#the title sequence of all them being successful

[eternallovers65]

Bestie send this to me and......

.....what if I kill myself because wtf

(all credits to @ bellacami on tiktok!! Literally go watch her edits I've been crying over an hour because of them)

[dykedvonte]

I think the most baffling thing about the Tulpar as a vessel to me is the fact that the ship really did only have a one way communication system.

I know it was cheap but even the most basic of vessels regarding major transport would have some way, shape or form for outside communication. Not only that but there was absolutely no form of innate emergency signal to show they may have been offline or in trouble despite clearly having a system to dock credits if they went off course. It's another factor that really shows that bad situations are made to get worse by design. One person who is required to relay all information to the crew and make all the choices without feedback. No way to update or call for help in case of a dire situation. No way to inform of inner personal conflicts and acquire procedures accordingly.

It really is like they are all in some sort of fucked up solitary confinement. They have their own world with strict roles that are meaningless in the end, as long as the cargo makes it, it doesn't matter what happens on that ship to the company. They don't want to hear anything and will come to conclusions on what happened based on how much pay they can withhold from the workers. Even what they do send is short, sterile and corporate to the extent it was likely written and sent out with a command by some random unmanned computer in an office.

There's something to be said about how unfair it is to force absolute power and control onto one person when you as an entity could do so much more to offload it but I've said it many times before so I won't again.

[maybe-boys-do-love]

Aof Noppharnach writes some my favorite openings I've seen across all genres. They open like musicals and fairytales. He writes these beautiful monologues that set everything up while romantic scores roll out and the camera floats across the settings. For real, watch the fluid camera work in any of his openings; it's one of the way he snags you. I just swoon.

Look at the opening lines of He's Coming to Me: "It was as simple as that. My heart stopped beating and I died. I have the same dream every time. You must be wondering how a ghost can dream." Call me Ishmael, who!?

And like, the way after the title sequence of Dark Blue Kiss, though, that the music and camera instill a magical fondness on the main characters as it establishes them in their natural habitats--swimming at pool, tutoring at Sun's cafe, etc.--with partial shots that reveal their confident faces in quick and steady succession!? Like, oh yes, all my old Kiss Me Again friends are glowing and tryna make the best of it all.

1000 Stars monologue about second lives in video games might be cheesy except we're cutting between a slick moneyed boy at a roulette table, an earnest girl on a bus, and a group of rangers scouting the forest in pitch black, and wondering who's about to die as mentioned in the voice-over and why are these randos living worlds apart being braided together like this!?!?

And then Moonlight Chicken is just *chef's kiss* using a post-Covid news segment to invite us into a struggling Pattaya neighborhood. And we hear about the economic hardships, the intentions of joy, the Chinese lanterns hanging outside, and see shots of the staff and late-night customers in bright warm light. Then we cut away to people watching the clip at a much dimmer version of the diner as business gets underway. Complaints and arguments and interruptions all occurring within A SINGLE SHOT until Jim walks out onto the street as the music just fully swells, and I'm passed out from the CINEMA of it all!!!!

The comparison I jump to quickest is the opening of Disney's Beauty and the Beast as we are told through stained-glass images the tale of the castle's enchantment and then toured about the small-minded town and its inhabitants as they gossip about Belle. By the end of the two sequences we have learned about every main character and their motivations with a smooth, inviting flow across the physical space and conversations. I honestly wonder if Aof studied the Disney Renaissance openings (majorly influence by another gay visionary, Howard Ashman)?

When it's an Aof script, you just know the viewer within the first fifteen minutes has everything they need to be prepared and excited for the ride they're about to take. Tone and Rhythm: established. Setting: explored, Characters: I already love them more than life itself.

[onewomancitadel]

Major spoilers for Death's End, the final book of the Remembrance of Earth's Past trilogy beneath the cut.

So about that terrarium...

My intial somewhat dismayed reading was that of an uncharacteristic, hackneyed sentimentality: even when the books took such an indulgence, there was always a cynical chaser. You don't get to experience the fantastical sense of romantic love without Luo Ji's understanding of women (or lack thereof) and the belief that people only love imaginations of each other and stay together so long as they don't conflict with reality. (This is probably key to the fact that the star-crossed lovers never meet in Death's End, neither of them being disabused of their fantasies. It's juvenile).

Suffice it to say, I really struggled with the ending. I struggled with Death's End in general; not necessarily the fundamental approach (I don't think undoing the victory was a totally bad idea, since I liked evolving that thesis past what it means to win) but the structure felt less whimsical and more directionless, a series of entries - quite literally - which felt disparate and never quite managed to hit that sense of dispassionate historical observation I think the text was trying to go for.

So the idea that there was this terrarium and message in a bottle left behind in a universe built specially for Cheng Xin was just kind of bizarre tonally. It felt silly.

I get it: the entries about Earth's past is right there in the trilogy title. But it felt very self-important; it didn't cohere with the overwhelming notion that humanity was 1. very irrelevant, 2. very bad at what it does, 2a. its women are very bad at what they do, and its men - if soft and weak - are similarly bad, 3. at every moment anything that isn't about pure survival is cut at the knees. Remembrance seems more like farce. Actually, the entire sequence on Pluto felt out of place, almost like we're meant to laugh at the little bugs trying to save their precious granules of sugar.

I was discussing the ending with my best friend and her family - actually I related all the events of the books to them, somewhat out of chronological order, because I know that they all collectively would fucking hate these books (I personally didn't, glimmers of brilliance make me all the more frustrated) - and she said this amazing thing which was like, well, you say there's all this umming and ahhing over whether the universe might not be able to reboot if there's mass left behind - and it seems alright just to leave something - what if this is Cheng Xin's final fuck-up, finally chosen in an active way?

It's actually her seeming passivity which would allow this final stunt at all. Nobody would dare assume - not her last companions - that she would intentionally do this at all. So far she's damned humanity once, and then effectively twice (at least I think she is implicitly damned), and she is, really sincerely, a complete fuck-up wastrel who never does or thinks anything interesting. Luo Ji gets to be a fuck-up wastrel who thinks interesting things and does interesting things, and fails once, twice, three times, probably more, as a Wallfacer, and has a moment of stunning success because he's a fuck-up wastrel. This is a great idea, which unfortunately suffers in the face of the fact that Liu Cixin is obsessed with strong men.

The idea that Cheng Xin looks at the face of the overwhelming loneliness of her universe, the cruelty and inhumanity of the dark forest thesis, the wars upon wars which ravaged multiple dimensions until they were folded into flatness, and then decides to weaponise a sense of sentimentality to finally damn that universe - to prevent it from being reborn, to escape samsara - when she would never be expected to be capable of such a thing, to finally actively choose this maternality she's passively carried and passively condemned humanity with - is maybe the thing which could redeem that ending for me. It's bleak - and I still don't agree with the overall attitude the books hold - but it is actually a real thesis! It does actually deliver on this threat that's expounded upon and seems like, in any other story, would surely allow for some small space to remember humanity. But how much mass is enough? If enough pocket unvierses all leave behind a few hundred grams, surely it would start to add up.

The alternative interpretation is that Cheng Xin once again fucks everything up but not on purpose, merely through an innocent-intentioned sentimentality. But I think the fact that she acknowledges the threat allows a bit of wiggle room. The argument here would be that Luo Ji's final Wallfacer plan against the Trisolarans is concealed from us until its reveal; this move has been pulled once before. The key difference is that we never see whether the universe reboots. I think this is very meaningful for the argument that it doesn't, and that we wouldn't see the payoff of Cheng Xin's plan, because there is no universe anymore. This really makes it a true twist ending to me which - most meaningfully of all - doesn't go against what the books were trying to do, but actually strengthens it.

But she put the effort into recording humanity's history, and I might go so far as to argue that she did that to explain her motivation to end it all, instead of slipping into it, but actually thinking about it.

The real conflict here, actually with any ending, is the sense of anthropocentrism which it otherwise sought to subvert. But I think reading against that, if we take it seriously that human beings are moral creatures who make moral judgements irrespective of our place in the universe (however small that is), I think that actually pairs better thematically with the idea that a graveyard remembrance of humanity also serves as the final, very small thing - this small living thing - which says 'no more'. The sense of reincarnation and enlightenment here, too, feels fitting, though I'd argue that its overly cynical view of the universe does the argument better.

I wrote all this out and then I went back to reread the last few pages. (I'm using an ebook version, so I don't have page citations). I'm going to see if this interpretation actually holds:

Cheng Xin asks if she can leave five kilograms behind, and then:

As long as the tiny sun inside the sphere continued to give off light, this miniature ecological system would persist. As long as it remained here, Universe 647 would not be a lifeless, dark world. “Of course,” said Guan Yifan. “The great universe isn’t going to fail to collapse because it misses five kilograms.” He had another thought that he did not voice: Perhaps the great universe really would fail to collapse because it lacked a single atom’s mass. [...] Ultimately, the great universe was certain to lose at least a few hundred million tons of matter, or perhaps even a million billion billion tons. Hopefully, the great universe could ignore such a loss.

So the sequence of events is this:

they're going to heed the call of the Returners

Cheng Xin wants to leave behind something to remember humanity by

Guan Yifan says of course she can, so graciously giving her permission

they acknowledge the general fact that others may do the same thing, or maybe even a single atom might be enough to prevent the universe rebooting, so it's a gamble anyway

Holy fuck this is terrible. Anyway, if we go through this with the perspective of the books - that every civilisation is interested first and foremost in survival at any cost, and short of that, to be remembered (survival in memory) - it is near-inevitable that there will be other mass left behind. But the flipside of this is that each individual choice matters; maybe with enough choosing to forego that, the universe could reboot. It's not definite. The ending is left open, the 'science' here is left imprecise. But we are reading between the lines of motivation. I'm not sure that my reading holds as an intended reading - because I do think the thematic compromise of the ending really does feel quite clear - but this is how I would make it more concordant with the series.

I much prefer it for the fact that Cheng Xin uses her contemplation in this lonely, ugly pocket universe to come to a conclusion of leaving mass behind to damn the universe. It would give her something to do. It would improve it tonally - haha, just rereading it, my God, I can't believe this is the ending to these books - and I think I like it just because it subverts that patronising treatment Guan Yifan affords her, like a little child asking for a lolly, concealing the truth of the potential cruelty of nature... which she is actually very well aware of.

I don’t know how much those catastrophes and the final destruction of the Solar System had to do with me. Those are questions that could never be answered definitively. But I’m certain they had something to do with me, with my responsibilities. And now, I’ve climbed to the apex of responsibility: I am responsible for the fate of the universe.

I would like Cheng Xin to abuse the trust in her sweet passivity. This would parallel neatly with Luo Ji's defense against the Trisolarans, the deception within deception within deception, against the ultimate enemy, suffocating it in the cradle.

[growingnerves]

I saw the teaser and it got me thinking…

It’s not some mysterious happenstance that lead to Melissa McBride appearing on our screens again. She’s still around in TWDU because she is responsible for so many of the most iconic, rewatchable and deeply engaging moments and that isn’t easily forgotten among fans. We will always want her here so we can continue the story with Caryl as a united pair. And much as I share in the enthusiasm over how powerful her presence is, that alone isn’t enough! The quality of their story together still matters to us. The generic “thrills” aren’t working. I’m sure Melissa wants quality material to dive into as much as the fans do. She considers us in a way that others working on this spin-off will not. However, the fans will always be an objectively important aspect to the show’s ongoing success or failure. After all, who’s going to be watching?

It can be hard to believe our voices are being heard after countless disappointments, cruel shipbaity manipulations and needless retconning; it has often felt like we haven’t been valued. But the more we speak up about our expectations, the greater chance we have of getting them met. I don’t want past missteps to discourage us to the point of accepting something merely “inoffensive.” Let’s think of what this spin-off could be!

Nothing in those promos is engaging me on a meaningful level and this far along into a story, that shouldn’t be a difficult task. We need to see major changes going forward, especially with the writing. The title alone is unacceptable, and even if I could accept it (which I can’t!), “acceptable” isn’t enough. Once whatever future we get for Carol and Daryl is on our screens, it can’t be undone. Once it’s been decided, we will have to live with it forever. So now is the time to have the highest of expectations and demands. Nothing is set in stone yet! Now is a better time than any to pour our energy into advocating for what we want to see. I’d rather be criticizing the show now rather than once it’s been irreversibly ruined by the current showrunner (Zabel). We know we are going to see Caryl together again, that is our only guarantee atp. Which version of the spin-off we get, could still change, especially going into S3! We don’t have to settle for a lesser version of what should be OUR show.

Our dedication should be rewarded with something to look forward to, not something that causes dread. The dread of further disappointment is what drove viewers away. It burned me out to the point I never finished watching S11 of TWD. I didn’t tune in for the initial season of the spin-off because omitting Carol was the most nonsense decision imaginable. The only thing that would make me consider returning is a storyline worth my time. Because boy do I get invested when I give a damn. Imagine getting a story with actual stakes and payoff. Something a little more captivating than watching two friends suffering through seasons more of the apocalypse.

The purpose of reuniting these two is to profit on their unmatched bond and chemistry. They are capable of anything when they are together and taking their relationship to the next level would open up so many new possibilities storywise. Give us something fresh tonally. Let the relationship develop naturally into something romantic as it always should have been. That’s what’s going to get people talking and clamoring for more. That’s what’s going to get word to reach those who left. Seeing a middle aged couple headlining a series is groundbreaking tv and that representation alone could bring in loads of new eyes and reinvigorate online discussion.

What show are they trying to sell me based on the brief window into S2 with tonight’s promos? Caryl’s relationship isn’t the centerpiece here. What I saw was an attempt to catch my attention with repetitive action sequences. There’s nothing original about shootouts and car crashes and distractingly bad looking CGI blood and verbal cliches. Carol interacted with Daryl’s props? That’s the best you can give me? The unique draw this show has, that makes the appeal one of a kind, is Carol and Daryl played by Melissa and Norman. That’s an absolute narrative goldmine and something no other show on tv can claim. I’m echoing so many other fans when I say this. We are able to see the potential for greatness. An emotionally intimate slow burn relationship built over many years will always have within it a vast, complex narrative to explore that new characters cannot bring to the table. AMC has a rare gift in their hands. Continued success of the franchise hinges on the network making the right call when it comes to this duo. That’s where the attention should go. That’s the tease I was looking for tonight. That’s the upcoming payoff that would win back my trust and viewership. I want to see something I can feel passionate about again. We understand these characters aren’t learning to navigate the world without each other. They are fighting to stay alive so that they can be together again and realize their relationship in a way that is new. Caryl’s history runs deep and they couldn’t give us a single emotional beat to grasp onto in the promo- that’s how I’m feeling right now.

Side note cause I can’t help myself but I know I’m not the only one who noticed that Melissa McBride is a total smokeshow in that teaser. It’s not an obscure observation by any means haha. She looked goddamn amazing and badass and well, fucking hot 🥵 It is an undeniable privilege to see this woman on our screens again.

[obscurecharactershowdown]

Round 6

[image ID: the first image is a gif of Gary, a man outlined in simple, animated red lines against a black background. the only other color is the white of his eyes. he has a short beard and he's wearing a hooded robe. the second image is of Granger, a girl with green eyes and short, wavy or curly black hair. in her hair is a red hat or ribbon. she's wearing a black turtleneck sweater, blue overalls, and a green coat. end ID]

Gary

I've seen John in ONE poll but I haven't seen Gary at all. Gary is the main antagonist in the games and is a normal human being just like you and me. Actually he's a demon, and trying to summon the antichrist. He can also summon spiders! Over and over again. And remember, Gary loves you! [additional propaganda 1] [additional propaganda 2]

Granger

so granger is the main character of the indie game "NeverHome" Chapter one, which is only $1 on Steam, is called NeverHome: Hall of Apathy. if ur a fan of young protags being put in RPG maker horror games, then this is the game for you!! so granger is just that… she wakes up to find herself in a strange, hostile world. she, along with the friends she makes, must solve the various puzzles before them while creatures are out to kill them… and along the way they can uncover the secrets of these never ending halls… her dynamics with the cast is also super fun… each character gets their moment or moments with granger. and what's so cute is that there's unique art for each pair that highlights the fact you cant get through these halls alone!! she also has her own theme song!! here!! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d_vwtmIj5cw it's called cyclical tragedy AND HERE IS AN ANALYSIS OF THE THEME!! MUSIC THEORY!!! written by my good friend @HIEMIOLA "cyclical tragedy" embodies the protagonist, granger, through the music theory behind the track and ties itself back into the main track as well. to begin with an overview of the track, the key is D minor and hte time signature is 3/4. the piece begins with a broken minor third starting from the tonic. that is, it begins on the main note and moves along the main chord, D to F. the next set of notes are C to E, which is shifted down a step. the phrase repeats again, this time D to F, then G to E, which is an inverse movement from the original sequence. even in this first part, we could tell that the protagonist begins from square 1 with a simple pattern, then tries it again when it works. however, the inverse breaks that expectation of repetition, thus showing the diverse variations of solutions she comes up with using just the tools she has (the two notes moving in thirds). just like the game, she is given a handful of objects as well as a knife to defend herself and solve the mysteries of the world she exists in. with her creative uses of the items given to her, she continues on her way through the plot. we will keep moving. the melody begins. true to the title of the track, the melody cycles around the same beginning note, D, that she always returns to at her square 1. this is a nod to the save states she is allowed to keep to make sure that we the players don't lose the game, but it also references the health bar that appears as a circle around her avatar. the melody, mapped out, is also moving in an up-down wave movement across the sheet music. granger is creative with the knife she has and the quest items she obtains throughout the story, but she is not entirely reckless. rather, she knows when it is time to return to the safe rooms to rest. to time her returns requires skill because she must run to cover without being caught by varying her path so the enemies don't corner her as she tries to return to the room. most of the time, she is successful, shown through the consistent return to the beginning note. let's keep going. i would like to turn your attention to the main theme briefly. in the bass notes, you can hear arpeggios and outlined chords. this makes up the bulk of the accompaniment in the main game theme. [mod note: the rest of the essay, and some more propaganda, is continued under a cut because tumblr will not process more text than this in an indent. sorry to split it up, please continue below for the rest of the essay and additional propaganda!]

the third variation of granger's theme also has arpeggiated chords in the accompaniment while the melody features broken chords. at this stage, the pattern switches to eigth notes instead of the quarter notes at first. with greater movement and heightened senses, she runs throughout world and befriends other people, thus interacting further with the environment. while she isn't exactly someone we would call open, she is respectful to the people she first meets and has no problems with asking them for help when she needs it. because of her openness to working together, she speeds up her progress by asking for aid at obstacles that would be too difficult for her to overcome on her own, such as asking a teammate to break things, move things, or reach into smaller holes. fusing the main theme elements with her own theme marks this step as the inciting incident that sets her on the path to escape from this world. we'll continue.

continuing the same part, we hear some secondary fifths. i'm not entirely sure if this is what you call it, but it is a nod to the parallel key, D major. depending on what theory class you take, this could also be considered the other half of the key. i dont know how else to describe it, but i digress. these are glimpses to different dialogue options she could take, glimpses to a different key or a different ending. because this game only has one chapter ending so far, we are unsure of what other paths granger will end up in; we only know that there are certainly other endings she will experience, only to begin the cycle again when the save state is loaded for players to reach another ending. both A major and G major are chords that signify different choices that may lead her elsewhere only for her to return back to the tonic or main note, D. despite this, she keeps going, as will we.

at the midpoint of the track, we see a quick shift in patterns. instead of upward leaps in the notes, the melody falls in stepwise motion. true to the plot, this is another turning point of the game when she is forced to make a choice: continue or stop. after facing the spoiler event, her once determined personality is challenged as she struggles to keep herself and her team together. despite being the headstrong protagonist who spearheaded solutions, even now she finds herself doubting and taking smaller steps, smaller risks.

even after all of this, she rises to the challenge as the melody returns to its beginning sequence. true to a protagonist she gets up again despite the events that transpired and keeps her team moving in their lowest points. the thirds return as she finds more objects to solve more puzzles to open more rooms to save more friends. this repeating part of the track only solidifies her resolve as the piece ends with a broken chord in the main key, her key, of D minor. despite everything that transpired, she stayed true to herself."

the game is also so, so charming with the art, music, and story made by the same person… its so clearly loved and full of passion!! i love listening to the game's ost on occassion!! since it's all on youtube!

ok one last thing thing!! on may 8th, the game hit 100 downloads (on both steam and itch.io). you can see the creator of the game celebrate that with this lovely drawing of granger: https://twitter.com/NeverHome_Game/status/1655761270694633472

so at most, only a bit over 100 people have played the game… id like to say that makes it obscure!!

anyways granger and neverhome!! we love to see our protagonists put in horrific situations and isn't she super cute with a lil bow on her head? she is my daughter…

[additional propaganda 1]

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[ruina6471]

I Come with Knives.

This is the title of a song by IAMX.

Such song is not what you'd imagine your admired one would listen to if he was our contemporary; it is a meaningless mental exercise. Instead, a song is what reminds you of your admired one.

Not only does the lyrics contain beautiful German, about the stars, the children, esoteric kisses and the midnight God of all reveries-

Kinder und sterne küssen und verlieren sich Greifen leise meine hand und führen mich Die traumgötter brachten mich in eine landschaft Schmetterlinge flatterten durch meine seele

In der Mitternacht

...but its intensity is striking.

I am only human, I come with knives.

///

This entry is a continuation of my last post.

I hope my rambling of my superstitious side blog satisfy some curiosity (I doubt). I’ve been thinking about what modern astrologers mean by “stubbornness” when they describe Uranus. They do not understand the knives this god brings.

Uranus natives like new hair-styles, they are innovative, they love new stuff, love new curiosity, they like new excitements… blah blah, now stubbornness? I see how modern astrology gets very muddy very quickly, and I could never see myself an astrologer. I am OK with being just a Tarot reader.

Taurus natives are stubborn, but this stubbornness originates from “harmonious form, stable foundation, and sensual materiality”. The Taurus people are “change-averse”, to be more precise. Ruled by Venus, Taurus is “harmonious form that reveals, the Fibonacci Sequence that does not change its eternal principle”. You cannot disrupt the arrangement of flower petals willy-nilly and expect the flower to still fulfill its biological functions and the beauty attached to its life cycle. It is spiritual-level sensuality that hinders Taurus natives’ movements and adaptability.

It is Venus being stubborn, but is it Uranus stubbornness? OH HELL NO.

I described Saturn a lot in my last post, and Saturn is a significator of structure and discipline. Is Saturn stubborn? No. Saturn is limitation, or brutal reminder of one’s weakness and limitations. Saturn often brings delay, hardship and disappointment. Saturn natives believe in absolutely nothing except those built brick by brick, inch by inch.

Think of some of the art and music virtuosos who practice 48 hours per day despite being the pinnacles of commercial and critical success (Saturn will seek success in a “structure”). Some of them would secretly get very mad very quickly when people call them “natural genius”. Such word is an insult for Saturn. You see the brilliance of Saturn in these excellence-oriented people.

Is Uranus’ brutal drive towards something ideal, the same as Saturn? NO. Besides, Saturn natives are not idealistic.

///

In Uranus, there’s a willfulness that is not necessarily stubbornness. Uranus is knife, a fucking Katana, a Damascus sword, a diamond blade. So sharp and hard, It does not bend, it does not yield. It cuts. It cuts to the heart.

It cuts out your heart.

[foxgirltail]

My gf and I watched the first episode of the atla remake and it is. Not good.

It's an hour long but felt longer. Around the halfway point we both remarked that we'd rather be watching the original series

The show starts by showing the genocide of the air nation. Besides feeling in bad taste considering the current state of the world, I think it was less impactful than the way the original series does it - where we don't actually see what happened, and only hear about it and see the aftermath several episodes in

The show is rated tv-pg and we see numerous people burned to death

Characters regularly talk in the "I'm going to get a good grade in therapy" manner. It's annoying

Towards the end, we get a flashback to a scene we saw towards the middle of the episode? We just saw this, it felt so unnecessary

Aang told katara like a single sentence about bending and her ability increased 10-fold. I don't remember if something similar happened in the original but it seems silly

Aang can basically straight up fly unassisted. But only sometimes

Zuko's scar is smaller and on the wrong side and less... Vibrant? Under different lightings it's more difficult to see. it looks more like warpaint than a scar when viewed from the side, isn't shaped like a handprint, and doesn't appear to have any effect on his eye's functionality

The opening sequence is different (it still gets the point across), but there's a scene where grangran repeats the original lines verbatim for some reason? We literally saw the history behind those lines 30 minutes ago, why are we being told them verbally now?

How I think I would have done it is: keep the first scene, this also happens 100 years ago, an earth bender tries to send a warning that the fire nation is going to attack the earth kingdom. Sozin later explains to the captured earth bender that his success was intentional, as he lays out his plan to kill the avatar. Then do the title sequence. Then cut to 100 years later with katara and sokka. Proceed as normal from there (this would also cut out at least one instance of therapy-speak)

This removes the redundancy of the flashbacks, makes it so that when grangran says "...then everything changed when the fire nation attacked..." We don't already know everything about it. It makes everything a little less hand-holdy while still presenting all the necessary staging information. Also the episode is around 20 minutes shorter

Or, if knowing how aang got into the iceberg is so important, do more scenes from the past than what I laid out here, but don't have a focus on the actual attack on the air temple. Do a more scaled out perspective - more buildings burning and collapsing, and less individual fights between air and fire benders.

All in all: why was this made? I think it's a pale imitation of the original, I have zero interest to keep watching, and if I do want to watch more avatar, the original series is just right there?? The bending and appa look good I guess

[pencil-peach]

G Witch Onscreen Text: Episode 20

Here we are. Part 21 of the series where I transcribe and discuss the text on screens and monitors in G Witch, and analyze certain interesting things episode by episode. We've reached Episode 20: The End of Hope.

<< If you aren't prepared for the end, you can return to Episode 19 Or you could go to the Masterpost instead.

If not, the end awaits us.

We open on Guel and Kenanji pursuing Shaddiq, and here, Guel openly states that He will never forgive Shaddiq for what he's done.

It's similar to Shaddiq refusing to forgive Guel at the end of the last episode, when he says that Guel has "defiled" Miorine.

This episode is very good, but it's a bit unfortunate that we never got a chance to get a deeper look at the relationship between the two at Asticassia. They have some history, and this episode was written as the sad conclusion to a relationship we never got to see much of.

When Shaddiq launches in the Michaelis, (Left) the framing of the shots are similar to when Kenanji launched in the Beguir-Beu in the Prologue (Right).

This imminent confrontation between Guel and Shaddiq was actually foreshadowed in the intro, as during the montage of all the Mobile Suits, the Michealis and Daribalde aren't engaged in the combat sequence, but are in successive individual shots, leaning towards the camera on opposite sides of the frame. (The implication is that they're leaning towards each other.)

We see the Earth House students looking at the GUND-ARM Inc. email, which is currently being flooded with hate mail and complaints. Here's all the ones we see: (Bottom to top, some aren't pictured in this specific frame)

(All of them have the same header) GUND-ARM Inc. Subject:

Investigate the crimes of GUND-ARM Inc.

A disgrace to your fellow Spacians

Explain your violence at Quinharbor

The AERIAL is a killing machine!!

Weren't you a medical company?

This is how Benerit does things?

Inquiry: Canceling order for GUND prosthetics

You'd do this to become president?

Delete that disgusting PR video at once

Listen to the Earthian's anger

You call this justice?

You're the face of Spacian supremacism

Hold a shareholder meeting and dissolve the company

I was a fan of Ms. Miorine, but...

Saving lives? More like taking them.

They have 439 emails in their inbox at the end of the sequence, a large portion of which is definitely hate mail. It's not looking good for the company right now. Which one of these is your favorite? I'm a fan of "Delete that disgusting PR video at once."

One of the more important ones here is probably the order cancellation for the GUND Prosthetics. It seems like the technology was far enough along the approval process that they were accepting orders for it. Guess that's not happening anymore.

In the next scene, Suletta is attending another class lecture, only to receive an anonymous email on her phone with a picture of Aerial from the news broadcast, asking "Did MIORINE kill the Earthians?" (Left)

After the lecture, Petra confronts Suletta, asking why she came to class if she wasn't going to pay attention, and shares her notes on the lecture with her. (Right)

The notes are titled: HEALTH IN SPACE WHAT HAPPENS TO THE HUMAN BODY IN SPACE?

On the far left is a diagram of a human body, which Petra has labeled, "Reference for P3." She's also circled the pelvis area, labeling it "Point"

In the middle are two graphs. The top one is a line graph labeled "MICROGRAVITY MUSCLE ATROPHY," of which Petra has commented "Keyword" The graph is measuring the average muscular atrophy for both Female and Male humans in space (The light blue dots are Female, the dark blue dots are Male) There are also 3 arrows pointing downward, which Petra has circled and commented "ask later" The units of measurement aren't labeled, but I'll make a solid guess that it's Muscular Strength over Time

The bottom graph is a bar graph labeled "EQUILIBRIUM DISTURBANCE," under which Petra has written and underlined, "This will be on test." To the right of that something is written, but I can't fully make it out, I can only make out the first half, which is "DATA.."

To the right are 2 paragraphs and a diagram. The paragraphs on top are actually what we hear of the lecture being spoken by the professor earlier in the scene. It's as follows:

"It cannot be denied that concern for pilot life support was extremely low in the early years of space development.

In the view of historians, humanity's advancement into space was fairly hasty and aggressive, and the loss of so many lives in the process was evidence of this." (Petra has commented "summary here," "REMEMBER!!" and "many lives lost in process")

Below that are two diagrams, the diagram on the left being "OSTEOPOROSIS" and the one on the right being "OCULAR SYNDROME," two of the issues faced by humans in space. Petra has labeled these as IMPORTANT! and written "Reference materials" under them

There's text underneath the diagrams, but unfortunately I can't make it out.

The most important thing to take note of here, I think, is what the lecturer says about the early years of space development in Ad Stella. It was hasty, aggressive, and had a heavy cost measured in lives. This hastiness to monopolize space is most assuredly the reason why space related medical aid is so underdeveloped, and this is most likely something that inspired Cardo Nabo to develop the GUND medical technology.

Speaking of Cardo Nabo, here's a quick fun fact: We've seen "Ocular Syndrome" thrown around a handful of times as a condition that can be suffered by humans living in space. It's not clear what the specific symptoms of this Ocular Syndrome are, (there isn't a disease just called "Ocular Syndrome" in real life, though there is one called Ocular Ischemic Syndrome) but we have reason to believe that Cardo Nabo herself might have lost one of her eyes to it, as her left eye is synthetic. (Notice the lack of highlight in it as opposed to her other eye.)

There's also Petra and Suletta. I like to think that if things were different, and they got to live a more normal school life, the two would have gotten closer. And considering that in the Epilogue, Petra becomes a tester for GUND-ARM, I like to believe that ended up happening in the end.

Guel and Shaddiq's duel begins (due to Guel's bullheadedness getting in the way again...) but I think there are a couple of important things to note about this fight between them:

Think back to this conversation between the two of them in Episode 8. Guel and Shaddiq have never dueled each other before this moment, and the reason Shaddiq never accepted a duel with him was because he thought he could trust Guel to not lose the title of Holder until he was ready to claim Miorine's hand for himself.

Then there's the context of this discussion: Shaddiq reaching out to Guel at what is (currently, lol,) the lowest point of his life, asking him to come to his House to take a shower and clean himself up. Shaddiq is cautious and cunning. He doesn't do anything without a reason, but here he's reaching out to Guel, after he, seemingly, is no longer useful to him. But then he says it himself: he's fond of him. He enjoys watching him fight. He, at the very least, respects him.

And though I have no evidence, I like to believe he empathized with Guel's situation in this moment, homeless with no one to turn to, scorned by his Spacian father, and made it a point to reach out as a former Earthian orphan. I wonder, do you think Shaddiq was testing the waters to see if he could convert Guel to his ideals? What would have happened had Guel accepted that offer, I wonder.

And then there's this moment in Episode 9, where Shaddiq realizes that what Miorine needed was for him to reach out and help her, which he never did because he didn't want to risk involving her in his insidious affairs.

These are two really important moments that contextualize Shaddiq's genuine murderous animosity towards Guel in this duel. He views him tainting Miorine's good name as a deeply personal betrayal because he had genuinely trusted Guel to protect her in his place. She had chosen him and he had failed her. Shaddiq had worked tirelessly to try and find a way to maintain his connection to Miorine without ruining her good standing by involving her in his plans for the Benerit Group, to the point that it irrevocably tore them apart, and Guel, in his pig-headed arrogance, had destroyed all of that in an instant.

And so, for Shaddiq, this duel isn't just about buying time, it's personal. It's (in his mind), doing what he should have done back at Asticassia. He's dueling Guel for Miorine's sake. Though, of course, it's much too late for that to mean anything.

When Norea sees the broadcast about the attack on Quinharbor, she reacts by saying, "Spacian bastards...You take from me again...!" And then when 5lan confronts her in front of the Thorn, she says "Because of you Spacians' brutality, everyone I knew is dead!" But then she mentions Naji and Olcott in the next sentence, implying that she's not referring to the Dawn of Fold when she says that.

Considering the personal nature of her responses, and the fact that Ochs Earth stationed the Lfrith models just outside of it, I think the implication is that before becoming a Gundam pilot, Norea lived in Quinharbor, which is why its destruction drove her over the edge.

When we meet back with Petra and Suletta after Norea begins her attack on the school, Petra grabs Suletta's hand and drags her out of a crumbling building, calling her an Idiot, telling her to run, and asking her if she wants to die. (Right) This is paralleling Suletta and Miorine's second major interaction in Episode 1, where she grabs Suletta by the hand and drags her out of the path of the dueling mobile suits, calling her an idiot, telling her to run, and asking if she wants to get hit. (Left)

Afterwards, Petra starts complaining about how Lauda stood her up on their date that day (presumably to take the Darilbalde off campus to his brother) and says that he owes her. She asks Suletta what she'll do if she survives the attack before saying that she "Definitely wants to be at his side again." Suletta never gets a chance to respond to Petra's question, but the parallel is clearly being made between her and Lauda to Suletta and Miorine, particularly with "I want to be at his side again." We never see Suletta be outwardly mad at Miorine for what she did (she's not that kind of person, after all), so I like to interpret this scene as a sort of indulgence into the fact that she would have been right to be upset with her.

In the Mobile Suit hangar where the Earth House students are hiding out, there's a shot of Aliya and Lilique huddled up against the Earth House animals. (Left) Here's a fun fact, Earth House's Goat is named "Tiko," and their Yak is named "Brahe." Their names together are a reference to "Tycho Brahe," one of the most accomplished astronomers of the pre-telescope era.

After that, Chuchu says that if she only had her Demi Trainer, she could make a stand against Norea, to which Lilique replies, "It's no good! You couldn't sortie now!" A 'sortie' is a military term, meaning an attack made from a defensive position. I think it's funny that they chose that word specifically. Like, it's accurate, but why would Lilique know that word...

LETS GOOOOO LETS FUCKING GOOOO I LOVE YOU DEMI BARDING!!!! I LOVE YOU DEMI BARDING YESS!! YESSS FUCK YESSS!!!!! YEAAAAAAAHHH WOOOOOH WOOOHOOOO YEAAAA LETS GOO LETS FUCKING GOOOOOOO

I really like Chuchu's response to Nika. At first she walks up angrily, clearly about to confront her, but after being stopped by Martin, she later remembers what she's learned since Nika's been gone, and instead demands she tells her everything, so she can decide if she can forgive her. Remember, Chuchu is specifically upset that Nika lied to them.

But I am upset we never got to see the conversation the second scene is setting up. On the whole, getting to see Martin + Nika's conversation makes more sense, as the conflict between the two of them has been a narrative through line since Season 1, so if you had to choose one, it's clear why it was that one, but Chuchu and Nika's conflict leaving off here is such a shame. Because I feel like their conflict is much more personal. There's a lot of hurt and damage to explore there that brings into question their relationship going forward. But that complexity is most likely why they couldn't focus on it. That would take up a lot of time in itself to show, time they simply didn't have. Ah well...

Cutting back to Guel and Shaddiq's duel, Shaddiq begins speaking about why he chose this path. He truly believes that acquiring power is the only way to a better future for Earthians. But you have to wonder why he believes that so wholeheartedly.

I believe the answer lies in how he was raised; in the life he led growing up in the Grassley Orphanage.

We only hear about it a couple of times, but the information we receive about it and the way its run is the context we need to put together why Shaddiq operates the way he does.

Last episode, (Top) we learn that the Grassley orphanage takes in Earthian orphans and reeducates them (scary...), and that, more importantly, the orphanage is run by meritocracy, as in, a system whereby power is placed in the hands of those with outstanding ability. During Shaddiq's rant, he accuses Spacians of "forcing [Earthians] to survive at the expense of others," and he's probably referencing what it was like to grow up in the orphanage (and the proxy wars forced onto the planet but I digress), under a system where your treatment was based on how much better you were than your peers.

We even got a small look into that all the way back in Episode 8. When Miorine is talking to Suletta about Shaddiq, she says that because "he was raised in an orphanage run by the Grassley family," he will "do whatever it takes," and that Suletta shouldn't let her guard down around him. Miorine and Shaddiq are childhood friends, so I'm sure Shaddiq has told her what it was like at the orphanage, and the things he needed to do to survive in such a cutthroat environment.

That's why Shaddiq believes that power is the only way forward, because for a majority of his life, it WAS the only way forward. Even after escaping the orphanage, Grassley as a company is a meritocracy all the way down. (Remember, before Sarius' kidnapping, Grassley was entrenched in a succession race, which was being determined by the potential successors' abilities. Shaddiq was not going to inherit the company on the basis of being Sarius' adopted son, but by being more deserving than his competitors. Sarius even tells him that he could lose his eligibility multiple times.)

The only way out is to overcome, and the only way to overcome is with sheer overwhelming force. But to be honest, he's not entirely wrong either, he just went about it the wrong way.

A neat thing I like about the final charge between the two is that after Shaddiq says, "Charging straight in..." he smiles for a moment before angrily shouting, "That's the very thing I've always hated about you!"

I like to think he's smiling because of how predictable Guel is, or maybe he's thinking of all the duels he's watched where Guel has done that exact thing, or maybe it means nothing at all.

On the screen before the climactic final blow, the command given on the screen to the Beam Drones is labeled CONVERGENCE.

Afterwards, Guel says he'll never forgive Shaddiq, but that he isn't about to let him die, either. It seems Olcott's words from Episode 15 have stuck with him.

Afterwards, Shaddiq reveals something to Guel, saying "To maintain order, the Benerit Group sacrificed fellow Spacians at the school. The Assembly League wouldn't act just because of Earthian losses, but they'll finally get off their butts now."

It's a little confusing, (even now I'm not sure I have a perfect handle on it) but from as best I can tell, I think Shaddiq is saying that many companies in the Benerit Group saw the writing on the wall, and decided to allow the attack at Asticassia to happen, forcing the Assembly League to intervene within the company and restore order. (And perhaps gather up the group's assets after it's been liquidated.)

We see this happening with Peil in the next episode, who bailed and ratted the company out to the League, but perhaps they weren't the only ones who did...

Chuchu stopped using the Demi Barding's beam rifle as a gun at some point and just started beating the Gundvolvas over the head with it.

After 5lan's heartfelt plea to get Norea to give this up and come with him, the last thing Norea says to him is, "Tell me later, your real name--" but is killed before she can finish.

It's a specific thing to request, but given that "Norea Du Noc" is referred to as her codename, I like to imagine that what she was going to say was,

"Tell me later, your real name, and I'll tell you mine."

She and Sophie probably knew each other's real names as well.

It's probably just me reading too deeply into it, but I think a lot about how after Norea's death, Ur's GUND Format doesn't seem to activate due to a conscious decision on 5lan's part, but in response to his emotional distress.

Well, that's it, The End of Hope. But regardless, we keep moving forward. Next time, we talk about What We Can Do Now.

>> Episode 21 Masterpost.

[chasingshadowsblog]

Review: Godzilla Minus One - Is Your War Finally Over?

Title: Godzilla Minus One Directed by: Takashi Yamazaki Written by: Takashi Yamazaki, Ishirô Honda, Takeo Murata Starring: Ryuunosuke Kamiki, Minami Hamabe, Kenji Noda, Kuranosuke Sasaki, Munetaka Aoki Year: 2023

The fact that I forgot so many times throughout this film that I was watching a Godzilla movie is a testament to the strength of its main story. If your film is going to include massive nuclear explosions and city-destroying monsters, then it needs to invest the audience in its characters and story so that we might feel their awe and terror in the face of the gargantuan horror. Godzilla Minus One does this perfectly.

Koichi Shikishima, a disgraced kamikaze pilot, arrives home from a war he shouldn't have survived to find his home destroyed, his parents dead and the one person who still knows him believing him a coward. Despite this, Shikishima makes a life for himself from the detritus, taking in an orphaned baby and the woman tasked with keeping her safe, building a home for them and repairing his relationship with his neighbour. H­­­e gets a job detonating mines in the sea and develops long-lasting friendships with the members of his small crew. Slowly but surely, Shikishima and his friends recover from the war.

And every so often Godzilla shows up to un-do all of their hard work.

The success of the film is our full immersion in Shikishima's story. As we watch him re-build his life it is even more devastating, then, to watch Godzilla knock it all down again. So firmly invested are we in the lives of Shikishima, his family and friends, that their losses become our own and their fear of the monster and what it is capable of rings true; the effects team created a Godzilla whose scale and strength is truly frightening to the viewer and the characters on the ground. To see them all come together then, to do whatever they can to stop the monster - of their own volition, with their own strengths and knowledge, and knowing that they might not come back - is a deeply felt triumph of human spirit and the determination to live. Put simply, Godzilla Minus One is a class act in film-making and story-telling.

Other bits:

the opening sequence, from Shikishima landing on Odo Island and everything that happens after was brilliant, that is all

the period setting was so well captured, I really loved the costumes and set pieces

smarter people than me have discussed Godzilla's role in this film as a manifestation of Shikishima's PTSD and survivor's guilt so I don't feel the need to discuss it here, only to say that it is so, so well-done

Shikishima not being able to move on from the war and love the woman and child who love him, but still having Akiko's drawings with him at all times…I can't

the score is so flippin' good - Naoki Sato - go listen to it

[agentnico]

Boy Kills World (2024) review

Voice of Archer inside Pennywise’s ripped body… I was surprised he at no point screamed “LANAAAAA!!”

Plot: Boy is a mayhem machine who's been training to assassinate the bloodthirsty Hilda Van Der Koy and avenge his family's murder; guided by his sister's mischievous spirit, Boy uncovers one stunning revelation after another as he barrels toward Hilda.

Let’s get real - a cheese grater in a horror or gore film is simply the worst. Just the thought of it scraping away a hefty chunk of flesh is nothing short of skin crawling. Evil Dead Rise and now Boy Kills World - you guys are messed up. Nevertheless, we have another funky revenge action flick, a genre of which has seen a real resurgence since the success of the John Wick franchise. And it stars in the lead one of the eight Skarsgard siblings, though when you think action star you usually would pick Alexander. Bill up until now has carved out a niche as the best one to hire if you’re seeking a creepy vibe, be it the mysterious stranger in Barbarian or a killer clown in the IT films. However that changes with Boy Kills World, as Bill Skarsgard, rippling with muscles, plays the typical I-am-an-instrument-shaped-for-a-single-purpose; essentially a killing machine who disposes of his enemies in a variety of bloody styles (like a damn cheese grater!!).

This would have been a generic example of the revenge tropes, however the movie has an interesting stylistic choice in that Skarsgard’s character of Boy is a mute, so we get to hear his thoughts through a voice in his head, who happens to be the same voice as Archer from the FX cartoon series. I admire that the writers were trying out something new, but I must say as much as I enjoy H.J. Benjamin’s candescent voice, it did become over indulgent. It’s as if they were trying to imitate Deadpool’s fourth wall breaks and profanities, but without it being that funny. I also found it difficult to reconcile them as being the same person, as the mismatch of Bill Skarsgard’s physical performance with Benjamin’s voice was so stark that it became a distraction. Again though, I admire the creative effort.

The action sequences are hyper stylised and fun, with plenty of CGI blood splattering about and the camera zooming in and out of the action like it’s high on cocaine. The cast all seem to be having lots of fun, with the likes of Sharlto Copley, Michelle Dockery and Brett Gelman giving energetic cartoony performances, and overall I enjoyed it. The story is as by the numbers as you can expect, and 99% of what you see on-screen has been done thousands of times before. I liked the plot twist at the end though it was no M. Night Shyamalan, and in the end, it was a decent way to disengage the brain. Will I remember it though? No chance! Minus a point also for boy not actually killing a whole world. Like I get that they didn’t have the biggest budget, but don’t give false promises in your title.

Overall score: 5/10

[infjtarot]

7 of Swords. Pastoral Tarot

Element: Air Sephirah: Netzach (Victory), sephirah seven in Yetsirah (Formation) Rider Theme: Contemplation or awareness of action Golden Dawn Title: Unstable Effort Decan: 21-30 degrees Aquarius, ruled by the moon In my notes above, I described the sevens as creativeness, inventiveness, possibilities, and suggested that the Seven of Swords could suggest new, innovative ways of thinking or possibly new plans. The first idea, a way of thinking, describes an ongoing state of being, while the second would describe something more specific. Part of the diviner’s art is to see which aspect of a card will apply in a particular reading. The Pythagorean meaning is both broader and larger. Coming after the harmonic Six, and with the suggestion of a new beginning (as One starts the sequence 1, 2, 3, 4, so Seven leads 7, 8, 9, 10), it can mean a genuine breakthrough in a person’s thinking. And with its relation to the seven planetary spheres and the seven chakras, that breakthrough could be on large, meaningful issues, especially spiritual awareness. Paul Huson suggests that the Rider image might derive from the Sola-Busca, for the image shows a young man sneaking off with swords. One big difference is that the Rider character does not carry all of them, giving the sense of an impulsive action that is incomplete or not a real solution. This goes along with the Golden Dawn meaning “unstable effort,” leading to “partial success.” To most people, the Rider figure appears smirking, as if very pleased with himself. The sneakiness, and the excited smirk, have led some readers to see it as indicating a secret sexual affair. The Seven of Birds in the Shining Tribe is one of the most significant cards in the Minor Arcana. Whereas the Rider character seems to consult no one, the two figures in the Birds card engage in intense communication. The dotted line between them shows that each retains his identity yet each speaks passionately. I did not design this with Netzach in mind, but the sephirah evokes Venus, planet of love, and in love we all need to communicate our most powerful emotions. When I asked the cards, “Show me the reading you gave God to create the universe,” the Seven of Birds was the first card, suggesting that God needed to create a universe to have someone to talk to. (The entire reading can be found in my book Forest of Souls.) Readings—Again, various meanings. Dynamic, exciting thinking; intellectual or conceptual breakthroughs, possibly spiritual. Intense communication. Alternatively, an impulsive or clever action that may not solve a problem. Possibly a sexual affair. Rachel Pollack

[eastgaysian]

hi ming, as one of tumblr's foremost nicholas britell scholars i was wondering if you had any thoughts on the music that plays in the tomshiv stair scene in 4x04 and their apartment scene in 4x01. to me these moments just sounded so like.... sappy and melodramatic in a way that was tonally dissonant with the rest of the show, and almost made it hard for me to take the scenes as seriously as i otherwise wanted to. am i hearing these cues wrong? not picking up something that britell is doing with them? or are they truly ill-begotten soundtrack decisions?

you're telling me i write papers about music for school and now i gotta write em for my succession blog too when does it end. no it is fun to get a music question thank u caden :)

first thing i'll say is that if you feel like the score is tonally dissonant or overly sappy, then i can sit here and be like Well clearly the use of the leitmotif from andante in C minor is meant to tie this scene to this other scene or this is evoking wagner's tristan chord or whatever, and i don't think that invalidates feeling like it's tonally dissonant or sappy. composing for tv means composing music that's supposed to work with a scene, and if it doesn't then it's not doing its job. i love nicholas britell's work on succession but it is music with a clearly defined job.

truthfully i cannot be assed to do a full harmonic analysis of the piece and i don't think it would be particularly revealing anyway. i think the winds arrangement in 4x04 is interesting, i feel like we mostly get piano and strings in succession music. that might push the sappy feel lol. it's in f minor, the main theme is a simple descending sequence, it's got a little phrygian flair. the extended piano+string arrangement in 4x01 yanks the main theme from the title theme but most succession pieces yank something from the title theme, it's pretty sensible and economic tv composing.

really i think the oddity is that it feels like it's an s4 'tom and shiv theme,' which is... just not something that we've had before? and that is tonally dissonant from how music is employed in the show overall, which underscores emotionally tense moments but not usually in a way at all adjacent to being a 'love theme.' i'm pretty sure most of the Romantic Relationship Scenes are music-free, or if they have music it's a very different feel from the slow melodrama of this piece. i dunno! it's definitely a choice. i'll be listening to see if this piece pops up again in other tom and shiv scenes

[ausetkmt]

‘Bamboozled’ is the Forgotten Gem in Spike Lee’s Career

A new Criterion Collection edition of the 2000 film—about a primetime TV minstrel show that becomes a hit—means its finally time to give this scorched-earth satire its due

It still shocks you. No matter how many times you’ve seen those images, in history books and documentaries, museum exhibits and memorabilia collections, banned cartoons and the occasional old movie preserved on TCM (and preceded by a warning), the actual witnessing of it still stops you in your tracks. You don’t have to know that people would place corks in a small metal bowl, pour alcohol on them, light them on fire, mash the ashes and add water. (Later, a performer might have used standard shoe polish, but this was the traditional method.) You don’t even have to observe them methodically apply that concoction to their foreheads, cheeks, nose, chin, jawline, or complement the look with red lipstick. You just have to see the result — the actual look of blackface on someone — to feel shaken. And this time, it’s not in faded black and white but in living 21st-century color, staring right back at you.

Spike Lee knows the historical import of these images. He understands the power of cinema, and the necessity of provocation, and how sometimes a blunt instrument is required in lieu of a sharp blade. He’s aware of how the minstrel show had been used to dehumanize people, to reduce them and belittle them, and how so much of that legacy continued even after that mode of entertainment became a thing of the “distant past.” Bamboozled, his 2000 satire — Lee has his lead character read the definition of the word “satire” to the audience in the opening sequence, just to silence any doubters — talks much trash and throws a lot of caricaturish, over-the-top stuff at you in its first act. Some of it inspires eye-rolling, as obvious targets get pincushioned. Other bits have you laughing despite your better angels and instincts.

Then it arrives at the moment when two actors have to “blacken up.” The film follows each step. This scene will repeat itself throughout the film three times, all of them set to Terence Blanchard’s musical lament. During the third go-round, you can see tears rolling down one of the man’s cheeks. Each time they finish the ritual, mugging desperately into the camera as they bound onto a TV studio’s stage, made up to look like the previous 50 years never happened, you get the wind knocked out of you. That’s the point. Lee has made something that could be considered a comedy. But he’s not playing around.

Editor’s picks

Nestled in between his highly successful concert movie of the highly successful comedy tour The Original Kings of Comedy and his stunning post-9/11 parable 25th Hour, Bamboozled has been consigned to being an odd blip on his filmography. Audiences were baffled. Critics were bent out of shape over it. The movie was considered too on-brand to be an outlier but too scattershot to be a masterpiece, too broad, too sour, too black, too strong. Now that the Criterion Collection has just released a new DVD/Blu-ray edition of this long out-of-print title, it’s easier to recognize this cri de coeur for what it is: a history lesson on decades of screen (mis)representation, a look back in anger but also profound sorrow, a flawed and sometimes flailing takedown that becomes more effective the more times you see it. At the turn of the century, it seemed like an crude attempt at sketch comedy. Twenty years later, the movie feels like a forgotten gem in Spike’s career, one who’s spit-polish and reappraisal comes at the exact right moment.

https://www.rollingstone.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/03/Bamboozled.jpg?w=1024

Bamboozled‘s premise is the most modest of proposals: TV producer Pierre Delacroix (Damon Wayans) wants to make shows about average, middle-class African-American families. His white boss (Michael Rappaport), who claims to know more about black culture then the man sitting in front of him, wants more “hip” and outrageous programming. So, in an effort to get fired, Delacroix and his assistant Sloan Hopkins (Jada Pinkett Smith) suggest The New Millennium Minstrel Show. It’s exactly what it sounds like: an update of an old-fashioned 19th-century variety show full of songs, dances, skits and corrosive stereotypes. He hires two street performers, Manray and Womack (tap-dancing phenom Savion Glover and In Living Color‘s Tommy Davidson), to play “Mantan” and his sidekick “Sleep ‘n’ Eat.” The exec suggests they set it on a plantation; Delacroix offers the idea of a watermelon patch instead. They produce a pilot that makes those old Amos & Andy episodes look like Joe Turner’s Come and Gone. Delacroix believes that something this blatantly offensive is destined to get him canned. Naturally, the network gives him a 12-episode order. The nation gives him a hit show.

Related

It’s a tale as old as time, or at least The Producers. Mel Brooks’ farce is a simply a high point in “sick” humor, however, and an expansion on the notion that comedy is tragedy plus time divided by bad taste, a wink and massive cajones. Bamboozled has other things on its troubled mind, namely the use of entertainment as a propaganda tool and a prejudice machine. On the Criterion edition’s supplementary disc, there’s a conversation between Lee and critic/programmer Ashley Clark (whose book Facing Blackness is a brilliant forensic dissection of the film) in which the director admits that prior to the project’s conception, he’d been thinking a lot about two then-recent birthdays: the centennial of the movies and the 50th anniversary of television. These were mediums he dearly loved, and that showed him the world. They also reflected back a purposefully one-sided, less-than-one-dimensional view of the African-American experience. Many filmmakers launched counterattacks by the late ’90s — not just Lee, but also Charles Burnett, Julie Dash, Melvin Van Peebles, John Singleton, Kasi Lemmons, Gordon Parks, Ivan Dixon, Kathleen Collins, Marlon Riggs, and a growing list of others.

Yet for every Losing Ground, there was decades of lost ground via endlessly recycled images of buffoons and simpletons. There was also the Seventies sitcoms like Good Times and The Jeffersons, which — assuming Bamboozled‘s skeptical view of them was reflective of its creator’s mindset — Lee also saw as harmful. Minstrelsy was gone, but what lay at the roots of those shows wasn’t dead. It had just changed its makeup. Still, what would happen if someone really tried to resurrect those old vaudeville-style, pre-Civil War to Jim Crow era shows and sell them as ready-for-primetime programming? For Delacroix, it was a way out of a bankrupt creative situation, with the delusional notion of it being a subversive way to smuggle social commentary in. For Sloan, it’s a way to prove to her militant brother (Yasiin “Mos Def” Bey) that she’s not a corporate sellout. For the two New Millennium actors, who view TV as a level-up from tap-dancing in midtown for chump change, it’s a way to “keep the income coming in.” Everyone ends up losing a piece of their soul regardless of their motivations.

Delacroix gets checkmated because he inadvertently gives the people exactly what they want — a little bit of that “Make America Great Again” throwback mockery. (Dig how the movie’s crude look, courtesy of a consumer DV camera, switches to Super 16mm lushness during these sequences. It’s like gazing a beautiful, poisonous flower.) Soon, the studio audience is showing up in blackface, with everyone pledging allegiance to a racial epithet. Pierre ends up surrounded by kitsch racist-memorabilia, a piggy bank taunting him by throwing endless phantom coins into its mouth. Sloan and the show’s stars end up broken. Like Network, one of several movies which Bamboozled owes a partial debt to, the narrative ends with a plea to yell that you’re not going to take it anymore, and a death. Delacroix’s experiment has spectacularly backfired. So had Spike’s, for the opposite reason: He’d given folks something they really didn’t want in 2000, i.e. to have their face rubbed in a centuries’ worth of hate.

There’s a lot going on in Bamboozled that isn’t a direct poke in your eye, of course. There’s Wayans’ Harvard-affected, every-syllable-has-its-day accent, which is the perfect aural equivalent of his name. There are the arguments between Smith, who’s genuinely wonderful in the movie, and Bey about ideology. There is Bey’s group the Mau-Mau’s, Spike’s scorched-earth take on revolution-spouting, consciousness-raising hip-hop groups and the one thing even the film’s fans have a hard time with. There’s Paul Mooney as Junebug, Pierre’s dad and a comedian who’s admirably stuck to his well-honed club shtick; in a perfect world, the movie would’ve helped reintroduce this legendary stand-up and Richard Pryor collaborator to a larger audience. (Chappelle’s Show would accomplish that a few years later.) And there’s the commercial parodies, from “Bomb Malt Liquor” to a deathblow critique of Tommy Hilfiger’s marketing to the African-American community.

But the underlying feelings that inform the movie are rage and pain. That’s what you see in Delacroix’s eyes when his boss brusquely uses slurs and ill-advised slang to prove the he’s more “down,” and when the producer says that he refuses to keep pumping out shit “like Homeboys in Outer Space” — a hilarious throwaway line until you remember this was a real, honest-to-God series. You see it in his face when white coworkers excitedly praise him and he watches white people cracking up at the performers denigrating themselves for their delight. (It’s hard to watch these scenes and not think of Dave Chappelle’s story about seeing a Caucasian crew member laugh a little too intensely at a sketch, a moment that forced the comedian to pull the plug on his own show.) And you definitely see it in Bamboozled‘s coup de grace, a climactic roll call of racist screen imagery throughout the ages that presents you with a century’s worth of humiliation 24 frames per second.

This is the history the film wants to remind you of; this is the history it wants you to reckon with. And seeing the movie through the lens of our current moment, history has indeed been kind — agonizingly so — to what Bamboozled is talking about. That so many people have inherently picked up what Lee was putting down and used that as a sort of template for what writer/critic Evan Narcisse called “the New Black Absurdity” has helped its mode of attack feel remarkably familiar,. You can see its legacy in everything from the cinema du Afro-punk to Atlanta, Terence Nance’s unclassifiable surreality to Sorry to Bother You. Even Spike himself would go back to this bitter aesthetic well with BlacKkKlansman.

It’s plus ça change perversity of it all — the constant sheer WTF-edness and creeping feeling of progress being undone by violence and oppression — re: life circa 2020 that really makes Bamboozled feel like it was made for here and now. It’s time has come, wonderfully and regrettably. Reached by phone a few days after the DVD’s release, Clark noted that “in 2000, when this film came out, it was: ‘Spike, we know blackface is bad, get over it.’ If this had come out in 2008, it would have been received even worse: ‘Spike, we live in post-racial America now, you’re so out of touch.’ Right now, we have a President tweeting out miracle cures, people like Sheriff David A. Clarke considered to be pundits and the Diamond and Silk appearing on Fox. The really scary thing is that, 20 years on, Bamboozled feels incredibly contemporary. It doesn’t look so extreme after all…and when you consider the content of this film, that’s a very troubling thing.”

[tommy-doubterson]

hey. What the hell.

Just for that, here's a few more.

Small is bigger than big. Tall is shorter than short. You get "on" a horse but "in" a car. "No yeah" is yes, "yeah yeah" is no, "yeah no" is no, and "no no" is yes. There is no plural for the word "you". "Queue" is 80% silent letters. You say "unbelievable" but "intolerable".

Don't fucking test me.

The English language is a mess. Here's a list of some more oddities I just looked up.

“Rhythms” is the longest English word without the normal vowels, a, e, i, o, or u.

Excluding derivatives, there are only two words in English that end -shion and (though many words end in this sound). These are cushion and fashion.

“THEREIN” is a seven-letter word that contains thirteen words spelled using consecutive letters: the, he, her, er, here, I, there, ere, rein, re, in, therein, and herein.

There is only one common word in English that has five vowels in a row: queueing.

Soupspoons is the longest word that consists entirely of letters from the second half of alphabet.

“Almost” is the longest commonly used word in the English language with all the letters in alphabetical order.

The longest uncommon word whose letters are in alphabetical order is the eight-letter Aegilops (a grass genus).

The longest common single-word palindromes are deified, racecar, repaper, reviver, and rotator.

“One thousand” contains the letter A, but none of the words from one to nine hundred ninety-nine has an A.

“The sixth sick sheik’s sixth sheep’s sick” is said to be the toughest tongue twister in English.

Cwm (pronounced “koom”, defined as a steep-walled hollow on a hillside) is a rare case of a word used in English in which w is the nucleus vowel, as is crwth (pronounced “krooth”, a type of stringed instrument). Despite their origins in Welsh, they are accepted English words.

“Asthma” and “isthmi” are the only six-letter words that begin and end with a vowel and have no other vowels between.

The nine-word sequence I, in, sin, sing, sting, string, staring, starting (or starling), startling can be formed by successively adding one letter to the previous word.

“Underground” and “underfund” are the only words in the English language that begin and end with the letters “und.”

“Stewardesses” is the longest word that can be typed with only the left hand.

Antidisestablishmentarianism listed in the Oxford English Dictionary, was considered the longest English word for quite a long time, but today the medical term pneumonoultramicroscopicsilicovolcanoconiosis is usually considered to have the title, despite the fact that it was coined to provide an answer to the question ‘What is the longest English word?’.

“Dreamt” is the only English word that ends in the letters “mt”.

There are many words that feature all five regular vowels in alphabetical order, the commonest being abstemious, adventitious, facetious.

The superlatively long word honorificabilitudinitatibus (27 letters) alternates consonants and vowels.

“Fickleheaded” and “fiddledeedee” are the longest words consisting only of letters in the first half of the alphabet.

The two longest words with only one of the six vowels including y are the 15-letter defenselessness and respectlessness.

“Forty” is the only number which has its letters in alphabetical order. “One” is the only number with its letters in reverse alphabetical order.

Bookkeeper is the only word that has three consecutive doubled letters.

Despite the assertions of a well-known puzzle, modern English does not have three common words ending in -gry. Angry and hungry are the only ones.

“Ough” can be pronounced in eight different ways. The following sentence contains them all: “A rough-coated, dough-faced ploughman strode through the streets of Scarborough, coughing and hiccoughing thoughtfully.

Source

I hope you like being outsmarted, English Oddities Anon.

[sylvies-chen]

Fic authors self rec! When you get this, reply with your favorite five fics that you've written, then pass on to at least five other writers. Let’s spread the self-love ❤️

Ahh ok this is so cute I’m glad I was sent this because I feel like I never promote my own stuff on here and wouldn’t unless prompted lol.

Hopelessly Devoted To You - anyone who’s read my stuff has probably read this one, it’s my most popular fic and my first ever AU. I was so proud of this story, and met some of the most wonderful fandom friends through this story

Spinning Out - this is my most severely underrated fanfiction ngl!! I was so proud of this when I wrote it and was in my Burzek feels. I owe @fighterkimburgess for this, who championed this fic for me, like I was writing it solely for you at one point cíara! you were its biggest fan for sure. anyway y’all can pry ballerina kim from my cold dead hands it was glorious.

Violin Concert in D Minor, Op. 47: I. Allegro Moderato - MY KENSTEWY FIC MY BELOVED yes I absolutely wrote a fic because of a violin concerto I’d heard it’s the geekiest thing ever but I lovedddd getting to write college!kenstewy and this was right after the succession finale too so I needed a win (or at least to write a little smut).

Where the Mind Wanders - one thing about me is that I LOVE the “dream sequence where deceased loved ones visit them” trope. think that episode of Sherlock where he gets shot, think 8.15 of Bones, things like that. because you get such an insight into a character’s psyche while also getting feral worried energy from character B who’s in love with them, and it’s just. SO GOOD. so I tried writing that for Chenford because we have yet to experience any true whump from established chenford now that they’re actually together and I wanted to write Tim losing it over Lucy being in danger!!

Love & Metachrosis - listen I love getting to write sort of higher concept fics and getting super creative with it, but this fic is none of that. it’s heartfelt as all my stuff is, but I’m proud of it for its comedy and humour. I genuinely did try writing it as a real scene from a (hypothetical at the time) season 2 episode of OFMD, and added in some comedy in there (I hope) so I’m proud of it precisely because it is super kitschy and silly and fun, but there is still a lot to sink your teeth into and it slowly sinks into the emotional stuff just like the show does. Idk, it was just the first fic I’d ever written for a show that is technically a comedy so I was really happy with the balance!

bonus points for my new chenford AU that I’m writing right now which is probably the best thing I’ve written and my favourite new idea, because I haven’t posted it yet but I still am so excited for it!! Title is TBD but @morganupstead knows what’s up (morgan it’s my superpowers fic and it’s coming along beautifully I totally need to send you the first two chapters or something because you kept me going with writing this)