#this is disjointed and incomplete but you get it. you get the themes.

[rpgsocialservices]

Two Sides of the Same Coin: Misao and Mad Father

I can't stop thinking about the parallels between Misao and Mad Father. Misao came first, in 2011, and Mad Father came out a year later in 2012. They're both created by Sen (aka Miscreant's Room) and they're chock full of the same themes and ideas. Misao and Mad Father are like two sides of the same coin in terms of plot, theme, and character. They're telling the same sort of story from two different sides.

Misao is about a girl who is tortured by her classmates, and the revenge she takes on them, and the kind girl with a dark side who, frankly, has no problem at all with her taking revenge. The school is overrun with supernatural entities trying to kill everyone and we have to stop it. You learn through flashbacks how each different character hurt Misao. Its a revenge-driven supernatural force where we're on the side of the victim taking revenge.

By contrast, Mad Father is about a man who tortures people, and his kind daughter with a dark side who loves him. The numerous victims of his horrific experiments haunt the house and cannot rest, and they will do anything to bring him down with them. The house is overrun with supernatural entities trying to kill everyone and we have to stop it. You learn through flashbacks how each different character was hurt by father. Its a revenge driven supernatural force where we're on the side of the villain who caused all this hurt.

The wild thing is, to a certain extent, the side of story you're on is purely circumstantial. Aki takes Misao's side because she thought Misao was cool when she was alive and wanted to be friends. Aya takes her father's side because he's her father and she loves him. Its not something inherent in their morality, its affection for a person for both of them. There is even a bit of ironic parallel between Aki and Aya in that Aki is actually part demon and Aya is metaphorically part demon by being her father's daughter. In both cases, the supernatural does take its revenge. The difference here, of course, is that Aki helps Misao let go and everyone is reincarnated for a second chance, while Aya becomes like her father.

[cuntylouis]

I think one of the biggest problems i had with the episode was that i didn't feel seduced by the story. I felt constantly aware that i was watching a tv show and disjointed scenes that are telling me things instead of showing. It's like they wanted to get all these specific story beats done quickly and the scenes were just checkmarks to reach the end goal early. Like what happened to Story and Themes. S1 ending was also somewhat abrupt and confusing, but it still felt like a full story that could stand on its own. S2 ending doesn't. I assume they intend to answer lots of questions and solve plot threads and show things we didn't see in s3, but it doesn't matter when this season feels incomplete. It doesn't help if we're going to get satisfying explanations for Armand and Lestat's motivations, or see more of what was happening with Louis, or how Daniel ended up like this, because the narrative integrity of the story and characters now is suffering. You can't skip over character development and then show it in a flashback 3 seasons later. When the ending of s1 felt ambiguous but intriguing and made the characters and their dynamics even more fascinating, the ending of s2 felt like it flattened every character and relationship, and they actually feel less nuanced and interesting now. And maybe we'll get that complexity back later, but the story now isn't working

[astromechs]

I finally saw vol 3 and have the ability to add to all the great discussions I've seen. First of all I loved seeing the team really fighting to help one of their own. It showed how far they have come. I also enjoyed how each character got an arc or at least there was an attempt at one. The music choices were fantastic and that one hallway fight scene was the trilogies best!

on the other side there was something about this movie that felt like two separate films that didn't quite mesh. You have everything with Rocket and then this almost subplot with Gamora that doesn't quite feel formed enough to really be called a plot. But it's there enough to count as something. I went into vol 3 hoping it would explore the brutality of what happened to Gamora. Not just her death but the fact that her abuser got to destroy so much of her life even after her death. He stole her childhood. He stole her freedom with a found family she helped start. He even stole her soul. If that wasn't bad enough his actions in Endgame prevented her from getting to reconnect with what was stolen in the way originally intended. Not a single other character in gotg got this kind of treatment and not a single one of them has any part of the story suggesting we should sympathize with the person who harmed them.

I know vol 3 needed to be Rocket's story and I respect that. But I think once they chose that type of death for her they needed to focus on her more not less, because as Peter said she formed the guardians. Looking back this is so true. She was the one who originally wanted to do the right thing in vol 1 even if it meant giving up her freedom. She's the one who genuinely loved having a purpose that was a life of serivce helping others. Endgame showed us Gamora had the same potential. She extended a hand to Nebula, went to take on her abuser and prevent further harm. It feels like there was a whole story here for Gamora that needed to be told after that and vol 3 did a decent job with some of it but, imo, made choices that undermined Gamora to conveniently make sure she didn't distract from everything going on. Which would have been fine if what happened with her was some minor incident. But she was killed and so much of vol 3 was about how your abuser shouldn't get to kill you after you have finally grasped hold of happiness and healing. I felt like there was a glaring problem where the film is screaming abusers don't get to win while a character whose abuser did get to win is standing right there and nobody is saying anything about it.

I did love the end though with Gamora seeming to get the thrill of what the guardians could accomplish together and she looked happier and lighter. Her final conversation with Groot was heartwarming. So it's not like I didn't see the good the film did. I really did enjoy it. But something isn't working for me. It also bugs me that I have run across some comments where people are cheering on the themes in vol 3 while also veering into making excuses for Gamora's death or saying she can no longer be accepted as family to the guardians. It feels like some disconnect is going on that's a little troubling.

i'm totally with you on all of this! there were gamora moments that were really great (i liked her last conversations with groot and peter a lot, in particular), but i definitely think her story merited more focus, especially after what happened in infinity war/endgame — and the fact that we didn't get that focus made the overall narrative feel incomplete to me. it makes a major character's arc as a whole feel disjointed, which makes it all wobble a bit for me, personal feelings about the choices made in infinity war/endgame aside.

and it really does make that "the abusers don't get to win" story gunn was going for here not quite feel like it hits, with the shadow of what happened to gamora hanging over the whole thing and no real focus given to addressing really much of anything there. also agreed with you on that.

all of these things contribute to me feeling that while vol 3 was a solid movie, there's some glaring stuff surrounding the handling of gamora's story holding it back.

[lunarsilkscreen]

What they don't tell you about the Creative industry

So a lot of new writers and creatives don't know the extra constraints placed on your average writer; which includes budget and deadlines.

I'm going to try to separate the two concepts; Skill in Writing or creating and the rest of the skills that constrain the first.

So there's two major skills you're going to be required to have when working professionally (or for money) the first is the creative side, and the other is the budgeting side.

Many tools created for authors today are intended to ensure a release schedule so that funding can actively reflect when a product is released.

Unlike my style; I'm writing whenever I feel like: your average industry professional is trying to get paid so that they don't need to do anything else to fund their creative works.

So this includes a set schedule; You need to know when the product will be finished so that Marketing, Editing, Packaging, and Sales can all do their job.

This schedule means you're constrained to writing within a timed window. Sometimes; this causes products to feel rushed or incomplete, or any number of negative things. And may also make the finished product feel formulaic; because it is.

But if you're writing for a younger audience that doesn't know any better; they typically don't Know the formulas yet. That's why they're in school learning them after-all.

And these skills including writing a specific way that looks like this;

Here is your Budget (up-front costs a publisher might pay you) that you might choose to use to fund a small company or team to help you finish up quicker, or not.

Here is the time we expect the product; usually months from when you're paid up-front.

And that timeline created the schedule window. Since you need to deliver by that time, you need to meet certain production milestones. Even Potentially delivering ahead of schedule in case the editors want to request changes.

[timeline]

You first step in outlining your story; you know where it begins, you know where it ends, this idea of the product is what will be delivered.

And then you might decide to flesh out your characters, their motivations, how they might respond or act in certain situations, so that if you have a team working on separate sections; they have a good idea of what to write so the sections don't feel disjointed.

Then you put the quick ideas together; this needs to happen so we make it to this major plot point, and then this and then this to get to the climax, and then finish the ending.

And you kind of keep adding on to that outline until it forms a completed piece.

Or you fill in sections to get to the next plot point in case you're waiting for "Emergent Themes" that might change the overall flow of the piece.

And it's all very [time based] because your editors or your publishers need a product to sell to make their money back as well as hopefully, extra profit when that revenue is recouped.

That is all implied on *top* of your typical writing process.

And that kind of hampers developing creation or writing as a skill, when the skill you're actually developing is [Time Management, Budgeting, and Concentrated Effort]

Effectively; most of your story is written within the first month or week, and you're just filling in the blanks until it feels finished.

However; actual writing and authorship is a completely separate skill from that required in the industrial process.

And so it might feel like different mentors and teachers are telling you different things about being a writer or creative; when in reality they're describing the skill as part of their whole process that they're used to.

There isn't really a good educational process that separates these two concepts and skill tracks really. And so it can oftentimes feel confusing and insurmountable when trying to learn from scratch.

But when you realize that there are multiple skills you're actually learning as part of the process instead one singular blobby mass of a non-descript skill; it becomes a lot easier to manage and really learn to become an effective author and writer.

Honestly; I recommend shit-posting on 4Chan or Reddit if you're just trying to develop your writing. Any section of those sites really, not just the *writer prompts* and *green text* pages.

It's the quickest easiest way to learn how to convey your thoughts in a digestible way, AND learn how other people understand text as it is "on the page".

But when you're getting paid for it, or you've taken a loan or have an advance; now you gotta learn those "professional skills" that can be learned from more or less any other job.

Or, you can just write what you feel like in your free time and not get paid for it. Up to you really. There's a path to profit no matter which path you wanna take.

[paenling]

no ones saying you cant enjoy daniil? people like him as a character but mostly Because he’s an asshole and he’s interesting. the racism and themes of colonization in patho are so blatant

nobody said “by order of Law you are forbidden from enjoying daniil dankovsky in any capacity”, but they did say “if you like daniil dankovsky you are abnormal, problematic, and you should be ashamed of yourself”, so i’d call that an implicit discouragement at the least. not very kind.

regardless, he is a very interesting asshole and we love to make fun of him! but i do not plan to stop seeing his character in an empathetic light when appropriate to do so. we’re all terribly human.

regarding “the racism and themes of colonization in patho”, we’ve gotta have a sit-down for this one because it’s long and difficult. tl;dr here.

i’ve written myself all back and forth and in every direction trying to properly pin down the way i feel about this in a way that is both logically coherent and emotionally honest, but it’s not really working. i debated even responding at all, but i do feel like there are some things worth saying so i’m just going to write a bunch of words, pick a god, and pray it makes some modicum of sense.

the short version: pathologic 2 is a flawed masterwork which i love deeply, but its attempts to be esoteric and challenging have in some ways backfired when it comes to topical discussions such as those surrounding race, which the first game didn’t give its due diligence, and the second game attempted with incomplete success despite its best efforts.

the issue is that when you have a game that is so niche and has these “elevated themes” and draws from all this kind of academic highbrow source material -- the fandom is small, but the fandom consists of people who want to analyze, pathologize, and dissect things as much as possible. so let’s do that.

first: what exactly is racist or colonialist in pathologic? i’m legitimately asking. people at home: by what mechanism does pathologic-the-game inflict racist harm on real people? the fact that the Kin are aesthetically and linguistically inspired by the real-world Buryat people (& adjacent groups) is a potential red flag, but as far as i can tell there’s never any value judgement made about either the fictionalized Kin or the real-world Buryat. the fictional culture is esoteric to the player -- intended to be that way, in fact -- but that’s not an inherently bad thing. it’s a closed practice and they’re minding their business.

does it run the risk of being insensitive with sufficiently aggressive readings? absolutely, but i don’t think that’s racist by itself. they’re just portrayed as a society of human beings (and some magical ones, if you like) that has flaws and incongruences just as the Town does. it’s not idealizing or infantilizing these people, but by no means does it go out of its way to villainize them either. there is no malice in this depiction of the Kin. 

is it the fact that characters within both pathologic 1 & 2 are racist? that the player can choose to say racist things when inhabiting those characters? no, because pathologic-the-game doesn’t endorse those things. they’re throwaway characterization lines for assholes. acknowledging that racism exists does not make a media racist. see more here.

however, i find it’s very important to take a moment and divorce the racial discussions in a game like pathologic 2 from the very specific experiences of irl western (particularly american) racism. it’s understandable for such a large chunk of the english-speaking audience to read it that way; it makes sense, but that doesn’t mean it’s correct. although it acknowledges the relevant history to some extent, on account of being set in 1915, pathologic 2 is not intended to be a commentary about race, and especially not current events, and especially especially not current events in america. it’s therefore unfair, in my opinion, to attempt to diagnose it with any concrete ideology or apply its messages to an american racial paradigm.

it definitely still deals with race, but it always, to me, seemed to come back around the exploitation of race as an ultimately arbitrary division of human beings, and the story always strove to be about human beings far more than it was ever about race. does it approach this topic perfectly? no, but it’s clearly making an effort. should we be aware of where it fails to do right by the topic? yes, definitely, but we should also be charitable in our interpretations of what the writers were actually aiming for, rather than reactionarily deeming them unacceptable and leaving it at that. do we really think the writers for pathologic 2 sat down and said “we’re going to go out of our way to be horrible racists today”? i don’t.

IPL’s writing team is a talented lot, and dybowski as lead writer has the kinds of big ideas that elevate a game to a work of art, particularly because he’s not afraid to get personal. on that front, some discussion is inescapable as pathologic 2 deals in a lot of racial and cultural strife, because it’s clearly something near to the his heart, but as i understand it was never really meant to be a narrative “about” race, at least not exclusively so, and especially not in the same sense as the issue is understood by the average American gamer. society isn't a monolith and the contexts are gonna change massively between different cultures who have had, historically, much different relationships with these concepts.

these themes are “so blatant” in pathologic 2 because clearly, on some level, IPL wanted to start a discussion. I think it’s obvious that they wanted to make the audience uncomfortable with the choices they were faced with and the characters they had to inhabit -- invoke a little ostranenie, as it were, and force an emotional breaking point. in the end the game started a conversation and i think that’s something that was done in earnest, despite its moments of obvious clumsiness. 

regarding colonialism, this is another thing that the game is just Not About. we see the effects and consequences of colonialism demonstrated in the world of pathologic, and it’s something we’re certainly asked to think about from time to time, but the actual plot/narrative of the game is not about overcoming or confronting explicitly colonialist constructs, etc. i personally regard this as a bit of a missed opportunity, but it’s just not what IPL was going for.

instead they have a huge focus, as discussed somewhat in response to this ask, on the broader idea of powerful people trying to create a “utopia” at the mortal cost of those they disempower, which is almost always topical as far as i’m concerned, and also very Russian.

i think there was some interview where it was said that the second game was much more about “a mechanism that transforms human nature” than the costs of utopia, but it’s still a persistent enough theme to be worth talking about both as an abstraction of colonialism as well as in its more-likely intended context through the lens of wealth inequality, environmental destruction & government corruption as universal human issues faced by the marginalized classes. i think both are important and intelligent readings of the text, and both are worth discussion.

both endings of pathologic 2 involve sacrifice in the name of an “ideal world” where it’s impossible to ever be fully satisfied. in the Diurnal Ending, Artemy is tormented over the fate of the Kin and the euthanasia of his dying god and all her miracles, but he needs to have faith that the children he’s protected will grow up better than their parents and create a world where he and his culture will be immortalized in love. in the Nocturnal Ending, he’s horrified because in preserving the miracle-bound legacy of his people as a collective, he’s un-personed himself to the individuals he loves, but he needs to have faith that the uniqueness and magic of the resurrected Earth was precious enough to be worth that sacrifice. neither ending is fair. it’s not fair that he can’t have both, but that’s the idea. because that “utopia” everyone’s been chasing is an idol that distracts from the important work of being a human being and doing your best in a flawed world. 

because pathologic’s themes as a series are so very “Russian turn-of-the-century” and draw a ton of stylistic and topical inspiration from the theatre and literature of that era, i don’t doubt that it’s also inherited some of its inspirational literature’s missteps. however, because the game’s intertextuality is so incredibly dense it’s difficult to construct a super cohesive picture of its actual messaging. a lot of its references and themes will absolutely go over your head if you enter unprepared -- this was true for me, and it ended up taking several passes and a bunch of research to even begin appreciating the breadth of its influences.

(i’d argue this is ultimately a good thing; i would never have gone and picked up Camus or Strugatsky, or even known who Antonin Artaud was at all if i hadn’t gone in with pathologic! my understanding is still woefully incomplete and it’s probably going to take me a lot more effort to get properly fluent in the ideology of the story, but that’s the joy of it, i think. :) i’m very lucky to be able to pursue it in this way.)

anyway yes, pathologic 2 is definitely very flawed in a lot of places, particularly when it tries to tackle race, but i’m happy to see it for better and for worse. the game attempts to discuss several adjacent issues and stumbles as it does so, but insinuating it to be in some way “pro-racist” or “pro-colonialist” or whatever else feels kind of disingenuous to me. they’re clearly trying, however imperfectly, to do something intriguing and meaningful and empathetic with their story.

even all this will probably amount to a very disjointed and incomplete explanation of how pathologic & its messaging makes me feel, but what i want -- as a broader approach, not just for pathologic -- is for people to be willing to interpret things charitably. 

sometimes things are made just to be cruel, and those things should be condemned, but not everything is like that. it’s not only possible but necessary to be able to acknowledge flaws or mistakes and still be kind. persecuting something straight away removes any opportunity to examine it and learn from it, and pathologic happens to be ripe with learning experiences. 

it’s all about being okay with ugliness, working through difficult nuances with grace, and the strength of the human spirit, and it’s a story about love first and foremost, and i guess we sort of need that right now. it gave me some of its love, so i’m giving it some of my patience.

[bonsaitreehouse]

Sometimes hyper fixations hit you like a ton of bricks.

For me, CARNIVALÉ was the perfect storm waiting to happen: obscure French/Irish animated media released in the year 2000 whose English dub was thought to be lost until recently and which grabbed my attention after the rom for an incomplete N64 spin-off Cenzo’s Adventure was dumped online. It’s got Tim Burton alumni working on it and a dark circus/theme park/halloween meets Nickelodeon aesthetic all over, so it’s absolutely up my alley. It apparently aired for limited periods in the mid 2000s and nobody managed to save an English dub. The only reason it exists now is because someone found it on a Taiwanese DVD!

For the lack of any high-res logos of the film itself, I made my own vectors instead with transparent backgrounds in film poster, opening credits, vhs/dvd release and Nintendo box art variants in that order.

A Game Boy Color game was discovered in the third Nintendo giga-leak, while the N64 game has been dumped here (with a video feature by Hard4Games): https://www.n64prototypes.com/articles/Carnivale.htm

The film has been saved on the Internet Archive in three languages along with two bonus videos, all of which are linked here: https://archive.org/details/carnivale-1999

The pacing is a bit disjointed and the story feels like it’s missing a few pieces especially with the awkward English celebrity dubbing, but the aesthetics and mood are ON POINT with some fascinating ideas that absolutely deserve to be rediscovered by a new audience. Clearly there were big plans for this film which apparently the director Deane Taylor wasn’t able to make good on, so here’s hoping that the resurfacing of these materials can help get a new cult fandom started! My dream is for a surviving fullscreen theatrical film print to surface somewhere at some point. Hopefully BAC Films, Studio Canal, Millimages or Deane Taylor has one, because I can’t live with pan and scan standard definition ghosting artefacts forever!

Media preservation is an ongoing problem; companies hoarding IPs just to let the gather dust, services and media going offline or being taken down via copyright strikes, physical discs, tapes cartridges and computer drives corrupting or decaying with the march of time. Think about how much has been lost, or how much we are in danger of losing even now as I write this, beyond just this one film I’m gushing about! Whether it’s good or bad, everything deserves a repeat viewing!

[orionsangel86]

“I Think It’s Time For Me To Move On”

...And Other Things That Have Destroyed Me This Weekend...

So there is this common trope within love stories which generally happens at the end of the second act in which everything goes wrong and we all think that the lovers are doomed to failure. Its pretty much standard in every Jane Austen novel, every romantic film every made, every single bloody love story. Go ahead, name one. I guarantee you the break up moment is there.

Within the epic love story of Dean and Cas, there have been many break up moments, and all have had their emotionally devastating impact on the relationship and the show...

But THIS was a different level. 

(For a nice summary of Destiel break up moments and understanding of this trope, @tinkdw​ wrote about it here.)

I didn’t think that there would be another moment within Dean and Cas’s relationship that could hit me this hard. The mixtape in 12x19, the wrapping of Cas’s body in 13x01, and the return of Cas in 13x05 are moments that I consider to be the very top of the scale in making this pairing undeniably romantic. Moments that pushed it beyond a platonic interpretation. These three moments have been the things I cling to when the show has otherwise made me doubt any conclusion to the DeanCas story, and since there hasn’t been another one of those moments since 13x05, until now I have been somewhat nervous that the story was dropped, or being forced back behind a platonic screen. 

15x03 has ripped that screen away. 

Emotional meta under cut...

This entire episode was an emotion fuelled dramatic roller-coaster that killed off three characters including our beloved witch queen in a scene that almost stole the show and practically canonised the SamWitch ship. Rowena’s death should have been by far the most torturous moment for viewers to endure, and it was extremely torturous and had me sobbing on a plane 3 hours into a 7 hour flight. That incredibly heartfelt moment between Sam and Rowena will probably go down as one of the top tear-jerking moments on this show. It was tragic in the best way - the way Supernatural is famous for.

But lets not gloss over the fact that in an episode where THAT should have been the climax, where THAT should have been the emotional highlight and end point, instead we get a further MORE dramatic stand off between Dean and Cas that pulled focus and ripped all of our hearts out just as violently as poor Ketch in the first act (a very clever and smug piece of meta foreshadowing there Mr Berens).

On a meta level, this is HUGE as a writing choice because they MUST know how this looks. This was the climax of the third episode of the finale season. The way Supernatural has always structured itself since Carver era is that the first three mytharc episodes of each season establish the direction of the story and set the foundations for the character level focal points and dramatic key notes to come. 

That the writers have chosen to end the foundation episodes with a DeanCas break up moment that was more dramatic than a Spanish Telenovela has just stunned me and left me reeling because I just can’t see how else this can go. This break up scene absolutely DEMANDS a huge reconciliation of the sort that will be part of the A plot of the season - the FINAL SEASON. Guys. Part of the reason I have been so quiet and so disillusioned with the show during late season 13 and season 14 was because they pushed any Destiel plot into non existent territory - it became kinda irrelevant and Dean and Cas just acted like friends (homoerotic friends yes, and sometimes like an old married couple, but it was mostly played as an afterthought imo), so for this to suddenly be brought to the forefront of the emotional story again is excellent news for us. 

The thing is, like with those huge moments I listed above, the break up scene is basically undeniably romantic when you break it down to its components:

1. It’s only Dean and Cas. 

Once again we have another scene of high stake emotions that excludes Sam. In a platonic reading of the show, it makes zero sense for there to be such a hugely disjointed relationship between Cas and Dean and Cas and Sam given he has known them both for so long now that if they were all “just friends” then surely Sam would also feel the impact of Cas’s choices as heavily as Dean. In a platonic reading, Dean comes across as an asshole, Sam comes across as being weirdly uncaring about his friend of 10 years, and Cas comes across as not even bothering to get Sam’s opinion before leaving. A romantic reading makes sense because quite literally THIS IS A ROMANTIC BREAK UP.

2. The words spoken. 

“Well I don’t think there is anything left to say.”

“I think it’s time for me to move on”

From Cas’s perspective at least, name one time in a piece of media where such language has been used for a platonic breakup sincerely? There have been heartfelt break up songs that use these exact words. (I should know I’ve spent the last 24 hours listening to them all).

That last line in particular is so heavy. It’s the last line of the episode and nothing about it is platonic. This is relationship terminology my dudes. “I need to move on, and get over you.” This is Cas’s bloody Adele song. My heart breaks for him, but if I was his sassy and fabulous best girlfriend right now I’d be sitting him down, sipping a cocktail, flipping my hair and telling him “Babe, you’re too good for him. Good Riddance. Let’s go out, have some cocktails, something pink and fruity. No dive bars for us darling. I’ll take you to Heaven... the fun one in London.”

In all seriousness though, from Cas’s perspective, this was him admitting defeat and giving up the fight for love. How anyone can possibly say Cas isn’t in love with Dean after this, well I just don’t know what show you are watching. This is the face of a heartbroken man who has just accepted that his love is unrequited. 

3. The many faces of Dean Winchester

On the other end of the scale, Dean was mostly silent after his poisonous words “And why does that something always seem to be you?”

Forgive the terrible gif quality I’ve no time for fancy gif work!

Look at his face here. He knows what he said was fucked up and he immediately regrets it. The way he swallows around that regret and then turns away.

and after Cas says that devastating final line and walks away? We get THIS reaction from him:

The jaw clench as he looks down. The sorrow on his face as he realises he has well and truly fucked this up. LOOK

Finally, he looks up, makes himself look up and watch Cas leave. If that isn’t the face of a broken man I dunno what to tell you. Anyone who thinks Dean is totally heartless and uncaring right now needs to reassess because this is NOT the face of someone uncaring. This is the face of someone who has just lost everything. Again. 

4. The FUCKING MUSIC

Seriously. The sweeping heavy drama of the low strings that come in right after Dean says that horrid line, that carry the weight of the look of horror and heartbreak on Cas’s face as they amplify the emotion there. As they blend seamlessly into the slow and subtle version of the Winchester family theme behind Cas’s heartbreaking speech and Dean’s stubborn stoic face hiding a multitude of emotion, until the violin dominates as Cas says “I think it’s time for me to move on” and the Winchester Theme swells to its climax, ripping all our hearts out just like poor Ketch as Dean watches Cas walk out of his life surrounded by darkness. 

I MEAN.

A friend on Twitter reminded us all of this point about the importance of this theme via @justanotheridijiton​ here which is essentially:

“The Winchester theme is not simply an aural marker to let the audience know when and how Sam and Dean love each other (any Supernatural fan knows that is the baseline of their relationship), but to provide narrative information, especially when the image and dialogue are incomplete or inconsistent with the true situation...  Seasoned fans will recognize the theme and its history of being paired with images indicating deep emotional bonding and a desire to do the right thing by the Winchester code. Here we trust our ears over our eyes to reveal the truth.”

So here is yet another key indicator that any surface read that this is actually an ending between Dean and Cas and that Dean really is just an angry asshole is utter bullshit. 

Honestly, this was PAINFUL, but it was painful in the best way. It was 13x01 levels of pain, but this time it was Cas choosing to walk away which makes all the difference. Dean’s greatest fear isn’t his loved ones dying on him after all, but of his loved ones choosing to leave him. This was exactly the kick up the ass Dean needs in order to win Cas back, classic love trope style. 

Hence my excitement at what is to come. Yes we won’t see Cas again until 15x06, but in the meantime I fully expect a good helping of angst and wallowing from a depressed Dean who has to deal with the fact that he has just lost the love of his life and it is all his fault. That he just pushed away the one person who promised they would always stay by his side. That has got to hurt. 

So yeah, this episode emotionally destroyed me, and I’ve only really covered the primary reason, let alone all my feels over SamWitch, Rowena’s death, Belphegor’s taunting of Cas over his deepest fears and then having to suffer through smiting a creature wearing the face of his son until his body was nothing but a burnt corpse... I wonder if Bobo had a bet going in the office over how much he could hurt us all? He was certainly enjoying scrolling through the Supernatural tag on Twitter and liking everyone’s reaction tweets including some brilliant Destiel related ones. I do love Bobo. Our Angst Goblin King. 

If anyone had asked me a few weeks ago what my thoughts were on the chances of getting explicit canon Destiel by series end, I would have said somewhere in the realms of 30-40%, considering it a battle of wills between DabbBerens and CW studio execs who I still feel are against it in general. I would have considered everything that happened after 13x06 as the writers getting a big NO on Destiel from the network and therefore having to pull back on any Destiel related plot points (purely my own speculation on BTS matters of course).

Now I am wondering if Dabb kept fighting the network? If he managed to wear them down into begrudging acceptance? I’m currently up to around an 80% chance of textual canon DeanCas if we continue on this path. If Dean is clearly shown to be mourning and hating himself over Cas next episode, and if this DeanCas dramatic plot line continues to be a focal point of the emotional story arcs... well...

I’m side eyeing 15x07 a lot right now. Only in my wildest dreams would I think that they might actually introduce an old boyfriend for Dean in a “coming out” episode, but the placement, timing, and potential is all there and I’m kind of once again donning the clown mask because I’m just in awe at everything that they are doing. I guess we’ll find out soon enough. In the meantime, I’m gonna paint my face in red and white and wear my rainbow wig and listen to break up songs on Spotify whilst trying to shove my heart back into my chest where Bobo Beren’s gleefully ripped it out with his hands like the demonic angst goblin he is. Wish me luck, I’m not sure I’m gonna get through this season with my emotions intact.

[boglog]

HILL HOUSE NOTES !!

Objectively speaking, I like the show as a weird crossover between Transparent and American Horror Story but there are always some cons :/ One thing I will say is that I find it hard to review horror bc I'm too busy swimming in cortisol to notice plot holes but I watched the scary scenes w subtitles and no audio and that will have to do!!!

Cons:

The diologue is occasionally awful.

Scratch that it's terrible and the more the show goes on the more it nears Grey's Anatomy levels of nauseating

Firstly, there are way too many name drops esp when there are only two characters in the room, sometimes even one sentence after another, it's exhausting.

i.e. 'Stay right here, honey. I'm going to talk to the police now sweetie, I'll be right back.' // 'You eat people, Steve. You are a parasite, Steve.'

Second of all, 'Don't do that ever again. Don't do that. Where were you? I thought the house thingy got you.' kids don't talk like this. I know irl children tend to imitate the adults around them but the sheer amount of stock cliches these child actors are required to say is incredible

And honestly overall there's too much talking period. There are dozens of scenes where a character monologues for almost five minutes!!!!

I loved mind doppelgänger Leigh's speech but really let's tally it up: we've got Mrs Dudley's monologue, Olivia monologues a few times, Theo's monologue, Luke 2 or three monologues, one from Shirley, Hugh is not much of a talker so thank god they were consistent. And of course a lot of these are important to the story and even close to entertaining (see also: Nell yelling at Steve) but it's way too much and anything actually significant is diluted in this deluge of info-dump-y speeches

Why god??? Why?

Like this is television not radio but I guess it's another case of Forced Diegesis when summarising w flashbacks would actually be way easier on my psyche but Tacky for these Kinematic Auteurs

I would've liked a more in depth exploration of Olivia and her childhood experiences of paranormal tragedy to give us a better context for her morally grey slip into an evil mother

Still somewhat peeved at how, bc of supernatural instinct, we can justify Theo and CPS taking a child away from her home. Obviously the show can't waste so much time on what's only supposed to be a quick detour into Theo's character and it works within the world of the show given that the guy did confess but portrayals of police, first responders, social workers, ad nauseum making snap descisions like that is Not Good for people's real world perception of their rights. Just sayin.

Maybe a scene where Steve and Hugh apologise for being garbage humans or something idk that would've been nice

This show has many layers and interpretations which could either skew towards clever ambiguity or clumsy indescision and while I'm leaning toward the former, I will say it does go a little all over the place for me.

Are the Crains' superpowers genetic, from their mother? Did it come from the house? Why is the house was so vindictive? What does it want? Or is it more symbolic of the emptiness inside the characters? Why is Olivia decidedly an over controlling mother but Nell is an innocent? Is really the only thing Steve had to do to save his marriage was reverse the vasectomy? Nell died of her own paradoxical haunting that began when she was six so was the cause ultimately a sadness within herself before the house of strictly the house's pull?

Like it's v unclear (probably deliberately) wether or not the story was Psychosis All Along or it was the house's vendetta or bc the Crains specifically are a supernatural mutant family

We never find out what Nell does for a living and I'm curious

Finally: it's really white sometimes. Like. Painfully white. Granted, the Crains come close to my favourite kind of white person, the quirky dysfunctional family of adult children scattered all over the country who only reunite at their dead sister's funeral. Still, the POC tally up to two love interests (one of which DIES), one cop, one naïve widow, and one poor daughter-less foster parent. One could argue only a middle class white family would stay in a haunted house for so long ://

Pros

The show juggles seven characters and two plots flawlessly. Each character is recognisable w a distinct personality after about only two episodes, the nonlinear structure as we alternate between the present day frame story and the main plot in flashbacks before ultimately converging when the family reunites at the house for the last time is not only clear but parses its information in way that's not only not confusing but strengthens the tension and dread. Even while they show the flashbacks' ending (w Olivia and later Nell's death) as well as the epilogue, the build up still feels entirely justified. This is peak plotting right there.

Furthermore, Nell's ghost still manages to be in the spotlight with some jumpscares even after we know who she is

My soul pretty much left my body when Nell's ghost attempts to bond w her sisters via screaming as they argue in the car

A quintessential microcosm of the show's representation of time and memory is Nell's final speech: whimsically disjointed at first, poignant and clear by the end

It's a horror show that is completely dedicated to its characters (and I'm sure some of you already know my love of dysfunctional families) and centres around human themes of connection, mourning, and trauma and the necessity of vulnerability and letting go in order to live a full life. That's very rare in horror where we usually get gratuitous gore with a small spattering of sentimental scenes to further the gore.

Olivia's Forever House served as an excellent symbol for her need to control, the house's monicker implying her fear of change.

An incomplete but not bad portrayal of trauma, a decent addition to the topical and ever-expanding mental illness discourse

Also ft. meta commentary on writers

In the beginning, Olivia really was portrayed as a concerned mother who was always trying to be considerate of her children's emotional well-being despite her occasional snaps. One has to wonder wether her slip into an irrational need to control might reflect society's paradoxically oppressive expectations of motherhood: to have absolute control of your children while also being a benevolent saviour to them 24/7. I mean in all fairness to Olivia, she was working and raising 5 kids. I'd lose my marbles too.

Or maybe I'm giving the creators too much credit and they were only angling for an Other Mother thing. I like this Foucaultian nihilism though so we're gonna go w that.

The show's acknowledgment of Useless Dad and Entitled Eldest Son syndrome.

Spat my tea when doppelgänger Leigh ripped Steve a new one, and since she's a representation of his psyche maybe that means that Steve himself has gained some self awareness. (He should still... apologise to his family....)

I mean they were really spot-on with how birth order family drama goes.

Human portrayal of a lesbian as an adult and a child! As tumblr user Lesbeet said, this is very rare and deftly done!

Theo doing literally anything

Shirl is p adorable

Theo and Shirl: the comedy duo we absolutely need in our lives

Arthur and Nell's romance is joining Up's prologue in the golden vault of world's greatest ten minute love montages. (Both of which ended in tragédie. ☹️)

Shirl's AU dream sequence, which unlike the others, presents us with an extramarital faux pas that we were not previously aware of, manages to seem totally appropriate for her character

The set and costume design are perfect for the primordial fear of the unknown aesthetic the show was going for. Fairy flappers! Gothic stairwells! Punk rock leather gloves! A McMansion that doubles as a funeral home! Motels! A curvilinear LA mansion! The absolutely insane brutalist million dollar rehab centre! Oh boy!!!

Accurate mortician portrayal: they really do gotta wire the corpses' mouths shut. Those damn chatty dead people.

Tldr:

Diologue is lengthy and cheesy while the characters are Too White. The rare portrayals of POC and how social services work were lacklustre. 👎

The show's incredible ambition and dedication to its characters and themes of trauma, dysfunctional family relationships, and the consequences of coping via trying to control your life is amazing. Theo, especially, is amazing. It's a very goth show with clinically depressed ghosts.👍

[foxycipher]

I already left a comment over on AO3, but I'll expand on it here:

First and foremost - CT, your writing style makes me jealous. I wish I had half the skill in worldbuilding that you do (the fact that you have a whole goddamn lore bible for AS, longer than the actual story itself, that's never getting released makes me go feral every time I think about it), and the way you describe things can turn even the most mundane action into an expressive moment all its own. Regardless of whether it's beauty, tragedy, or something in between, you convey everything in such a smooth and descriptive manner that I never get bored reading.

Next, the characters - the fanart that people have made for AS is phenomenal, and I'll admit their artistic renditions have influenced my mental images of them quite a bit, but even before AS got popular, I was always able to clearly imagine these characters without a bit of description from you:

Student, gangly and uncertain and way too cocky for her own good, a biomechanical arm on one side and a fractal-scaled claw on the other, necrotized flesh rotting beneath tattered bandages.

Teacher / Theta, inhumanly flexible with an uncanny grin, sharp wit tempered by experience, bright red eyes and lithium flames.

Sorcerer, their monitor-face flickering with dry sarcasm, vocally monotone yet expressive in a way no other AI-adjacent character could ever hope to be.

Kali, vaguely bovine and brawny, fiercely protective of her friends, carrying both her culture's traditions and and a massive work rig on her shoulders.

Nico, "cherubic if not for the mandibles" as you so eloquently put it, delicate yet predatory, a child burdened with immense religious trauma who now struggles to come to terms with his freedom.

I don't know any of these characters, not truly, but god how I wish I did. Varied in form and species they may be, but all of them are painfully, undeniably human in every single way that counts.

My dissertation on the plot itself could be a novel in its own right, so I'll keep it brief. Despite the cliffhangers and dead-end plotlines and tangential worldbuilding, the story never felt disjointed or incomplete. I was hooked from the very first sentence and stayed engaged all the way through to the epilogue. It almost felt like I was travelling right along with the group, a nameless observer wandering close behind, tracing their every footstep through the endless unknown depths and heights of Teleth Thadeyn.

Finally, my own history with Amber Skies. I was intrigued from the moment you posted the first chapter here on Tumblr, but I only started reading it seriously after you moved the fic to AO3. I've read every chapter released since then on the day they came out, commenting on occasion as plot threads and recurring themes caught my eye. (I haven't read a novel like this cover-to-cover since I was little, come to think of it. It's been ages since a book-length piece of writing caught my interest to the point of me wanting to finish it.)

In summary - I love Amber Skies dearly, and I cannot wait to see it published in physical format so I can add it to my bookshelf. It was an honor getting to read and comment on your rough draft in real time (seriously, though, how the FUCK is something this good a rough draft?), and I look forward to seeing the finished draft someday soon.

Now that Amber Skies is over, thoughts?

[canonicallysoulmates]

Supernatural 14.06

I’m surprised by how much this episode annoyed me. I’m surprised it annoyed me at all, cause I wasn’t expecting that I thought at worst this would be a boring episode that would leave me going ‘eh’. And don’t be mistaken, this episode is boring but it didn’t leave me going ‘eh’. But I wish it had.

One of, if not the biggest sin in this episode is that Sam and Dean are apart through out all of it. And their only interaction with one another comes in the form of a 15-20second phone call, that we only hear one side of, at the beginning of the episode when Dean calls to inform Sam that he and Jack are going on a hunt together. 

I guess the writers and EP’s have yet to get it through their skulls this show is better when Sam and Dean are together. 

This episode’s second biggest sin, is that it did two hunts instead of one and it tried to tell both stories from beginning to end at the same time and giving equal attention to both.  What that did is make the episode feel incomplete and disjointed, not helped by the fact that both hunts have different tones to them with Dean & Jack’s being more comedic and Sam & AU!Charlie’s trying to be emotional with what one could call a lesson at the end. Key word: trying. And actually Dean & Jack’s hunt was technically incomplete cause the person they were hunting down got away, probably cause the episode ran out of the time and the writer had to wrap it up. 

There’s no connecting point between the hunts or their tones or their themes so when you go from one hunt to the other it’s like you’ve switched to another episode, it makes the transitions very annoying; all of this also makes it hard to care or get invested in what is happening in the episode. 

The first half was boring and annoying, the second half had the writer put the pedal to the metal and wrap everything up quickly which left me feeling like I was missing a whole chunk of an episode. The ending is the only point where I got a little bit interested and then the shot held for 10secs too long. Jack collapsed in the bunker kitchen in front of Dean and if the episode had ended there that would have been perfect but it ends with Dean on his knees looking around like he doesn’t know what to do, he ain’t calling for help, he ain’t grabbing his phone, he ain’t checking Jack over, he ain’t grabbing the kid and taking him to the bunker infirmary, the most he does is scream ‘Jack! Jack!’. At which point I went back to being annoyed. 

I cannot finish this until I mention how much I fucking hate the end scene between Sam and AU!Charlie. Sam is clearly struggling to make the separation between this Charlie and the one that he knew, several times through the episode AU!Charlie has to remind him that she’s not that Charlie. And there is a scene that I liked until the end ruined it where she very strongly tells Sam that she’s not that Charlie and that it’s her life, cause she has informed him the hunt they’re on is going to be her last which Sam does not like cause she plans to go away. I really liked that scene, I liked seeing AU!Charlie kind of stand up for herself cause it is her life not Sam’s! If she wants to stop hunting it is her choice, it is her right, Sam is not her keeper, he does not get a vote in what she does with her life. She is a grown woman she can make her own choices! 

But that is clearly not the way the writer feels cause instead of writing Sam, who more than anybody should understand what it’s like to hate hunting but having to do it anyways and wanting out, to be understanding and supportive, he had him continuously question her decision and try to persuade AU!Charlie to change her mind.  Ending with him making a comparison between the monster they were hunting who had left their family (or as he put it ‘its people’) and her, telling her ‘don’t leave’ and that basically while painful the job is worth it. 

Here’s my problem with this scene: this isn’t Sam just asking her not to go away and leave them, this is Sam asking her to keep hunting, something that she had already expressed to him that she hates and that she only got into it cause she had to do so to survive in her world. Which makes Sam’s little speech come across as: if you leave hunting you leave your people. That is not how healthy friendships and families work.  

Also to me he just came across as ooc about this, cause again he better than anybody should be able to understand what AU!Charlie’s telling him, he didn’t have a problem with AU!Bobby taking a hunting vacation, and he knows the life isn’t for everyone. 

If he had asked her to think about it, if he had told her that she doesn’t have to keep hunting but to please not separate herself from them, I wouldn’t have a problem with this scene, or if she had told him once again that it is her life, her choice, and stood her ground I wouldn’t have a problem with this scene. Or even if this had been a proper episode and they would have really gone into it and shown me AU!Charlie changing her mind or a scene that could make me understand her changing her mind rather than just Sam’s speech changing it I wouldn’t have a problem with this scene.  

But the way that it was done and written gets on my last fucking nerve. I place full blame on the writer, not on the characters. 

This episode is a huge waste of time; as some of y’all know I was kinda looking forward to it cause it had Dean & Jack interacting but this is not what I wanted or even expected. If somehow by this date you have not seen this episode, know that you can happily skip it and I recommend doing so. 

[apaoutlineformat898]

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[deadciv]

i’ll put this under a cut, last jedi spoilers below; this is basically just me working through the movie. unlike tfa which i left in silent emotional meltdown i feel like i have a solid hold on this movie even after one viewing so here we fuckin go

overall, as said before: not a tremendous disappointment, as i feared. it avoided some of the pitfalls i was most afraid of and it did some interesting things, while definitely having a few things i found entirely unconvincing, unnecessary, or downright bad

caveat: both some of the things i like and dislike here could be changed or muddled in a heartbeat depending on their choices in episode 9. things could be pulled in a lot of different directions

things i liked:

- the first scene of the movie. honestly, it was fucking electric; the action was heartpounding, i fell in love with (then mourned) paige in just a couple minutes, good development for poe. it started off the movie really well and it left a good taste in my mouth that helped me treat the rest of the movie more optimistically. also i did cry. in fact i cried several times but here first

- no reylo. the reylos can pretend all they like, but frankly, it’s just not real and to me that was obvious.

- imo, interesting development between kylo ren and rey. it had some moments i disliked which i’ll touch on later but overall i thought it was well done; the parallels to return of the jedi, then the realization that this is /not that/ and that these are different people and different times with different solutions and outcomes, was good

- in general, and people can disagree, i appreciate the more specific, granular, less archetypal character focus. clumsy at times, but still

- tying into, i am so glad snoke is dead. the false palpatine, the false emperor, the pretender. soon as i saw his ship arrive in person i knew he was dead, and soon as rey aimed towards his ship i /knew/ he was dead. i want a little more detail of how he got where he is, but honestly i wouldn’t mind if it came in a throwaway line or in the eu. it just hit, strongly, that this is a different story with a different ending that still mirrors the old; but distorted and new

- speaking of, scene with the royal guards (force sensitive somewhat, certainly) was neat

- hitting on this again but from a different angle, the clear separation (and yet hearkening back to; books in the falcon) between old and new was refreshing. i’m not surprised they didn’t go full ‘the jedi must truly end’ even though i kind of wanted it, but the very clear signal and clear choices made to show that things are going to be different from hereon out was necessary and good

- like yet again, it definitely parallels both esb and rotj, but the details of the plot struck different chords and the setting of the battlestar galactica type chase was i think a good one

- speaking of, though imo he came off too snarky one too many times, luke was convincing to me, and his arc made a lot of sense, all in all (talk about the ending of all that in a bit)

- moving back a bit, poe’s arc was. surprisingly good? interesting, made sense with what we knew about him, they didn’t just make Holdo wrong and stupid; he clearly learned, and it made perfect sense imo

- loved seeing the rich, capitalist, war profiteering assholes composing ‘the worst place in the galaxy in contrast to what we’ve seen before; loved seeing their shitty city get shat on

- maz’s scene was lit

- leia like. used the force? rad. weird way of shooting the scene but i’ll give it a pass

- acting good; more billie lourd good

- at least some steps towards background diversity

- i actually felt like kylo ren’s emotional arc made sense and i feel like he’s going to die in the next film. once again, new problems, new solutions, even if we are playing some of the same melodies. him as essentially the main bad guy in the next movie will be fascinating one way or another

things i /didn’t/ like:

- Finn’s story arc. he didn’t end up accomplishing anything; they didn’t hit his growth hard enough, didn’t interact with rey or poe enough, didn’t get enough emotional pay off. just generally there wasn’t enough and it pissed me off; he’s a centerpiece for these movies and he needs to remain one for them to really work. the whole ‘protect what you love not destroy what you hate’ is not bad but it needed to be hit way harder and invole poe and rey directly

- specific related quibble: why the fuck didn’t finn and rey get a single scene in which they fucking talked

- i loved rose and i don’t think it really implies that Finn like, likes her, but the kiss was vaguely annoying and unnecessary.

- the way luke ‘died’ and did that whole fight sequence was not terrible, but it didn’t quite do it. i feel like we need more out of him in ep 9 to finish that off for real

- speaking of? yoda never got enough character development to realize that like, moving on and making a new world and blowing up that tree was necessary. yoda is a hidebound, set-in-his-ways dude and i wasn‘t convinced by that; it was a cheap way to accelerate luke’s development and choices

- moving ever further back, rey’s whole flirting with the dark side thing either needed to genuinely not be hit much at all or be hit harder. it had potential but then just kinda got dropped. the throne room scene and the mirror scene were both undercut by not having delved into her psyche better and more deeply. i might change my view somewhat here on a second viewing but

- like thor: ragnarok, i felt like the use of humor to that extent undercut emotional weight and muddled the tone.

- wish it didn’t feel so much like different directors; the fact that the background cast--including temmin wexley, who is important in the new eu stuff--from tfa basically disappeared was a little jolting, esp after having watch tfa last night

- speaking of. porgs. hmmm.

- ice foxes? cute but a cheap way out for that last bit. finn should have used the force that he definitely should have to find the way out. or leia

- some weird cutting that felt kinda disjointed with the scene changes

- i have other quibbles, but two main, big things left that are separate from other stuff in significant ways

- one: a technical quibble. or more like a MASSIVE FUCKING HYPERSPACE SIZED HOLE IN AN ENTIRE FLEET HOLY SHIT YOU REALIZE THIS RUINS TACTICS THROUGHOUT ALL STAR WARS RIGHT. RIGHT. I GET THAT THAT’S WHAT HAPPENING BUT MAKING US SEE IT MEANS WE HAVE TO THINK ABOUT IT AND THAT IS VERY, VERY BAD. like seriously. how many times could that fucking tactic have changed entire battles? wars? like??? please give me some dumb reason why that usually wouldn’t work i dearly need it for my sanity here. in fairness though? cool as shit. but like, not worth the grief it’s causing me and will continue to cause me through all future star wars properties

- lastly, and debatably most importantly. and i’ll start small and specific. that very last scene, the one with the little kid, is emblematic of the fundamental cowardice of disney, lucasfilm, rian, whomever. the opportunity to have our little force-wielding kid be literally anything but a white person (and a white boy)? so fucking there. begging to be brought to life. an alien? focus on the little black boy instead? anything else?? like, not only does it frustrate me from a sheer rep perspective--as in, it’s basically canon that only white humans can do anything meaningful with the force, which is shit--but it also fundamentally undercuts the themes of the film, cheapening the concept (still unproven, admittedly) of having rey be not a legacy kid to a fucking massive degree. it left a terrible taste in my mouth.

- and relatedly? the general lack of aliens in resistance roles? the sidelining of finn? combined with those themes? dumb. stupid. bad. cowardly. and the lack of any lbgt stuff of any kind? no real interaction between poe and finn for the most part? related, and bad.

stuff i’m ambivalent about (incomplete list)

rey random. i kind of like that it’s not a legacy, though i get why some disagree. still not convinced that’s like, real though. i think the theming of rey needing to accept that she’s here on her own power not on that of legacy, and of anyone having the potential to great ill or good regardless of their bloodline, has potential, but it heavily depends on what they do with it in episode 9. glad i never go invested in any of those theories tbh

overall. not bad, definitely flawed. i feel pretty confident about where i’m at with it except with the rey flirting the dark side arc; i need to see it again to determine whether i’ve missed something. anyway i’m sure no one will read this but at least it helps to put it down somewhere

[twoontheaisle]

“Dear Evan Hansen” at The Music Box, New York

When theatre is thrilling, when it engages both your heart and your mind, it creates an experience of art that is like no other. A beautiful painting can move you, but it’s static and unchanging, a moment captured forever. A great film can take you on a journey, but once the final print is struck, that journey will always be the same. A viewer may interpret it differently on subsequent viewings, or bring new experiences or wisdom when seeing it a second (or hundredth) time. But live theatre – even though the text is the same each performance – reinvents itself every night, creating a unique experience for each audience. Granted, the experience can sometimes be disappointing, but when it’s brilliant, when all the elements (especially of musical theatre) combine in the service of a compelling story featuring interesting, relatable characters – it can knock you out. Dear Evan Hansen, currently playing to packed houses at The Music Box, is just such an experience. Perhaps I’m a little bit jaded, but there are very few musicals that get under my skin and work their way deep into my heart the way DEH did last night.

As a writer, I’m keenly attuned to the structure of a story, and the richness and veracity (or lack thereof) of dialogue and character development. Sometimes, as with Jersey Boys, text can be spare, but incredibly efficient, creating an incredible ratio of words:story. Other times – as with Hamilton – the language is opulent and free-flowing and the story complex and multi-faceted. Dear Evan Hansen delivers the best of both approaches: book writer Steven Levenson has fashioned a story that is complex and compelling and dense with words and emotion – yet still so compact and engaging that my attention never once wavered throughout the 2.5 hour running time.

Dear Evan Hansen concerns a high school senior who is so socially-awkward that he not only has zero friends at school, he can’t even work up the courage to order a pizza because he’d have to interact with the delivery person who’d bring it to his door. Dad is long gone, paying attention to his new family, and mom is working a challenging job and going to night school, so Evan (a staggeringly-good Ben Platt) is often alone. He has a crush on one of his schoolmates, Zoe (Laura Dreyfuss), that put me in mind of Charlie Brown’s relationship to the Little Red-Haired Girl: he is completely besotted, and imagines how he will one day walk right up to her and say hello in the coolest, most relaxed and confident way – but of course simply can’t.

We can understand why: Evan is bright, perhaps even gifted, but he can’t seem to filter his speech, so everything that’s on his mind – appropriate or not – seems to come spilling out in a torrent of words any time he interacts with any human being besides his mother (Garrett Long standing in for Rachel Bay Jones).

As the show begins, it’s the first day back at school after summer vacation. In order to help Evan with his awkwardness, his mom has engaged a therapist for him, who has suggested that he write himself a letter that tells him what a great day it’s going to be and why. But when he actually writes it, it’s the opposite of optimism, and when Evan accidentally (on purpose?) lets Connor Murphy, the school’s stoner loner and brother of Zoe, get his hands on the letter, everything starts to go seriously sideways. Without spoiling the rather intricate plot book writer Levenson has created, the letter is misinterpreted (and miscredited), and Evan – with only the best of intentions – ends up wrapping himself in a tangled web of lies that end up having consequences that are beyond anyone’s ability to manage, let alone a shy, troubled 17-year old.

It is here where Dear Evan Hansen lifts itself into a richer, more complex (and intellectually rewarding) place than the vast majority of Broadway offerings. For in addition to the themes of teen angst and self-worth, Dear Evan Hansen raises an even larger question: if good things happen, does it matter that they are built on a foundation of lies? Two very bad things happen early in the show. One character takes his own life, and Evan – perhaps through no fault of his own – is drawn into the drama, and then exacerbates the drama in an attempt to bring some comfort to a grieving family (that just happens to include his love interest).

But thanks to Evan’s lies – that get larger and more detailed and messier as time goes by – this tragedy begins to turn around a community and bring it together as never before. A family begins to care for each other in a way that has clearly been lacking. A school comes together and cliques give way to a sense of belonging. An entire nation, linked by social media, is lifted by an inspiring story – which they have no idea is complete bullshit. It’s the placebo effect on a massive scale. Early in the show, Evan sings “When you're falling in a forest and there's nobody around - Do you ever really crash, or even make a sound?” If a person – or a family, or a nation – gains comfort from a story that is based on lies, does it really ease their pain?

If Dear Evan Hansen is built on the foundation of a brilliant, complex story (with dialogue and characters that are natural and fully-realized and multi-dimensional), the rest of the structure is just as lovingly-constructed. The music (by Benj Pasek & Justin Paul) is powerful and energetic. Though it’s not exceptionally tuneful, and I don’t think it’s a soundtrack I’d buy or listen to, it nonetheless perfectly complements the story and staging. The set design is an array of rectangular projection screens that display a constant feed of social media text and imagery, as well as graphic projection that are often spread across several screens, shredding them into bits and pieces – in much the same way the characters lives are seen through the eyes of Facebook and Twitter and Instagram: incomplete and disjointed.

Evan’s uplifting message following the suicide is that “no one deserves to fade away.” In our modern experience of social media, no one ever really will fade away – all those tweets and posts and photos will live in a server farm somewhere forever. But does this digital immortality really give any more value to any single human life? Or is that still only found in the personal connections we have with the people with interact with in the flesh?

Dear Evan Hansen raises this question – and others – in a brilliant, utterly thrilling fashion that deserves to be seen by any lover of musical theatre. Or humanity, for that matter.

[terriblelizbians]

it’s like. it does feel a little disjointed? incomplete? non-cohesive? but i think that’s actually a feature i really liked. it’s sort of part of the idea. that we get these hints at all these stories but not the full picture. and the same applies to the framing narrative as to the stories within, because the frame is really one of those stories too. idk how much of that was intentional (in the sense of feeling incomplete) but i thought it worked very well. obviously id love to learn more about the world but i kind of love that we don’t get to know more than like, incidental bits.

other than the style... just fascinating touches on colonialism/imperialism, gender, identity, culture, heritage, diaspora... different world but the very intentional diversity was hm extremely clearly grounded in our world’s in a way that worked well imo. also. Gender. as both a theme and representation bc... significant use of nonconventional pronouns which was very cool

not for people who like a clear plot. yes for people who like weird twisty brambles of story. in the way that i want to eat this is how you lose the time war, i want to run my hands over the tangles and texture of in the watchful city.

just read in the watchful city by s qiouyi lu. 😳

[kalico-to-the-letter]

REVIEW: RWBY – Vol. 4, Ch. 12: “NO SAFE HAVEN”

Well, fuck.

Welcome to my review of the 12th Chapter – and finale – of Volume 4, entitled, “No Safe Haven”.

This week gave us: A boss fight, letter writing, and a montage. Seriously.

Spoilers after the jump.

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And at last we have it. The finale of Volume 4, that which would not necessarily determine the overall success of the Volume 4 experiment, but would have a significant impact on nonetheless.

I want to love this finale. But I just don’t. 

It feels like a missed opportunity. After the open ending of Volume 3, and after the split narratives of Volume 4, there is something underwhelming about yet another open ending.

And perhaps the biggest problem is how close it comes to getting it right, before deciding that enough is enough and ending the episode.

I’ve enjoyed Volume 4. I’ve found this experiment refreshing and interesting in its potential. I always said that a retool was needed after the climaxes of Volume 3, something to strip the show back to basics and focus on strong scene work. They have done so, and I think that it’s worked well for the most part. It’s all about giving moments time to breath, and allowing more nuance into what we see and hear. But what it also allows is a steady buildup of pace throughout the season, so that the final act feels like it’s heading somewhere definitive.

And on paper, the endgame of this season did end up heading somewhere. Ruby and the rest of RJNR finally arrived at Mistral, after a season of trekking through the boondocks and fighting a boss battle against a Grimm which was truly something out of a horror movie. And they’ve set up the beginning of her Volume 5 story too.

I’ll get to the rest of Team RWBY later.

I’ve been worried about this since Chapter 10, and I’ve written about it in my previous two reviews; that the direction of that particular episode set up an endgame which was not going to be terribly momentous or fulfilling of the season’s promise.

Not that it was bad. It was decent. It focused a lot on Ren and Nora, which I appreciate. Their relationship is perhaps the purest part of the show, and all the moments that they had together and individually in this finale were amazing. Bringing their relationship full circle during the battle was so sweet, and the little moments of closeness in the aftermath made me cry.

But that just isn’t enough for what the occasion demands. And beyond that, what else is there?

After Chapter 11, I personally was very excited. I thought there was no possible way that this finale would be fumbled. I thought that even though the final few episodes had been disjointed, Chapter 11 was setting things up for a finish which would be massively important, if not action-packed. I thought that a direct antagonist would emerge and there would be a bigger moment of tension to end on.

Ultimately, there just isn’t enough for the swelling denouement to feel earned. After arriving in Mistral, Ruby sets about writing a letter to Yang (who surely won’t actually receive it). Her words are very beautiful, especially as it’s overlaid with music and a reasonably stirring montage. She writes about the lessons she's learned; she apologises for leaving the way she did. And she talks about the importance of persevering in spite of everything they’ve all been through, so that they may one day see their hope realised.

Again, very nice, and it’s felt throughout this season like perseverance has been the thematic lynchpin. It’s held the overarching narrative and all the disparate storylines together by being something recognisable and universal on which to lean But there’s just something a little hollow in what Ruby says here. It feels like someone’s built ninety percent of a house and then downed tools, saying, “Job well done,” despite the fact that there are still holes in the walls and roof.

Okay. I didn’t lead with this, because that would have been too easy. But I can’t speak about the unfulfilled promise of this finale without mentioning how Blake, Weiss, and Yang were utilised in this episode. 

Or should I say not utilised?

If there was something everyone would have expected at the beginning of this season, it would have been the eventual reunion of Team RWBY. And yet, Volume 4 is done, and said reunion remains eventual. It’s there, in the wings. Yang and Weiss and Blake are all on the road, so to speak. We can see it taking shape. It just … hasn’t happened.

How? How?

Even with the disjointed endgame, a reunion would have been enough to give positive marks to this episode. And not just for the obvious reasons – that they just should be all together, that it would be bizarre for them to be apart all this time and then stay that way at the end, etc. I even wrote how bizarre it would be for Yang to pick seeing her mother over joining Ruby, overlooking the very possibility that the latter would not even happen in this finale.

A reunion in the finale of Volume 4 symbolises the ultimate of that perseverance theme. These are characters that split up and went their separate ways to recover. They’ve done that, and it only makes sense for them to find the way back to each other, even though they aren’t actively seeking that objective.

To fail the encapsulation of their stories, to fail in bringing them full circle, only emphasises the holes in this finale; even though Weiss, Blake, and Yang have completed their respective solo arcs of the season, the story of Volume 4 is rendered incomplete by the failure to draw all the arcs together. Especially after Chapter 11 implied that it would succeed in bringing them all together.

I am concerned that this will turn people away from the show. Those people who said that Volume 4 was the “last straw”. I worry that the show has failed in the eyes of those people. Because, ultimately, for all the good work it has done in its incrementalism and storytelling, the lack of a full stop – which something as momentous as a reunion would have been – has left Volume 4 significantly empty of impact.

It disappoints me, firstly that the finale would play out the way it has, and secondly that, because of it, many people in RWBY’s audience now won’t want to make it to Volume 5, even though I can see the green shoots that lie ahead. Because there will be a reunion – it just wasn’t this time around. There will be a more direct narrative and a more direct conflict, accessible to casual fans, rather than a collection of personal stories of recovery.

And it thirdly disappoints me because Volume 4 has been good. This experiment has worked. They went somewhere bold with RWBY this season, and it played well. The problem is that the promise of what the season could have been was overtaken the vision of what the season was actually supposed to be. And until the wanderings of these last few episodes, those two things weren’t very different at all.

So where does Volume 4 stand for me? Regardless of my concerns about the show’s audience going forward, how does Volume 4 stack up as a piece of audiovisual storytelling?

If I’m being honest, a reunion may not have been enough for me to call this my favourite season anyway. I still think that Volume 3 was the most complete and the most brilliant season of RWBY we have seen so far, and I would have held on to that view even if the girls had gotten back together as expected. 

But Volume 4 has done well with a format the show had at that point been unused to. It’s given us great character moments, and exciting drama. It’s made me cry and laugh, and that’s no joke.

So, good on the whole, but in the light of the finale and all that it unfortunately exposes, I really don’t know where this season stands. It’s still better than Volume 1, more consistent. It’s definitely better than Volume 2, the incoherent mess that was. But now it’s like it sits on its own somewhere, away from the other three.

Perhaps it will remain that way after Volume 5, if that season returns us to expected programming. 

Perhaps Volume 4 will remain this anomaly, an odd experiment that reminds us of the time when our principal four characters weren’t together. 

Perhaps it remains an outlier that people won’t really know how to be fair with, despite so many great moments.

How was Volume 4 for you? Did you love it? Hate it? Does Volume 4 make you want to be done with this show, as I genuinely fear?

I hope that people stick with this show. I hope that we can accept the show for its ambition, rather than trashing it all the time. I hope we can recognise that nothing is perfect; that we don’t have to overlook all the times the show’s fumbled its promise, but we can still see that which is fulfilled. I hope that we’ll all still be here at the end of 2017, getting ready for these characters to tell another story.

[recentanimenews]

They're back! The Significance Of Getting An Anime Reboot Green Lit

It seems like everything is getting a reboot these days. And while reboots seem common in Hollywood, in the anime world, they aren't as routine. In fact, it's a pleasant surprise when an anime gets a reboot or some sort of continuation because once a series ends, and the longer time goes on, the less likely we can expect the series to be completed. With how many anime series are cut short, reboots are more significant than just bringing back some of our favorite series.

Why Are Anime Reboots Significant?

  A handful of anime series throughout the years have been considered incomplete. One of those reasons is because the original source material wasn't done. Often, the anime, such as in the case of Hellsing, would catch up to where the manga was. With the series being further ahead and with no direction to go, the series would pause and as time goes by, this brief pause became an indefinite stop.

Another reason anime series were considered incomplete was because of localization purposes. Many shows that were localized back in the '80s, '90s, and early 2000s were changed from their original source material because of broadcast standards and censorship. This is obvious with shows like Sailor Moon where characters and important storylines were changed significantly. When Sailor Moon was first localized, some of the character names were changed to more English sounding names for English speaking audiences. Usagi, our sailor scout who fights for love and justice, became Serena and Mamoru was now Darien, just to name a few. In changing the character's names to appeal to American audiences, the original Japanese meaning behind their names was also altered, along with any nicknames. For Usagi, whose name in Japanese roughly translates to rabbit, any Japanese references to her character or hairstyle had to be changed for context. So no "Usako" or "dumpling head" made it to the original version.

  Since the target audience was children, not only were character's names changed, but their gender was swapped and references to LGBT representation were removed. Zoisite and Fish Eye, who were originally written as male characters, were changed to women and the romantic relationship between Sailor Uranus and Neptune was scrapped, and instead, they were broadcast as cousins to explain their close relationship. "Cousins ..." Adult themes like violence and alcohol were also changed to make the show safe for young eyes. Much of the injuries characters sustained from battle action sequences were vague in their descriptions to sound less violent, blood wasn't red, and there's that classic episode where Serena drinks "juice," yes "juice" and gets "sick" instead of getting drunk from drinking too much alcohol.

  Anime reboots aren't just about bringing back shows that audiences like, it's also about bringing backstories to be told the way they were meant to be told. Anime reboots, like Sailor Moon Crystal, tend to re-incorporate details of the original story, such as character names, identities, and cultural references like removing filler and making note of certain character details early on in the series that hold significance and provide the chance for the stories to be completed in their truest form. 

In other cases, anime reboots are a good way to introduce a new generation to classic titles. Not only does the 2020 reboot Digimon Adventure: reboot introduce the series to a new generation over 20 years after its premiere, but it also reintroduces the characters to familiar audiences who hadn't experienced the series in its originality. For me, I was only familiar with the localized version of Digimon. I never knew anything different. However, the 2020 reboot is a fresh introduction to the series for me, and anyone else who only ever experienced the localized version, to now experience a Japanese version.

  Anime reboots are significant because as anime fans, we've become accustomed to not expect a follow-up season if a show ends. We obviously want to experience the full story, but due to a number of reasons behind the scenes, shows are often cut short and production may either move on or it will take years before an opportunity to continue a show will present itself. Speaking of production and opportunity, approving reboots isn't so easy.

How Are Anime Reboots Green Lit?

  It's tough to say with certainty how some anime titles are chosen to be rebooted over others, but there are a few theories we can dive into, like the value behind an anime.

Back in the day, some of the most beloved shows we watched like Beyblade and Zoids, were based on and created to promote merchandise and model kits. Because the show was never the focus, once it ended, it was normal for it to never be revisited. If you think about it, anime is a huge marketing tool, especially seeing as most anime are adaptations. An anime series can help boost manga sales, while also creating profitable opportunities through merchandise and DVDs.

However, the animation is very expensive, and money is one of the reasons a series may end prematurely. If production committees and their investors — who can include ad agencies, record labels, and publishers, to name a few — don't find value in bringing a show back, they won't. On the other hand, if production committees feel a certain show will create financial opportunities, then yeah it'd make sense for them to invest, such as in the case of Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood. According to producer Kouji Taguchi of Square Enix, Fullmetal Alchemist's manga sales grew from 150,000 copies to 1.5 million copies due to the original anime broadcast. Although the 2003 series drifted from its original source material, the series itself became increasingly popular and profitable. Rebooting the series to more closely follow the manga and to air while the manga is concluding was bound to be a guaranteed success.

  Another possibility as to why an anime may or may not get a reboot is because of the creator and studio. Perhaps because the show's original studio is already preoccupied working on current and high profile series, giving them little reason to reboot an already finished title. As for the creator, one of the main reasons fans would want an anime reboot is so the source material can be told authentically, but if the creator weren't involved because they are busy or prioritizing working on other projects, then it leaves the possibility for the reboot to take some liberties. In some cases, so much time has passed since the original series aired, the creator may have closed that chapter in their lives and moved on. 

Finally, a reboot has the chance of being approved because maybe the intention was to continue the series all along! After experiencing popularity with Yu Yu Hakusho, it's only natural for the industry to want to repeat the same success with Yoshihiro Togashi's other series Hunter x Hunter. Unfortunately, this is another one of those cases where the 1999 anime series ran out of source material to adapt. It wasn't until 2011 when Hunter x Hunter was more complete, but a continuation of the series would feel disconnected. Since the original anime contained filler, there would be storylines in the new series that wouldn't add up. Instead of creating a disjointed continuation and confusing audiences, a reboot would, and did, make more sense.

  As I mentioned before, it's hard to pinpoint the exact reason why certain shows come back and others don't, and reboots seem to be considered on a case by case basis. At the end of the day, regardless of when we get an anime reboot, it's special to see both a creator and anime fans get the complete adaptation they wanted to experience all along.

What are your thoughts on anime reboots? What anime would you like rebooted next? Let us know in the comments!

By: news+feed@crunchyroll.com