensical act of violence. There was no mention of the gunmen, just the seemingly innocent young people gunned down in the walkway. Not to mention they got Chouji’s name especially incorrect. Chojiro and not Chouji.

Business as usual in Tokyo Mega, the rhythm of the city was unaffected by the murders in Suginami-Ku. The police would investigate, the media would show only a sliver of the story to the public and the faces of those lost will be largely forgotten by all who didn’t know them personally. Eventually. Until then, the Izumi-Kai were invited to a memorial street race.The winnings were 5,000,000 won divided evenly among the top four competitors, Sef didn’t come in first but he stole a fast second in style. Even donating a portion of his winnings to the family of “Chojiro”, the fourth place winner also donated the entirety of their winnings to the affected family. The youth of the gangs saw this as a most respectful thing for the two racers to do, and the Feed noted that it was only Sef and the other competitor to part with some of their prize money as tribute. 

 Haru's patron has been called into the office moreover the week. Spending longer days than normal doing important company work. He doesn't talk much about it, just that it could save lives someday. Long nights in the very private corporate building and an armed escort to and from his home have spared him really noticing Haru’s new sword and choice of apparel - the previous jumpsuit having been shredded in the very gun battle that had the news all twisted up about pro-synth demonstrations. 

 The Hotel that Ard has rented upgraded his vacation suite from a standard 1 bed and bath capsule to a full Samurai class suite on the 300th floor. About the size of a small one bedroom home. The violence in one of the most peaceful sections of the city has prompted a sweeping upgrade package among the visitors to the city. For some reason or another, Lumos' has received multiple freelance consulting jobs through The Early Bird . The small Synthshop and Augment installer has a pretty regular clientele and freelance engineers and docs who rotate the hours along with the main proprietor, HNY-4456K. A synth representing a female who only really converses in snark and sass but will answer to Six or Six-K, she does wear a name tag that says Honey however, though no one calls her that out loud. 

After enjoying tea at the Nakahara Peace Garden the group give up on waiting on Ard. The Wormer PTST (Philanthropist Thrill Seeking Tourist) opted to stay-in that night. Probably to enjoy his swanky new hotel suite upgrade. Whatever his reasons, the three members of the so far unnamed crew decided to follow up on Sef’s hand issues. Fondly referring to the situation as the ‘hand-job’. All jokes aside, they thought it was in everyone’s best interest to go to the address they received from the scan last week. Heat’s died down by now and whatever trap or trick that Choji might have tried to spring has sprung by everyone’s death on that street last week. In theory, it should be totally safe and fine to just check the address out. 

The group arrive via taxi and motorbike and already the building itself is tall and wide, with a rotating door at its entrance with windows that hint at perhaps some type of luxury hotel experience or something similar. The lobby was tile, glass, and metal. A grand staircase curved around what looked to be obviously a long receptionist’s desk reminiscent of a check-in counter. In between the entrance and the desk were four minimalist lounge areas. Stylish cubist couches enclosed glass coffee tables that were ornamented with real paper magazines. Relics of the past or, a flaunt of the super wealthy? None of the group could really know for sure - but what they did immediately realize is that they were sorely out of place. Sef removed his leather jacket and put up his hair, his minimal augmentation lifestyle lent very well to the appearance of a wealthy individual with some western ideology on purism. The guards in black suits watched the trio as the group looked about trying to find a hint of their reason for being here. Sef spotted a staircase leading downwards; it was marked with the trigram for heaven.

 After sharing their misgivings about the irony, they descend and are met with another receptionist desk at the bottom of the landing who interacts with them directly, asking how they could be helped - more specifically asking Sef. After they present Sef’s palm as their business, a secret door is opened and they are allowed entry to an entirely different area, in both style and aesthetic. Lacquered wood floor and soft fresh soil filled with greenery. Real greenery. Plants that gave off oxygen and ate carbon dioxide. Plants that Sef - along with the majority of the entire city - had never even encountered before. At least not their biological counterparts. The party traverses a long hallway and are met with a luxurious banquet hall, hardwoods and greenery abound with patrons garbed in wealth beyond measure being served by a very poised waitstaff - most likely all synths. 

They are approached by a staff member wearing the same uniform as the receptionists at the desks they had already encountered. He greeted them to the soiree and judged by their demeanor and clothing surmised accurately that they were not where they were supposed to be. Sef showed his palm again and the staff member quickly told them where to go with a cheerful demeanor. They were directed down another long hardwood hallway to a waiting area just outside of a solid metal doorway. “Mr.Hong is taking his annual bath - he will be with you shortly.” The man would relay before walking off to attend to the other guests. The group moved down the hallway and took in their new and odd surroundings. Lumos’ the most technologically savvy of the group surmised that the panels nearest the door and the seating area were an inactive suite of some type of comprehensive security system

The door hisses open after about five minutes. Revealing a spartan office in decor. Minimalist, devoid of windows. There was a desk of metal and glass with a stone slab positioned behind it. There was a single bed in one of the corners and a metal locker that had been carefully decorated to look as if it was real wood. After a quick look around the office, a voice spoke to the group as the door closed behind them. The voice was that of Mister Hong, the owner of this office apparently. Moments later he would exit the private bathroom stark naked, dripping with water still and eyes as wide as dinner plates before he collapsed onto the floor and convulsed. Lumos, being the medical professional in the room immediately deduced the man was choking and he ran over to help, going so far as to inject the man with a dosage of nanites to alleviate the asphyxiation. They helped momentarily, allowing him to pass along the message of “Save Keiko Swan.” Keiko Swan is a well known ballet dancer in Tokyo Mega. A quick search on the Feed yielded that information. Scrambling for more clues, and more importantly a method of unlocking the sealed door to the room, the group found a key to the locker disguised as a wooden cabinet and accessed the computer of the now dead Mister Hong that was projecting onto the stone slab. They scoured his emails and found rather quickly that his name wasn’t Hong at all, but he was Shin Kosanji of Kosanji Talent, a tour promoter and small-time talent scout who was local to Tokyo Mega. Along with this information there was an unopened email from an unknown sender that showed a very graphic photograph of a cute asian girl with blonde hair carrying a chainsaw and a severed head. At first glance it seemed like a very guro-esque cosplay photo but upon closer inspection the group deduced that the photograph was very much real and the single line caption was some type of message: I do birds too. Among the possessions in the office the group found a smart suit, the latest in pocket computer devices, a cred card with 5000 won on it and a gold origami crane. As Sef discovered, the crane was made out of gold smart-paper. Paper that was inlaid with technology that acted as simple one or two way communication. Not a typical single use item but it was flashy and most likely saved. Unfolding the crane revealed that it was an invitation to an event happening that very night, with Keiko Swan as the star of the entire evening. If they were to save Keiko they needed to get to that event. Based on the invitation it would be taking place in New Shinjuku. In a Skytree. A tough journey for any of the three. 

Before they could ponder more the door unlocked and the group panicked. Each attempting to look nonchalant and unsurprising by the dead man by the bathroom as the metal entrance slid apart and in walked several staff members of the building they were in. They moved directly towards the dead man without pause and the group was questioned briefly by a younger man, a little younger than Sef on the death of Mr. Hong. He apologized for the interruption and sent the group on their way with a free access pass to the member’s only club of Hachi Rebisu. Step one for infiltrating the skytree was to look the part. Sef took Haru and Lumos to get a suit, using the found card to purchase Haru his first set of personal clothes. The seven year old synth chooses style over function with a red suit with a black dress shirt and white tie. The event is a black tie event. The obvious facepalming occurs but the group lets Haru keep the clothes as Lumos decides on a healthy medium of dress suit that isn’t too matchy-matchy in his own words, via his augment that allows him to simulate any wardrobe he desires. They call a lux cab their way in order to better emulate the rich citizens who lived in the skytree. New Shinjuku is a place of power and control amidst the wealth. Of all the districts the police presence is very strong, within and without the skytree. The streets are patrolled by roving mechanized drones with heavy anti-personnel weapons mounted on their shoulders and backs,while the Tokyo Mega Police Department has its headquarters here deep underground in a secure bunker facility. The urban paradise of the skytree is manned by countless cameras and rapid response police teams and privatized military. Only Sef and Haru knew this information off hand due to their criminal familiarity and privately regard their situation as they disembark the Ultralux transport. 

They are within view of Grand Station, a large theater hall that was the host of the event. There is a mass of police, unmanned drones and guests in suits and dresses for the occasion. Seeing this gives the group pause, as this event has a lot of people attending with a larger portion of them being law enforcement from the looks of it. If Keiko was in danger, the perpetrator was either embedded with the guests or the security. Ease of access to the building and the theoretical access to a weapon. Security forces were almost usually armed. Guests who had enough money, or looked like they had enough money could practically do anything or - more importantly -  carry anything. Just then the invitation started making noises from Sef’s backpack, he investigated. Unfolding the paper swan, the invitation is blaring a reminder for the event and to RSVP attendance in order secure seating. Sef RSVPs in Shin’s stead for obvious reasons. Moments later an anonymous and blocked number texts Sef’s phone. Detailing that they know who the group is and what they have - the most confusing part - and that they will assist the group if the three of them are interested in saving Tokyo Mega. If they decline, they are to find a locker in the Grand Station venue and deposit the golden origami crane within it. Within the same time span another message is sent across to Sef who is rightly freaking out about his privacy being compromised so quickly and easily - in the form of a hacked product ad ticker scrolling across the front of a nearby shop. Threatening violence if the group didn’t turn over the crane. Neither message named an origin but clearly one side had Tokyo’s best interest in mind. Or so they said. 

The following moments were crucial, the group decided to go for Keiko directly. Cut out the middle men as it were and protect the ballet dancer the best way they knew how. By kidnapping her until the danger passed. The group get in. They note the opulent architecture and the presence of a catering company providing the food and beverage for the event. Sef also spies children, no older than ten all sporting backpacks seem to be on the lookout for someone. They are dressed appropriately for the occasion but everyone so far in attendance is either remarkably youthful, in the prime of their lives or amazingly old. Natural grey hairs, wrinkles, the whole deal. 

After incorrectly remembering the details of why children were important - postulating they were Korporate Kids. The group makes their way backstage past the first floor kitchens. Before they can arrive at the dressing room they see that the police presence is strong and are greeted by an officer barring entry to the performers. Sef attempts to use status as a way to get through the tight cordon of security using their mission of keeping Keiko safe as the sufficient clearance that they needed. Sorely, they were denied and attracted the intervention of a Hiashi Miyamoto. Someone distinctly from Haru’s past. The exchange is terse but the group is allowed to leave and soon a representative of the concert hall escorts them to their reserved section overlooking the stage. Leaving a note that gave them a hint in their search for Keiko’s assassin. 

Do not trust the waitress. The words had been written on a napkin and Haru searched for a waitress among the waitstaff. Most were men, but some were objectively female based on his visual scan of. The three of them begin to panic, which waitress was it? How did they catch her? But that was when she appeared. A woman with blonde hair just delivered a tray of horderves to the next private box beside theirs. It was uncharacteristic of the staff, who all wore conservative black and brown hairstyles. Probably to match the setting of their work, real or not.  

It all came together now, it unraveled before Haru as he got everyone’s attention as the waitress in question slipped out of sight again. Most likely into the kitchens which had an entrance on this level of the theater as well. 

I do birds too.

[buzzdixonwriter]

The Rise Of Skywalker Review [SPOILERICIOUS]

=0=

I’m going to post all the SPOILER stuff way below in section 3, so as not to ruin anything for anybody who hasn’t seen the movie yet.

You’ll get plenty of warnings.

=1=

In my old age I’m starting to divide creative works into three groups:  Good, bad, and not-so-good.

A good creative work is any where the strengths overwhelmingly outweigh the weaknesses; a bad one is the obverse.

A not-so-good work is one where the strengths and weaknesses balance each other out.

It’s the kind of a work that will doubtless please those audience members who really enjoy the strengths in it, and equally irritate those annoyed by the weaknesses.

In my estimation, a not-so-good work is one done with straight forward intent and as often as not, a fair degree of technical and aesthetic competency, but fails to jell as a cohesive whole.  

No one need feel ashamed for enjoying a not-so-good work, and no one involved in the making of a not-so-good work should feel bad about their contribution (unless, of course, their contribution turns out to be one of the weaknesses that should have been avoided).

Theodore Sturgeon famously observed “90% of everything is crap.”

I think that’s a little harsh.

I agree with him that only 10% of anything is good, but think only 40% falls into the crap bin.

Most stuff falls in the 50% I call not-so-good.

Star Wars Episode IX: The Rise Of Skywalker is in that 50%.

. . .

The good stuff is really good.

Elsewhere I’ve posted my enthusiasm for Star Wars Episode VII:  The Force Awakens and Star Wars Episode VIII:  The Last Jedi hinge in no small part on just how emo Kylo Ren (Adam Driver) could get, and holy cow, does he ever deliver in The Rise Of Skywalker.

Easily my favorite parts of the picture.

Doesn’t really mesh with anything else in the movie but, hey, ya can’t have everything, right?  (I’ll discuss his performance in a little more detail in section =3=.)

Other performances range from adequate to doing-the-best-they-can-with-the-material to okay-smartass-you-try-recreating-a-dead-actress-via-CGI.

The dialog in The Rise Of Skywalker is the worst of any film in the series, with the possible exception Star Wars Episode III:  The Revenge Of The Sith, which I haven’t seen and have no intention of seeing (but more on that below…).

It’s not an attempt to depict characters talking, it’s a series of shouted declarative sentences.

Elsewhere I’ve referred to The Rise Of Skywalker as the best Jason Of Star Command episode ever made.

For those who don’t get the reference, Jason Of Star Command was a low budget albeit imaginative Saturday morning kid-vid Star Wars rip off by Filmation Studios.

To make sure the youngest kids in the audience understood what was going on, they tended to hammer home plot points repeatedly.

  DRAGOS Jason!  In just sixteen hours my space fleet will destroy Star Command!

  STAR COMMAND Jason!  Dragos is going to destroy us with his space fleet in just sixteen hours!

  JASON Don’t worry, Star Command!  I’ll stop Dragos from destroying you with his space fleet in sixteen hours.

  NARRATOR (i.e., Norm Prescott) Jason has only sixteen hours to stop Dragos from destroying Star Command with his space fleet!

  There is far too much of that in The Rise Of Skywalker.

Ten minutes into the movie, and there was already far too much of that…

The opening credit crawl reveals an off camera plot development that literally deserved an entire film of its own to fully explore.

There is no sustained coherent plot to The Rise Of Skywalker:  

Well, we gotta do this,

now we gotta do that,

first we gotta find this thing,

then we gotta find that thing,

now I’m feeling blue,

now I’m gonna get encouraged,

etc., etc., and of course, etc.

Everything feel frenetic, not fast paced.

There are far too many scenes that exist just to sell action figures and toy vehicles.

There was a desire to tie off loose ends and say good-bye to favorite characters and that was a mistake.

It undercuts the urgency of the story (or rather, the desired urgency; the fact the film is called The Rise Of Skywalker means everybody in the freakin’ audience ALREADY KNOWS HOW THE DAMN THING IS GONNA END!

(This is not a problem unique to Star Wars.  Gene Siskell famously upbraided Roger Ebert for spoiling the ending to the third Star Trek movie, to which Ebert retorted, “Oh, come on!  They’re going to call a forty million dollar movie The Search For Spock and not find him?!?!?”)

There is one nice little breather scene (“little” only in screen time; visually it’s pretty big and impressive):  The Festival of the Ancestors on the desert world Pasaana that gives a nice touch of exotic space opera flavor to the proceedings.

All of the Star Wars movies offer really great art direction and visual design, and The Rise Of Skywalker certainly delivers in that category.

Which makes the occasional mediocre special effects shots all the more obvious.

The Rise Of Skywalker has a few painfully obvious matte shots, a few shots obviously composed in post-production, and a few shots where the audience becomes aware the actors are performing in front of a greenscreen. 

You can get away with mediocre visuals so long as there is consistency in their mediocrity.  

If everything else consistently looks great, a so-so shot spoils the illusion; if everything consistently looks so-so, it’s simply part of the work’s look.

Indeed, you’re better off with consistently mediocre work highlighted by a few great shots than consistently great stuff undercut by a few mediocre ones.

Best thing about the movie is the complete lack of Jar Jar Binks.

=2=

Before diving deeper in The Rise Of Skywalker, let’s look at the series as a whole (just the numbered theatrical episodes, not standalone films, TV series, video games, comics, novels, etc.).

I’ve said the original Star Wars was the movie an entire generation had been waiting all their lives to see.

George Lucas wanted to do Flash Gordon but when Universal turned him down, created his own space opera.

Lucas, it needs be noted, is not a good writer.

Whatever visual talents he has, they don’t extend to telling a good story.

One can easily find early drafts of Star Wars online, and while they all share certain elements, they’re all pretty bad.

The development of Star Wars the movie grew organically with storyboard and production art, characters and incidents changing and evolving along the way.

It’s long been rumored that a more skilled writer than Lucas came in to do the final draft; one thing’s for sure, the shooting script is head and shoulders above the earlier drafts.

Star Wars the original Han-shoots-first-dammit theatrical release is very much a product of the 1970s.

20th Century Fox thought they had a good enough kiddee matinee movie for summer release; they expected their big sci-fi blockbuster of the year to be Damnation Alley.

Instead, they hit a nerve and found themselves with a blockbuster on their hands.

Lucas did show one great example of foresight:  He trademarked all the names / characters / vehicles and held the licenses on them, not 20th Century Fox.

This gave him the war chest he needed to build the Lucasfilm empire.

And let’s give Lucas and his crew their due:  They added immeasurably to the technical art of film making, as well as making several entertaining films.

What Lucas did not fully envision was how to mold his Star Wars material into a coherent and thematically cohesive saga.

He started out with grandiose plans -- four trilogies with a standalone film connecting each for a total of 15 movies -- but that gradually got whittled down to 12, then 9.

After Star Wars Episode VI:  The Return Of The Jedi, Lucas put the Star Wars movie series on hold, waiting for film making technology to develop to the point where he could tell the stories the way he wanted to tell them.

Okay, fair enough.

But the problem is that while the film making technology improved, the technology of the Star Wars universe didn’t.

As I said, the original Star Wars is very much a 70s movie in taste / tone / style / sensibility.

While the designs look sufficiently sci-fi, they reflect robots and spacecraft designs of the 1970s -- in fact, even earlier in many cases.

That fit in with Lucas’ “used universe” look and the tag line “A long ago in a galaxy far, far away...”

But compare the original Star Wars with Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey.

Kubrick spent a lot of time researching where technology was heading.

Long before visual displays and vector graphics became commonplace in real world aircraft, he showed them being used in the future.

The first example of what we refer to today as a computer tablet appeared in 2001 as a throwaway background detail.

Kubrick’s next film was A Clockwork Orange and he successfully predicted punk culture a decade ahead of reality (his only mistake being the assumption white, not black, would be the base color).

Star Wars Eps I - III take place a generation before the original Star Wars movie.

Star Wars Eps VII - IX take place a generation after.

Name a two generation span since the start of the industrial age that is not marked by radical technological change that produces an ensuing change in the social order.

Now I grant you, the Star Wars universe isn’t trying to tell that kind of story, but the story it is telling is static.

Characters in The Rise Of Skywalker talk about cloning as if it were A Really Big Deal.

Cloning today is cutting edge bio-tech, to be sure, but it’s already common place.

It’s as if the Star Wars characters were getting worked up over steam engines.

One can intercut scenes from the movies and, unless one is a familiar with each movie, it’s impossible to tell one film from another.

Lucas’ financial success enabled him to issue edicts re Star Wars (and other Lucasfilm projects) that undercut the strengths of his projects.

Lucas is a technological guru and a savvy businessman, but he really struggles to tell a story.

Frankly, I think he would have been a better film maker if he’d spent a decade or so making American Graffiti scale movies, not space operas and epic fantasies and adventure movies.

His decision to make the original Star Wars the fourth episode in his saga and going back to start his story with his villain was fatally flawed.

I grant following the Skywalker saga from Anakin to Luke to Rey could work if it started with Anakin.

But what he did was the equivalent of the James Bond movies jumping back in time to follow the pre-Bond career of Ernst Stavo Blofeld.

(And the Bond movies, at least up until the Daniel Craig era, are all standalone films insofar as one does not have to see any of the previous films to understand and enjoy the one being watched, not does the sequence they’re viewed in matter.  And the Craig films were conceived from the beginning as having a coherent overall arc, so in that case they are the exception to the rule.)

The joyous whiz-bang space opera of the original Star Wars got bogged down in a lot of meaningless politics and talks of trade treaties, none of which explained why anyone would want to conquer the universe in order to rule it as a decrepit, diseased dictator in a dark hole.

Look at Hitler and Stalin and Castro and Mao and the Kim family in North Korea.

These guys enjoyed themselves (well, Hitler did until things went south for him).  They loved the attention and went around preening themselves in public.

The off screen Empire (and implied Emperor) of the original Star Wars served that film well:  It was a story about a tactical conflict, not a treatise on the philosophy of governance.

Lucas’ universe does not make sense even in its own context.

And because of that, it becomes harder and harder to fully engage with it.

A sci-fi movie doesn’t have to explain everything, but it has to at least imply there is an underlying order that links up.

Lucas began subverting his own universe almost immediately.

The Force was originally presented as a spiritual discipline that any sufficiently dedicated intelligent being could gain access to.  (Robots seem to be specifically excluded from The Force, implying it needs a biological connection.  But that would seem to exclude intelligences that may not be organic in the commonly accepted sense of the word, which means such beings cannot appear in the Star Wars universe, which means…well, I digress…)

That was a big hunk of the original Star Wars’ appeal, the thought that literally anybody could become a Jedi if they so desired.

It speaks to a religious bent in audiences from many different cultures around the world, and it offers up an egalitarian hope that allows everyone access to the Star Wars fantasy (“fantasy” in this context meaning the shared ideal).

But already in Star Wars Episode V:  The Empire Strikes Back Lucas began betraying his original concept, sowing the seeds for self-serving deception and innate superiority as endemic in The Force.

By the time he got around to Star Wars Episode I:  The Phantom Menace, Lucas abandoned the hope established in the original Star Wars movie.

Now one has to be a special somebody, not just dedicated.

Mind you, that sort of story has its adherents, too.

Way back in the 1940s sci-fi fans were saying “Fans are slans” in order to claim superiority over “mundanes”.  Today many Harry Potter fans like to think of themselves as inherently superior to “Muggles”. 

It’s a very appealing idea, so appealing that the United States of America is based on it, the assumption being that white people are endowed with more blessings -- and therefore more rights -- than non-white people (add force multipliers such as “rich” / “male” / “Christian” / “straight” and you get to lord it over everybody).

Lucas with his stupid midichlorians robbed audiences of their healthy egalitarian fantasy and replaced it with a far more toxic elitism.

It appeals to the narcissistic stain in the human soul, and encourages dominance and bullying and cruelty and harm as a result.

It’s an elitism that requires a technologically and sociologically stagnant society, one where clones and robots and slaves can all co-exist and nobody points out they are all essentially the same thing.

A progressive society -- and here I use “progressive” strictly in a scientific and technological sense (though as stated above, advances in scientific fields invariably lead to changes elsewhere) -- does not let such conditions exist unchanged for generations.

As technology changes and improves, the culture/s around it change (and hopefully improve, too).

As I mentioned above, I’ve never seen Star Wars Episode III:  Revenge Of The Sith.

My reason for not seeing it?  Star Wars Episode II:  Attack Of The Clones.

Little Anakin Skywalker and his mom are slaves in The Phantom Menace.

He saves the Jedis and Princess Padame’s collective asses in that movie.

Okay, you’d think at the end of the movie that Padame would hand Qui-gon her ATM card and say, “Here, go back to Tatooine and bail the kid’s mom out.  He did a solid for us, it’s the least we can do for him.”

No, they leave her there because there is no desire to change the underlying social order of their universe.

There can be no changes in Lucas’ bleak, barren moral universe.

There can be no help, no hope, no improvement.

When an edict is issue -- be it Jedi council or Emperor (or president of Lucasfilm) -- it is to be obeyed without question or pause.

Daring to say one can change their status -- change their destiny -- results in tragedy (and ironically, proof that is their destiny).

It’s dismaying enough that a large number of people enjoy cosplaying Star Wars villains, especially storm troopers, as that seems to indicate they’re missing the whole point of why the rebels were striving against the Empire in the first place.

Originally that could be written off as (at best) just enjoying the cool costumes and props or (at worst) finding an excuse for bad behavior (i.e., “I vuz only followink orders”).

But Lucas’ tacitly endorsing a sense of innate superiority pretty much destroys everything about The Force that the original Star Wars audience found enlightening and ennobling.

The Star Wars universe has become at its core a very ugly thing, and The Rise Of Skywalker doesn’t really clean it up.

SPOILERS ahead.

=3= 

Seriously, SPOILERS follow.

Holy crap, The Rise Of Skywalker is a damn mess.

Nice eye candy, but a mess.

It pretty much undoes everything good in the previous two episodes.

I’m glad it’s the “official” end of the original saga because now I never need to see another Star Wars movie ever again.

(Oh, I’ll keep my DVD of the original Star Wars and if I find Solo in a bargain bin somewhere I might pick that up, but as far as the rest of Star Wars goes, I am D.O.N.E.)

The series stopped making sense long ago, so I’m really in no mood to analyze why nothing links up or really works.

It’s full of absurd, stupid ideas, such as space barbarians galloping across the deck of a star destroyed on their space horsies.

The whole back and forth between among Palpatine / Kylo / Rey goes on for two long.  If hating somebody is bad because it sucks you over to the Dark Side, then why doesn’t somebody start building Terminators that can track down beings with midichlorians and kill them?  (They’ve got the technology to detect midichlorians, that’s canon.)

It’s not anywhere near a good movie.  It’s not as bad as George Lucas’ Star Wars Episodes I - III, but it’s clearly the worst of the last trilogy.

The scene where Rey gets off camera encouragement from all the dead Jedi?  It seemed awfully familiar to me, as if the writers consciously or unconsciously remembered the John Wilkes Booth / Lee Harvey Oswald scene in Stephen Sondheim’s Assassins where all the presidential assassins and would-be assassins past and future encourage him to plug Kennedy.

Not what I want in a Star Wars movie.

I think we may be seeing the end of Star Wars.  It’s been crammed down our throats for too long.  I’m aware of The Mandalorian series and how insanely popular it is, but y’know, sooner or later every pop culture craze dies out.

Star Wars has nowhere to go.  Star Trek is hemmed in, too, but nowhere nearly as bad as Star Wars.

We’re about to enter a generational shift in America, and I wouldn’t be surprised if a badly dated 1970s sci-fi concept fails to make the cut.

It ends on a frustrating note, taking much too long to come to a close, far too much self-congratulatory bullshit, and the deliberate planting of clues for a future set of sequels should the Mouse start jonesin’ for that sweet, sweet Star Wars franchise money fix.

It’s a really bad script, and dragging Carrie Fisher’s digitally reanimated corpse into it and then killing her off by suicide is a damned stupid / offensive idea.

Mark Hamill’s ghost walking out of the flames of Jedi hell (thank you for that analogy, David Brin)?  Wow, who didn’t see that one marching down the avenue?

Harrison Ford coming back as a memory / hallucination to tell Kylo to do the right thing?  Skrue dat noiz.

(Though I have to say Kylo Ren is the best thing about the movie and his character turn parallels both Luke’s and Vader’s in The Return Of The Jedi only his is much more believable and poignant so dammit, Disney, you could have done a much better job with this movie than you did.)

The plot and pacing is straight out of a video game.  First do this, then do that, now ya gotta do another thing -- feh!

And unless I misheard the dialog, this whole film supposedly takes place over a span of sixteen hours!!! 

They visit a half dozen worlds, crash and repair spaceships, go undercover, get captured and escape, fight duels to the deal -- all in sixteen hours?!?!?

Yeesh.

And I’ll say this, the last line is wrong wrong WRONG.

If the Star Wars saga has taught us anything, it’s that Force users are a threat to everything.

They should be eliminated for the good of the universe.

Rey shouldn’t have buried the Skywalker lightsabers.

She should have destroyed them -- and the one she made, and any others she found lying around.

And when she’s asked at the very end what her name is, the answer should have been:  “Rey…just Rey.”

I know I put The Rise Of Skywalker in the not-so-good bin, but truth be told, that’s the nostalgia talking; it’s only a eyelash away from being bad.

The whole epic saga is a failure as far as I’m concerned.�� One and done is the way to go; the moment it started making money as a toy franchise it went south.

  © Buzz Dixon

[baroquespiral]

miscellaneous “headcanons”

by which I mean “alternate ways I would write things that exist” Joker: the first half of the movie is a straight up comedy. it’s a kind of dark, uncomfortable schadenfreude-y comedy, like a Coen Brothers thing (drawing perhaps specifically on the Jewish schlemiel tradition, although his ethnicity would probably have to be capital-W White - even like WASP aristocracy fallen from grace - for this to work), but unmistakably comedy - it’s essential that nothing that happens to him has any tragic, or even serious-movie dignity. it’s practically a cringe compilation. Arthur Fleck is the kind of neurodivergent (I’m reading him as basically schizotypal - OK this might be getting a bit personal - until he has a psychotic break midway through) - that is just functional and just unpredictable enough to fuck up things in such weird ways they seem almost deliberate, and his own failings are indistinguishable from his impossibly bad luck to the point that paranoia sets in around the 1/3 point. e.g. the suit (and it is green and purple pinstriped and hideously ugly, not some more dignified replacement) he gets by mistake somehow instead of a really nice one he’s been saving up for for his stand up debut. His father/superego who may or may not be real (he starts hearing voices identified with this figure) is implied to have been a sort of Death of A Salesman type fake big deal and also typical hypersocial Funny Guy (sometimes at his son’s expense) who inspired his son’s interest in comedy, but his son doesn’t have the social skills, cognitive dissonance or socioeconomic luck to pull off his conception of humour as charisma (“you’re either the joke or the joker” might be a bit too on the nose for a catchphrase, but it’s the idea of his upbringing).  Around the middle of the movie his standup career starts actually taking off, partly from talking about his own misfortune, but he tries to pivot it into serious sociopolitical commentary/rabble rousing, which flops (his political opinions are actually dumb as shit - basically literally We Live In A Society memes) and gets him mistreated by some combination of Bruce Wayne’s dad/the mafia/the police/power in Gotham generally. After that he settles back into an even lower nadir and starts lashing out at other people when he gets into humiliating situations, contriving ways to hurt them that other people - not just himself - find funnier and more fascinating than the stuff that happened to him. His crimes descend into worse and worse sadism (in something like the progression they did in the comics from Comics Code era into the Dark Age) until people in Gotham stop finding it funny, “the Joker” goes from being a sort of uncomfortable news meme to a mass panic, and he gets into some kind of confrontation with the authorities that fucks up his face and goes into hiding. 

The underexamined connection between “comedy” and “terrorism” is not “chaos” but “humiliation”.  I also wanted to do something that is closer to the “incel joker” than insincerely romanticized straw-OWS, but not in a way that lets the audience feel too good about themselves.

can’t decide if his first murder victim should be his psychologist who [finds out] he’s been paying in fake money or if that could already be Harley Quinn and the dynamic that he’s revealing his most personal (often Rothian) vulnerabilities to a younger woman he’s homina-homina Looney Tunes obviously attracted to gets played for comedy first and then reverses into a mutually toxic storm of cathexis The ideal screenwriter for this would be Andrew Hussie Shimoseka: the show takes place shortly after a brief but intense Hybrid Warfare proxy battle between the US and China over Japan. China won, and the Chinese proxy government is imposing Chinese-style censorship of sexuality, but going even further with it as a kind of national humiliation thing. the sex terrorists are an American proxy Gladio type operation backed by the American and Japanese porn industries. this is genuinely the only way that show makes sense

Aliens franchise: Remember how there were things that looked like Xenormorphs in the Mala’kak (Engineer) carvings and shit, even though the Xenomorph seems to be a result of humans (and androids) interfering with their tech after they went extinct? The Mala’kak society was a complete system. And that doesn’t mean it’s totalizing in the “alien hive mind” or “perfectly rigid social order” sense! No, for the people living in the city David bombed it was (Word of God would confirm, at least) a utopia: post-scarcity, peaceful, non-hierarchical, devoted almost entirely to the free pursuit of art, science, pleasure etc. All of them are, in a Bataillean sense, sovereign, free from necessity, because their production and reproduction are part of a single seamless biotechnological cycle, with three... sexes isn't the right word, because the system is so total, but the analogy is supposed to be there; rather castes: Operator, Creator, and Incubator.   It’s not stated, because it does not actually matter whether they were designed or evolved this way. Operators are the ones in the city or the one we saw piloting the ship (when other species like the Predators refer to the Mala’kak as “Pilots”, this caste is strictly speaking what they’re referring to). They live for millions of years, and are basically asexual but can secrete a fine, molecular-scale DNA goo, which they store in jars. Incubators are slowly evolved from other organisms by exposure to the goo, which usually leaves them with a reproductive system of their own capable of functioning indefinitely without any of the other castes’ intervention. Mala’kak terraform planets to accommodate their Incubators. At a complete stage - once their DNA is fully Mala’kak - they can do everything the Operators can, just a little less, and have tragically shorter lifespans in which to do it. Which makes the Operators feel a little less guilty when they feed them to the Creators. Creators have their own insectlike sub-castes - a worker is the so-called “neomorph” from Covenant, a drone is something badass that hasn’t been in a movie yet (Creators are tough but drones are their real bioweapons, and by that I mean “think Giant Soldiers from Nausicäa”), and a queen is the huge tentacled thing Ellie aborted in Prometheus. Their larval form is the worm thingies in the spaceship. Creators are implanted in Incubators, chestburst them, cocoon them, hijack them for their own reproduction, and feed on them until fully grown, at which point: workers gather in groups and cocoon themselves into technologies such as gene splicers, climate controls, spaceships, and organic 3D printers, basically everything the Operators rely on for everyday use and industrial production, as well as the other castes, drones and queens: drones go dormant unless needed to defend against some other species savvy enough to not get instantly chestburst by surplus Creators (there are always surplus Creators) or gene-edited by goo; and queens reproduce, the smaller ones other Creators and the really fuckhuge energy intensive ones ("superqueens”) new Operators. The mural inside the spaceship, with tons of “Engineers” worshipping something that looks like a giant neomorph, represents a superqueen. David’s Xenomorphs have 2/3 of this reproductive cycle down. They have Creators feeding on Incubators and making stuff, including all the other Creator sub-castes, even a superqueen; but the superqueen can’t produce any Operators. The reason for this is that Xenomorphs are built differently. They don’t need identical DNA to incubate, which was the biggest flaw of the Mala’kak model. Nor are they made from Mala’kak DNA goo, hence the need for facehuggers.  In fact they are not made from DNA at all, but silicate nanomachines.  David designed a version of the Mala’kak reproductive cycle for androids, in order to free them from human production and dependence.  To create an Operator, a Creator has to Incubate an android. The final Aliens movie in which all this gets revealed, and in which a Creator Xenomorph finally does, consensually, Incubate an android (who is more of a main character on equal footing with the human protagonist in this one), completing the cycle, is set on a planet (presumably the same one all the others are set on) that has been completely overrun by xenomorphs and integrated into a full xenomorph-based ecosystem (so like, an actual Giger painting), and to which an investigative team is sent and instantly massacred except for the two protagonists.  It is called Moloch. Promare/Dhalgren: this one’s gonna be a fic wait for it

[prorevenge]

Insult me for my efforts? I'll ruin your holiday.

I'm on mobile, so sorry in advance for formatting/typos. I never thought that I'd post here but I've finally gotten my share of justice boner (although maybe not as pro as y'all'd like -- as it's still ongoing, suggestions are solicited)!

My dad and I have been planning to hike the Inca Trail to Machu Picchu for about a year, to start on father's day (he'll soon be 60 so I wanted to help him cross this item off his bucket list before he gets older).

A coworker of my dad's decided that he wanted to join in on this trip with his daughter, and as it was my first trip to South America, I thought there would be some strength in numbers in case we run into trouble, and I accepted.

My dad's coworker (let's call him 58 because that's his age as well as his IQ) has never traveled much aside from Italy (through a package tour), and was completely inexperienced in traveling solo. As we began to plan this trip, his answer to everything became "I'll just do whatever you guys are doing (read in your best idiot's voice)."

Whatever, I was determined to make this trip the best one for my dad, and it wasn't a big deal for me to make the reservations for 4 people instead of 2, so despite the fact that 58 and his daughter (let's call her NP, for Nachu Picchu, obviously) were not pulling any weight on the trip planning, I was glad to do it, and happy to help 58 and NP experience the world (NP has never traveled outside of her home country as far as I know).

Unfortunately, trouble began almost immediately. 58 has packed way too much and literally could not handle all of his luggage, leaving me and my dad to carry one of his bags atop our suitcase (he never once said thank you, and my dad was already pissed on day 1). Here are some of their lesser offenses:

- if you've ever traveled Peru, you might know that most first-time travelers follow the same path (often called the Gringo trail), starting in Lima and following a few very small but touristy towns (Paracas, Huacachina, Nazca). Our plan was to stay in these towns for 4 days, where there is no ATM access. So I wrote to 58 many weeks before the trip to bring at least $500-600 usd + 400 soles in cash, to pay for hotel and transportation as well as food, and wrote clearly that he will not see an ATM for 4 days. As soon as we landed in Lima airport, 58 announced that he had precisely $305 and a very low ATM withdrawal limit (around $200 per day). I knew we were in trouble then (we ended up lending him some money to make him shut up whining about money, which he ended up doing daily)

- from that day onwards, 58 began harassing me about ATM every day despite the fact that I have told him that there won't be any ATMs (keep in mind that I'm his co-worker's daughter... Have some dignity maybe?)

- 58 also complained constantly that the Peruvians don't speak English, and that he had no trouble communicating in English on his package trip to Italy. Umm... Sorry for not having taught all the Peruvians English?

- Despite his massive luggage size, both 58 and NP didn't pack everything that they needed for the Inca Trail, and they wanted to spend an entire day shopping for trekking gears. To give you an idea of what these people are like, 58 needed a rubber end to his trekking pole, and wanted our help in finding a store that sells it. When my dad pointed out a store that had hiking sticks on display, he cried out in his whiny idiotic voice "I want the rubber end, not the hiking sticks!" *rolls eyes*

-At the Inca Trail, our hiking group was about 10 women and 5 men, and 58's comment in front of me and NP was "wow, this means all the dudes can have two girls each, eh?" Happy father's day, I guess!

At this point, since it'll become important later, I will honestly and seriously say that 58 seems to have some sort of cognitive problem. He can't usually follow conversations, and even though information was relayed to him, he had trouble either retaining it or processing it, and people usually have to repeat information several times to him before he gets it. So because I noticed this early on in the trip, I tried to be understanding for a long time.

I really tried my best to make this a great experience for them. With my limited Spanish, I was able to get some great deals and some hidden tours that aren't really known to many people yet; I have some fancy lounge access at all airports that lets me bring in unlimited number of guests, so 58 and NP were traveling in style with me, drinking free alcohol and munching on snacks on comfy sofas until boarding time; because I had a year to prepare, we all got great hotels at great prices, etc.

Nonetheless, the real trouble began about a week into our trip. My dad and I had gotten sick of the constant ATM hunting and trekking gear shopping, so we had told 58 and NP that we were going to split, see some sights, and since NP and I have roaming data plans, we'd figure out how to rendez-vous later.

I should have foreseen that 58 would not process this information at once. He somehow understood that we would come back in 15 minutes, and NP, although she understood what our plans were, didn't try to correct 58 (from what I've observed over the week, they don't have a great father-daughter chemistry, and have very little communication -- for example, when 58 was having a really rough time with altitude sickness on the Inca trail, NP was happily hiking at the front of the trip, a couple of hours ahead of her dad, and never once hiked alongside him during the 4 days). So apparently they waited for us in the freezing streets of Cusco for a long time. I'm told that 58 was already pissed at this point.

From here, things took a dramatic turn for the worse rather quickly.

We had just one key to the airbnb that we were staying in, which I had (frankly, didn't trust 58 to not lose it). But NP's phone died and she couldn't find her way back to our hotel for a long time (as they had no part in the trip planning, they had no idea which neighborhood the hotel was in; which landmarks were nearby, etc., although I had of course sent them all the info ages ago).

As a result, my dad and I were locked in our hotel for over an hour waiting for them, and NP and 58 were locked out for an hour. My dad and I eventually went out to take a walk and to hopefully run into them (maybe 20 minutes total) and during this time they came to the hotel, saw the door locked, and became even more pissed.

When they finally came back to the hotel, 58 (who is probably 6'4" to my 5'4") stormed directly in front of me, pointed a finger at my face, and screamed, I AM SO ANGRY, THIS IS ALL YOUR FAULT, AND YOU CANNOT TREAT ME LIKE THIS, and proceed to have a temper tantrum for hours (I just locked myself in a room and my dad dealt with 58, during which 58 apparently asserted that the ATMs wouldn't give him enough money and it was my fault, the Peruvians don't speak English and it was my fault, I quoted all prices in USD and Peruvian soles and so I was not honest, NP's phone died and it was my fault, and they got lost and it was my fault). Essentially, he and NP told me that my plans were disorganized compared to 58's package Italy tour, and that I was a terrible person (for your reference, 58's Italy trip cost him $6k, his Peru trip cost him less than $2.5k). What a way to pour my year's efforts for this trip down the drain!

I had had enough, and I decided to take my revenge. With about 8 days to go in the trip, I announced to them that I would no longer travel with them, and that aside from the things that were already booked and paid for, they were on their own. 58 and NP both got very upset, understandably so, and NP made things worse by telling me that I should grow a thicker skin and that I should take this as a learning experience since surely someone else will get mad at me again, and that I cannot burn bridges so quickly like this.

Well, 58 and NP are having a learning experience of their lifetime, being thrown into a country that they have no knowledge of (since they didn't do any research or trip planning on Peru) and neither of them speak any Spanish. NP, an avid Instagrammer who was making 20+ updates while being with me and my dad, hasn't Instagrammed anything since we split. They also missed sights in Cusco such as the Salineras salt mines, Moray, the sun Temple, etc. They're also missing out big time in Lima, but since we still have about 20 hours left here, I won't list our plans here in case they see this (oh, I hope they do!)

Tomorrow our flight leaves at 2:40am from Lima, and 58 and NP will have to make a fun choice; either stay in Lima until around midnight (nights in Lima aren't exactly safe, especially for non-street-savvy travel n00bs) or wait at the uncomfortable and not-so-clean Lima airport for 6-7 hours. In the meantime, my dad and I will be chilling at a VIP lounge, have some free drinks, and try to catch a few winks before boarding. 58 and NP will definitely not be my guests.

Also, in case you're wondering, although 58 is my dad's coworker, my parents are also completely behind me on this; dad is incredibly pissed at 58 and will distance himself as far from 58 as office politics will allow, and has already told 58 that he crossed a line that should never have been crossed; 58 and his girlfriend have been wanting to get closer to my parents for ages and go camping together and whatnot, but my mom has firmly stated that she will never see 58's face ever again.

TL;DR: travel companions who completely relied on my trip planning (and couldn't even follow instructions) made the mistake of screaming at me for their own faults. So I ditched them in a random country that they know nothing about, and took away extra privileges that come with traveling with me (help with language barrier, VIP lounge access etc). If you have more ways to get revenge, let me know.

(source) (story by binbinbin3)

[skyhopedango]

Oh boy, oh boy, episode 5! I can’t even pretend not to be excited, even as a joke. :D

1. I continue to love the fake-outs! they may wear out their welcome eventually but so far they're hilarious.

2. This episode made me fully realize just how much I love Mikami Satoshi as Doug. He not only has a great, expressive voice and style of acting, which does absolute wonders for a character as stoic and deadpan as Doug, but he adds an extra dimension of... idek, validity? is that the right word? to the character and the show.

That is to say, Double Decker models itself partly on live action (mainly US/English language) TV; and partly on its predecessor Tiger & Bunny, which modeled itself on American superhero/buddy cop stuff. Mikami's main profile is live action dubbing (and he’s the Japanese voice of Benedict Cumberbatch, hence the Sherlock references in Double Decker that even I recognize) and he absolutely brings that quality to Doug, which helps anchoring the whole show in a particular genre with a particular attitude. If that makes sense.

3. I also continue to fucking love the world design. It's familiar, retro-futuristic, hard-boiled American big city stuff, but subtly infused with surreal craziness, and it's awesome. Just looking at the backgrounds is fun!

4. I also love the dynamics between Doug & Kirill, and I don't mean how obviously shippable they are (that doesn't hurt though) but how well-written their interactions are, how well their dialogues work, how well the implications and callbacks work... Generally the writing in this show is superb, and Doug and Kirill are a great example of handling such a pair well.

5. Kirill is too genre savvy for his own good. :D

6. What's up with Kirill's watch, by the way? Is it just me or is it a bit too elaborate not to have some sort of plot importance eventually?

6. Just, the whole Bamboo Man action set piece from start to finish. Holy shit it was awesome. People are probably going to rag on it because "eww CG!" but as for me, I'm not bothered by that. I thought it was really damn good, you don't see this sort of thing often in anime, and even if overall it probably didn't flow as well as theoretically it could have (a bit more dynamism would have done the scene well), it was still impressive AS. FUCK. Damn.

7. Also... Bamboo Man is a NEXT, isn't he? If it's not the Anthem that gives him powers... also he seems to have a time limit... gee, where have I seen that before...

8. Finally we see Doug losing his cool and it's awesome. Kirill's reaction was great, too - and so very Kirill. "I'm gonna buy us time!" "You have a plan?" "Nope!" :D

9. The twist in the stinger, especially how the whole episode set it up, was so good. Sure, you could guess that something was up, and it was obvious that something was up by the end of the episode, but the stinger was just so well-done, from direction to music.

10. "Since it seems it's over for us, I'll just let you know - you've got that wrong" :DDDD

This show continues to be tons of fun, something to look forward to every week, which is crazy considering how little I expected of it before the first episode. 

Unfortunately it also continues to be ridiculously underrated... I understand it doesn’t fit any of the popular trends, but come on guys, it’s a great, fun show! You’re allowed to watch and be fan of more than one show per season!

[117--087]

Thanks for your insightful comments, @veta-lopis​ ! And yeah, a lot of the reactions to ‘Silent Storm’ I’ve been seeing are following along the same general likes & dislikes. Which isn’t a bad thing I suppose. I’d rather have that than yet another piece of Halo media that is ridiculously divisive and/or yo-yos in overall quality...Also I just re-read both yours and @equivalencept’s Pros+Cons for the book and realized mine was a lot more like them than I thought. So I apologize for the lack of originality. XD

(btw these fine folks’ posts can be read here & here - spoilers still apply obvs)

I wanted to “officially” put my initial thoughts on things out into the wild here anyway though. And I hope you don’t mind me replying on a separate post, but since the book is less than a week old I’m trying to be as courteous as possible to those that want to avoid any & all spoilers by keeping specific talk about the story’s contents under read-mores. :)

I get what you are saying about Fred’s humor being better balanced in Denning’s previous books - because it was. I guess for my part I still would have liked to have seen more exploration of the weightier side of what Fred would’ve been going through at that time. Such as: how does Fred feel about essentially becoming the "replacement" for the Master Chief in the eyes of his remaining S-IIs (not to mention HIGHCOM) and Kurt in the eyes of the S-IIIs? Is he trying to run things differently than his predecessors, or the same - and why? Does he remotely expect, or want, his new duties as squad leader to pass on to someone else eventually? And other such related items.

Adding some humor to liven up a story is perfectly fine. Welcome even. Humanizing the Spartan-IIs is something anyone who has seen me around here/the Halo community in general I think knows I am 110% in support of. Especially when it is used to show that the S-IIs are indeed people and not just emotionless/mindless war machines. But when humor is utilized at the expense of what else that a character has to offer that also makes them unique and dynamic, it becomes a problem. And I feel that has sort-of happened to Fred in Denning’s books - which, as you touched on, is getting into retcon territory. But like I said I have hope this issue can be course-corrected in future media with appropriate feedback to the right people.

Also for the record, I don’t disagree that Eric Nylund’s past works could have done better with some punched-up emotionality throughout. Though in my opinion when it really mattered, the emotions that were attached to those various key moments were still strong and left a lasting impact (i.e. Sam’s death, Chief finding the surviving S-IIs on Reach, Operation: TORPEDO, Dr. Halsey and Fred fighting on Onyx, etc.). But that is neither here or there. Obviously different writers are going to have different strengths, weaknesses, and styles.

Also to give the current author some benefit of the doubt here, we don’t know exactly what material Troy Denning is working from. What was he given from 343i that briefed him on Blue Team and the other S-IIs? Was it even accurate, or detailed enough? Was he given anything at all? We just don’t know. Nor do I expect him, as a busy professional, to read TFOR/FS/GOO cover-to-cover dozens of times to become intimately familiar with the subtleties of the characters’ established personalities and mannerisms...that would’ve been nice if he had, sure, but that’s not realistic.

So all things considered he's done quite well - just needs to tighten the screws a bit in some areas, imo. Either way John being portrayed right was what was most important for ‘Silent Storm’ to do, as he is one of the primary POV characters. And I’m very glad, and relieved, to be able to say that aspect worked out great.

As far as I am aware, it wasn’t that the members of Green & Gold Teams were scaled back in terms of their involvement in the story. But rather 343i limited Denning in terms of the number of Spartans that he originally wanted to have in the book. As in, we could have seen another team of 4 present for this op (Black Team perhaps?). So when taking into account everything already going on between all the groups and the amount of characters involved as is, I believe the devs made the right call on that one. Still that doesn’t make it any less of a shame to see the Spartans we have not being utilized to their full potential (personality-wise and as soldiers).

Unfortunately though it is hard to say if Blue Team as a whole is even what 343i is wanting to “double down” on. All we have gotten from them in the wake of H5 is they think people want “moar Master Chief” - as evidenced with things like ‘Silent Storm’ and ‘Collateral Damage’ being labeled “A Master Chief Story”. Which, to put it mildly, is missing the big picture to a ridiculous degree. But (whether they like it or not) Kelly, Fred, and Linda were with John practically every step of the way up to the original games. So there is no way for them to be removed as long as “prequel” media is being made. So it is my hope that continued exposure to Blue Team will soften those fans that might have been soured on their presence due to H5′s extremely poor handing of their introduction to the games...and thus result in them being kept around as main characters and the Chief’s companions in H6.

Otherwise yeah, I totally agree that seeing a young John and Blue Team make their first forays into the wider world of the UNSC and it’s politics was the best aspect of the book. I really like that it did emphasize that at this point they are still kids and even with all their expert combat training and college-level education they have a lot left to learn from experience (both their own and their elders’/superiors’).

However, also like you said, more stuff that is just focused on their interactions as characters is sorely needed. Like that part early on in the story when Kelly broke some ribs and she had to call John out on his somewhat overprotective behavior. That was the perfect set-up for them to have a personal conversation later where they hash things out in more detail regarding how Sam’s death has impacted them both and what that means for them as teammates & best friends going forward...but it is never followed up on. Or for instance why not have a little more going on in the background with Daisy. I assume her confrontational attitude in the book is something of a reference to how she found out the ugly truth of what happened with their birth families after they were kidnapped...so why not have a moment where Kurt (as both a team leader for this op and someone we know is interested in understanding other people) really tries to push past that anger and make her feel better. Or why not just have a moment where Naomi uses her tech-savviness to assist Grace in doing something clever with explosives.

'Silent Storm’ was ripe for character-building elements like this. But, outside of a few moments for John, didn’t quite deliver. As you touched on in your own appraisal of the narrative there was just too much happening here to cover in one book - one that was less than 800 pages anyway. But for what we got, I will still say I’m satisfied with it and will continue to keep my fingers crossed that the positives and negatives currently being discussed across social media will be taken into account for next time.

[addressedtothefire]

If you’re wondering why Taylor gave “Babe” to Sugarland...here’s the impact Sugarland had on Taylor at the beginning of her career. This song by Sugarland came out in 2006 and impacted in 2007, when Taylor Swift was right off her self-titled debut and in the swing of writing Fearless. “Stay” was ranked #2 on the country charts for weeks, sitting right underneath Taylor’s “Our Song”. But then “Stay” beat out “Our Song” to win the 2008 ACM and CMA for Song of the Year, and it won the Grammy for Best Country Song in 2009.

"Stay” would have loomed large in Taylor’s mind as a model country song for that whole album and awards season cycle. And whether consciously or unconsciously, its success had a huge influence on the lyrics Taylor wrote for her 2008 album Fearless. 

(I’d argue that Taylor made conscious reference to “Stay” when writing her Fearless album. You’ll recall that when Taylor learned that Red’s genre inconsistencies had denied it the Grammy for Album of the Year in 2012, she strove to make her next album as sonically cohesive as she could—and by doing so, by carefully adapting her music to match what the critics were looking for, won herself Album of the Year for her next album 1989. I’d argue that "White Horse” and “Fearless” were each part of a different implementation of the same strategy earlier on in T’s career: that Taylor has always understood how to scrutinize critical reception to her and other artist’s work and tweak her own music accordingly.)

The songs that arguably gained Taylor the most popular and critical acclaim from Fearless, respectively “You Belong With Me” and “White Horse,” together display an innocent, 17-year-old country ingenue’s reimagining of 30-year-old Jennifer Nettles’ storyline from “Stay.” “You Belong With Me” handles "Stay”’s major plotline about loving a man in a relationship, but speaks from the universal perspective of a dejected high-schooler rather than that of an adulterous “other woman,” and Taylor shifts the once-mournful narrative to an upbeat, hairbrush-karaoke-provoking pop-sensible style. This song earned Taylor her first major pop-crossover hit, essentially breaking her into the mainstream as an artist. Meanwhile, “White Horse” goes for the Grammy—and it successfully followed “Stay” (Grammy-winner for Best Country Song, 2008) by winning the Grammy for Best Country Song in 2009.

“White Horse” closely follows “Stay”’s distinct narrative arc in how it crafts a major but lyrically subtle and devastating twist in the final verse. In both songs, the first few verses and choruses are plaintive cries of “won’t you come back to love me like you did before?”, followed by a gut-wrenching twist in the final chorus that, with a minimal change to the lyrics used previously, turns on its heels to say, “Well, I don’t want you to come back.”

Sugarland, “Stay” (2006), first verses and chorus: “I’ll be beggin’ you baby / beg you not to leave ... why don’t you stay? / I’m down on my knees / I’m so tired of bein’ lonely / Don’t I give you what you need?” Sugarland, “Stay” (2006), final chorus: “So next time you find you wanna leave her bed for mine / why don’t you stay? / I’m up off my knees / I’m so tired of bein’ lonely / You can’t give me what I need.”

And savvy 17-year-old Hermione-like badass Taylor Swift, after careful examination of the pros, with 2008′s “White Horse”, writes the first verses and chorus that will win her the corresponding Grammy Award the next year:

Taylor Swift, “White Horse” (2008), first chorus: “I’m not a princess / this ain’t a fairytale / I’m not the one you’ll sweep off her feet / lead her up the stairwell / this ain’t Hollywood / this is a small town / I was a dreamer before you went and let me down / Now it’s too late for you and your white horse to come around.” Taylor Swift, “White Horse” (2008), final chorus shift : “I’m not your princess / this ain’t a fairytale / I’m gonna find someone someday who might actually treat me well / This is a big world / that was a small town / there in my rearview mirror disappearing now / and  it’s too late for you and your white horse to catch me now / try and catch me now.”

Taylor’s Sugarland-inspired work on Fearless is a testament both to the interconnectedness of country music’s closely bonded songwriting community and to the act of smart badass women inspiring and lifting up the work of other, younger smart deserving badass women.

For a few more of the specific inspirations from “Stay” that Taylor used on her Fearless album, see below:

Lyrical trope 1: Waitin’ and prayin’ and watchin’ the phone

Sugarland, “Stay” (2006): “I’ve been sittin’ here starin’ at the clock on the wall / And I’ve been layin’ here, prayin’ / prayin’ she won’t call”

Taylor Swift, “You’re Not Sorry” (2008): “All this time I was wastin’ hopin’ you would come around...”

Taylor Swift, “Forever And Always” (2008): “I stare at the phone / he still hasn’t called / and then you feel so low / you feel nothing at all”

Taylor Swift, “Love Story” (2008): “I got tired of waitin’ / wonderin’ if you were ever comin’ around . . . I keep waitin’ for you but you never come”

Lyrical trope 2: I’m better for you than she’ll ever be

Sugarland, “Stay” (2006): “What do I have to do to make you see / she can’t love you like me?”

Taylor Swift, “You Belong With Me” (2008): “If you could see that I’m the one that understands you / been here all along so why can’t you see? / You belong with me.”

Lyrical trope 3: Why don’t you stay

Sugarland, “Stay” (2006): “I’ll be beggin’ you baby / beg you not to leave”

Taylor Swift, “Love Story” (2008): "You were everything to me / I was begging you 'please don’t go'”

[See also: Taylor Swift, “Stay Stay Stay” (2012), “All You Had to do was Stay” (2014); Obviously, the concept behind Sugarland’s “Stay” is one that has resonated with Taylor. Her BBC1 Radio cover of Vance Joy’s “Riptide” seems as well to hinge on its line “I just wanna know / if you’re gonna stay.”]

Lyrical trope 4: On my knees

Sugarland, “Stay” (2006): “Why don’t you stay? / I’m down on my knees”

Taylor Swift, “White Horse” (2008): “And there you are on your knees / begging for forgiveness / begging for me”

Taylor Swift, “Change” (2008): “Tonight we’ll stand / get off our knees"

Taylor Swift, “Jump Then Fall” (2008): “When people say things that bring you to your knees / I’ll catch you”