#this is as convoluted and complex as the issue itself and I am just going to leave it at that because it’s 2am and I’m crying over glitter

[ohgaylor]

IT MUST BE EXHAUSTING (AN ANALYSIS)

Hi. Taylor’s the problem. And she knows it. (affectionate)

All right friends. It’s time to dive into an analysis again. I’ve been reflecting on a lot of Midnights and Taylor’s ever-present self-deprecation this era and in my regular fashion, I had to make an extremely long-winded analysis post about a certain motif of hers that I’ve noticed has only grown more apparent this time around. and essentially that is her self-awareness toward her ever-ambiguous signaling in regard to her identity, and where she is positioned in the complicated and delicate journey of coming out, as well as the plethora of emotions that surround that for both herself and her fans and those of us who pick up on the queer coded subtext of her music and art.

to kick off this analysis, may I remind you of this beauty of a quote from Taylor’s 2018 reputation tour pride speech that prefaced Delicate?

I want to send my love and respect to everybody who in their journey and in their life hasn't yet felt comfortable enough to come out ... and may you do that on your own time and may we end up with a world where everyone can live and love equally and no one has to be afraid to say how they feel. When it comes to feelings and when it comes to love and searching for someone to spend your whole life with, it’s all just really really delicate.

That is quite possibly my favorite thing she’s ever said. and what inspired this tag.

Now I need to clarify up front — I am never insinuating a need or even desire for Taylor to come out. Because that’s not our place to say. If you’ve been around my blog long enough, I would hope that nuance would be apparent. I simply point out regular motifs and patterns within her art and how it correlates with queer-coded themes of closets, of almost coming out, of outright queer coding, of rainbows, of keeping a love secret and safe, and on and on and on. The signs are there if you know what to look for (re: “I gave so many signs”) and that’s what I explore on my blog. The point is, I will never demand she come out. But I will stand with her in this complex journey she appears to be on. It’s entirely her journey and however she wishes to navigate that is hers to decide.

but that doesn’t detract from the reality that for those of us who see this beautiful queer subtext of her art and music and visuals and work and self, the ambiguity and constant back-and-forth when it comes to her identity (and the idea of coming out) can in fact be a lot to try and process and understand and ultimately to reconcile as we root for her. Trying to understand where she stands is much like chasing a moving target. (not that she owes any explanation to us, because again, she doesn’t.) her art and creativity are her place of expression and catharsis. however, watching her navigate these complexities and trying to root for her in this sometimes messy space is also, dare I say, exhausting.

hence, the title and general theme of this analysis.

so let’s begin.

First, we have this verse in Anti-Hero which is the perfect setup to illustrate this specific motif,

I should not be left to my own devices They come with prices and vices I end up in crises Tale as old as time

This is essentially the thesis of Taylor’s message, the feeling that her own judgement and actions might be the very cause for certain crises she finds herself in, however enticing those vices and choices may be. In choosing to straddle a glass-closeted lifestyle as an artist at her status and level of fame, all the while heavily queer-coding to her (receptive) audiences, only to be seen by most others as the hallmark of straight women as per her highly publicized bearding, juggling this all can be overwhelming. But it’s also a space that she has essentially curated and perpetuated herself.

An anti-hero is a central character in a narrative who conspicuously lacks heroic, moral qualities:

Although antiheroes may sometimes perform actions that are morally correct, it is not always for the right reasons, often acting primarily out of self-interest or in ways that defy conventional ethical codes.

Identifying herself as the anti-hero in this sense comes as a candid confession, as though she is admitting that maybe she is driven by self-interest. (which again, she is entitled to as we all are in our own lives.) (re: the jokes weren’t funny, I took the money, my friends at home don’t know what to say) Alternatively, and perhaps additionally, acting out of self-interest in this context may mean concealment of parts of her identity for the sake of self-preservation. The nuances behind why she hasn’t chosen to come out are at play here and I doubt any of us can fully comprehend what that is exactly.

I never had the courage of my convictions, as long as danger is near

Pouring out my heart to a stranger but I didn’t pour the whiskey

Combat, I'm ready for combat. I say I don't want that, but what if I do? 'Cause cruelty wins in the movies. I've got a hundred thrown-out speeches I almost said to you … Dark side, I search for your dark side. But what if I'm alright, right, right, right here?

You can easily grasp the intense oscillation as she goes back and forth between these decisions while juggling a myriad of reasons and factors, all of which are incredibly weighted. She knows it’s exhausting for us because it’s that much more exhausting for herself.

So, she elects to pursue a route all too familiar to closeted individuals in the public eye, one of bearding and concealing their identity.

I had some tricks up my sleeve … Perched in the dark, telling all the rich folks anything they wanna hear, like it could be love, I could be the way forward, only if they pay for it … the skeletons in both our closets plotted hard to fuck this up

I took the money. My friends from home don't know what to say.

The cost at which this lifestyle comes is worthy of an analysis all on its own. But Taylor seems to be indicating that she has found safety and security in her self-made cages and closets of sorts.

I prefer hiding in plain sight

‘Cause shade never made anybody less gay

If the shoe fits, walk in it 'til your high heels break

My town was a wasteland, full of cages, full of fences*, pageant queens and big pretenders. But for some, it was paradise.

In the darkest little paradise

(also, note the *fences. I’ll come back to that later.)

She brings focus to the fact that her town was full of cages and fences, which initially may carry a negative connotation. But here’s where she turns it around and says that for some, it was place of paradise, that the self-made cages brought security and freedom. That the idea of “forever” is in fact the sweetest con. That the good life she was hustling for through the tricks she had up her sleeve is within grasp. That this could be the way forward. Tell me that doesn’t scream a queer-coded experience?

But knowing Taylor and the complicated nature of this deeply personal topic, there is also a level of remorse regarding the said-cages and choices that had put her in crisis.

I cut off my nose just to spite my face, then hate my reflection for years and years

I’ve got a hundred thrown out speeches I almost said to you

I’d pay if you’d just know me

Now, despite the way she has managed to remain glass-closeted, a large subset of her fans and the general public completely miss what she is signaling in regard to her queerness. (re: “I gave so many signs / you didn’t even see the signs”) but it appears she is feeling some remorse for the devices she’s used and the way she’s navigated things because she knows that she’ll be the one paying for it.

So again, Taylor fully acknowledges she’s the problem. She endlessly dances around the topic, sometimes to an extreme (re: “bent the truth too far tonight,” Bettygate and specifying a male perspective despite widespread interpretation of the alternative; similar thing with Lavendergate, etc etc) She writes from “male perspectives” so as to have a way to write female pronouns. She uses pseudonyms for similar motives. She equates herself with gay pride and places herself adjacent to the community repeatedly, and dances in Gaylor Park and rainbow kaleidoscopes. She dresses in rainbow attire and gives speeches emphasizing the delicacy of coming out and on and on, all while also remaining straight-passing. It’s complicated and messy and indeed exhausting.

sending signals to be double-crossed

I’ll stare directly at the sun but never in the mirror. It must be exhausting always rooting for the anti-hero

no doubt these devices and choices have come at a cost. first, the personal cost of remaining closeted (or in the very least, glass closeted) by her own making. The nature by which she has driven her career, of “taking the money” and pursuing a career (and by extension, following heteronormative cultural standards of remaining closeted), all point to the self-made cages she twists in.

recall the Delicate pride speech…

I want to send my love and respect to everybody who in their journey and in their life hasn't yet felt comfortable enough to come out ... and may you do that on your own time

That is a major theme for her. The idea that through a closeted state, certain freedoms can coexist.

We know Taylor has made a point to emphasize the comfort she has found in keeping elements of her life to herself post her apocalyptic summer. And the way she has largely receded her personal life from the public eye is telling. In an effort to protect the “real stuff”, she is withholding from others and has found safety in that.

Privacy sign on the door and on my page and on the whole world, romance is not dead if you keep it just yours.

She knows it’s not always a world that some would choose to be a part of. She describes it as a wasteland, likely desolate, harkening back to cowboy like me. A place where hustling for the good life, perching in the dark as con artists (or pageant queens and big pretenders) and telling all the rich folks anything they want to hear like “it could be love” is all too familiar.

It’s a painful dichotomy she fully explores in The Archer, recognizing that maybe it’s her lot in life to straddle these lines of staying where she is, perched in the dark, while wanting to step into the daylight and let it go.

and that’s where the second cost comes in — in how those of us who see her for what she is signaling herself to be, are ultimately left to ourselves to make sense of it.

It’s the same kind of essence of this fantastic analysis regarding coney island and her apology of not making us certain subsets of her fans and communities her centerfold.

Being left to her own devices, she has ultimately crafted a duplicitous persona, of which she has spoken about specifically when discussing mirrorball…

Everybody else feels like they have to be on for certain people. You have to be different versions of yourself for different people. Different versions at work, different versions around friends, different versions of yourself around different friends. Different version of yourself around family. Everybody has to be duplicitous, or feels that they have to in some ways, be duplicitous. And that’s part of the human experience, but it’s also exhausting. You kind of learn that every one of us has the ability to become a shape-shifter. But what does that do to us?

Is it self-preservation? Or self-made self-destruction? (re: “they told me all of my cages were mental” “what a shame she’s fucked in the head” “lost in the labyrinth of my mind”)

Among the various anxieties that plague her in regard to this subject, Taylor makes one fear very clear. And that is for some inevitable day where we will leave her after we’ve had enough of “her scheming”.

'Cause they see right through me, they see right through me, they see right through. Can you see right through me?

I wake up screaming from dreaming One day I'll watch as you're leaving 'Cause you got tired of my scheming For the last time

These desperate prayers of a cursed man spilling out to you for free, but darling, darling, please, you wouldn't take my word for it if you knew who was talking if you knew where I was walking

Will you forgive my soul when you're too wise to trust me and too old to care?

She will get as close as she can to the topic, (“Gay pride… everything that makes me me!” to name just one) only to pull back or leave it ambiguous and devoid of clarity…

I'll stare directly at the sun but never in the mirror

And I cut off my nose just to spite my face Then I hate my reflection for years and years

…only to feel guilt for skirting around the topic…

You said I was freeloading … I bent the truth too far tonight, I was dancing around, dancing around it … Your picket fence is sharp as knives, I was dancing around, dancing around it

This to me is the a significant price that comes from her being left to her own devices. Yes, there is freedom that comes from closeting/bearding. But glass closeting brings a more painful mess of emotions for both the closet-er and those seeing it for what it is. This is what she addresses in Anti-Hero with painful clarity.

And sometimes this can come at a painful cost. Take YNTCD for example. In this video, she positions herself within the queer community, dancing in Gaylor Park, and boldly declares herself an advocate for LGBTQIA rights.

But as we know, the video was met by many as out-of-touch (re: “freeloading”), performative and whatever else critics were spewing.

motion capture put me in a bad light. I replay my footsteps on each stepping stone, trying to find the one where I went wrong. writing letters addressed to the fire

Now for a detour.

I want to talk about the purple / blue / lavender glitter for a minute. Here, in the Directors on Directors interview, Taylor describes the glitter as being a metaphor for herself...

It’s supposed to be a metaphor for like, I bleed glitter, I’m not normal, there’s something wrong with me, I’m not a person, I don’t belong, I don’t fit in anywhere.

Recall how I said chasing a moving target?

Let’s talk about the significance of this scene and a handful of others in terms of the lavender glitter.

[For some queer context regarding glitter]

I’d first like to point out Hayley Kiyoko’s purple glitter jacket above, from the YNTCD video. This is Hayley Kiyoko we’re talking about. The proclaimed Lesbian Jesus. And in this moment, while she is wearing the purple glitter jacket, she is aiming an arrow at a target, signifying The Archer. This moment is key.

And then you have the Miss Americana documentary, wherein Taylor explicitly equates herself with gay pride, while talking about the Me! music video.

It’s a line of dialogue that screams at me with such intensity. Irrefutable. As a film editor, I know that every line in a film is deliberately placed and thought out and meticulously addressed. And therefore we can trust that Taylor intended for this line to make it into the film. I can tell that surrounding dialogue is seemingly trimmed and crafted in a delicate way. And part of that is the very direct statement that “Gay pride…everything that makes me, me!”

And it’s within this music video that we again witness a massive “ME!” literally jumping out at us on screen, in none other than purple glitter.

A handful of others could sense that the conclusion of Miss Americana felt as thought it was headed in a different direction than the one it ultimately took. And that for whatever reason, Taylor’s political advocacy took center stage while a deeper analysis regarding her LGBTQIA advocacy did not.

Cut back to the Anti-Hero music video where we get The Archer aiming right for Taylor, and striking her, causing her to bleed, yet again, purple glitter.

Pierced through the heart but never killed… did you hear my covert narcissism I disguise as altruism, like some kind of congressman

My covert (secret) narcissism (ME!) I disguise as altruism like some kind of congressman (the political turn and advocacy present in Miss Americana)

In other words, covering up who she is (“gay pride… everything that makes me me!”) under the guise of a film almost exclusively focused on her journey of discovering her political (“Vote for me for everything” pin) activist voice. And what scene depicts this with near precision???

this one.

motion capture put me in a bad light. I replay my footsteps on each stepping stone, trying to find the one where I went wrong. writing letters addressed to the fire

'cause cruelty wins in the movies, I've got a hundred thrown-out speeches I almost said to you

The subsequent look on her face of absentminded agony says it all. She knows the confusion that comes from rooting for her as (especially if she is seen as an ally who maybe crosses one too many lines if presumably as straight.)

The inner-turmoil on display for us in The Archer has transformed into a tone all too exhausted in its own right within Anti-Hero. She knows we’re tired. She’s tired too. In a self-deprecating jab, she admits that she is the problem and she knows that everybody ultimately agrees with her on this. Shielded within a pop anthem, her vulnerability is on display. And so, in Dear Reader, with equal parts desperation as well as wit, she concludes…

You should find another guiding light, guiding light. But I shine so bright.

And so it is ultimately within this utterly messy, exhausting, complicated, ever-changing and nuanced journey that Taylor reaches out to those of us who do in fact see through her and who ultimately simply see her, that she asks us in all sincerity…

Who could stay? Who could stay? Who could stay? You could stay.

And I, for one, will stay.

[enjoy my other analyses here]

[derekscorner]

Fated Rantings: Mordred pt2

I have just finished the two Camelot films and my post about them but one part I found too big to leave within it was my thoughts on Mordred.

I made a post on her already way back when I started my Fate journey but I couldn't help but want to add more after seeing these movies and playing through FGO's Camelot Singularity.

That said, for this, you will need some context from the first post so I'll link my part one of Mordred here:

Mordred Part One

Victim of Projection

To reiterate a portion of what I stated in Part One, I think Mordred is a highly complex individual. Her entire backstory is a tad convoluted as well.

I believe that some of this gets lost among fan discussion due to how people project onto her.

People see clips of her threatening to gut her master in Apocrypha because he called her a woman and jump on the trans wagon. And before you rage quit the post, I am not saying that there's no truth to that.

My issue is that her reasons are more complex than just her gender and that seems lost due to surface level understanding. She's also not that way due to surface level "daddy issues" either.

Her issues are far deeper due to her unnatural birth.

By "unnatural" I refer to her magical origins.

At the time, Artoria needed an heir but as a woman couldn't make one with her wife. To fix that Merlin used magecraft to temporarily erm...."alter" Artoria's body.

Morgan learned of this and essentially used her magic to charm Artoria and conceive Mordred.

This was Fate's way of working around Mordreds origins in mythology since Mordred is often cited as Arthur's bastard born of Morgans deceit and incest with their sibling.

Thanks to the magic of both Merlin and Morgan and the sheer level of spite that was the motivation for their birth Mordred was born a humunculous.

Which also meant that they would not only grow far faster than a normal human but live a much shorter life. Even if Mordred wasn't fated/cursed to die on battlefield of Camlann they would've died early anyway.

Mordred was doomed from the start and they know this. They also have a clear dislike for Morgan in other Fate stories for their upbringing.

Then there was Artoria's rejection of Mordred. Mordred perceived it as due to hate for Morgan or due to their gender but Artoria just did not believe they could be king.

Artoria rejected Mordred entirely without even sparing their "petty" emotions like hatred.

The damage on Mordred's spirit and beliefs is far more layered than just gender alone. That's what makes them endlessly appealing and tragic.

But I've already covered the deeper topic in the first post. What caught my eye about Mordred in the Camelot movies and FGO singularity was how Mordred rectified that as a knight of the Lion King.

The summoned knights have their full backstories in-tact. Mordred has all of that baggage seen in Apocrypha but is choosing to serve the king anyway.

And mind you, Mordred isn't treated well in the Camelot Singularity. The film didn't go over it as much as I'd have hoped but Mordred is choosing to be loyal to their father despite being banned from the city itself.

Despite Lancelot himself being there, Mordred is the one treated the worse of the knights present.

The more fucked up part of this info is that King Arthur is the one who decided that. The way she describes Mordred's treatment in the mobile game is cold, akin to the use and abandonment of a tool.

Gift of Rampage

On top of banning Mordred from the city save for certain times or for meetings the Lion King also "gifted" Mordred with "rampage".

All of the knights were given a power or gift upon serving her but Mordred's in particular not only plays on Mordred's angry nature but harms them when used.

Artoria Lancer essentially cursed Mordred to harm themselves in servitude to the Holy City while banning them from it for most of the time.

It's particularly cold treatment from a divine spirit that's lost her humanity. If anything, Goddess Rhongomyniad, aka the Lion King, aka Artoria Lancer shows more hatred/emotion toward Mordred than the real King Arthur did.

Despite that Mordred serves to the point they throw their life away to battle Caster and stop Ozymandias' pyramid.

And I can't help but think about why.

Guilt

And upon seeing her final scene with Caster I think I can understand why. There's a sense of guilt in Mordred. I wouldn't say Mordred wants to atone like the other knights but she does say that they will die "as a knight" as she "should have".

Which rolls back to Mordred's complex feelings for their father. Mordred truly idolized Arthur and Morgan grew frustrated by this and it was only then that she told Mordred of their parentage hoping to spark conflict.

Sadly that ploy ultimately worked but after all the hatred and love and despite Mordred's own unsorted feelings in other Fate works they idolize their father, the king Arthur.

It is almost ironic as well because Artoria Lancer treats Mordred no better than Morgan did in life but given this second chance Mordred would rather die her knight than betray them again.

On some level that love is there and Mordred chose to adhere to it in the Camelot Singularity and its tragic to see. Even for Caster who ultimately takes Mordred down.

Hell, even Agravain feels some sense of pity for Mordred when he questions the Lion King as to why Mordred is banished from the city. Granted, he was seeing it from a wasted soldier example but he still had s semblance of care/respect there.

I think that love also bled into her harsh words toward Bedivere. Mordred makes it clear they were never fond of him and I can't help but wonder if jealous is at the core of it.

Bedivere was Arthurs most loyal knight, a knight the king kept near at most times, a spot Mordred never had. They were never given the consideration and care Bedivere was despite being fare more powerful than him.

On top of that Bedivere was there for Arthur in her final moments while Mordred couldn't even get an iota of emotion from Arthur on the fields of Camlann.

Even in the Camelot Singularity where their roles should be reversed (in theory) they aren't. Mordred is treated like something to be used and left broken while Bedivere is walking around going on about seeing Arthur and fixing a mistake.

He also never argues with Mordred. He accepts their criticisms much to their anger. Mordred can't even get a rise out of Bedivere.

This is conjecture on my part of course, I have no way to prove it but it was something I wondered while watching the movie.

"What about Bedivere pisses her off so much?"

Ultimately Mordred continues to be interesting but tragic just like her father. It's hard to not talk about them or what's running through their mind.

I hope we get Mordred in another Fate story one day. Something to give them focus like Apocrypha or one that has more exploration into their relationship with Arthur.

It was only in bits in the FGO game and some scenes in the movies but it's fascinating to see the knight you'd expect to rebel instantly to die for the cause despite the treatment.

I know this seems to end a bit quick but there's not much else I can think of to say given the first post. I just found Mordred's situation in the movies interesting, I want to know what drives them.

One day maybe we'll get that Mordred route.

=======================

For my other experiences with Fate go here: https://derekscorner.tumblr.com/tagged/fated-rantings

[pretentious-art-love]

Film Reviews #7 - Madoka Magica the Movie Part III: The Story of the Rebellion

Spoilers for both movie and show will follow ahead!

This film, and the TV show itself, have a lot of flaws, like holy crap there are so many flaws that I just feel lazy when I think about listing them all.

Anyway, let's list them all, first and foremost, the pacing is incredibly convoluted, like bloody hell the first time you watch this you will have eyebrow pain from frowning so much and you will be mentally exhausted of all the things you have to keep to track of to puzzle the story together in a overarching arc that feels as long as listing all the digits of Pi, and most digits of Pi serve no purpose whatsoever! The thing is that, this movie would have worked a lot more as a full TV season for the show, things are so heavily compressed and the pacing might start slowly but then goes super fast and then builds up an important scene and then moves to another part of the plot! The TV show does have this same issue as well, since while it builds up nicely around the beginning, some things are cut short and that makes some scenes feel underdeveloped, like the whole arc with Sayaka and the pain of feeling like a lich, or a zombie, we got to see her pain and her reluctantcy to talk to the boy she likes, but we didn't get to see or feel what bad things she felt would happen in a relationship in the state she was in, I have dealt with dysphoria myself, so I understand her predicament to an extent, but I know a lot of people will think she is just dumb, the friendship of Homura and Madoka could have been expanded more to make us feel the importance of Madoka in Homura's life, and at the end she just comes as a very obsessed lesbian, I can go on and on, but again, I am getting a little lazy, the first season could have even been 24 episodes long, this movie, 12 episodes long, but with its movie running time it has at the very most 8 episodes worth of runtime, and that hurts the storytelling a lot.

Because of that, there are scenes with a lot, and I mean a lot of exposition, with Kyubey being the equivalent of the exposition pug from the Men in Black series here, while in the show he still had a bigger role in the story despite also delivering a lot of exposition. That makes the whole story feel clunky, convoluted, and nonsensical, we don't get shown what it is happening, we get told about it more than what it is healthy for a story. There are some characters, like Bebe, that are introduced in a very quick way and then work as a normal part of the rooster without us getting to know her backstory, I only know it myself because a friend told me about it from something she read about a gacha game that expanded her arc. All this, all these issues, and more, that it's hard to call it a good movie, let alone a good show because of that, and the thing with animation and art like this is that knowing how to use your screen-time properly is really really difficult, and no matter the path you pick (either some scenes of quick exposition or basically not explaining it at all just to leave it to additional material) will end up leaving at least some people unhappy.

So, what about the goods? Is there anything good in this movie at all? Yes, there is, starting with the eye candy that is Shaft's visual direction, with that heavy French New Wave influence and featured not just here but also in the Madoka show and the Monogatari series, for the whole 100 episodes of it, its an absolute joy, the surreal atmosphere with complex backgrounds, overbearing lighting, characters that talk in such a idiosyncratic way that feels unique to them, and the cutout animation that mixes with the more traditional characters to create this scary but beautiful aura with the unnatural creatures and happening of this world, for eye candy like this alone I would rate this movie 4 stars, and out of all the discourse people seem to bring from this movie, it is at least the general consensus that the visuals of it are great!

But! That's not the thing, haha, you see, because the reason I like this movie so much… the reason I like this movie so much it's because of its writing! Yes, that is right! Yes, I know, you might be saying the obvious, how I, with all the issues I see about this movie and the TV show, saying that the best thing about Rebellion being the writing is bogus, so now, just stay still, and listen. You see, the Madoka TV show was fine… it was fine, it was a fun show, you know, a normal deconstruction of the super hero genre, even if you aren't into magical girls, as long as you know what a super hero is, and are familiar with the trope of the normal person protagonist thingy being chosen to save the world, you will enjoy the show, the TV show has some twists and turns that make you wonder who the real villain is or what it is going to happen next, but there are things that you can easily predict from the first episode alone, and as the story goes along, these predictions get confirmed to you, and the end of the show does not really come as a surprise when you reach it, you say, ahh, yeah, that makes sense, that was nice.

Madoka the TV show takes the whole idea of the Magical Girl/Super Hero and shows us a story where the only way to save the world is sacrificing yourself, even at the cost of your humanity, and plays with the idea that maybe the best option for you is to not become a super hero, a magical girl, because the cost for that power and that responsibility can be too great to bare. The show ends in a bittersweet note, and plays with the idea of Godhood and the ideal time loop after a sacrifice has been made, that idea is very fun on its own, there are interesting rules within the show that allow Madoka to propose a cohesive idea of God without becoming a power trip story, like the idea that God is in every place and every time in the universe, but can't directly interact with us because its fighting to keep the balance of the world as we know it, making it no more than a mere observer that cannot alter our life on its own will despite being omnipresent.

The idea is good, and I like it a lot, even when there are shows that have used this idea to make things a lot more interesting things with them, like it is the case of Serial Experiments Lain where its ending is not only an exploration of godhood but it also plants questions about our identity on itself, and about who we are now in the digital era, which makes more the message a lot more personal to the audience. So, the show itself is fine, yeah, the ending had been done already before and after, the plot is a bit convoluted and characters arcs cut short, but overall its a fun ride with its own self contained ending, not life changing or anything but really good for the fans of this kind of media.

Anyway, the show become super popular and a movie sequel was approved, so what are we gonna do now? The show had already used the concept of alternative timelines for its main plot, so if you are going to make a sequel or alternative version, using them to spicy things up or continue along with the characters its a no go, its a really big task to continue things from the point the TV show ended, and the struggle does show, some people call the movie unnecessary, and I can see why would they think that. The movie does have also some well known tropes like the ideal/dystopian timeline that starts the new arc of the franchise that has been shown in anime like… well, I don't think I can say it without making it a spoiler, but if you want to know, ask me, it's a fun trope to write, and a confusing one to watch. In that part, it is nothing new, and the pacing is a lot more convoluted than the TV show, not just reducing character arcs and growth to mere one liners but also making the whole succession of events a mind boggling mess to watch the first time.

But around the end, around the end, it happens, it just happens. Homura's arc in the show was good enough, she acts as the quiet, traumatized hero, the martyr that is under the scenes and tries to save people despite looking as a cold hearted foe in the outside, she was someone with extreme methods that could involve even killing Sayaka or letting Mami die as long it meant to save Madoka, there are great moments she has like in the episode 10 where she and Madoka are about to become witches, and Homura says that as long they are together, she doesn't care if she destroys the entire world with her, and that she would destroy and unleash her despair on the whole earth as long she gets to be with Madoka, which I found quite passionate, the way she remembers her after everything has passed, and how get to see her more and more as the protagonist in the show as it goes on.

The thing that… her character as it is its fine, it is just fine, like… she is a good character, but maybe not the most memorable character ever? I mean considering that the trope of the martyr hero that is silently suffering but is helping the hero from the shadows its a very well known trope, it doesn't come as a twist, it is something that you can even see from episode 1, and a lot of people did, myself included, when the flashback scenes come, you say, yeah yeah, I see it now, but there is not really a twist, not the twist the show wanted you to experience, it was heavily implied and when you see it come, you watch it mostly because you want to know the how, not the why, of her character. So yes, the character its fine, it is a good character, but it doesn't change things too much, it just serves as a another spring in the perfectly tied together clockwork that is the show, it has a nice conclusion, all answers are given to you, when you look at it, it does feel as what you would expect, it is a fine good clock, aside the pacing, you could say the TV show its a good clock, maybe too good in fact, too tidy and perfect for its own good, it is a story that ends as how it should have, with protagonists that end with the character growth that they should have… Madoka does the sacrifice of losing her humanity to save all magical girls, and Homura is finally able to express her pain directly to the person that she loves, and is finally able to break the time loop she is in, living now in an universe where magical girls don't become witches, and continues as a silent hero that fights from the shadows, with her sad backstory, and her resolve to go on, it's all really nice, a really tidy and clean ending for a show…

But, if you allow me to be a bit pedantic… I think that's boring, super and incredibly ultra mega boring, it is boring, boring boring, super boring, expected, already shown, already made, predictable! It is boring! BO-RI-NG! It is too by the numbers! And yes, sure, Madoka started as a deconstruction of the Magical Girl genre, and it might have been seen as something that subverted the source material it was inspired from, but that is only if you came to it blind, all blind, expecting something cute and fun, so in other terms, it relied in nothing more than a marketing gimmick, and when your movie relies in a marketing gimmick, once that gimmick is gone, half of its appeal its over, just like with The Blair Witch Project, sure it was supposed to be a real found tape, but of course you can't keep your actors locked in a basement, so the immersion is absolutely broken out of the gate with that. I did my best, and I watched Madoka as blind as possible, not knowing anything about the plot, anything, I didn't google it, checked it or did anything or research about it, but even then, when people mention Madoka on the internet, they say, oh Madoka… haha, Madoka is not what it pretends to be! Mwhahaha! If Madoka comes up as a random conversation topic in your discord server, that is the bare minimum you are going to hear. I can say that in this day and age, it is incredibly obvious from the get go that you come to Madoka looking forward to it pull a fast one on you, and with me having watched stuff like Magical Girl Site around 2017 or so and being used to a whole fanfare of violent magical girl shows, I arrived to Madoka and I kept asking myself, where is all the blood? Where is the angst? The edgyness? Sure, a character just died in episode 3, the cutouts are artsy and fancy, but to be honest with you, I'm not feeling subverted right now! I am waiting to see the most shocking and grotesque thing to exist! Where is it?! And then, I have to adjust my expectations, the plot it is very interesting with the material it works on, people say Kyubey did nothing wrong, and that is a discussion you can argue with very solid points, but if you are familiar with the the time loop genre or time travel stories, you will see that Homura is a good girl from episode 1, from episode 1.

I kept eating my nails waiting for Madoka to become a magical girl in every episode, just to start to realize around episode 5 and 6 that it most likely wouldn't happen in the whole anime, and if it did, it would probably be only at the very end, because the story is about avoiding letting Madoka become a magical girl. When you realize what kind of story it is, you can see the whole picture of it before it ends, it is just so tidy and clean to the point it is almost antiseptic and symmetrical, just uncannily geometrical, it just feels artificial, and fiction is that, artificial, but the magic trick is about to make it feel like its not. Sure, you are going through a very elaborate and carefully made build up, but even when I am in that slowly but surely ascending roller-coaster, I could be ripping my eyes out because I just want the roller-coaster to start to descend! I am seeing the whole landscape from up here already! Just shake me right now! Scare me away! Even when the show ends with a character turning into godhood and rewriting the entire world and history as they knew it you can't do anything else than say… yeah, that was a good ending, all arcs were written… all characters were there… and the conflict was resolved as it should have, it was all done, in a tidy neat little bow, overall, it is one of the TV shows of all time.

Listen, I know that there is only 7 basic plots for all fiction, I get it, and it is not easy to making something properly satisfying when you have to handle several characters, fantasy worlds with rules on their own, the feelings you want to convey and handle the life of all people that live temporarily in your head, but I just want to dream! Is that so wrong? Is it wrong of me to wish for a character that makes me feel absolute and complete rage even when do not actually exist? To want to feel inspired by a conclusion a character reaches that is actually taboo for the place they and I live in and that makes the audience raise an eyebrow because it defies the status quo? To have a Chekhov's gun unfired the whole play? I just want to feel that the world I am watching to feel real! To have the gun there just because it happened to be that there was a gun there! Not because it was left by the karmic threads of destiny for the heroes to pick! That is what I want, it will make people angry, it will make people confused, but that doesn't matter, because at the end of the day, that's what I really want, I want to feel things! Not to account for all the mathematical equations the screenwriter is trying to balance on a narrative!

So, in this movie, we see something further beyond than that perfect, tidy ending of the show, we see that Homura, despite Madoka's promise of being always everywhere and every time, is still afflicted by her inability to interact with her, to see her or talk to her, to see that Madoka cannot see interact with her friends, her family, and that for most purposes, she is as good as dead to the world. Because all of this, she ends up, due to Kyubey's meddling and others, creating a fake reality where she and her friends are all fighting as a group of friends, always together, and living a happy life following their own duty as magical girls, the life they always dreamed. After a lot of suspicion and her good detective skills, she realizes that the city they live in is no more than a mirage, and that the friends she has been fighting with have been trapped due to her own grief. Even Madoka, who used to be an omnipresent being, had turned into her previous, human form, and it is interacting with the world just like she used to. After all this, Homura, yet one more time, decides to follow her path of a martyr, and tries to sacrifice herself now that she has gotten her wish to talk to Madoka yet one more time, she doesn't want to keep her friends in a glass prison where everything is fake, where they fight threats that do not really exist, where Madoka is not doing her duty saving other magical girls, and she cries because she knows that even after the sacrifice Madoka made, she is still unable to move on, and it is heartbreaking.

Just before she finally jails herself in an eternal prison where not even Madoka to save her, ready to experience eternal pain, her friends come to save her, Mami and Kyoko, who after realizing they have been trapped they decide to help, and even Bebe and Sayaka, who had died in a way or another in the past, are in a way, alive, helping Madoka, and are working together to save her. It is all a nice display of the power of friendship, and a nice ending, so nice, so wholesome and cute that almost makes me puke, hehe, even Sayaka says that they are kinda like Madoka's secretaries and are moving through the cosmic plane in a carriage, isn't that nice? Since they are all working together, why not start giving presents to the kids every 24th of December as well? Why not make it a tradition? Call it, I don't know… Christmas or something! Even when had experienced those characters death's, it's fine! They will just go back to the main dusty cloud of the whole universe hivemind, where they will continue to do good deeds like the super heroes we are in our own life! Haha! Haha! How nice! Isn't it?

Don't make me laugh.

Anime has touched a lot of times the idea of instrumentality, right? The idea of being part of a whole, huge massive being, Evangelion, Kaiba, Code Geass, and Ghost in the Shell have mentioned the idea either as a main plot device or mentioning it as something they want to avoid, right? Because the unknown is scary, that's the basis of cosmic horror, the basis of losing our own individuality, our self, and become something that might not even be truly alive to our own eyes. So when Madoka takes Homura's hand and promises to take her with her, to that afterlife, so they can be together forever, I can feel the fear, I can feel the wish, the need to avoid that to happen, because even if there is a promise for her to be together forever, Homura has already experienced the pain of being unable to interact with Madoka in the human world, the pain of knowing Madoka wouldn't be able to interact with other people, her friends, what does even mean to be a god if you can't put your own will of your own in the entire universe? If you can't experience what it is to have your own senses? To be a fragile and mortal being? After Homura remembers all the pain she went through to keep Madoka alive in every loop, and the pain she experienced even when she somehow achieved with Madoka entering into a new plane of existence, she decides that that's not what she was to have, and an awesome thing happens.

She takes Madoka and breaks her apart, stealing her power, and yet once again, jailing her in a reality she has herself made, just as she said herself, a new demon is born. The story, in a way, ends the same as it just started, but with the big difference that Homura has turned from protagonist, to antagonist, from secretive hero to anti hero, and the people who trusted in her, the audience as well, felt heartbroken, felt disappointment, and condemned the movie because of it. But the thing is that, even when the pacing is convoluted and filled with a lot of exposition and shortcuts, the story on itself it is not! It is not, I can feel the character's pain and their whole psychological progression, I can deeply relate to them in a way that feels so real that I can almost touch it, the trying to help behind the shadows, the failing and succumbing to despair, the accepting the bittersweet solution and gray reality of things, and the pain that comes from realizing that you can't really accept that bittersweet reality and you just break over again! Like, to put a very personal and specific example, I am trans, right? Trust me, this is relevant. So, I start realizing I want to be a girl, and I say, yeah, this is a phase, this is not right, and then I try to push it inside, and I try to be more manly, and I try to become more outgoing and talk with girls the way it is expected from me, and I fail, and I fail, and I am awkward, or I do things I don't understand and that do not work because I just don't like acting as a man, but I keep trying, and I end up having a lot of faux passes and sour memories of all my high school life because of it, and then I just start to understand that I am no more than awkward boy and that I am fated to be an awkward weird boy all my life and that's just how things are, that girls can do certain things, and I can do certain things as well but not what girls can't, and that dream girl that always inhabits my mind its just someone nobody else can really see, just like Homura accepting that Madoka wouldn't never turn into a tangible person in her own world.

But, I can't accept it! It is unbearable, it is really really unbearable, and not really a fair compromise at all, even if I am not trying to date anybody, even when I am trying to be on my own, be with myself, I just can't accept being a man, because it makes me miserable, seeing myself in the mirror, it makes me sick, my voice, I hate it, the relationships I have with other people, they are noting more than a mask, nothing more than a facade in a shell I am carrying and in a body I can't even use to express myself well! So what do I do? I do what I should not do, I do something that could be considered a crime, against what our religion told my family! What everyone thinks is right, what even my own biology gave me and what should be the right path to take, instead of forgetting about all those desires that I should not have, I take the bite, and I start a physical transition, even if it means losing the friends I had, even if it means probably losing my parents! Even if it means becoming a stranger to the people that knew me and making cry to the people that took care and grew up with me all my life! Because that is my desire, because that is what makes me happy! Oh and because screw you, that's why. Wouldn't destroying the God that reigned over your life and do whatever you want completely outside of the plan he had with you the most liberating thing you could ever do? Wouldn't that be the ultimate expression of your own free will? See? This is what is so good about Homura's character this arc, not because being becoming trans is akin to becoming a villain or any nonsense like that, but because to have what you truly want, you sometimes you will have to take decisions that will make others unhappy, because sometimes you just can't play the good girl all the time!

After this, Homura turns from the tidy and fated secret martyr hero of her perfect and tidy story and turns into something a lot more real, she turns into someone you can't really agree with because turns to be heavily flawed in her morals, but that you still deeply relate with, and that emotion she felt around the end of the movie, I felt it deeply and intensely, and you feel it too, because we have seen not only her breaking point, but also the whole arc and descent into madness. Despite all sorts of bad villains we have had in super hero fiction lately, villains that end up evil because of an accident or just because the protagonist didn't pay attention to them for long enough (looking at you Iron Man 3), Rebellion, despite being a super hero film, it takes its time to make its own protagonist, a real and true villain. In anime we have had villains with enough sympathetic qualities, like with 千と千尋の神隠し [Spirited Away] where we can see the need for control and order that help us see her in a more humane light, but they still have a certain, really clear defect like greed that give enough reasons for the audience to not side with her, in films like A Clockwork Orange we have seen villains so vile and disgusting that you would never want to side with them, but have some compassion for after they lose a bit of their humanity, and in recent films like Joker, we have had villains where you feel so close to them that you can't help but say, it is me! I am a villain, if I was in that person's shoes, I would turn into a villain all along, I would be the one to hurt you, because this is what my pain has turned me into! Because I simply can't hold it together any longer! It is me! Me! Me! Its that kind of villains that makes you really tremble, that make you really scared, villains like Joaquin's Joker, like Homura, because you are scared not of anything fantastical, or a fictional concept, someone with a powerful gun or over aching politics that are outside of your own reach, you are afraid of your own self, and the horror that creeps within…

I have seen people even argue that Homura did nothing wrong, but even when you agree, like me, that she did something truly wrong, just because she was in love, you just can't help but feel for sympathetic for her, not even because we have been love, or we also have had a crush, but because we all have experienced grief in a way or another, and we are afraid of the unknown. There is something that I really like about cosmic horror and the fear of the unknown and I think turning humans themselves the mere sources of that fear of the unknown that you can use to evolve the genre in something new. With the ending, the whole movie and the franchise altogether breaks into that neat tidiness and clockwork precision of character arcs and destroys a character that people liked making it into something really different, but you want to know why this is great? Because it all felt real, because unlike all the rest of the shows answers and questions, that moment alone felt like a break into the perfectly synced chain of events that lead Homura's life. This is why, even with all the qualms I have with the movie, with the show itself, with the things I don't like and the things I can laugh at, this is why, this movie deserves my absolute and guaranteed five stars, making it the top of 10 movies I have ever seen, because what I felt with it, I felt it so vividly and so intensely that for a moment I felt I could see a real person in its plot, rather than a mere sets of puppets pulled by a writer's strings.

I remember a comment about Nosferatu, eine Symphonie des Grauens [Nosferatu: A Symphony of Horror] where a person said that in their class the people who watched it kept laughing the whole way through the movie, making fun of the techniques, the plot and the tropes of the time, even after when the movie finished and they all left, but there was one moment, one single moment around the end where Nosferatu dies and turns to ashes, everyone stayed silent, surprised, and for that moment alone, they felt the surprise and shock of the character's death, without saying anything, only feeling what was really happening, and they commenter said, that is cinema, and that's right, that is cinema! Even when I did not understand Броненосец «Потёмкин» [Battleship Potemkin] the scene of the stair kept me fascinated and horrified the time I watched it, and with this movie, I got shaken to my very core at the end, do you understand what I am trying to say? Sometimes we will interact and understand movies and fictional media as much as we do real people, partially, only in bits, but if we do, that moment we connect with each other will become something truly special.

Even when there are unanswered questions at the end, even when there are characters that could have gotten more screen time, even where the pacing could have been a lot slowed down, even when things could have been shown instead of told, even when the character design is too chibi-like for me to call it actually interesting, even when its just a goofy magical girls movie with all those idiosyncrasies that this Japanese sub genre of super hero fiction for kids has that seem silly to me, even with all that, I think this movie is truly great, not just because of its artistic direction and animation eye candy, but also because its with its conclusion that the movie achieved something that felt real and unique. Stories about exploring godhood are incredibly fun because they are stories where you can get really creative with the stakes of the plot and it's conflict. In the movie, that whole concept in the movie morphs in an amazing idea, filled with lots of possibilities, from the silly little comedies like Bruce Almighty where Godhood comes as something that might not work for you because the balance in the world is too big for you to keep in control on, or action films like The Matrix Revolutions where your mere existence as a God is part of the chain of events that keeps the world fated to die, will you keep your power at the cost of everything else? Or would you sacrifice yourself? On games we also have theories like the ones of the Elder Scrolls franchise where it is implied that the universe is simply a dream of The Godhead, so keeping him asleep becomes part of the thin thread that keeps your existence, and the laws of your world can become more flexible since everything your characters know is purely oneiric on essence, and that is just an incredible help for your world-building when you are a writer!

This movie plants the idea of a demon trying to keep God asleep because they are in love with them and for real though, that is probably one of the funniest ideas to come out from fiction in 2013, there are other anime like the Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya that play with the concept of Godhood and the task of having to keep a God asleep but this whole series turns that concept with an antagonistic lenses, which makes it a lot more fun, since the biggest catastrophe is not something you want to avoid, but something that you live in every day, in the story. I know, I am afraid and excited for the upcoming sequel, because just as I can feel a great connection with an artist, or a person, that something can always change after we all move to the next stage of our lives, just as a franchise moves to a (probably final) sequel, and a new arc, still though, I know that was done here will always mean something to me, it is not a simple retcon, it is not unnecessary, it felt warranted, it felt genuine, and it made me feel truly intense things.

And that is, my whole review.

10/10

[mischiefwrappeddreams]

Yeah I totally get what you mean, especially when I put myself in Crowley's shoes.

I think where the dissonance comes from is that, when I'm thinking about Aziraphale in the final fifteen, I'm actively trying not to do that. As an observer of their story, I'm equally interested in what happens in both of their heads, regardless of whose fault anything is. The reason why I think it looks like so many people are "justifying" what he did is that we all collectively went "why would he do that?????" in S2E6 and have been reeling ever since. What's happening in Crowley's head is, in comparison, rather straightforward. So that's why I think there's so much Aziraphale meta on the final fifteen. We just have more questions about what's going on in his head. I don't think people are writing all this meta because they all want to absolve him, or justify what he did. I'm sure some do, but I know that's not why I'm doing it.

When I say I want to figure out a 'why' that makes what Aziraphale did forgivable (sidenote: the term 'forgivable' was a poor choice on my part. more on that below), that has nothing to do with whether or not Crowley finds it forgivable. It also doesn't mean that Aziraphale won't have to work for that forgiveness, or that Crowley's forgiveness is a given. But it means that there is a more human (for lack of a better word), and, to me, a much more interesting explanation for what Aziraphale did than just "he fucked up" or "he doesn't really know Crowley" or "they have a communication issue". I find none of those particularly satisfying and they don't make any sense to me.

You are absolutely correct in pointing out that it is completely valid for a hurt party to disregard the why. You illustrated beautifully and heartbreakingly (thanks for that by the way) in the original post of this thread how deep an emotional wound like that can be, and I didn't really take that into account enough in my explanation.

There are no answer. It happened, and it wasn't fair, and it shouldn't have happened. Intentions don't matter when it comes to processing because the damage is done, and now you have to stitch yourself back together.

This is, of course, 100% true. What I didn't make clear enough in what I originally wrote is that, when I think about what happened in Aziraphale's head, I'm not doing it so I can figure out an explanation that necessarily makes it easier for Crowley to forgive him.

we are not trying to take away the blame from him, we are trying to shed light on the nuances of the situation which will make it possible for Crowley to forgive him.

Yes, I know, I originally wrote exactly what I am now saying I didn't mean. I was being imprecise. What I actually meant here, is that the nuances of Aziraphale's intentions matter in the sense that, for the story to work, there needs to be an explanation for what he did that the audience understands. I need to believe that there was some logic, however misguided or convoluted, to Aziraphale's intentions in order to continue to be able to root for them to reconcile. That in and of itself doesn't have anything to do with blame or forgiveness. It doesn't even need to be something I find forgivable, it just needs to be something I can understand. I think I focussed too much on the 'forgiveness' part in what I wrote for this initially. I'm not the hurt person potentially doing the forgiving, so whatever I think about what is or isn't forgivable isn't actually all that relevant. A better way of putting it would have been that I want an explanation for what he did that I can reconcile with the character I have come to know and love.

I can reconcile what @ineffable-suffering wrote with that character. If Aziraphale thought that there was a threat, what they wrote makes sense to me as a possible explanation for why he did what he did. I think it is a beautifully messy and complex snapshot of this one version of Aziraphale in the vast multiverse of possible versions of him. Do I think that the whole 'gun-to-his-head' thing is the most likely angle to turn out to be canon? No, not at all, but reading and writing meta for me isn't about finding my One True Theory or the One True Explanation. I've written metas that probably contradict each other because all of them are just possible versions of varying likelihood that I find compelling.

ANYWAY, to conclude this whole thing before it gets to novel length:

aziraphale needs to rebuild that trust, he needs to earn it again. and mot importantly, he needs to understand why his words and actions broke it in the first place. but even then—even if crowley is the kindest possible version of himself and aziraphale does everything right—even then crowley would have every single right to say i don't forgive you. i love you and i understand you, we can be together, but i cannot forgive you for that and we both have to live with that now. they will get their happy ending, i do truly believe that, but it might not be the fairy tale happily ever after you imagine and that's okay. it still counts. it's still good.

I agree with every single word of what you wrote here. Of course Aziraphale has to apologize. Of course. He could have the best and most justifiable reason in the world for doing what he did and he would still have to apologize, because, as you've correctly pointed out, the damage is done. But I, as the audience of this wonderful piece of media, still want to know why he did what he did. And looking for explanations for what he did does not mean I'm looking for ways to take the blame away. I just want to understand him better, and that's the part about writing meta that I find compelling.

What I'm looking for is a reason, not a justification.

i think it's hard to understand the level of betrayal crowley must have felt, which leads to a lot of assumptions around him easily forgiving aziraphale or not being angry; so let's put ourselves into his position.

imagine: your partner, your best friend, the one person in the world that you love more than anyone else, asks you to change how you look, how you talk, who you are—so you can follow them back to an abusive household that threw you out and told you to never come back.

and they tell you that happy and excited and it's not even a question, it's a "by the way, we're doing that, isn't that great?"

you try to tell them no, it's not, i don't want to go back there, i like who i am now. they hurt me and scarred me for life, and they will do it again.

the person you loves, the person you thought loves you, looks at you and says "but you're bad. don't you want to be good? they can make you good."

come with me, you say. that house doesn't want us, we can have our own, we can build our own home. just the two of us, we don't need them, we're fine the way we are.

"i can change them" they say, as if you didn't try. as if you didn't try to change them first. as if that wasn't the reason they threw you to the wolves.

fuck it, you say. you confess your love anyway because they must know, right? they need to know. "don't leave me" you beg, plead, pray.

"oh," they respond, smiling. "nothing lasts forever."

you try to walk away, they stop you, they make it worse, make it clear they don't understand you like you thought. do they love you or the version of you they created in their head? you can't tell anymore.

"we could have been us," you say. we could have been happy.

you kiss them because you have to, because you will be damned twice over if you lose them without kissing them, because your patience snaps and you think you might die if you don't kiss them right now.

it doesn't change anything. "i forgive you"—for being me? for loving you? for refusing to tear myself apart? for kissing you? it's not like it matters. they're gone. you watch them leave.

would you immediately forgive them if they showed up on your doorstep? or would you be heartbroken and angry? you miss them, you still love them, but FUCK YOU. fuck you for demanding that of me. fuck you for everything you said. FUCK YOU FOR LEAVING.

six thousand years. six thousand years.

it would already be hard to forgive a person you have loved for two years or ten, and it gets worse the longer you know them. six thousand fucking years and aziraphale did that. we know why he did. we know how their story will end, but crowley doesn't.

all crowley has is aziraphale's speech and his face disappearing behind elevator doors. all crowley has is you're the bad guys and come with me and nothing lasts forever and i need you and i forgive you.

love alone does not and cannot fix that. aziraphale took six thousand years of trust and set them on fire with a smile on his face, and i understand the urge to try and find an explanation where he doesn't do that. where everything is secretly fine.

but there isn't.

aziraphale needs to rebuild that trust, he needs to earn it again. and mot importantly, he needs to understand why his words and actions broke it in the first place. but even then—even if crowley is the kindest possible version of himself and aziraphale does everything right—even then crowley would have every single right to say i don't forgive you. i love you and i understand you, we can be together, but i cannot forgive you for that and we both have to live with that now.

they will get their happy ending, i do truly believe that, but it might not be the fairy tale happily ever after you imagine and that's okay. it still counts. it's still good.

let crowley be angry and let them find their way back to each other, even if that path does not include forgiveness.

[phantastus]

Is there any symbolism behind the bird scientific names tags representing Silent Hill characters? Like, did you pick them for any particular reasons? 👀

Oh man, well, I guess I never went into detail about them anywhere. They definitely were picked for a reason but the reason is related to a currently-unwritten fanfic and literally who knows when that’s going to happen (Gravity needs to get finished first and who knows when that’s going to happen :’]), so I might as well try and do it now.

When I was in college I started coming up with concepts and symbolism for a fic project and because I’m obsessed with birds all of it involved birds and the title of the fic was appropriately “Four and Twenty Blackbirds”, with the ‘four’ specifically referring to Harry, James, Heather, and Henry (because they were the main characters). Each of them had a different ‘blackbird’ species representing them. 

So when I decided to make separate aesthetic/inspo tags for individual characters (I already have a #silent feels tag for general SH inspiration, but I am crazy and it was NOT CONVOLUTED ENOUGH FOR ME), I decided to use the scientific bird names since it was conveniently already cemented in my brain. THIS IS GOING TO BE VERY, VERY LONG SO I’M PUTTING IT UNDER A READMORE. Click for pretentious Silent Hill fan analysis.

HARRY MASON | CORVUS BRACHYRYNCHOS (American Crow)

Harry Mason is the “”generic”” all-American protagonist who rises to a heroic status pretty much out of sheer determination and a commitment to his loved one. He’s not an unusual person, in fact he’s deceptively normal-- so the American crow felt right for him since they’re so common. You see them so often you don’t even think about them, but they’re smart, resourceful, and resilient survivors (something that especially comes into play with Harry post-SH1 when he’s eluding the Order). Harry is underestimated because of his normalcy but he’s capable of incredible things.

Also crows (and other corvids) have deep, almost humanlike family bonds between parents and offspring. They’ll maintain relationships even after the babies grow up and become fully self-sufficient, with the adult children regularly visiting their parents and socializing or helping to take care of younger siblings.

In the context of the fic Harry’s symbolic/prophetic connection to such a common “pest” species is sort of a derogatory assignment on the part of the Order/the town, as he’s seen as a heretic troublemaker (CULTS HATE HIM!! LOCAL MAN STEALS MESSIAH AND THWARTS FATE WITH ONE COOL TRICK!)

JAMES SUNDERLAND | CORVUS CORAX (Common Raven)

Ravens are like the most symbolic corvid, every gothic poet/novelist/artist and their grandma used them to represent death, grief and malaise, and James’s story is nothing if not filled with all three of those things. I mean, come on:    “By that Heaven that bends above us—by that God we both adore—    Tell this soul with sorrow laden if, within the distant Aidenn,    It shall clasp a sainted maiden whom the angels name Lenore— Clasp a rare and radiant maiden whom the angels name Lenore.”            Quoth the Raven, “Nevermore.” -Edgar Allen Poe, u know where it’s from.

Also in college, I got very interested in the myth “Raven Steals the Sun”, which has a number of different variations (it’s a story shared across multiple First Nations peoples of the Pacific Northwest and Alaska, there’s no one clear origin-- you can read about a couple of versions here!) but most involve the titular Raven delivering the Sun to the world after stealing or freeing it from a dark place where it was kept. Depending on the version, Raven's motives can either be purely selfish or more benevolent, and sometimes starts the story as a pure white bird who is stained black with soot in the act of taking the Sun. The duality of Raven’s intentions as well as the theme of light/warmth being hidden in darkness until it’s brought out felt fitting for a character whose motivations are complex and left a little ambiguous in canon (James grapples with whether his own act was purely selfish or one of love/mercy) AND someone who is naturally warm and caring but slipped behind a cold, dark wall of depression and self-isolation. The theme of being permanently marked/transformed by an act, whether for good or for bad, felt fitting too.

(Obligatory Disclaimer That My (Very White) Personal Interpretation Should Not Remotely Be Considered An Authentic Take On The Myth And Is Not Intended To Be Appropriation. For fic purposes the story would only have come up as an interesting symbolic parallel/running motif among many others, not a Literal Connection. James is a clueless white dude and Silent Hill doesn’t even take place on the west coast.)

“BUT WAIT! Doesn’t stealing the sun from a malevolent party and freeing it sound sort of like Harry rescuing Alessa/Cheryl/Heather??” Yes, this was going to be a source of in-character confusion and a surprise twist when it turns out they got their birds mixed up. Blah blah nothing is as it seems and destiny is mutable.

One time while I was walking on a foggy beach I got followed around by an enormous raven who was just sort of waddle-hopping after me looking forlorn and scruffy and the experience stuck with me and now all these years later my enormous galaxy brain is just like “That was Big James Energy”.

Wow that was long, I’m sorry.

HENRY TOWNSHEND | CORVUS FRUGILEGUS (Rook)

The most obvious symbolism is probably the chess piece with the same name-- that felt fitting for Henry since he’s probably the protagonist who has to do the most strategizing. Between his limited inventory and his progressively-more-cursed apartment and escorting Eileen and his five billion trips across multiple fractured Otherworlds, my poor guy has a lot to mentally keep track of. In the fic, he was going to wind up being the one to keep track of all the weird complicated bullshit items and rituals they had to complete to get through the Otherworld.

The rook chess piece also resembles a castle, and unlike the other protagonists whose stories progress in a linear fashion, Henry operates from/returns to his home base shitty cursed apartment.

BUT ONTO THE BIRD the rook is a corvid like the crow and the raven, and shares their pest/death omen status in popular culture. Just appropriate for SH protags in general since they keep getting in the way of the cult’s business and also misfortune follows them.

In the SH3 Crematorium Puzzle (I’ll talk more about that in Heather’s section), there is a poem:    "The black Rook is the praying sort    Who hears the gods in the skies    His whispered petitions go on without end    And glassy and dim are his eyes" Obviously this does NOT describe Henry as a person, but it IS eerily reminiscent of the title that was thrust upon him: Receiver. Maybe if Walter’s plans had succeeded, this is how Henry would have ended up.

There is also an old belief that if rooks abandon an established “rookery” (place where they regularly roost), it’s a sign of calamity to follow. If Henry the Certified Homebody (tm) bursts out of the apartment complex and goes staggering down the street, you should get out of that apartment complex.

HEATHER MASON | AGELAIUS PHOENICEUS (Red-Winged Blackbird)

Oh boy this one’s probably the weirdest but here we go.

The first obvious thing is that unlike the other three, the red-winged blackbird is not actually a corvid (it’s from the Icteridae family, not the Corvidae family). In-universe, this was supposed to represent Heather being inherently different from the rest (like... she basically is an iteration of the Silent Hill deity), even if she seems to be a normal human. Harry’s act of stealing her from the Order and changing her appearance/name to hide her was going to be depicted as “dousing Her in black ink, but [the ink] not able to fully conceal Her radiance”. The red and gold shoulders of the blackbird visually symbolize her “””true nature””” peeking out.

I also associate her specifically with the MALE red-winged blackbird (the female looks completely different, hooray sexual dimorphism) because gender is a fuck and Heather understandably has some really intense and complicated issues with womanhood/femininity. One of my favorite aspects of her as a character is how she blurs the line between masculine and feminine, especially since she’s been through so much... extremely gendered violence, to put it lightly. Heather Mason says FUCK YOUR GENDER BINARY.

As a fun side-note, Heather is also represented (or appears to be, ymmv) by a bird in canon! The SH3 Crematorium puzzle (on hard mode) features a series of poems each about birds, and each one represents a character if you squint. Heather seems to be referenced in this one:     "The Wren, with pure heart as yet unrefined     Makes us laugh with his feeble lip-smacking     But still we all know he shall never grow old     And he knows not how much he is lacking." Heather’s role as a brash, foolhardy youth who talks tough to cope is pretty blatantly summed up in there, as is the fact that she’s... functionally immortal and keeps fucking reincarnating. The wren, a plucky little bird, is perfect for her. The part of the main riddle that references the wren is also... ominously on the nose, given Heather’s backstory:     "Burn the one who knows no death     Pure, adored by those above     No prayers within, just simple love.”

YET ANOTHER CREMATORIUM POEM could be construed as representing the town’s God (or the spiritual force of the land, w/e), damaged/corrupted/turned malevolent by All The Bullshit:     "The Kite, hot, crazy, and panting mad     Sweet shackles that tease and excite     Death itself would drive him wild     Red blood that turns milky white"  Heather is a pure-hearted protagonist in one sense, but there’s plenty of not-so-subtle hints to a bloodlust and desire for violence just waiting to break free (ESPECIALLY when Heather does certain things that could be considered taking on the role of God). So to me the Kite is what happens when Heather gets sick of being nice and decides to go apeshit.

“BUT WAIT what does this have to do with the red-winged blackbird?” The inherent trinity of Heather’s character (Alessa/Cheryl/Heather, the Mother of God/Daughter of God/God Herself) deserves a bird trinity too. I’M GREEDY, I WANT *ALL* THE BIRD METAPHORS!

Red-winged blackbirds are bold little shits who will straight up harass birds of prey. Kind of like Heather does to God.

The fact that “phoeniceus” was part of the scientific name was a VERY delightful coincidence-- but I’m not complaining about how satisfying I found it that my Bird Choice (tm) inadvertently connects her to the concept of the phoenix, poster child of pyrogenesis.

That was even longer than James’, I’m so sorry.

SO THAT’S THE META BEHIND THOSE CHOICES FOR THE FOUR MAIN CHARACTERS. If you’re still interested after all that BS, I can write up another (probably much shorter) post for the other characters. Thanks for the ask!

[megan-lovell-blog]

journal

Placing myself within contemporary art structures.

I think I have found it difficult to place myself within a contemporary art framework, I find myself in my work, as in all other aspects of my life, straying from the status quo and rejecting societal norms. To me there is an internal struggle between the bourgeouis of the art world and how out of touch this feels with my views of the world and my place within it. Nevertheless, I am very much a traditional maker, to me the only way I have felt justified in creating work, is to create work with a very high level of skill. I am disheartened, in many ways, by the switch in the art world of concept over skill and craftsmanship, and feel as though the latter must very much exist in order for the former to be relevant. Art often feels very capitalist to me and with that it loses it's sense of soul, however I also struggle to see the justification in making a piece of work that anybody could make. As an artist, as in all other fields of work, I feel as though one has to be skilled in their medium. I have also often found it difficult to really be confident in what it is, I want to say. The turmoil is again present in a feeling that I dont find myself wanting to preach or feel as though I am trying to make a comment on anything from a pedestal, as though the viewer would be entirely unable to come to this revelation on their own. Despite this, I find myself to be quite an opinionated person, with a huge amount of discontent in many aspects current society, as such I find myself living on the fringes, with a markable sense of disenfranchisement that inevitably feeds continuously into my  life and sense of identity. So paradoxically, I am attempting sometimes to keep the very essence of my being and belief system out of my work out of a sense of ego and pride that I don’t want to ram my views down the throats of others, whom I believe are largely blind to the system that they are playing into. I am also concerned that in trying to force political or societal commentary or meaning onto work, it will seem forced, convoluted and inevitably too loaded. Until now, I have immersed myself in what i have felt to be the most honest part of art, exploring materials, honing craft, justifying my existence in the art world based on my attention to detail and commitment to craftsmanship. I can not, however, deny the fact that there is subliminally some very specific imagery and themes that reoccur within my work. Thematically, there is a distinct air of the fantastical with a macabre and slightly unsettling undertone. For me, there is some very personal symbolism and meaning involved in each individual piece, that I have begun finding it really interesting to dissect as a tool of self-reflection and understanding... sometimes almost to the point of psychoanalysis. However, this is quite personal and actually not something, I find is necessary or relevant to share with a viewer. What I have begun to explore within the slightly fantasy nature of my work is an element of story telling, creating characters and stories that go with them. I have not yet decided whether or not I feel the need to display the story with the pieces or they can help influence my creation of the sculptures which can speak for themselves. I find the idea of characters as metaphors for elements of the human condition, particularly within our current societal structures, means that I can explore these themes that are so fascinating to me without feeling as though I am standing on a soapbox. I guess the slightly macabre element to my work is largely that I dont feel the need to work through or bring attention to the easy and light bits of life, the bits that nobody talks about but everybody struggles with consciously or not are far more interesting to me, I want to bring attention to the vulnerabilities, fears and laments of humankind. Currently, I am almost solely using children as my subject matter, I believe this is because of the innate vulnerability, fragility and innocence that they represent. They are also a blank canvas, for me they represent infinite possibilities and potential. When we are children we can be anything and we believe we can be anything, it's as we age that the effects of responsibility, fortune, courage, education etc constrain us and map our lives moving forwards. With regards to the showing of my work, I struggle with the idea of my work being solely for a gallery, or a private collection, it makes it again, for a particular kind of person to enjoy. I want my work to be viewed outside, in public, for as many people as possible to see and interact with. Moving forward I would really like my work to potentially take on an element of entertainment, potentially in the form of narration of puppet shows, or a sculpture trail that is guided and narrated maybe even in song. I would really like my work to be accessible to many and to evoke imagination, joy, sadness and thought, I want it to make people think and maybe relate the microcosms to their own lives and unique experiences. I have begun to make links with my own work and a mythical element, much of the anthropomorphisation and even choice of materials innately has metaphor and meaning. I have begun to draw out the subconscious meanings that are involved in the symbolism in my work. Many of these meanings for me are very personal to my own experience of life and probably a certain amount of trauma related to this. I do however, feel as though the symbolism and general themes are not unusual and are commonplace in the lives of many and thus can be easily identified with. I feel as though my work is definitely currently sitting within the realms of contemporary classicism with regards to my requirement to make work that is of high attention to detail and anatomically correct. I feeel as though this works really well alongside my use of a fantastical element, myths and legends, which often featured in the works of classical and neoclassical artists.

Myth-Science/ Fictioning Lecture with Simon Clarke

Simon Clarkes lecture on myth-science and fictioning was incredibly useful and inspriring as it discussed the use of fiction and myth-making to create alternative realities and concepts that are difficult to explain or would be difficult to get one's head around otherwise. Simon discussed the use of fictioning in explaining concepts that could bring about radical change, potentially in creating a new future society, dealing with capitalism and environmental issues. Simon also led a couple of exercises based around creating fiction as a group and another involving making sounds as a collective and trying to work together to organically grow the sounds. These were fascinating to me as it was a lesson in collaboration, connection, releasing inhibitions, and felt very thought provoking as we so infrequently come together in a group of people, particularly those we don't know well, and engage in something that feels vulnerable and exposing. Futhermore to this, infrequently do we work as a community without favour for anyone to create something that is of benefit to all of us, even if this is simply chanting, singing and stomping ones feet. The story we created with joint ownership, was about a newly hatched octopus treading water above inky depths, who upon hearing breathing above him remembered he was no longer a bowl of tulips and so jumped up out of the water to look for the tulips which were his former self, only to be sucked into a vacuum cleaner where he spent eternity cotinuing his search for himself in a world of dust particles. Initially, I felt as though much of the story was not as I would have liked to write it myself and seemed stupid, but on further examination it was actually quite beautiful, meaningful and very reminiscent of old fables or stories from many cultures around the world. To me it spoke of someone trying desperately to grasp at old aspects of themselves which they hold in reverence and thus never being able to fully actualise the person they have now become, which has a world of potential you are too scared to find out. This lecture spurred me on to look at the use of myths in art throughout history and looking at the relationship between myth and metaphor within art. 'Metaphor allows us to understand abstract or inherently unstructured subject matter in terms of a more concrete or at least more structured subject matter' (Lakoff 1993:228-229). Much like it was discussed in Simon's lecture, stories, metaphors and myths have all been used as vehicles for broaching much more complex and often contentious or loaded topics and ideas. I also came across the notion that the time in which many of the myths we still know today was very poignant in the creedance they were given as without science there was more validity in mysticism as genuine explanation. I would potentially argue that one may as well believe in the old gods and any number of other old wives tales, in fact if they did so with so much unquestioning vehemance as they do capitalist constructs, the world would probably at least be mostly nicer and a bit more fun, as this is just as much a made up concept as the tooth fairy but with a horrendous amount more greed, callousness and poverty.

Woodcutting collaborative Project

This has been a challenging project for me as I feel it doesn't really fit for where my work has been going recently. I felt resistant to it as it seemed not to showcase my strengths, but I have overall enjoyed the project and have found a way to make a piece of work that I feel is relevant to me. The woodcut is of a young girl being held up by nature, with which I have written a story that has actually been very challenging to write. For me it is quite poignant and very close to my heart, I am not sure if I feel they completely match as pieces of work, as the picture itself very much has more of a bite the hand that feeds element to it. To me it speaks of the idea that we are held up and kept alive by a natural world which we then abuse for our own satisfaction, greed or desire to own thebeauty of as opposed to just witness it. I am pleased with the image overall, and feel as though it is something I would like to pursue further potentially for a future sculpture. Unfortunately due to coronavirus, I was unable to print this picture using the facilities at university but I wanted to see it through to a final conclusion so I have managed to create a version of the print using oil paints and a wooden spoon method. For me, I don't feel as much connection to my own 2D work, it doesn't have as much movement or life in it.

Blacksmithing competition 20x20x150

During this term, I entered an open call blacksmithing competition run by Hereford College of Arts, for this, I made a sculpture of a forged steel person with a large 'spoonhead'. I wanted to enter this competition to have an opportunity to work to a brief, making something from a particular size of 20x20x150 square bar steel. It was also an opportunity to apply for something outside of university and look at the process of getting your work out there to be viewed on a larger scale. Unfortunately the forge at uni broke 2 weeks before deadline so I had only one day to produce a piece. I made my spoonhead person using someone elses forge outside of university and have written a story to go along with it. The piece itself, is a prototype I suppose, as having made it, I envision there being many of them all outside as an installation, in the woods or on a hillside. I have even considered maybe asking other people to make one each, with the idea maybe that they are all effigies of our egos, for which the spoonheads are a metaphor. Please read the story attached to the people if you would like more info. 

Forging has been a relatively new process this year but one that I have been fascinated by in terms of metallurgy, process and skill. It is truly alchemy in its changing of a solid object into something completely other. Next time I would like to look at making the head even larger and thinner and applying repousse techniques for adding features.

Storytelling within my work

This term, I began to run with the obvious fantastical element of my work, and attempt to get to know my characters, for a better understanding of where they come from within me and also as a way of better making their messages clear within the works. As a result of this, as the characters come to life through process, as does their story begin to reveal itself to me. I have been writing whort stories alongside the works to aide me, I am as yet unsure as to whether I will want my stories to be viewed as part of my work or if they are part of just my process in understanding my work and the characters that I create. I don't know yet if they are necessary as an addition that adds to the intrigue of the works or if they overexplain the works. Lots of the deeper meanings of my work, I have found, are rooted in my own experiences of life and relationships - which has been really interesting for me by way of self therapising and understanding where I come from as a person - however the minutia of my personal life are not particularly relevant to others when viewing my work. In making it less specific to me, it makes it more relatable to others.

Process Sculpturally and 2D

This term, I have decided to take the focus off of making 2D work, and only making work that I am genuinely interested in and proud of making. I haven’t been finding 2D work to be challenging or engaging currently and in this, it doesn't hold my attention or passion. For me there is a lack in impact with flat work, making work in 3D automatically brings it into being as an entity within the world that we can interract with and view from all angles. It's important for me to explore the use of materials to convey a greater depth of meaning within my work. Materials are an extra language to be used to evoke thoughts and feelings within the viewer without having to be overt. Having said this, I am also in love with working with metal, for me it's capabilities are endless, and the more one understands the metallurgy involved in metalwork, the more you are able to achieve. As the term has progressed, I have been researching artists and painters and have found some, such as Beth Carter and Kiki Smith, that have been making 2D work alongside their sculpture that is often heavily stylised and has an element of fantasy and macabre to them, I have continued to look into other artists making work that is flat. that is interesting to me and have found that I am actually quite attracted to developing my own drawing skills to make work with a style that is more interesting than my own, which can be seen within my sketchbook. I am also been motivated to have a go at painting for the first time as it has another element of process and layering material, as in my sculptures so far. I have been really intrigued and inspired particularly by Ruth Spear and Shaun Friend as contemporary artists that I have found through instagram. From this I have spurred off into looking at pre raphaelite artists such as Millais and Waterhouse as these also create very skilled work with an element of myth and storytelling involved. I feel this also adds in to my placing within the realms of contemporary classicism. Storytelling for Earthly Survival

Lisa Wright and Tom Piper - Future Forest

Despite feeling as though this work is slightly clumsy in terms of craftsmanship and not entirely to my taste, I feel as though it is a good example of work that is environmentally and perhaps almost a little politically charged in the direction of persuasion that I myself would subscribe to. It gives art a higher purpose than just being something that is beautiful to look at. It is also interesting to me as I would like to make work with the view of it being shown outdoors and existing therefore in both harmony and juxtaposition to the natural environment. I feel as though taking art out of the gallery and putting it into a place that has more of a soul, gives it more depth and an environment to interract with. It also makes the work more accessible to a larger population who may not so readily engage with showing their work in a gallery. As with my work there is the use of classicalesque poses and figures with a contemporary element, which brings the dialogue of past and present.

Kiki Smith

Kiki Smith makes use of a very stylised way of drawing that is reminiscent of old fashioned fairytale illustration with an almost childlike feel which, coupled with an often macabre subject matter with a heavy fairytale subtext, makes for an unsettling feel in her work. I feel like although her style is quite different from mine, her intent is similar in that it uses story to make comment on the world and the human condition. Often Smith also uses animals in her work similarly to myself. Her sculptures have similarity to my own in that often they use nude figures and animals, however, like her drawings - there is less of a focus on realism and more stylising than in my own. Her work generally focuses around the plight of women and equality, which is quite reminiscent of her time starting out within the art world. This has less relevance for me within my work at my time in history, however I feel there are similarities with the use of fantasy and imagery to allude to more serious, societal observations.

Tim Shaw

For me there is a great deal of confliction in my feelings about Tim Shaw's work as an artist. 'The rights of Dionyssus' is a piece that I love for the sense of movement and energy he has created within the installation, they feel crazed and a little depraved in their festivities, which I feel strikes a perfect amount of discomfort to go along with the awe. In terms of making, I am really inspired by the artistry and skill that has led to the making of this particular piece and I can definitely draw similarities with the anthropomorphic direct metal figures anfd they are very relevant to my love of narrative, legend and fantasy. Having said that, it has been drawn to my attention by some people that these and his bullfighter pieces also, have an element of cultural appropriation around them, this personally I can understand more with the bullfighter as myths from so long ago don't belong to one people necessarily in a europe that has seen so many invasions and decimation of the original civilisation, these myths belong to us all at this point. In many of Shaw's other pieces, however, I find that they are too overt. Often I feel they are too over sexualised, to a point of a reliance on shock factor and also not particularly respectful of women recently in his work strapping a woman covered in tar and feathers to a pole - a problematic decision from the privilege of a white middle aged man.

Beth Carter

Beth Carter's work is interesting to me as she has a real attention to detail and high level of aptitude in relation to her craft. Her work draws a lot of parrallels to mine with the heavy use of anthropomorphisation. She also regularly uses mythology, such as her minotour pieces. Her birdman is also reminiscent of a plague doctors mask. In her drawings she focuses on children and a juxtapose between innocence and a sense of uneasiness/ slightly macabre undertones. Evident from the drawing of the girl with the lion cub, she uses found imagery often as inspiration, this particular girl is one I recognise from a Sally Man photograph. I feel as though her work is also very related to fragility, awkwardness, sadness, apathy and the human condition. I feel as though her drawings particularly bring a fantasy element, her proportions and composition can occasionally be intentionally childish too, helping further to transport the viewer into a feeling of childhood and ones own experiences.

Phillip Wakeham

I became acquainted with the work of this artist in a gallery in St Ives and it stood out to me from the rest for the amount of movement and texture in the pieces, this coupled with a use of mythology and slight abjectivity makes for work that is considered and relevant in contemporary art, whilst also reminiscent of more classical sculpture.  

Jovana Tucovic

I was drawn to Jovana Tucovic largely for her use of materials with this series, I can draw a lot of parallels with regards to the texture and patina of the the steel and the patchwork like make up of her figures. I think she has also created an eery and uncomfortable deathmask type effect with her melancholic faces. The fractured, delicate feel of these pieces, despite the fact that they are made of a very hard material with a dark finish is a beautiful juxtaposition, as though they are just managing to keep their hard exteriors together. In terms, as well, of her work being figurative and quite clearly having links to vulnerability, I feel as though there are reasonable links between these pieces and my own work. Much of her other work also explores the use of materials, properties and textures to help allude to her meaning with subtlety and finesse. Similarly to myself, she makes work reminiscent of classical sculpture, in her use of poses and choosing to make busts and brings to that a contemporary element.

Grayson Perry

What I really love about Grayson Perry's work is the narrative, his work is so rich with story and life and comment on very everyday experience and society. Its intelligent, progressive and actually makes use of an incredibly old method of storyboarding. These are very reminiscent of old roman vases telling the tales of the gods. quite similarly to my own work, Perry makes use of classical craftsmanship and art practices to make work that has real contemporary relevance. He also creates a show with his work, everything has a rich sense of life and colour, including the way he often dresses himself. Conceptually, Grayson uses his work to make comment on societal issues in a lighthearted and more easy to digest way, which is something I am really intrigued by and hope I am finding a way slowly to emulate within my own work. I can find that work being too preachy, serious or loaded is often disregarded in a way that any sour medicine shoved down ones throat by an holier than thou do gooder almost inevitably is. Grayson's work sugarcoats the pill enough to make the message linger.

Emma Talboys

This artist is my own mother, so in a way there will no doubt be many ways in which she has influenced me as a person and thus my work generally. She works almost entirely in panting or print, using vibrant colour. Something, I have until now tried to avoid personally, potentially in an attempt to distance myself from my mother. Emma Talboys' work is by and large quite impressionist, but also has a high level of skill and mastery of the paint, she really focuses in on the pieces within the work that she feels she wants the attention to be drawn most to. Quite similarly to my own work there is a use of quite macabre undertones and heavy symbolism. Also quite similarly to my own work, she uses her artwork as a self therapising activity to help her work through her own trauma.

Sally Mann

I have chosen to include this artist as her photos play with vulnerability, relationships, discomfort, awkwardness and many more disquietening feelings around childhood and the human condition. Although contentious in many ways as the photos have been called exploitative of her children, there has also been enmity regarding the fact that the photos are staged and quite disingenuous and potentially therefore commodifying and glamourising of a lifestyle or themes that do not relate to her directly as a wealthy, white, western woman. Despite this, the photos are evocative and beautifully disquietening. They speak of elements of my own childhood and provoke memories for me from a very shaping part of my life. Sally Mann is also included as I have definitely used her photos as part of my own found imagery for reference during recent projects.

Lobster Claw boy

The Lobster Claw boy that I have created was again an idea that just came to me and has taken me until quite far into the process of making him to get to know him enough to understand his story. I felt as though I was constantly forcing a narrative on him and I didn't quite understand where he had come from for a long time. I thought maybe he was about the young hearted, whimsical, strong characters that I was attracted to, but I don't feel this is the case. As I have slowly pieced this boy together bit by bit, I have begun to realise that his armour like body is about defense and the patches like bandages show an idea of a wounded person who is putting up a defense mechanism. The steel in the body has been forged at high temperature giving scale and texture making him look worn and weathered but his skin also looks fragile and flesh-like, making it quite confusing to see softness in such a hard material, mirroring again the idea of vulnerability and strength.He originally was supposed to have a a head made from the same process but this hasn’t been possible due to the lack of facilities following coronavirus. The lobster claws which were originally supposed to be made from stained glass (but COVID_19 made this impossible) again represent this idea of strength, they were supposed to be made of glass, which is very delicate, reminiscent of fragile masculinity but also fragile defense mechanisms. The fact that lobsters mate for life is also poignant as one of the reference photos I used for this piece was of a young boy holding hands on the beach with other children, the idea that ones big shows of strength or heavy defenses, actually often make us totally unable to form intimacy or connection with others. I decided to make the feet out of clay for the below text. I feel as though these add another layer to my piece, the idea that from the outside one might seem perfect or revered for their strengths in whatever element, but there is a fundamental hidden flaw that causes a refered person to fall from their pedestal. I have made the feet but again due to COVID-19, I haven't been able to get them fired. The origins of the phrase "feet of clay" are biblical, but the words can also evoke the mythology of the Titan Prometheus, who sculpted humans out of clay. This photograph by the American Bruce Nauman (born 1941) is taken from the series Eleven ColorPhotographs—including the better-known Self Portraitas a Fountain––which explores the relationship between image and language, taking cues from popular puns and turns of phrase. To have "feet of clay" is to have a hidden flaw or character defect unbeknownst to those who admire you.

Magpie Girl sculpture

This character from very early on has been quite clearly a representation of my own flighty and discontented nature. It represents my desire to constantly be elsewhere, doing something else and my magnetism towards the next shiny thing. In the story associated with it, it also explains where I believe this came from, and my pain at the disillusionment, that the world was not as I had always been told it was. It also represents the idea of building my own wings to take me away to the life that I want to have, I feel as though I have been striving for years to forge myself an unconventional path to bring me fulfillment and happiness away from mundanity of what is expected of one in modern, capitalist society. This sculpture has been made of scrap copper and I have left on as much of the natural patina as possible as the aged tarnished look, I feel is not only beautiful but also representational or the tired and tarnished feeling of drudging through a world, in a way of life that you don't want to be a part of. I have decided to make it articulating, like a puppet or a doll and stitch it together to show the idea that she has been made to be manipulated. The sculpture was supposed to have a magpie costume made of separate materials, mostly leather and fabric, this difference in material is to compound the idea that these wings do not naturally belong to the girl and have been forged by her. the stitching on her body is also a metaphor for her being a little broken and her life being stitched together, it could also represent the idea that I have often felt as though I was a little stitched up to find out that adult life was really not at all as I had been led to believe.

Unfortunately this piece is not finished to the level I wanted as coronavirus meant I had not workshop access anymore, so I will hope to continue it to completion when I have facilities again

. This piece is actually made using very old traditional repousse techniques, which add a classicalesque feel and a very unique appearance to the sculpture within the context of modern art.

Magpie girl painting

This is my first attempt at oil painting. I decided to have a go as an experiment and given that I am currently unable to make my sculptural work due to COVID-19. I have found painting to be very difficult and there is a lot of new skills to learn. I have found that I am not entirely happy with the working product, the process is not to my taste, it is not personal enough and it lacks a tangibility which I find more and more to be integral in my work. The concept is based around the magpie girl story and character that has emerged. In this variation, she used the wings that she made to jump out over the water to be free so the painting sees her floating in the water in her costume.. 

Working with metal

  Metal must be understood on a structural level in order to make it move as you want it to, it also has a bit of a mind of it's own and thus there is a dialogue with the material, there has to be an element of allowing the material to come to life and to have it's own say in the direction of it's future form, which is something that I love. I also work with scrap metal largely, this is particularly important to me, as I don't feel comfortable with using finite materials or adding to the tat that is amassing in the world. I would much more happily give something already in existence, a new lease of life.

Things to explore moving forward

Can I bring an element of participation or putting on a show in order to try and bridge or work through the awkwardness/discomfort/ difficulty in finding and or engaging in human connection? Do I want my stories to be part of my process to help understand my work, or do I feel as though they would be of benefit to the viewer? Does this maybe overcrowd or overexplain my work, or does it add to intrigue?

COVID - 19

The shut down of university facilities has massively affected my ability to get much of my work finished to the level that I had previously envisioned. To begin with this really disheartened me as I have been incredibly tied to my vision for my work. My friend sent me a photo of a mixed media sculpture by Susanne Ussing of a woman in a greenhouse, this was largely made in chicken wire and paper mache with wood and sheet steel components, this has helped me to look into other avenues for finishing the work. Alongside a conversation with Lucy Willow about the fact that artists will always make art no matter what their facilities are, this has helped me to open up to other possibilities for making work. With the beginning of the coronavirus lockdown, I felt quite detached from my artwork and as though I was quite unable to see the point of making, I felt that growing a garden and building a chicken coop became my new priorities and that art was no longer so important. I also feel as though anything I'm interested in making work about now has slightly shifted and as though it's a bit of a shame this has come midway through the project as it kind of takes away from the cohesion of the body of work a little. I have started to make a few drawings, as I am unable to make much else currently, about the connection of people to the land. These maybe highlight a definite shift in perspective for me that has become evident even more so during this time, that we need to focus more heavily on bridging the gap of disconnection. Disconnection from each other individually, as cultural groups and disconnection from the planet. I have been particularly lucky during this trying time as I live in a community, so our lives have very much become about supporting each other, building better communal veg plots and becoming more self sufficient. Whilst mourning the loss of my summer plans, I have also become astutely aware of a sense of humbling and finding contentment in simpler things.

[thehollowprince]

I don't mean to dogpile here, but like most men, I am very opinionated, so just bear with me for a minute.

It wouldn't matter in the slightest if Scott had been given more screen time. Hell, he was the main character of the show and had the majority of the screentime anyway and still people set to work criticizing every little thing he did, whether canon or perceived. Fandom does not like complicated or complex characters.

I'm going to say that again.

Fandom does not like complicated or complex characters.

Not in the slightest.

Fandom wants the barest bones of a character and story so that they can then connect the dots and draw over it and color it in however they wish. Scott being more than just a two-dimensional cutout was the problem, because it didn't give fandom the wiggle room they wanted, which is why so many in fandom reduced him down to some basic characteristics that were exaggerated by certain fans based in skewed viewings of what happened on screen.

Take Stiles and Sterek as an example.

No hate to Stiles, but he didn't really start to get flushed out as a character until later in the first season and then more so in subsequent seasons, and same with his frenemyship with Derek, and yet fandom had already built up an elaborate and convoluted storyline about their shared tragic pasts and how their undying romance saved them. This wasn't really based on anything in the show (with the exception of the Hale Fire and Stiles' mom), but fandom ran with it anyway. Why? Because they could.

Stiles was a pretty basic character when he was first introduced. He was an updated version of Xander Harris. He was the sarcastic and awkward best friend to the story's protagonist, and that was all fandom needed. He was a stick figure on a blank piece of paper, giving the fandom all the space they wanted to make him into whatever they wanted him to be.

Meanwhile, Scott has a lot happen to him in the first episode, from us seeing how seriously he takes lacrosse to his best friend's antics to his asthma to the Bite itself and all the subsequent drama that came with it. He's like the final draft of a comic page while Stiles was the concept art.

And it's not just Teen Wolf.

Recently, there was another teenage werewolf show by Jeff Davis called Wolf Pack.

Do you know who fandom's favorite character was from that first season out of the four teen werewolves we had? Harlan, the gay white dude whose only attributes were that he was gay and a werewolf. They completely bypassed the character of Everett, a character that opens the show talking to his therapist about his mental health and immediately fixated on the gay fuckboy who goes to a rave or party every episode until the second half of the season, where everything starts to come to a head.

And, of course, the fact that Everett happens to be black obviously had a huge role to play here because racism is a deeply rooted issue within fandom spaces, but it's also the complexity of the characters.

Fandom doesn't like complicated. They'd rather everything be wrapped up in the first episode so that the rest of the show can be dedicated to their shipping fantasies, which is an entirely different conversation.

The point being here is that Scott did have the screentime and the story to make people love him. It's just that most decided right off the bat decided they didn't care. Seriously, go back and watch the show, even just the first season, because Scott was involved with every plot line, and his romance with Allison wasn't even the crux of the story.

I have this heavy belief that if they just gave scott more meaningful screen time. Just more stuff outside his romance life tambien, more people would like him.

I watched this show the other day. I didnt like these two characters that much but they kept giving more attention to them, so much, that if they were to die, I would be so mad about it. (But that show also focused mostly on trauma's effects and backstory, which was not a priority for anyone in teen wolf, except a little for Stiles and Derek. Not for Mason, Scott, Melissa, etc.)

I do not believe Scott fans are making up stuff about his character. He had so much complex stuff that should have been explored. Im talking about the tiny hints and little flashbacks we got so little of but its definitely there. I do believe this group always pays attention to more of the details. Even the obscure ones I havent caught yet, and I love them for their love for him (Scott). So much. Because he IS the main character.

[wonderfulworldofmichaelford]

Psycho Analysis: Evelyn Deavor

(WARNING! This analysis contains SPOILERS!)

Disney has been making a lot of films with twist villains as of late, villains who seem to be a friend for much of the movie but then, in the final act, reveal their true colors and suddenly are revealed to be the driving antagonistic force of the film. The only time this ever worked was for King Candy, because the twist tied to him wasn’t that he was an antagonist (he had been opposing the heroes and there was foreshadowing he knew more than he let on) but rather what his true nature was. Hans and Bellwether fell flat because of the inconsistencies of their characters and the lack of proper buildup beforehand, respectively, but at least this problem didn’t afflict itself on other Disney properties…

...And then came Incredibles 2. It’s a fantastic film without a doubt, and definitely a great thematic continuation of the first film that really helps to expand the world, but I cannot for the life of me find any way to defend the twist villain of this film. Evelyn Deavor is just the absolute bottom of the barrel when it comes to twist villains, because she combines all the problems of every other twist villain prior into one.

Actor: Catherine Kenner portrays Evelyn Deavor, and quite frankly it is endlessly amusing that she is yet again playing a villain who uses hypnosis to control people. Wonder if those goggles send the supers to the Sunken Place? For what it’s worth, I do think she does a good job, her performance is never bad or anything, and most of the reason Evelyn is a bad character is because of the writing, not Kenner’s performance.

Motivation/Goals: This is where Evelyn completely falls apart. She has constructed this whole elaborate false villain known as the Screenslaver, a character that actually has some pretty Interesting (though completely fabricated) motivations for committing crimes and who actually would help strengthen the themes of the film if his character was built on… all for the sake of making sure superheroes are illegal.

Now, her motivation comes from the same place as her brother’s motivation to bring heroes back: as a child, their father was gunned down by robbers when, instead of doing the smart thing and going into his safe room, he decided to try and call two superheroes on specially made phones to come save the day. Keep in mind this was after the initial ban on supers. In a way, you can kind of see where her motivation comes from; her dad was childish and stupid to think he could rely on heroes all the time.

But here’s the problem: heroes are already banned. It’s hard to comprehend exactly what she wants to accomplish; does she want heroes to get double banned? Sure, you could say that she’s just trying to sabotage her brother, who seems rather hellbent on legalizing heroes again, but considering he trusts her with a lot of the technical aspects of this there are a lot better ways she could have gone about undermining him, ways that would have been far less convoluted. Her entire plan seems to be to build them up to the top before tearing them down again, never stopping to consider how dangerous this is. These are SUPERHEROES, people who are known for finding a way against all odds to thwart evil schemes.

And going back to her creation, the Screenslaver, he actually has a far more interesting motivation, what with his big speech decrying the over-reliance on screens in society. There’s some interesting commentary there and it works well with the retro setting. This would have made a far more interesting villain, one that could actually say something about society, media, and so on while also reaffirming the positive points. It would have been the sort of bold statement that we need in a big film like this, in an age where, for good and for bad, we do rely quite a bit on screens.

Do I know for sure there would have been brilliant commentary there and not just the typical Luddite nonsense you see in political cartoons? No, I don’t, but I have faith considering the people working on the film. Do I know it would have been far better than the convoluted mess of a motivation that we got? Oh yes I do.

Personality: To her credit, Evelyn doesn’t actually change to much between her heroic and villainous personas. She’s still snarky, she still genuinely cares for her brother, she’s still brilliant save for her reliance on stupid and overly complex schemes… unlike other twist villains she doesn’t feel like two different characters between the time she’s a hero and the time she’s a villain. But I think this is where the praise has to end and veer into criticism, because with all this being said, it is obvious she’s going to be the bad guy from the moment she first appears onscreen. The reason why there’s no disconnect between her two personalities is because there never really was one; you either consciously or unconsciously pick up on there being something off about Evelyn from the get-go, which is not a problem Hans or Bellwether had.

Best Scene: Evelyn herself doesn’t really have any standout scenes, since in this exciting superhero action film she’s a non-action big bad, and unlike other non-action big bads like, say, Zemo from Civil War, her motivations are too stupid and convoluted to really get behind to enjoy her ranting. But I suppose she was technically behind the Screeslaver fight even if she was not directly there, so let’s go with that. Despite the issues the visuals caused when the film was first released, the fight is one of the most exciting moments of the film.

Best Quote: “Screenslaver interrupts this program for an important announcement. Don't bother watching the rest. Elastigirl doesn't save the day; she only postpones her defeat. And while she postpones her defeat, you eat chips and watch HER confront problems that you are too lazy to deal with. Superheroes are part of your brainless desire to replace true experience with simulation. You don't talk, you watch talk SHOWS. You don't play games, you watch game SHOWS. Travel, relationships, risk; every meaningful experience must be packaged and delivered to you to watch at a distance so that you can remain ever-sheltered, ever-passive, ever-ravenous consumers who can't bring themselves to rise from their couches, break a sweat, and participate in life. You want superheroes to protect you and make yourselves ever more powerless in the process; while you tell yourself you're being ‘looked after’, that your interests are being served, and your rights are being upheld. So that the system can keep stealing from you, smiling at you all the while. Go ahead, send your supers to stop me. Grab your snacks, watch your screens, and see what happens. You are no longer in control. I am.” Oh darn, am I giving the fabricated villain credit over Evelyn again? It’s almost like this utterly boring and convoluted villain was far better at writing more interesting villains than she was at being an antagonist.

Final Thoughts & Score: Let’s compare and contrast to Syndrome from the first movie, since she actually has quite a bit in common with his motivation. Syndrome seemed to envy superheroes and wanted to undermine them by supplanting their place in the world with his own technology, making a world where everyone is super, which in his own words would mean “no one will be.” The catalyst for his descent into supervillainy is, of course, his rejection by Mr. Incredible, which made him lose sight in what was important and drove him mad, leading to his eventual criminal career. Syndrome ends up being rather effective as a villain, and even a twist villain, because his true nature is revealed about halfway through the film, and he is given plenty of screentime to be a villain and establish his evil personality. His plan made sense, wasn’t overly convoluted, and actually managed to cause permanent, lasting damage to the super community.

And then you have Evelyn. Her motivations are completely muddied and incoherent, a problem Hans had as well but with him there was at least a token effort to foreshadow why he might do what he does, as bad as said foreshadowing ended up; with Evelyn though, there’s really no attempt made to really make sense of her convoluted scheme, there’s no questioning the logic behind doing what she does. The fact her plan is just accepted, that not even Helen Parr, a very smart woman, does not see the glaring flaws in Evelyn’s plan and call her out on them, is ridiculous. And then, much like Bellwether, the more interesting motivations are completely wasted; but where Bellwether at least genuinely did have some vicious prejudices to her that were unfortunately glossed over, Evelyn just completely fabricated every little thing about the Screenslaver to make an interesting protagonist for the heroes to fight to make them look good so she could tear them all down. Evelyn is just the utter exacerbation of every single flaw of previous twist villains, except without any of the redemptive qualities. At best she is an interesting contrast to Syndrome, as their overall goals are polar opposites (he wants to become a super and normalize it, she wants them to go away forever), but that’s really more in theory; in practice she just comes off as convoluted and dumb.

Evelyn is a very disappointing 1/10. We deserved a much better villain in this movie; hell, the Underminer would have been a great foe, because even if he had simple motivations he was still very comic booky and fun. Or even if they just stuck with Screenslaver, and let him be the actual villain, and let all of the incredibly obvious signs right from Evelyn’s intro be nothing more than red herrings. You could have even give Screenslaver some sort of connection to the Deavors, maybe he could be a disgruntled former employee a la the Riddler in Batman Forever. It’s honestly really sad that the absolute worst Batman movie was able to do the Screenslaver better than the sequel to one of Pixar’s finest films, but such is the cruel world we live in. Evelyn isn’t one of the worst villains because she is utterly devoid of quality, like Weapon XI or, god forbid, Malekith. No, Evelyn is one of the worst because she is a frustrating waste of potential that squanders good ideas for nonsensical twists.

You want to know the saddest part? In his one single big scene, the fake Screenslaver is more interesting, compelling, and exciting than the actual real Screenslaver. This untrained pizza boy puts up an actual fight and is intimidating and creepy, and he manages to outshine Evelyn in a film that ostensibly has her as the big bad. I suppose I may as well rate him, seeing as this review sort of covers them both and I don’t think it’s worth it to do a Psycho Analysis on a fake villain; I give him a solid 7/10. He is easily six points higher on the scale despite not even being a real villain and all his motivations being completely made up by the real antagonist; that’s how utterly disappointing Evelyn is.

[daresplaining]

not sure if you have been asked this before but how would you rate the daredevil runs from miller to soule, and why?

    It has taken literally a thousand years to answer this, and I apologize– it’s just a huge question, even skipping all of the pre-Frank Miller runs (thank you for that, by the way– maybe I’ll rank them in a separate post, because I love a lot of the pre-Miller stuff!). Every reread brings with it new insight, and so my preferences are ever-evolving. That said, here’s how I would rank the main Daredevil runs from Miller onward (I’m not including annuals, mini-series, or novels, and I’m skipping the really tiny one-or-two-issue runs for the sake of brevity):

1. Mark Waid Daredevil volumes 3 and 4 are, for me, a perfect encapsulation of everything that makes Daredevil great. It’s all there! Smirking, swashbuckly Matt pulling off badass feats to save the day? Check! Dark, emotionally turbulent Matt trying to cope as the world falls apart around him? Check! An excellent supporting cast? Check! Fantastic hypersensory moments? Check! Great stories? Stunning art? Stilt-Man? Check! Everyone needs to read this run. It’s pretty much perfect.

2. Brian Michael Bendis I’ve learned that my Daredevil preferences tend to lean light(er…), but dang, Bendis writes a heck of a noir comic. He balances intense crime drama with striking character moments, changes the status quo over and over again (in a good way), and gives Matt some of the best zingers he’s ever had. (Seriously. Bendis’s Matt is really funny.) He also gave us Milla Donovan and Angela Del Toro, and for that I am eternally grateful. And whooo, that Alex Maleev/Matt Hollingsworth art… This is a classic, enduring run for a very good reason.  

3. Karl Kesel/Joe Kelly Okay, I’m cheating here. These are two separate runs. But they happened back-to-back, had the exact same tone, and were great for all of the same reasons, so I usually squash them together. If Karl Kesel and Joe Kelly have a problem with this, they can take it up with me (preferably in person– I have a lot of comics for them to sign.) These runs are fun. The Daredevil pendulum swings from light to dark and back again, and these guys landed on the upswing, after Matt had reconnected with his quippy, swashbuckly past. They feel old-fashioned, nostalgic in the best possible way, not afraid to be a little silly while still delivering solid, character-rooted stories. And it helps that the cast of characters is top-notch. Karen is around, trying to re-start her life while juggling humorous relationship issues with Matt. Foggy’s family drama is on full-force as Rosalind Sharpe and Candace come to town. Misty Knight stops by, as does Natasha Romanov. Kathy Malpher, one of my favorite minor DD characters ever, has lots of panel time. Deuce the Devil Dog is there. And it all ends with the breathtaking DD #375, which has got to be one of my top five favorite issues of all time. If you haven’t read these runs yet, go do that and thank me later.  

4. Frank Miller Darkness is only effective when interspersed with some light, and lightness is only effective when injected with some darkness, and Frank Miller (pre-”Born Again”) hit that perfect balance. It’s noir. It’s deep. It’s intense. It’s also some of the funniest Daredevil material ever written. Please go back and read “Guts”, or “Hunters”, or the Power Man and Iron Fist crossover. Let me say it louder, because I feel like I’m alone here: I love Frank Miller’s Daredevil because it is FREAKING HILARIOUS! And it goes without saying that “Born Again” is also stunning– definitely one of my favorite DD stories. And he gave us Stick and the peerless Elektra Natchios (three different versions of her, in fact) and the world has never been the same.

5. Denny O’Neil Denny O’Neil had the misfortune of getting sandwiched between Frank Miller’s two runs, and I feel like that’s the reason he doesn’t get the attention he deserves for some truly fantastic comics. Uh… weird comics, in a lot of cases, but heck, I like well-done weirdness. O’Neil added an international angle to the comic. He sent Matt to Japan and Italy (and even- gasp- New Jersey) and brought in Glori O’Breen, a great character even with her slightly over-the-top accent. He reconnected Matt with Natasha Romanov for a few beautiful one-shot team-ups. He killed off Heather Glenn in a horrible way, but did it with such grace and style that it didn’t feel entirely gratuitous. And he’s responsible for “The Price”– one of my favorite stand-alone issues. Plus, the fact that he was working with David Mazzucchelli didn’t hurt either.  

6. Ann Nocenti Superhero comics– superhero comics writing in particular– has been a white male-dominated profession for far too long, and there are far too few women who have written Daredevil. I hate to start a discussion of Nocenti’s run with “Look! A woman!” but it’s worth pointing out because look at this list. Seriously. (And for anyone unfamiliar with the pre-Miller runs, I assure you, it’s more of the same.) Ann Nocenti’s run is fantastic for the ways it really digs into the heart of the material. She took the post-“Born Again” landscape and ran with it. This was the period that tied Matt to Hell’s Kitchen, and Nocenti made that plot point stick by showing us the fabric of the neighborhood, bringing in characters like the Fat Boys, placing Matt and Karen within the community with the founding of Karen’s free clinic, and turning the Hell’s Kitchen of the Marvel universe into a living, breathing place. In contrast, she also took Matt out of the city, and in doing so, wrote some of my favorite Daredevil stories. She wasn’t afraid to address pressing social issues. She wasn’t afraid to tell stories that were just plain weird. And her run is utterly unique and complex as a result.

7. Ed Brubaker/D.G. Chichester Yeah, okay, this is really cheating. These are two completely different runs, but they are nevertheless tied because of the same factor: I adore some parts, and dislike other parts. “The Devil in Cell Block D” (the first arc of Brubaker’s run) is phenomenal. I re-read it a lot. So is “Last Rites” (by Chichester). Chichester wrote two of my favorite stand-alone issues: “34 Hours” (vol. 1 #304) and “Just One Good Story” (vol. 1 #380). Brubaker gifted us with the awesomeness that is Maki Matsumoto (A.K.A. Lady Bullseye), and Master Izo! Chichester gave us D.A. Kathy Malpher, one of my favorite DD characters ever (bring her back, Marvel! Where did she go?)! Also, his hypersensory writing is visceral verging on gross– which, for me, is ideal. However, Brubaker’s run went downhill a bit after the first arc. I mentioned the light/dark balance in regards to Frank Miller’s run, and Brubaker went all dark. (I consider it the darkest DD run yet.) It’s great storytelling, but not my style. And while I love his shorter arcs, Chichester’s longer work– “Fall From Grace” and “Tree of Knowledge” in particular– don’t do it for me. I find them overly convoluted and lacking substance. Also, while Scott McDaniel draws my favorite rendition of the radar sense, he’s my least favorite DD artist. D.G. Chichester + Lee Weeks 4ever.

8. David Mack I like “Vision Quest” a lot more than “Parts of a Hole”, though that’s somewhat due to the artist switch partway through the latter. “Parts of a Hole” did an excellent job of introducing Maya Lopez, and has a lot of great moments, but “Vision Quest” is practically a piece of fine art. It’s stunning, both narratively and visually. I consider it more of an Echo comic than a DD comic, but it still belongs on this list.  

9. Charles Soule I haven’t had a chance to reread this run in its entirety, since it just ended, and I really need to do so because I’m having a hard time figuring out my feelings on it. There are aspects of Soule’s characterization of Matt that I disagree with. The sensory writing varied in quality, and we clearly have different perceptions of the radar sense. There was a distinct shortage of female characters– and, in fact, of side characters in general. And the mind wipe was a huge misstep, since it erased so many of Matt’s long-held friendships. In a comic that has traditionally drawn much of its power from its strong supporting casts and Matt’s dynamics with them, that decision has caused serious lasting damage. However, there’s also a lot I loved. Sam Chung, though (I feel) underused, is a great character in his own right, and he also provided the chance for us to see Matt in a long-term mentorship role– something I’ve wanted for a while now. Muse was a fascinating and terrifying antagonist. And Soule’s perspective as an actual lawyer added extra zip to many of his stories, whether it was putting Matt in the mayor’s office (finally!) or sending him to the Supreme Court in what may be my favorite law-centered DD story ever. But the real reason Soule’s name is this far up this list is because of the “Double Vision” arc (or, as I call it, “Mike Murdock Must Die 2.0″) which is sheer brilliance, and to my mind, one of the greatest Daredevil stories ever told.

10. Bob Gale “Playing to the Camera” does not get nearly as much credit as it deserves for being a genuinely hilarious superhero law-based comedy of errors, and a bright spot amid the angst-fest that is Daredevil volume 2. My major complaints are that it’s too short and I dislike the art.

11. Andy Diggle I don’t dislike “Shadowland”. I don’t love it, but it’s a cool story concept that suffered– as events often do– from storytelling spread too thin, across too many characters, in too short a timespan. (Though I need to know if he came up with the “Matt Murdock dared evil… and lost” tagline, because if so, that wordplay would rocket him right to the top of this list.) I prefer the lead-up to “Shadowland” to the event itself. But I love DD: Reborn (yes, I said I wasn’t going to cover mini-series, but it’s essentially part of the main comic because it bridges the gap between two volumes. I say it counts). I’ve always enjoyed stories that take Matt out of NYC, and Reborn is a fun adventure story that gets back to basics and serves as a great bookend for volume 2.  

12. Scott Lobdell I like “Flying Blind”. It’s quirky and unusual (which I appreciate), and Matt is written very well. I just don’t love it. It’s one of those arcs that slides right to the back of the memory and only returns to the forefront when you’re reflecting on the first time Matt ever saw Foggy, or wondering if Matt’s bad French in Brubaker’s run is left over from his SHIELD-implanted fluency. It’s a neat idea, but could have been executed in a more engaging, lasting way.

13. Gregory Wright This short run went right out of my head the instant I finished it the first time, and upon rereading it has remained fairly unmemorable. The art is hit-and-miss, and the story– while perfectly fine– isn’t anything exciting or innovative. There are some great hypersensory moments, it’s worth reading, but I don’t have much to say about it beyond that.

14. Alan Smithee “Alan Smithee” is a pseudonym used in the entertainment industry by writers who don’t want to be associated with a certain project. The commentary on manwithoutfear.com states that this run was actually written by Chichester, who used the pen name as a way of protesting his abrupt firing from the comic. I treat it as a separate run, since that’s clearly what he wanted. I always tend to group the Wright and Smithee runs together in my mind because they take place one after the other, are both very short (only 5 issues each), and are very similar in both tone and quality. I like the art in Smithee’s run more, and the writing is solid. However, the whole thing is colored for me by the horrific and unnecessary death of Glorianna O’Breen, a character I love. I’m perfectly fine with characters dying if their deaths are well-written and impactful (heck, I’ll be honest– I love a good death), but Glori’s demise just seems gratuitous, and is therefore not appealing to me.

15. J.M. DeMatteis This run is super weird, but not in an interesting way. It leans toward the religious, which is not my thing, and it relies on the dead sex worker storyline from Man Without Fear, which is really not my thing and should have stayed out of the main continuity. It’s good to read, because it’s a major shift in Matt’s life and sets up the fabulous Kesel/Kelly runs, but… eh. That said, Matt battling his different identities in a graveyard while getting heckled by Stick, and yellow suit DD running around creating mayhem, are 100% my things… so credit where’s it’s due.  

16. Kevin Smith You may have noticed that “Guardian Devil”, the first arc of Daredevil volume 2, the run that rescued the series after its cancellation and brought Matt Murdock to the forefront of the Marvel street-level universe once more…! …is rarely ever mentioned on this blog. That’s because I really don’t like it. At all. I’m grateful to Smith for bringing readers back to DD, but would be happy if he never wrote these characters again. His run is poorly paced, out-of-character, and covers themes/topics/etc. that I personally don’t enjoy. I forced myself through it because I’m a Daredevil completist, but I haven’t read it again. I probably will someday, just to make sure I remember all of the key plot points, but… not yet.  

[metalgearkong]

Avengers: Endgame - Review

5/6/19 **SPOILERS**

Directed by Joe & Anthony Russo (Marvel Studios/Disney)

The original Iron Man came out a year after I turned 18 and graduated high school. Effectively, the Marvel Cinematic Universe began as soon as I started my adult life, each film acting like 2 or 3 checkpoints every year, always giving me something to look forward to. While I haven’t loved or liked every movie so far, the MCU has been incredibly consistent, slowly increasing in quality on average as time goes on, not to mention having that sentimental factor of facing the world along side it. Scale has also increased in these films over time, seeing more and more team-up movies with larger and larger casts crammed on screen. Endgame is the biggest super hero movie of all time, and not just based on box office earnings, but based on fan expectations, concluding such an incredible saga.

The Russo brothers have been a godsend to the MCU, directing what are most of the top tier entries so far, including The Winter Soldier, Civil War, Infinity War, and now Endgame. While Infinity War was essentially Thanos’ story, Endgame shifts perspective back to the heroes, picking up the pieces and desperately trying to undo what Thanos accomplished. Endgame is sometimes overwhelming (in a good way), with several instances catching myself holding my breath. One of the best things about this film is the level of pay-off it gives for those who have followed the series since the beginning. While I don’t think I enjoyed it more than Infinity War, Endgame is certainly one of the biggest super hero movies of all time, but sometimes the logic of the story detracts from the emotion and memorable moments of the film.

The movie picks up 5 years after Thanos’ genocide. The remaining Avengers discover a possibility to use the quantum realm (Ant-Man’s shrinking machines) to go back in time and collect the infinity jewels before Thanos does. While this is a “time travel” movie, I like the explanation that Bruce Banner gives that you simply cannot just go back to an earlier time and change the current present; going back in time is like visiting an alternate dimension where what you do does affect that timeline, but yours when you go back continues as its been. This essentially takes care of the “grandfather paradox” of why you couldn’t just go to the past, kill Hitler, changing history for the better. You could tell the writers of this film anticipated question most theater-goers would ask, like “why not just go back and kill Thanos as a baby?” and things like that. 

After being rescued from space by Captain Marvel, Tony Stark has officially retired from being an Avenger. He understandably has lost the battle, and resides to live his life with Pepper Potts and their 5 year old Morgan. Tony’s home life and dynamics with his daughter are some of my favorite moments in the movie, as it further humanizes Tony, and offers even more deconstruction of super heroes this series is known for. When the other Avengers think of a possible way to fix everything, I actively wanted them to leave Tony alone and let him have his earned life of peace, even if half the universe was killed off. But, being the guilty genius he is, he can’t fully let it go, and works with quantum tech to make a time machine for the heroes to use. Quickly, they develop a plan to split off and go to different teams and time periods, and retrieve the infinity jewels from their original known locations.

Seeing the current Avengers physically revisit famous scenes from prior movies was incredibly satisfying and felt like an appropriate use of fan service. Some of the best scenes of the entire movie are current heroes accidentally meeting up with themselves in the past, or accidentally coming across people they miss dearly. One of the scenes that come to mind are Steve Rogers meeting his younger self during the events of The Avengers (2012), and the ensuing duel. It instantly reminded me of playing a fighting game with your friend, but you’ve both picked the same character. It was one of the most and creative and clever moments of the movie. The other best time travel moment easily goes to Tony revisiting the 1940′s and having a hear to heart with his unwitting father, getting closure and a feeling for full circle his character didn’t even know he needed.

One one the complaints I do have about the story is that Thanos is no longer the same Thanos from Infinity War. When problems emerge during Nebula’s trip to the past, Thanos from that time period learns that someday he is successful in using the infinity jewels to wipe out half the universe. Through convoluted events, he is able to travel to the future (Endgame’s present) where he faces the Avengers head-on for trying to spoil his plans. This means the Thanos of this film (B) isn’t the same Thanos as in Infinity War (A), as he hasn’t done anything from those events yet, nor has any history with the heroes. Thanos B also seems to have a more malevolent and less complex attitude about using the infinity jewels, and comes off more as a typical bad guy, and less of a complex emotional psychopathic environmentalist, which is what made his character so interesting in the first place.

The other major issue I have with the film is its seemed to shoot itself in the foot with all the time travel multiverses. The movie feels like it breaks its own rules for the sake of the big emotional character scene at the very end. I’m of course referring to “Old Cap” and how he somehow went back to the past to live out his life with Peggy Carter, yet was able to show up back in Endgame’s timeline as an aged man to pass off his shield to Falcon. Once he went into the past, he, by this movie’s own rules, cannot appear back in the regular timeline because visiting the past is basically a parallel universe. What makes it doubly bad is that it’s not in Cap’s character to simply allow the world to go through the turmoil it did while standing aside through all of it. Don’t even get me started on how this would have affected Peggy’s life and the entire conception of SHIELD. If someone can explain to me how this was all possible, please do, otherwise, it felt like either a genuine mistake, or more likely, the movie bending its own rules for the sake of a payoff (which left me scratching my head and took the emotional impact completely out of the final scene of the movie).

However, I’m extremely happy with the rest of Captain America’s scenes. Aside from the scene mentioned earlier (Cap vs. Cap), his use of Thor’s hammer in the end battle was incredibly satisfying and cathartic. I’ve always felt that if anyone was “worthy” of being a good person and warrior, it was always Captain America. Why he could barely budge Thor’s hammer in Avengers: Age of Ultron is beyond me (unless he was faking it to protect Thor’s feelings). Hell, if Vision could lift the hammer, why couldn’t Cap before now? Cap also gets a lot more time on screen in general, which was nice after barely having any lines or presence in Infinity War. Hawkeye, Black Widow, and other side characters also get their best moments of the entire series combined, and it was nice to see the regular people among the Avengers still have emotionally and plot poignant scenes as good as the super heroes.

Thor’s story arch could be seen as criticisms of the film as well. While the universe in its throws of coping with half of all life disintegrated, and how that would affect hugely every aspect of life, Thor meanwhile settles for comically getting fat and doing absolutely nothing. While I still found Thor in-character and funny in this film, upon further speculation, I really wish Thor continued the high he rode after passing what was his darkest chapter in Infinity War. I thought Thor finally settled into his own, and was confused why he regressed into a gag, even if I found it humorous at first. But, I was thankful certain other characters didn’t steal the limelight, especially Captain Marvel. I still find her way too powerful and her personality wildly unlikable and inconsistent. I tried to defend her character in her own movie back in March, but seeing Brie Larson once again strutting her ego made it impossible to root for a supposed underdog. One of my greatest fears of Endgame is she’d use her power to steal the show, and overshadow the legacy of the original characters in their fight against Thanos.

Summing up every great scene or character moment in this review is impossible, and they certainly outnumber the scenes or concepts I disliked. Almost every character gets some resolution or moment in the spotlight by the end of the movie. The final words of Tony Stark, “I am Iron Man,” was a triumphant moment as it capped off the entire series so far, further establishing Tony Stark as the heart and soul of the MCU. While Tony has never been my favorite Avenger, Endgame pays huge respects to him and his accomplishments, and I was a bigger fan of him than I ever was before. Its too bad that the plot raises so many questions in my mind, especially related to time travel and alternate dimensions. Endgame has too many conveniences for the sake of a big bombastic super hero climax, and I wish some of the logical issues with the plot or characters could have been executed differently. If you have any affinity for this series, you owe it to yourself to see Endgame, and while it has many moments of pay-off and awe, it isn’t the series’ most airtight film.

8/10

[horrordirtbag]

freddy vs jason appreciation hours

This gon be a long ass post, summary at the bottom

Okay so basically this movie gets shidded the fuck on and y’know what I think too harshly. I think it did an amazing job bringing all of our slasher wet-dreams to life. And that’s one thing I really wanna stress throughout my incoherent internet rambling: bringing to life our fantasy. Cuz, y’see, I used to think this movie was garbo like many others, until like 4 years ago when I was watching it during a Halloween marathon, and I looked up from my computer and just saw Freddy and Jason, two of my favorite characters of all time, on the same screen together, beating the living shit out of each other. All my issues with it just kinda melted away and I really appreciated what I was looking at, and since then it climbed from the bottom of my list to easily in my top 5 for both franchises.

The fact that this movie even got made is a miracle. I’m just grateful that we even got to see this match brought to life at all. Just overcoming the rights issue between two major companies was a major hurdle to cross. Once that was settled, they could have just slapped together any shitty old movie they wanted and made a gazillion bucks no matter what. The title alone, Freddy vs Jason, would sell tickets, even if the actual movie was just two hand puppets smacking eachother for an hour and a half. But, no. New Line acquired the rights to Jason around 1992, and they immediately began work on the crossover. The only reason they made Jason Goes to Hell was because they had to wait for Wes Craven to finish New Nightmare first. That’s 11 years of development hell. They went through 10 scripts before they found one they liked, not to mention an innumerable amount of pitches. That’s an incredible amount of effort for a cheap slasher film. They spent thousands on the project before it even went into pre-production. Michael De Luca, the president of production at New Line, was an extreme fan of both franchises and really wanted to get it right.  New Line Cinema get’s a lot of flack for it’s treatment of the Friday franchise, and yeah, when you send Jason up his sisters coochie and into outerspace I can see why, but after reading more into the companies history with Jason, I don’t get the impression it was all cynicism. Even if you think the final product is dookie, you gotta give them some credit for the amount of dedication they put in for this project. And, you gotta remember, even though they produced far better films, Paramount was pretty much ashamed of their creation and ditched it as soon as it began making them less money.

Now I’m gonna talk about some of the actual problems with the movie itself. The main two are also both directed at our maggot-infested son. If you’re as much of a raging fan as I am to the point where you write essays for like 10 people to read on a website that hates tiddies you already know what I’m talking about. Let’s start with the fear-of-water debacle. This part pisses off the Friday camp, and for good reason. Any quick look at the past 10 movies shows you it’s just not true. Jason practically exists in water. He’s like the human version of Godzilla. But, in reality, Jason was never afraid of water in the movie. The screenplay writers have confirmed that it wasn’t a fear of water itself, but of drowning. And, well, we know that Jason shouldn’t be afraid of that either, being chained to the bottom of a lake for years on end’n all. But, even then, it’s not quite that simple. What Freddy is doing is exploiting Jason’s subconscious mind and the memory of the last time Jason ever felt fear: when he was a child, drowning. This is why Jason reverts back to a child, and then Freddy returns to the memory of his drowning in 1957. Ronny Yu went a much more metaphoric route in portraying this, but you can still kind of make it out. If you notice, even Jason seems surprised at his sudden refusal to chop through the stream of water. It’s not like he didn’t see it before he pulled his arm back. And, then, immediately after, we see Jason wading through Crystal Lake dragging a body, and at the end of the movie raises out of the water in New Blood fashion. So, it’s clear that even in the same movie, Jason was never intended to be afraid of water. Now, let’s talk about our gift-from-god Kane Hodder. As much as I love the final film, I hate how New Line treated our star man. This is the one thing I can’t really defend about the movie. No one still really knows why Kane was dropped, everyone involved just pointing fingers at each other, probably because whoever really did make the decision is afraid of Kane’s tree trunk arms. Even Sean Cunningham and other people deeply involved with the project were shocked they didn’t use Kane. For my two cents, I don’t think it’s one person or one specific reason to point to, but rather a whole bunch. In large part, I think Ronny Yu not being a fan of the franchise prior has a lot to do with it. He just didn’t realize that Kane was so beloved by the fanbase. Ken Kirzinger said that he initially auditioned to be stunt coordinator, and Ronny immediately asked him to play Jason, saying something around the lines of “you’re exactly what I’m looking for.” I can see why New Line would want someone with no connection to the franchises, as to bring in a fresh take, but for something like this, which is pretty much just a fanboy movie, it would have been better to grab someone who was also a fan. As to why New Line didn’t tell Kane Hodder they were going with someone else, I dunno. We probably will never know who was responsible for that lol. As disappointing as it is, I think Ken did a fine job (although I think he was a little too stiff), and I don’t think we should dismiss the entire film for it alone. This post is getting way longer than I anticipated. If you’re still here, hi, I hope your day is going well. Those art the only complaints, though, of course. Something I hear often is that the final fight is fantastic, but the rest of the movie sucks. I can’t really argue with that since it’s really vague, but I can say that, to me, the rest of the movie is great fun. Even if Freddy only has one kill, he has plenty of screen-time, all pretty good (and the one kill he does get in is great). And Jason’s stuff is all great too. The cornfield rave, the hospital chase, all good shid imo. But really that just comes down to personal taste.   Another thing I can’t really argue about are the characters being bland. Yeah, not much to say there. But honestly, I don’t think they’re terrible by any means (Kia dropping the f-bomb is tho). I have a feeling this complaint comes more from the Nightmare camp, since that series is home to much more compelling characters. Being more of a Friday fan, it just doesn’t bother me. 11 movies in, I’m used to bland characters lmao. Although, I do think Mark was a pretty interesting character. His relationship with his brother is pretty great.  One strange phenomenon I also see is that Freddy fans tend to complain that it feels too much like a Friday the 13th movie, while Jason fans say it feels too much like A Nightmare on Elm Street movie. And it’s not just me, either; this is also discussed briefly in Dustin McNeill’s fantastic book Slash of the Titans: The Road to Freddy vs Jason. If anything, this just feels like a testament to how well the movie blended the tones of both franchises.  The movie does also get too silly at times, but I think they did a decent job of reigning Freddy’s goofiness back to, I’d say, Nightmare 4 levels. Which is alright by me. nOW ONTO THE GOOD SHIT, We’re almost there. I swear. As I just mentioned, the movie masterfully blends both franchises. The movie has the plot of a Nightmare film, with Freddy pulling the strings, but has the bodycount (and characters lol) of a Jason film. Just because the plot is very Freddy oriented doesn’t mean Jason is left in his shadow, and just because Jason gets most of the kills doesn’t mean Freddy doesn’t get his time to shine either (the movie has plenty of Nightmare sequences, even if he only kills one). Complaints about Freddy only getting one kill are odd to me, since that’s the entire point of the movie. Jason is stealing Freddy’s kills. The ending, really, symbolizes what I mean. It’s the best possible way to end it. Jason rises from the water, holding Freddy’s head, making you think he’s the victor, but- nope! Freddy winks at the camera, and then the Nightmare jingle plays, mixed in with Jason’s iconic ki ki ki ma ma ma, perfectly balancing both franchises.  I’ve seen people complain about the ending, but I honestly think it’s genius. If you had Jason win, Friday fans would be mad; if you had Freddy win, Nightmare fans would be mad. Instead, not only is it really cool, but with the ending we got, the viewers themselves are allowed to decide who won, no answer being particularly wrong. To this day, people still debate who came out victorious.  Beyond that, the plot itself is such a great way to bring both characters together. Previous scripts had such convoluted ways of doing so, some involving the Apocalypse, some going meta like New Nightmare, and some just making no fucking sense at all. The Shannon/Swift draft does such a great job of keeping it simple. I love the idea of Springwood covering up Freddy’s existence, rendering him powerless. Not only is it the closest anyone’s ever gotten to actually defeating Freddy, but it also presents to the viewer a complex moral dilemma. Locking the kids away in Westin Hills is horribly cruel, unable to even see their family, but at the same time, if they didn’t, more kids would die at Freddy’s hand. To me, it’s really interesting.  The final thing I have to say, is that it’s just a boat load of fun. You can’t not have a fan orgasm watching the final battle (although they really shouldn’t have had Laurie interrupt the fight). It’s literally everything I ever wanted lmao, and I’m just eternally grateful that we got to see this match play out on our screens rather than just our minds before Robert Englund got too old. Again, seeing two of my favorite characters ever on the same screen is just awesome. In my opinion, I think it’s the best crossover-versus movie out there.  Some people just don’t like the movie and that’s fine, you can’t please everyone. I’m just dishing out why I love it so much, since it’s so vastly regarded as one of the worst of the series. You don’t see too much love out there for it, so I thought I’d spice it up.  TL:DR, I think this movie was such a wonderful love letter to the fans, and while it’s far from perfect, I think people really need to give it a second chance and look at it from a different perspective. It wasn’t made cynically, it wasn’t disrespectful to Jason, and it did a great job of bringing our fanboy and fangirl fantasies to life.

[derekscorner]

When relevancy goes too far

Relevancy is a bit of a complex topic the more you think about it. How far do you push it? Which parts of a story are needed to know the other? How should something define the follow up? These questions have widely different answers depending on the person and especially depending on format.

Hell, if you wish to nit pick it further, even the series in question is a factor. Some series’ thrive on whats done while others drown in their own scripts. I believe Kingdom Hearts is one of the latter.

That said, I am not someone who hates KH’s expanded stories simply for existing. The “side games” in of themselves aren’t bad nor is the idea of using such things to expand a world. The same could be said for game novels or comics in my opinon.

However, these things can be a slippery slope or a lazy exist. For example, Assassin’s Creed threw out it’s whole Juno arc into a comic just to get it out of the way which completely shattered my investment.

In turn, Nomura himself isn’t at fault for as much as we bash him for. Something he’s admitted himself as seen here;

So, the new Days is one of the three titles announced in the Autumn of 2007 as new projects in the KH series.

Nomura: Those three titles were all announced at the same time, but in reality the opportunities for the projects were raised in a disjointed way. Birth by Sleep is a project that was raised within our company, but Days is from Nintendo, and coded is from Disney, so we started by talking to each of them.

-source <--Link btw

And anyone that’s read interviews out of curiosity will know that there’s also factors like how ‘Birth By Sleep’ was shifted from PS2 to PSP or that ‘Chain of Memories’ wasn’t a planned title either. (seen here)

So if these things aren’t inherently bad or planned that begs the question of why it’s a problem here? At least in my opinion of the series.

The answer is simple and it lies solely on Nomura’s shoulders for it as a fault, relevancy. The man goes out of his way to make each and every game, concert, or otherwise is attached to the series in some meaningful way going forward.

Naturally, any expanded media is tied to the main narrative in some way. I know this, I am not that foolish. The problem is that Nomura makes them plot relevant going forward.

These titles can’t be true “side games” because they dictate the story going forward in some way. It’s for this reason the more radical fans hate to hear the terminology “side game” to begin with.

This problem was especially bad for years because of how spread out the series became among other gaming systems. And while some like to say it’s fine now due to the collection discs I dont think this will last long given the “phase 2″ images released for KH’s near future.

Hell, I’d even argue this problem isn’t even fixed in truth because the current KH story involving Foretellers, Luxu, and so on is all things spun from a mobile game. Yes, you have to sit through scenes on YT or play a mobile game to fully grasp that cat creature (Chirithy) you saw in KH3.

Naturally, it’s much easier to watch the scenes on YT these days but that also feeds into the loop of not paying for the game itself. I personally see no issue with it but companies are much worse in recent years for shutting down Youtube channels over loose definition of “piracy”.

No game series is worth several consoles. Of course, I’m just speaking from experience, with KH now on the Xbox this may be a moot point in a few years.

I am rambling, off track, lets focus. “Why is this an issue?” is what you’ve read this far for me to explain. The biggest issue with this poor decision making is how it harms the main narrative you’re telling.

For comparison, look at Sora in KH3. He’s often confused by people he doesn’t remember meeting or events he doesn’t remember nor took part in. This is roughly close to what it would be like for someone that’s only played KH1, 2, and 3.

Sora has that same level of insight including what he was told about others like Roxas or Aqua but other characters in-game. This feeds into KH’s misconceived air of complexity.

Kingdom Hearts, as a story, isn’t that complex. It has deeper themes it throws to the wayside but it is easy to follow if you play most games in some form. This ties back into how the series was handled up until the PS4/KH3.

Ever want to know who Roxas was in KH2? Well you had to play Days or you can sit through that horribly boring 3 hour movie on the Remix disc. Even then, the Roxas you see in Days wont be like the one in KH2.

Wish to know who Xehanort was? Play Birth by Sleep! All three campaigns with little variance. Then once you’re done get ready to sit on YT or download a phone app and play Kingdom Hearts Dark Road.

The Foretellers, Luxu, or the Master of Masters? That’s another set of hours, if not days, with the KH Union X Cross, KH Dark Road, and should you choose you can even watch the Back Cover movie which answers nothing at all but shows you the Foretellers in Kh3 graphical glory.

You wish to know how Namine knew who The Lingering Will was? Well dig up a fan translation of a script the Japanese voice cast read for a music concert event. (yes that happened)

You can see where this is going I assume and this is just scratching the surface by the way. You wish to know the finer details like Keyblade types, the inconsistent time traveling, “recompletion”, and so on then be prepared to read word of god interviews, in-game dictionaries/journals and always be ready for a few to change.

Whether it’s a true retcon or just an ambiguous statement, the series is ongoing, Nomura heads the ship, and he is by no means obligated to stick to previous statements if he can make a new one to alter those events.

Then again, holding too much weight in words said outside the game itself is a faulty way of doing things that most fans (like me) have fallen victim too at least once.

At the same time, all of these things are relevant by Nomura’s decision. Sure, the remixes have fixed this to a degree but it’s anyone’s guess for how long. Better yet, at what cost did the remixes fix anything?

The best example of what I mean is Coded. It was originally a game for phones. At the time, only Japan had a phone capable of playing it. Feeling that a shame the game later found it’s way to the DS for all fans to play.

At this point in time Coded was the only true example of a “side story”. It was by no means necessary. The whole datascape plot was more convoluted than it needed to be despite data!Sora being far better than the original at this point, and easy to miss.

But...well that was good. The DS version of Coded was fun as hell to play. The only version of the “command deck system” I’d consider worth any semblance of praise. It did it’s job of getting some level of fans invested such as my friend @blackosprey​ and it’s story was missable.

You did not need to play Coded to understand Dream Drop Distance or further. This was perfect. This is what games like Days, KH Chi/UX, 0.2, and DDD should’ve been.

Games that reached out to grab new people, games that played around, and games that expanded on the main narrative without dictating it’s direction. A side game is something that exists alongside or outside your main story.

However this isn’t what we got. 0.2 A Fragmentary Passage was a short sequel to BBS but also a pretty tech demo for KH3. Dream Drop Distance was there to show the real Sora that people needed help and to show us that Xehanort was back.

KH Chi was a browser game meant to show the Keyblade War and how it shaped Sora’s era. Now it’s an ongoing curse on the series with time traveling plot that affected KH3 directly.

Coded was made into a movie you needed to sit through thanks to one small newly added scene. Days lost many small interactions it’s fans loved in the transition to a movie that is hard to sit through.

I’ve also heard KHDDD and 0.2 were “shaved off” KH3 in a sense to be their own titles...this...this makes so little sense.

Nomura calls KH “Sora’s story” but this is a lie. If it truly was Sora’s story then your main narrative would be BBS, KH1, CoM, 2, and the original combined form of KH3. That’s the titles he’s relevant, those are the titles he stops Xehanort’s plans.

These other titles could’ve been so fun but none of them were truly allowed to breath and be themselves. They were weakened and limited by Nomura deciding to prop the ongoing story upon them like they’re stilts.

Then as a result you can’t close out KH3 without resolving all of these other events and characters which drags it’s own story down. KH3 feels all over the place because it is. It’s trying to tie as many knots as it can from threads created in titles that were way more relevant then they needed to be.

Kh3 can be seen as a clean break for many but I see it as a matter of time. KHUX and now KHDR are still there casting a shadow, dictating what comes next. Melody of Memory is one of several games planned for an unknown but hopefully more thought out direction.

I worry I haven’t explained what I meant well enough but moral of my story is that making things too relevant hurts not only your main story but these new stories you wish to explore.

You can’t have a story and it’s cast breath if you’re tying a knot of mythos too tightly around their necks and this is a tragedy to me. KH began life with such potential but it constantly holds itself back because so few entries into it’s story are truly just an entry.

And I am not saying games can’t follow up one another nor that they shouldn’t. What’s needed is a clear idea and some breathing room. A good example would be to save people in Days with the game DDD. DDD could’ve wiped away some clutter to focus on the final Xehanort battle in a sense.

Nomura has a huge problem with wanting connectivity without letting games be connected by the name alone. It’s like he wants to do the opposite of what Final Fantasy has done but to detrimental results.

This harms so much but worst of them it hurts development. Because Days was made so important, we had a movie made. Because Coded was elevated, a movie was made. Because the keyblade war was so popular, Union Cross was made.

The Remixes would’ve been better to consolidate lore not waste time trying to appease every whim. KH’s relevancy is a huge problem and I doubt it’ll stop any time soon.

[ryanmeft]

Wish List: Final Fantasy VII Remake

Rumors flying around suggest the first part of the FFVII Remake could see release in 2019 or 2020. This means it will be nearly 25 years on before we see it, and much to the chagrin of the truly obsessive sects of the original game’s fanbase, it is going to be a very different experience than the original was. Most people, however, seem to have embraced this necessity, and are ready for a fresh look at the world of FFVII.

As such, I decided to explore the things I think would be of most benefit to upgrade, alter or just plain change in the remake. This is strictly a list of good things I want, and that which you should want to since I am obviously always right. I didn’t include any “Don’t do this”s, because you can go to any forum if you want a long list of demands of what not to do.

WARNING: This post includes minor SPOILERS for Final Fantasy VII.

A More Thorough Open World

FFXV made strides toward taking the series off the linear path it has always been on, which was wise, seeing as FFXIII was roundly criticized even by supporters for being basically a straight-ahead path through the entire story. However, Square’s lack of experience with the genre was evident. Players were heavily limited as to where they could go at any one point, side quests were rarely engaging (though still a step up from XIII), and traversal was much more of a chore than it needed to be.

With clear dystopian inspirations ranging from Metropolis to Blade Runner mixed with more traditional fantasy settings, FFVII has always had one of the more intriguing worlds in a series where world-building was never a core tenet. The times being what they are, a remake will have to be less linear, and if Square is going to do it they should do it up right. The nature of the story means that you can’t just drop us in and let us go wherever we want immediately, but Square can work within the boundaries of the story to make the world feel more alive by modern standards. For instance, although being confined to Midgar for the first several hours is essential to the atmosphere the game sets, it would be great if we could opt to explore the entire city, rather than just the designated sectors. Once you’re out in the world, it would be a simple matter to make all the towns and “dungeons” accessible from the get-go, while simply holding the story beats over for when you’ve progressed that far.

Camaraderie

Some things in FFXV worked and some did not, but by far the best and most well-implemented idea the game had was the way your main party interacts with each other. FFVII has one of the most iconic casts in video games, but due to technical limitations, they never interacted outside of scripted scenes or FMVs. The remake should have everyone in your current party visible at all times, traversing the world with you, talking to each other, pointing out interesting or dangerous things in the environment, etc. Each character having something non-battle-related they were good at, like cooking or fishing, was one of the more popular aspects of XV and should be repeated in VII…and not just because I want to see Cloud burn the toast. Unlike XV, however, you should be able to take direct control of any party member at any time, because fans have waited a long time for this, and will want to step into everyone’s shoes directly. Make it feel like everyone is fully present, all the time, and not simply waiting for the plot to get around to them.

Change the Skill System

That’s right; I’m going there. The Materia system was a step forward for the genre at the time it released, but it is now in need of a serious overhaul, especially if the game goes the modern action-RPG direction it appears to be heading. Making each player unique in battle, rather than a mostly-interchangeable vessel for skills loaned from an item, is going to be essential, since most of us will want the different fighting styles of the characters to be highlighted in actual gameplay. The easiest way for this to happen is to move the limit break system to a tiered special skill set, similar to what the characters in FFXV used. Cloud’s Braver, for instance, is no longer visually impressive, and should probably be a standard skill he can activate and then recharge.

As for the Materia itself, some of the skills it imparted just won’t be useful in an action battle system, while some such as Toad won’t be feasible to recreate in a 3D engine. Streamline the existing spell and skill list, while adding a few nifty new ones for good measure. Tie the performance of different kinds of magic to a character’s aptitude and make them able to get better at it with use, which still lets anyone equip anything while encouraging unique styles for each character. And for Ramuh’s sake, make the summons cool again. Hell, make them like FFXII, temporarily able to replace your entire active party except for the summoner. That would be boss and stuff.

Make the Side Content Matter

Prior to FFXII, side content in the series was robust and complex, and while it could sometimes be more trouble than it was worth (I don’t know about you, but I don’t care if I catch all those butterflies), it was at least unique from what you spent the rest of the game doing. Stuff like Triple Triad and Chocobo Hot and Cold were both fun, and offered substantial rewards for sticking to them. Then it got replaced by “Go here, kill this monster, come back, get some gold and an item you don’t need.” It has been more or less that ever since. If we’re going back to FFVII, let’s go back as well to a time when heading off the beaten path not only led to discovering entirely optional parts of the world, but the pay off for that exploration felt worth it.

Make the Sub-Villains more Complex

Any hint of messing with FFVII’s pristine pinnacle of storytelling gets met with backlash from certain fans, but here’s the thing: as good as it is, it isn’t actually perfect. Notably, most every secondary villain, primarily the heads of the ShinRa corporation, are about as developed as a man in a black hat tying a woman to the train tracks. They’re cartoons, and all the depth in the secondary villain category comes from the Turks. If the game is going to work in the modern day and maintain the gritty, morally ambiguous world it originally affected, folks like Rufus, Scarlet and Heidegger are going to need to be more than cackling baddies. In fact, it couldn’t hurt to re-write most of their characters from the feet up.

Have the Story Make Sense

Again, FFVII’s story had more flaws than fans want to admit. Chief among these was an atrocious translation that will almost certainly not be an issue once the script is overhauled to work in a modern game, but it’s also true that without outside assistance, it was very, very hard to follow parts of the convoluted story, especially as it related to Cloud and Sephiroth. It seems clear from both the direction the game is taking and the reaction that it is built to appeal to those who never played the original, and making sure they aren’t scratching their heads trying to figure out what the hell old Sephie is talking about would go a long way towards that.

Make Vincent and Yuffie Essential

This one is pretty straight forward. Vincent, especially, actually has a huge role in the overall lore of FFVII, and having him be optional didn’t make a lot of sense to begin with. Plus, does anyone really want to do that stupid safe-cracking minigame again? If you do, I question the state of your sanity.

[hvitmus]

My thoughts on the Jedi Order usually are a hot and tangled mess that I tend to shove on the backburner more often than not – however your post was really interesting so here we go.

Fair warning: I might vomit up one mighty hairball of convoluted meta and opinions so everyone read at their own peril :).

The Jedi Order in and of itself was – compared to the populace of the galaxy far, far away – in the minority. And to be honestly fair that’s exactly where any comparison to the Jewish people ends. Period. From what I could gather around the internet it’s become very popular in fandom to compare the Jedi Order to the Jewish people but… well. Let’s see. The only thing that the Jedi Order has in common with the Jewish people is… *drum roll* the purge. Right. Someone tried to wipe both of them from the face of the Earth. And that is about it.

The conditio sine qua non for this comparison to work however is a faulty and – dare I say dangerous. Why? Because the conditio sine qua non is that Jews are a single and uniform, easily recognizable category of people with fixed characteristics just as the Jedi are depicted as.

And then there is another thing that’s definitely fishy in this comparison. Because if you took one look what are the defining characteristics of the Jedi that the casual movie-goer and not the hardcore-fan could cite at a water cooler discussion about Star Wars?

Let’s see:

a) They are estranged from most of the populace of the galaxy, they do not live among the general populace and live mainly in the Jedi Temple on Coruscant when they are not outside working on missions or exploring. Nobody knows precisely what it is they do and what it is they belief in. They are well-enough respected at first. (The Jews before World War II, because that is what we are talking about, are we not, were a minority but they lived and thrived in various communities and came from small towns as well as cities. Many Jews identified more closely with the nations in which they lived than with Jewish religion or culture. Granted, Jews in Eastern Europe lived often in communities known as shtetls. In Russia they were confined by the Russian Tsar to an area west of Russia that was called the Pale of Settlement. But the majority was segregated in larger style in Europe much, much later and most definitely not by choice).

b) They are easily recognizable by their dress code (even though the Jedi chose the robes. They had not foisted their dress code upon them by outside force and against their explicit wishes).

c) They take children that are not theirs by blood from their birth families, take them to their temple and induct them into their order. (Which the Jedi do, yes. And now that I’m at it, I do wonder. What happened to those children whose parents did not want them to become Jedi? Were they left in their families or were they still taken? Is this issue actually addressed somewhere in the Legends EU or the new EU? But never mind that now, really, fandom? Fucking Really? Comparing a group of people often accused as child-snatchers and child-murderers with a group of people who actually take children from their birth families [and let’s not get into the consent issue now]? Really? Do we have to buy into the same propaganda one generation at a time or are we finally going to snap out of it and learn?)

d) They adhere to a universal belief system which, if I remember correctly consisted of the Force, knowledge and self-discipline as represented in the Three Pillars of the Jedi Temple and the Jedi Code. If I am not mistaken the Jedi Code is something every Jedi believes in.

(Now Judaism itself is by far more complex. There are Orthodox and non-Orthodox Jewish denominations and the non-Orthodox Jewish denominations, Reform, Reconstructionists and Conservatives; then there’s the Rabbinic Judaism that recognizes the Oral Torah as a divine authority and Non-Rabbinic Judaism which does not).

Tldr: Not only do I think as you do that to call criticism of the Jedi Order as antisemitism is a bit much, I am going to raise you one and call casting the Jedi Order in the role of the Jews – simply based on the fact that both were persecuted by fascists –preposterous and obnoxious at best. And something entirely else at worst.

And please, for the love of all that is just, fandom, do not utilize the cry of antisemitism when there is none (or let’s say: Not the one you make it out to be). Its overuse diminishes the instances where real antisemitism is at play and might make people more indifferent towards. So please. Just don’t.

If anyone had ever asked me (which nobody has ever done but here we are), I would have pegged the Jedi Order as a cross between samurais and buddhist monks. When I first read about the Jedi inducting children into their order it reminded me of what I knew about the way the Dalai Lama is chosen as a child and taken in by the monks. Or the way the Kumari is chosen.

I do believe that the families of either give up their children willingly as it is regarded as a high honor. I have the head canon that while the Jedi separate Force-sensitive children from their birth families, they would not do so if the family was averse to the idea.

The New Republic of the prequels always reminded me of the late Roman Republic to be fair. That one wasn’t working great either, most inhabitants of its provinces were regarded with thinly-veiled contempt and the state of the provinces was interesting in regard to the question of much money could be drained from them. The prequels always felt like toying with the idea of what would have happened if Julius Caesar’s assassination had not been successful. Chancellor Palpatine felt like a cross between Julius Caesar and his nephew Octavian (especially when it comes to political machinations and the ability to slander one’s enemy to hell).

My main issue with the Jedi Order is touched upon in Claudia Gray’s EU novel “Master and Apprentice”, albeit in a different context. I’m not sure how familiar you are with the novel but I think it’s safe to say without spoiling anything for anyone that it focuses primarily on the relationship between Qui-Gon Jinn and his padawan Obi-Wan Kenobi (which is not doing great and was admittedly the thing that sold me on buying the novel. I mean it’s Obi-Wan. How could I resist, mate?) Since it’s already mentioned in the publisher’s summary on the back of the book I seriously hope it’s not too much of a spoiler but at the beginning of the book Qui-Gon is offered an invitation to the Jedi Council (I kid you not) and is called on an urgent mission with his Padawan before he can meditate the hell out of the Force to make up his mind.

While on said mission he reflects on the education of the Jedi Younglings and has this to say:

“Perhaps we might move more of the schools, or at least the créches, Qui-Gon thought. There are numerous worlds safe enough for us to shelter the younglings where life is lived more simply, in ways more familiar throughout the galaxy. Where the children might be surrounded by farmland, or fisherbeings. Where we interact more with the communities around us, and train new Jedi to be as much part of the worlds as separate from them –“

And doesn’t that ever hit the truth. Because the Jedi, peaceful minority that they are, have also become this: Secluded away in their Temple at Coruscant and ignorant of the problems, motivators and the daily life of the ordinary people in the galaxy. They tend to view these in abstract terms. They are peacekeepers (and undoubtedly very useful ones at that) but they are most definitely not in touch with any community apart from their own.

And I can't help but feel that their isolated stance did not help matters much during the Jedi purge. While the Jedi were respected by most beings in the galaxy they were also isolated and a bit of an unknown entity, so I think it helped Palpatine in producing all of his propaganda. For most of the populace in the galaxy the Jedi were a blank slate you could pin almost anything on; libenter homines id quod volunt credunt and all that.

Yet the quote above showed that even among the Jedi there were at least some who advocated change and actually wanted to see it done. Change is good and change is necessary. The Jedi Order should have adapted already to the needs of time – that does not mean that they should have to adapt their principles (just the way they applied them). In this regard the Jedi Council always felt rigid to me – and quite ill-prepared.

And ill-prepared they were when they met Anakin Skywalker whom they should never have let into the Order and yet did (it’s not about the age – it’s more about Anakin’s life experiences). It’s the one instance where they should really, really not have bowed to pressure but did. But I think that is a topic for another post.

So I think the changes Luke enforced in the Legends EU actually made sense (and I will make Mara Jade my hill to die on. I cannot understand why they neglected to introduce her in the reboot).

I am not familiar with “The Mandalorian” or other Star Wars TV shows (or with the new trilogy beyond “The Force Awakens”) so I cannot comment on that. But I also do not think that Ben Solo’s attachment to his parents was the cause to his fall.

I tend to go back and forth about my view of the Jedi Order, I have to admit.  There are certainly times when I’ve had harsher views of their practices than others (I’ve mellowed a bit since some of those original posts).

In general, I absolutely agree that the Jedi Order didn’t deserve their fate.  And in general, I absolutely agree that the Jedi Order gets a lot of blame for things that they couldn’t possibly have predicted, and can’t logistically do much about.

For example, it’s all well and good to say that the Jedi should stop slavery, but how exactly is that supposed to happen?  The slaveholding planets aren’t part of the Republic and the Jedi, while they have powers, aren’t meant to be an invading military force.  Nor do they have the numbers or resources to institute that kind of galactic change.

And I absolutely agree that Anakin Skywalker made his own choices.  We’ve seen multiple examples of people leaving the Order.  And the Jedi have every right to impose restrictions on marriage/family, being as they are a religious order.  Not everyone is set out for the priesthood.

That said, I do occasionally stumble across this idea from some pro-Jedi fans that we can’t or shouldn’t criticize the Jedi Order at ALL.  I saw a post recently that compared suggesting that the Jedi Order might, or even should, change one or more of their practices to antisemitism and I think that’s a bit much.

Yes, George Lucas used a lot of real world allegories when he made the films, but it’s still fiction.  And besides, we know for a fact that Luke’s Jedi Order IS different from what came before.

In the EU, the Jedi can get married.  They can have kids.  And sure, you can explain that away by saying that a lot of this was established before the prequels gave us a look at what the Jedi Order was actually like.  But Lucasfilms still signed off on the content of the books. The EU timeline and continuity is pretty tight for a multi-author/multi-era universe.  There was a lot of oversight.  It seems pretty clear that they wanted Luke’s romantic life to be a feature of the novels. 

The new continuity is vaguer about that.  At least so far as I’ve read.  We do know of at least one book where Luke had a romantic interest (Heir to the Jedi), but I haven’t been keeping up.  Luke does seem to be living a single, monastic life as of the Last Jedi.  But there’s still a lot we don’t know.  And to be fair, there’s a fairly long period of time involved.  Luke’s practices could have changed over the years.

For example, both Luke and Ahsoka appear to believe that Din Djarin and Grogu should be separate, and that Grogu has to choose between being a Jedi and being a Mandalorian.  And that’s valid, I suppose.  Luke’s got every right to re-institute what practices he sees fit.  (Though I do think there’s some incongruity with the idea that the man who saved the universe through his love for his father would then try to separate another loving father and son match.)

But we also know, from both the movies and particularly the expanded material, that this practice won’t continue.  Ben Solo had regular contact with his family, up to and including the period of time right before his fall.  (see: Bloodlines).   We know that Kylo was born not too long after Return of the Jedi.  He’d probably be about four now.  That gives us a window of time for the change to happen.  

Now, we know what happened to Kylo.  So that could be an argument against Luke’s change in practice, but I don’t think anyone can realistically blame his fall on the fact that he calls home every so often.

Some of the changes in the Order’s practices may simply be a matter of logistics.  There’s no creche.  Luke doesn’t have the manpower to raise an Order from infancy.  And he can’t really be choosy among the adults who may have survived with relevant knowledge.  If Kanan had lived, for example, to share his own knowledge, it’s hard to imagine Luke turning him away because of his relationship with Hera.  

But also, it’s very possible that Luke has different ideas of what should be a priority for the Jedi going forward.  His experience is different.  His universe is different.  And it’s interesting to think about how the Luke we meet in A New Hope might well have been rejected from the old order.  (Though it’s also possible that they’d have made an exception - he’s even older than Anakin, but far more temperamentally suited.)

I suppose I just feel like there’s room for nuance in this conversation.  We don’t have to pretend that the old order was completely without flaw, and we don’t have to agree with every aspect of their practice, in order to be a Jedi fan in general.  

[bakechochin]

The Book Ramblings of June

In place of book reviews, I will be writing these ‘book ramblings’. A lot of the texts I’ve been reading (or plan to read) in recent times are well-known classics, meaning I can’t really write book reviews as I’m used to. I’m reading books that either have already been read by everyone else (and so any attempt to give novel or insightful criticisms would be a tad pointless), or are so convoluted and odd that they defy being analysed as I would do a simpler text. These ramblings are pretty unorganised and hardly anything revolutionary, but I felt the need to write something review-related this year. I’ll upload a rambling compiling all my read books on a monthly basis.

The Man Who Was Thursday - GK Chesterton I bought the Penguin English Library edition of this book mainly because of a tweet that I saw slagging off the cover, saying that the sticks of dynamite in the cover pattern looked like tampons and that 'this could have been avoided if only one woman had looked at the cover’; this irritated me a lot because I know for a fact that the cover was in fact designed by a woman (Coralie Bickford-Smith, to be precise, an artist whose similar works I am also a good fan of), and I wanted to own this edition simply so that I could prove to myself and others that this is the case. However, whilst the cover of this book is indeed very pretty, the texts published in the Penguin English Library collection do not possess the handy introductory chapter at the beginning that the Penguin Classics include, and thus with no frame of reference, I was at something of a loss to describe this book. It is certainly an interesting read insofar as it seemingly refuses to stay as one genre for the whole book. The blurb describes it as a ‘strange and haunting novel’, and at the beginning, this is very appropriate; it depicts a sensationalist image of villainous anarchists and zealous unhinged detectives that is incredibly compelling, and I hold that the character descriptions of the members of the Council of Days (as introduced in chapter five) make for some of the best writing that I’ve ever had the pleasure of reading. By fuck is Chesterton great at characterising these dudes. The blurb describes the novel as a spy thriller, and all seemed to be going well on this front, with a melodramatic but consistent tone maintained for around the first half of the book, with some great twists scattered here and there for good measure. But then things start getting a tad daft, and I’m going to spoil a bit of the plot here because you need to understand how off the rails this shit gets. The adventure grows to involve much of the main cast of antagonists being revealed to be policemen in increasingly convoluted disguises, ridiculously overblown chases in different countries with the stakes being continuously raised in the stupidest and funniest ways, and the main antagonist, built up as a grand unknowable titan of crime and anarchy, escapes the protagonist by leaping over a balcony ‘like an orang-utan’, riding away on a rampaging elephant that he broke out of the zoo, and finally evading capture by flying away on a stolen hot air balloon. Now don’t get me wrong, I’m a big fan of this sort of shit as a general rule, but by fuck does it seem incongruous in a novel such as this, that is so clever and so beautifully written and, whilst containing its few bits of sensational ridiculousness (as an overt parody of the genre or its tropes), generally quite a serious read. Similarly to The Heat’s On, if this book had just kept on the rails or channelled its madness into chaos that stayed within the genre’s boundaries, instead of just throwing its hands up into the air and screaming, ‘fuck it, put in an elephant chase scene!’, I’d have enjoyed it a lot more. As it is, it reminds me of the overblown nonsense of the 007 stories - this is a novel for dads, I reckon. After finishing this book I then found Beaumont’s introduction to the text, which describes the text as ‘antirealist’, and cites Chesterton’s description of ‘great works which mix up abstractions fit for an epic with fooleries not fit for a pantomime’. As a concept, I can fully get behind this - the juxtaposition of heroics and farcical nonsense puts me in mind of high burlesque, and I’ve always been fully against realism because fuck that noise. But you can’t stick with the idea of this book being wholly antirealist if it takes place in a world recognisable as our own and then suddenly changes to be ludicrous and laughable; that’s just inconsistent, and indeed mildly vexing when I was fully engrossed in the sensational spy thriller. Furthermore, attempting to justify this book’s content by saying that it is reminiscent of a ‘nightmare’ is a bullshit defence, because a) the word ‘nightmare’ could simply be used in reference to this book’s negative depiction of a world in which anarchists triumph in their nasty villainy, and b) it’s difficult to keep the idea of this book’s world supposedly being a dream forefront in one’s mind when it, as mentioned above, represents a view (albeit a sensational one) of reality, with dream nonsense hardly being a part of it at all. That is, of course, until the very end, when the book gives up all pretence of being a spy novel and instead wallows in metaphor and overt Christian imagery before ending abruptly. The ending is bullshit and I don't like it.

Dead Souls - Nikolai Gogol I’ve often cited Gogol as one of my favourite authors, but for the longest time I stayed clear of this book, somewhat daunted by whether what I loved about Gogol’s short stories would translate well to a novel form. This is a different beast to his short stories, but no less interesting to talk about, and indeed possessing many of the short story’s positive attributes, for all of the excellent writing, characterisation, and understanding of the fun nuances of society abounds here as it does in his shorter works. Apparently Gogol was attempting to recreate the structure and overall vibe of The Odyssey and other such Homeric epics in prose form, and although the overall setting and storyline does not reflect the grand awe-inspiring epics of the past, I’ll be buggered if the story’s writing and tone doesn’t somehow achieve it. This is not, despite what some critics have said, due to Gogol’s tendency to ramble on about unrelated digressions (a device apparently comparable to Homeric epics), or at least it didn’t stick out to me as such when I read it - that’s just kind of what Gogol does. No, it’s the writing and tone, as mentioned above, that seems to ape the Homeric tone, in such a way that you wouldn’t notice its explicit presence until after you’d been informed of it, and yet when you are aware of the Homeric influence you see it everywhere clear as day; I’d call it an ineffable concept but that’s just me trying to cover up for the fact that I can’t find the words, because I’m bad at writing these things. But I digress. Gogol’s excellent means of conveying character voices shines as always in this text, but I can’t feel like I’m missing the extent of it because I’m reading it in English. The introduction by Robert A Maguire describes Gogol’s extensive research into ‘all the prosaic rubbish of life, all the rags’, and makes efforts to incorporate such minor details as regional slang, official jargon, outdated terminology, etc. into his characters’ voices, but I fear that I’m missing some of the nuances of these techniques by my lack of knowledge in these fields or that some of the subtleties in language don’t translate as well as they ought to. Of course there are some characters which exemplify Gogol’s skill at diverse voices, such as some of the peasant muzhiks and one of my favourite characters Nozdryov (who draws from a wide array of sources for his dialogue with hilarious results), but there are some instances in which the character voices seem somewhat interchangeable, especially considering how a lot of individual personality is often subsumed by the necessity of upholding social decorum, and thus there are many characters who only speak in refined socially acceptable manners. The characters themselves are all bloody great, be they individual grotesque landowners or incredibly detailed and often brilliantly satirical descriptions of wider groups or demographics. Whilst the writing remains as excellent as ever, the characters in the second part of the book lack the grotesque simplicity of those in the first part - indeed, efforts are made by Gogol to give them complex fleshed-out characterisation - and subsequently these new characters are nowhere near as memorable as the fantastic personifications of negative traits that we got in the first part. Yeah, I forgot to mention, this book is technically made up of two parts, the first part highlighting the problems of society and the second part intended to delve into the resolution of some of these issues; of course, the second part does not exist in its entirety, because Gogol was a great fan of melodramatically burning his manuscripts, but it’s not a major issue because what does survive of the full text is amazing enough on its own (specifically the entirety of part one). Plus, I’ve delved into my thoughts of authors trying to ‘change the world’ through their works (in that I think that it’s a fool’s notion and only really serves to exemplify the author’s delusion), so I’m content with this text only portraying the detrimental aspects of society, as opposed to trying to fix them. I am quite fond of the narrator in this book. Similarly to his short stories, Gogol employs a narrative voice that exists almost as a character in of itself, and I don’t just mean that in the sense of ‘it’s got a lot of personality’. The narrative voice apologises for the story’s content and makes changes in an attempt to preserve decorum, it makes excuses for the story’s characters (especially the protagonist Chichikov), it often reveals information at the same rate as the characters within the setting discover things and have epiphanies, and it even establishes itself as a character with a physical voice as it only chooses to speak of Chichikov’s past when Chichikov himself is asleep, and apologises all the while lest he somehow slight the man. Bringing up this also gives me an opportunity to briefly mention the 2006 BBC radio adaptation for this, which establishes the narrator as a physical character in all scenes to humourous effect (and what’s more gave me yet more reason to love Mark Heap, who makes for a fucking excellent Chichikov). But I digress. Part two of the novel, as mentioned above, does not possess the same sort of wonderfully grotesque characters as part one, and considering that this is a novel defined mainly by its characters, this is somewhat problematic. The plot of part two is perhaps vaguely interesting, even though it seems to shunt the titular focus of dead souls to the side somewhat, but all in all I found it difficult to be too invested in this new story due to its lack of compelling characters. In addition, the Homeric epic tone of part one is somewhat absent, and without a distinctive narrative voice, the narrative suffers. I feel bad shitting on part two, since it was everyone else shitting on part two that catalysed Gogol to burn the manuscript (again) and possibly starve himself to death. Honestly, the first part is bloody amazing, so just read that and then be satisfied with the knowledge that your opinion of the book overall has not been tarnished by the shoddy second part. Sorry Gogol.

Complete Short Fiction - Oscar Wilde I’ve been vaguely aware of Wilde’s short fiction for a while now, having read a selection of his fairy tales and ‘Lord Arthur Savile’s Crime’ (a favourite of mine) for uni, so I decided to give his complete collection a shot. The Penguin Classics edition of his short fiction is separated into his different published collections, but can generally be categorised as either fairy tales or miscellaneous short stories. I’ve studied a shit load of fairy tale authors/compilers (Basile, Straparola, Perrault, the Brothers Grimm, Andersen, Wilde and whoever compiles the radical Russian fairy tales), and Wilde is certainly my favourite of the bunch. The specific blend of Wilde-esque traits incorporated into the fairy tale format make up my favourite fairy tales of any author - this is by no means all of Wilde’s fairy tales, but I’ll get into that. My favourite fairy tales of Wilde take place in a world vaguely recognisable as our own, or at least existing as an exaggerated facsimile of our own society, not just because the urban setting reminds me of Hoffmann’s ‘The Golden Pot’, but because such a setting allows for some heavy-handed but undeniably hilarious social commentary and satire. Such satire works especially well when juxtaposing the romanticised world of the fairy tale with the grimmer reality of Wilde’s society - the two tales that commence the collection, ‘The Happy Prince’ and ’The Nightingale and the Rose’, exemplify this excellently. Whilst I liked the satire attainable by setting the fairy tale in an urban society environment, similar levels of hilarity are obtained via Wilde’s satirical look at certain character archetypes (the titular character in ‘The Remarkable Rocket’ being my favourite example). The fairy tales obviously possess their morals and their teachings (though I was a fan of how this is subverted slightly by some characters actively avoiding, misinterpreting or arguing with the story’s moral), but the tropes that we’d expect to see in fairy tales - the morals from Perrault, the recurring overt ties to Christianity from Andersen, etc. - are not why I like Wilde’s fairy tales so much. The tales in the collection titled A House of Pomegranates are undeniably excellently written, and what’s more include some fantastic settings inspired by the Victorian obsession with the Orient that allow for phenomenal and evocative descriptive writing (the likes of which is not seen in any other of Wilde’s fairy tales), but they fail to capture my preferred positive attributes that the aforementioned tales possess. I cheekily skipped 'The Portrait of Mr W H' because I’d heard from a mate who had also read it that it was a long and dull read, and thus refrained from checking it out lest it tarnish my idealised view of Wilde. I’m sure I’ll live with myself knowing that I haven’t read Wilde’s entire body of works. Indeed, who gives half a toss about that when we’ve still got to talk about the last remaining collection contained within this publication: ‘Lord Arthur Savile’s Crime and Other Stories’, which is not made up of fairy tales but other ‘popular’ genres of writing. Taken at face value, the stories’ content of murder, ghosts, and mystery slot in nicely alongside the fairy tales, in that they can all be considered, at face value, writings intended to appeal to the low-brow interests of the masses. They are, of course, more than that, possessing some great subversions of genre tropes and Wilde’s typical social satire, which all comes together to make the short stories (in particular ‘Lord Arthur Savile’s Crime’ and ‘The Canterville Ghost’) hilarious and very enjoyable reads. The fact that these stories are written with the primary intentions of entertaining, rather than revolutionising the written form or making one think about grand philosophical themes, means that I can’t really offer anything about the stories other than that they’re fucking good and that you should go and read them.

Shit I read this month that I couldn’t be arsed to write about: A Short History of Drunkenness by Mark Forsyth (which I started back in December(?) last year, forgot about until now, and love immensely), and ‘The Penal Colony’ by Kafka (it was much more enjoyable than the other works by Kafka that I’ve read, but that isn’t really saying much).

[raygoodwinbaphotographyjournal3]

PHOT301 - Mileage May Vary - An Evaluation

The first portion of this project has gone already? Those people weren’t lying when they said it’ll go fast once third year comes around. And this evaluation marks the end of PHOT301, which is the early stages of the FMP, featuring all of the research and planning of ones project. Although this is only the beginning for what I finally titled ‘Mileage May Vary’. This project is the culmination of a majority of previous works all the way back to my access course, which started in 2016. The seeds of MMV were planted all throughout my tenure at university, with elements from PHOT103, 104 and 201. 

Rover 75 - Mamiya 6 IV - Cinestill 800T

PHOT202 is where my work took a turnaround. That whole project was a massive mistake: start to finish. It had the right intentions from the get go, and was meant to let off where Alienated Spaces left off. However, I felt alienated about a project about alienation as I was trying to convey something that had dwindled over time. This lead to me leaving anything contextual behind and focusing purely on taking images for the sake of images. It was during this time of making images without any substance, I thought of a project that documented cars that managed to escape the 2009 Vehicle Scrappage Scheme. Annoyingly, this thought came to me when I was a good way through PHOT202 and wasn’t able to go through with changing an entire project, but I wanted to keep hold of it for a summer project, which then turned into my third year work.

The summer time isn’t a conducive time of year for my to be working, as I find the harsh sun and long days uninspiring and the weather is always too hot. That may come across as whiny, but it is just how I feel about the summer. I managed to get one measly shoot in before university started again in September, yet it was interesting to see where my head was at, in terms of composition and creating images. This managed to lead me into a practice that as mostly self lead, but also included an amount of research to back up what I am doing. Although, I piqued up my reading on hauntology, and came to the realisation that it has been omnipresent without my knowledge since the very early days of the degree. Hauntology is something that took me a long time to get my head around, as the first interaction of it was convoluted. However, with much more reading on the internet, and Mark Fisher’s writing made it a lot easier to grasp the spectral haunting of our society. Fisher has always been an accessible writer to me, and makes somewhat complex theories by making them link into something contemporary, which I find a lot easier to digest. I found Derrida’s original text about hauntology was difficult to take in and only made me hate it. Fisher does a good job in making some palatable without dumbing it down. 

The other aspect that informed my practice was governmental data about the VSS. Thankfully in 2014, the government released the numbers from the scheme, which detailed how many vehicles were scrapped between 2009/2010. However, there are some detailed discrepancies with the data as it was all taken from different sources, and those sources were each and every dealership that received candidates for scrapping. Despite this, it was interesting to see the ‘reality’ of the numbers regarding the vehicle scrapping. Perhaps in the final stages of MMV, I should look at the highest number of scrapped cars and document them.

Shooting the project was potentially the easiest experience as of yet. The process of finding subjects was mainly walking the streets of towns and cities. There is no way to gauge what one is going to find as its impossible to know what cars are on what street, with the only way to know is to find out. Finding the right subject was a form of trial and error, with a lot of the cars mainly on the streets now won’t be affected by the VSS as they didn’t exist. Some models did however, but the date on the registration plate would place it after the scheme. The technical aspect was no problem either, as I am now fully proficient and reliant on shooting film for personal projects. 

There also wasn’t many issues regarding shooting apart from the exposure issues, which was down to me, and the same roll being slightly damaged by the processing provider. These can be overcome by making sure the equipment is in place, and changing where I process my film for colour. Whilst that may cost slightly more and take longer, its the peace of mind knowing that it probably won’t be damaged by a rushed process.

 Volkswagen Type 2 - Canon EOS-1 - 50mm F1.8 STM - Kodak Ektar 100

Taking the photos was a breeze, as I knew what I was looking for and taking. Although, what is included in the photographs has varied over the course of the project. It started with composing the majority of the vehicle in frame, but after talking to Jack Latham, it seemed like a good idea to focus more on the details of the car. I was including things like scrapes and dents, as this shows that it has been used and knocked over the years. But, I was featuring these points whilst the vehicle was mainly in view. I have mixed these together instead of limiting myself to one kind of composition. 

One thing I would improve upon is shooting more medium format images for the higher fidelity of negative. I only shot one roll of medium format during these stages of the project, and this was the roll of which I had a shutter speed issue and the roll of soiled by MyPhoto. One thing I would like to experiment with the Cinestill CS41 kit, which allows one to develop colour film at home, with the same process as B&W. This makes it a lot easier to develop colour, as it is a finicky process with tight tolerances with temperature. I also decided to disregard shooting black and white, as I wanted to document the pragmatism and realism of the vehicles. 

The photo book is something that I feel my work lends itself to, as it can contain a narrative bundled together in a handheld package. At this stage, I didn’t want to produce a self published book as it is still the early stages of MMV. However, I did want to make something that contained these elements, but had a level of experimentation to it. This is where the ‘zine’ comes into fruition; although I am not sure what to call it, as its a mix of a photo book and work in progress documentation of what I want to create further down the line. I made the online/PDF version on Canva, as it is a free and powerful tool to create graphics and documents. Once I knew what images I wanted and how to display them, it was rather easy to create. The cover was the most challenging aspect to this, as I knew I didn’t want to just have a photograph on the cover, and I wanted to resurrect my graphic design work. For this, I utilised one of my images and editing it with GIMP, a free alternative to Photoshop. The cover contains semiotics to the entire project: cars are the sole image on the cover which reflects on the project’s subject, which is coloured red to signal the Labour government’s scheme and the bitmap effect was to give the illusion of newspaper articles about the scheme/news. This is a style that I would like to go back to and hopefully keep using for the next portion of the FMP. 

Being informed and influenced is something that I written about being somewhat difficult for me. Whilst I do digest photography on a regular basis, only some of that actually makes an impression. I can appreciate a nice photograph, but it rarely gets my creative juices flowing. Although once in a blue moon I will stumble across a practitioner that just gets me. Once of those is the little known Vlad Tretiak; a Russian based photographer with a partial social media following. His work manages to intrigue me in a technical aspect as he shoots medium format at night time, as well as the subject themselves. I have always had a fascinating with anything Russian and Soviet related, and this manages to meld in my love for cars. Chris Dorley-Brown was tuned into me by Jack Latham, and Dorley-Brown’s work focused on the portraits of motorists stuck in traffic during the summer of 1987 in East London. I rarely enjoy photographs containing people, but it made me think that my work as portraits of the cars themselves. I also was inspired by Franck Bohbot, who I looked at during PHOT104′s Economy project. These practitioners, as well as the contextual research of hauntology has spearheaded me into a well informed project, which after PHOT202 was much needed. 

Citroen Berlingo Aftermath - Canon EOS-1 - 50mm F1.8 STM - Kodak Colour Plus 200

Where does this lead me for the final stage of the FMP? With all of the now previous work, I feel as if I have a good project on my hands and that I can take it far. It feels as if I am finally undertaking a project that I am actually enjoying to shoot to produce, in addition to not feeling like it’s died as soon as it has been handed in like previous projects. The premise of this project was on my mind for a while and I am happy that I can finally undertake it, and take it into the future to wherever it will take me. What I have produced is something that I am proud to have my name to, and it has garnered some good feedback and constructive criticisms. The work flow shall continue after PHOT301, and any film started before, and hasn’t been finished before the deadline shall be used for the second portion of the FMP. With the continuing stages of MMV, I plan to still use the compositions of full car and close up detailed shots, but I would like to incorporate the numbers/statistics of the cars that were scrapped - possibly even photographing a selection of the most scrapped vehicles from the government spreadsheet. The prints will also progress, as I plan to print at least A0 for Free Range and accompany them with a layflat ‘coffee table’ style book, detailing an edited down selection of all vehicles photographed during the project. Technically, I would like to utilise more medium format and find a more uniform visual aesthetic in regards to tones. This would mean possibly shooting one type of film and edit them accordingly. Although I would like to use some expired film to add to the hauntology of the photograph, as well as using a film stock that co-exists with potential vehicles in frame. If multiple stocks are used, I shall to the best of my ability edit them so they are visually similar with little difference between them. 

I feel that this has been the most enjoyable project to date, as it has been totally up to me with what I do, instead of interpreting a brief and making my work fit it some how. With this, I have been totally free to create what I want to create in a professional and informed manner. I am looking forward to seeing what the future brings for this project.