#ty lee redesign

[slime-based]

i̘͙͝t̡͖̆'̳͒̕s̢͑̓ T̳̑͋y L̝̞̀ee͎!̤

(wip, more sketch under the cut)

[rei-is-hiding]

@maileeweek day 3: modern AU

[queenofthursday6599-blog]

The Ty Sisters Situation

I find Ty Lee's sibling situation kind of frustrating. For multiple reasons.

I find her sister's designs, both in appearance and personality, incredibly boring and basic. And they're just outright lazy.

I mean their whole thing is that they're seven identical sisters who all want to be as different and distinct as possible...

But they all wear their hair the same, and wear the same outfit just in different colors, and primarily differentiate themselves by a single specific Thing that they do that the other sisters don't.

And they're all pissed at Ty Lee because she decided to claim acrobatics as her Thing, when they all did and enjoyed acrobatics.

Except all of them doing acrobatics doesn't even make any sense because they're a bunch of fire nation noble ladies.

It made since that Ty Lee was an acrobat in spite of her being a Fire Nation noble, because she ran away and joined the circus.

Like I could accept it if all of the Ty sisters knew Chi blocking, and Ty Lee claimed it as her Thing, and the other girls were upset about that.

That's something Ty Lee 100% learned in the Fire Nation. The country is at war, lots of people both men and women get trained in combat. So it'd make sense for the other Ty sisters to also be taught it.

Why would Ty Lee claim acrobatics as her Thing if it's something all of her sisters also know how to do? Why would all seven of a set of daughters of a noble house know acrobatics in the first place?

Her whole thing is craving individuality due to being born part of a matching set.

Expanding on that. Why do all of her sisters have her exact same hair style?

Like down to their bangs curling identically and having a part on the same side.

Haircut/hairstyle and outfit is like the easiest way to differentiate characters (and real people) who're supposed to be identical siblings.

How is it all seven girls have the exact same hair style, and one of them has been completely separated from the rest for at least a year by the time they see each other again?

Not a single one of them have hair that's longer or shorter than Ty Lee's, or bangs that are shorter than Ty Lee's, or with no bangs at all. Or hair in a low braid instead of a high braid, or with bangs parting on the right instead of the left, or hair in two braids, or in a bun, or any other potential hair style.

Nothing. All completely identical hair styles, even if it's totally illogical, and antithetical to Ty Lee's character drive.

I wouldn't even care as much if they had the same hairstyle, if it wasn't the same hairstyle as Ty Lee's.

Then they're all wearing what are recolors of the same outfit, and two different sets of sisters are wearing basically the same color:

Ty Lin and Ty Lao are both in shades of light blue, Ty Lat and Ty Woo are both in shades of light orange/yellow.

Not a single one wears make up, not a single one has dyed their hair (natural dyes do exist, henna dye for example), not a single one has any kind of piercing, there's no unique accessory of any kind for any of them.

This is dumb writing and it's just bad character design, and sometimes the fact that these comics are canon fill me with rage.

Someone should redesign the Ty Sisters, and actually make them individuals instead of Ty Lee clones.

Also Ty Woo should totally have a tattoo, even if it's just something small like an anklet style tattoo.

[keeloves]

Winx Club Head Canon for Specialists Workout Editon

Continuing on my head canon on what each Winx Club Character would do for workouts. Again, these head canons will be based on the personalities of the characters redesigns my boyfriend @thewickedmerman did. I will also be posting the specialists in the order of which I posted the Winx Club as in each guy will put in the same place as the Winx girl they are dating. Also Brandon & Helia are fairies, Timmy and Nabu are Sorcerers and Sky and Riven are the only two people without powers. Without Further a do here are my workouts I head canon for each Specialist. 

Helia: Fairy of Art (Also using this Collage because I love his beautiful hair) For his workouts I can see him being in acrobatics similar to Dick Grayson and Ty Lee. He would do some strength training but not to the extent Brandon, Sky and Riven do it. I can see him doing Yoga, Ballet and Gymnastics and swimming. 

Timmy Sorcerer of Technology: 

I honestly think Timmy would be the least athletic of the Specialists, and I can also see him being more like the surveillance like Tecna. However, I do think he would have some form of physical training, so to me his workouts would include boxing, basic self-defense, fencing and some strength training. 

Riven: Best Fighter, 

Due to Riven not having any powers and facing abuse from both his parents I can see him being the most athletic. His workout routine is strength and conditioning training. He is the kind of guy to join a CrossFit gym. His workouts would be like Oliver Queen aka Green Arrow and Bruce Wayne aka Batman. To Give you an idea here is a seven-minute clip of Oliver’s workout from season 1 of Arrow. (The salmon ladder is where you do a pull up and move the bar up a rung while you do it. Hot Damn it is sexy)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=43FMVVTx8-I

Brandon Fairy of Geodes. 

In this version Brandon was a chubby boy growing up and he is still the squire/Sky’s body gaurd. As the fairy of Geodes, meaning rocks he would basically have a lot of makeshift workout gear handy. His workouts include weightlifting, rock climbing, and he would jump rope, climb rope and pull Bolders similar to how some would pull cars or tires for a workout. A six minute workout to show what I picture Brandon’s workouts looking like. I also think he and Riven would have similar workouts like Mulan

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zTdTO9vghl4

Nabu Sorcerer of Healing and Illusions (He is also an actual Merman in this version, and I made this Collage because he has beautiful hair)

His workouts consist of swimming, weight lifting and water aerobics. He is also dating the most athletic of the Winx girls, so he would feel pressure to keep up with her.  

Last but not least Sky: Future King of Eraklyon.

He technically has no reason to be in shape however he trained a lot due to him not having any powers he refuses to sit on the sidelines. He prefers to be in the midst of action and as future leader he wants to lead by example. His workouts consist of weightlifting, rock climbing and he like Riven hits the gym hard. Sky would also join a cross fit gym. He also knows martial arts and would be great at fencing. He is the second best fighter after Riven.

All in all, this is my personal opinion and once again these pictures come from my boyfriend’s @thewickedmerman. These are just my head canons. If you disagree, please state why respectfully and let me know what you think of how their workouts would be. I will now rank them from least athletic to most athletic. (These rankings maybe subject to change)

Timmy

Helia

Nabu

Brandon

Sky 

Riven

[cobraonthecob]

as promised. threw together a quick kiyi redesign

some explanations:

i reject the idea that she is ursa's new husband's daughter and go with the headcanon that she's ozai's, that's why she has golden eyes instead of brown. no i do not care what the comics say, they're trash and their opinion does not matter. she's his daughter by blood to me because i think it's far more interesting

grew out her hair because she might be expected to do so because why is she walking around the fire nation with that bowlcut

now for the actual school uniform

mai may be a hater of most things in society but i think she'd like the bijia, so i made it the school uniform instead of the ugly impossible shirt that i would not be surprised if you told me it was ai generated

i do think that as the world continues on, the shirts do change, so i chose to go with a short sleeved changshan. a little bit of old and new (the bijia is from the tang dynasty while the changshan has origins in the qing dynasty)

also the colors for the girl's academy was kind of why i gave her a bijia, because the azula squad went to that school, so ty lee has the pinks, mai has the bijia i gave the school uniform, and azula has her own thing

also what the fuck is with the random bands around her wrists on the og cover. are those supposed to be arm wraps and the artist forgot to continue it? so i just didn't draw them because why would kiyi need arm wraps and fire nation characters don't generally wear arm wraps unless (i am dragged offstage before i invoke [redacted redacted redacted])

[sleepysheepytea]

Ty for the tag eeee

❤️ Newest Obsessions: basically just my ocs lol, though I’m considering rewatching Ninjago or Naruto or maybe even picking up a new anime or show. ALSO there have been a flood of amazing lee bakugou fics recently for some reason and i am absolutely eating them up so idk that might be something that I’m gonna get back into idk.

🎥 Last 3 movies I watched and what I thought of them:

- Mrs. Doubtfire (absolutely loved it, adorable movie)

- Wreck-It-Ralph (a rewatch, I’ve seen it a gazillion times and I still love it sm)

- How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days (pretty dang cute for sure)

🎶 3 songs I discovered recently and love:

- III by Houshou Marine and Kobo Kanaeru (literally been on replay for almost a solid month i cannot express how much i love this song omg)

- Candyman by Christina Aguilera

- Derealization by Bambi Baker

📺 Currently Watching: a honk ton of YouTube, my little sisters and I are rewatching some old Disney channel shows like Jessie and Liv and Maddie

📖 Currrently reading: Moby Dick by Herman Melville (a reread lol i just like it)

😍 Currently looking forward to: my beach trip next week and my webtoon teehee

✅ Recently finished: some redesigns/design updates for the characters I’m using for my webtoon

💌 something to share: sorry I’ve been kinda quiet recently!! I’m working long hours recently so I’ve been pretty busy. But i am planning on a few new drawings and ofc i have a comic series coming soon that i am extremely excited about aaaagagagaa

Ummmm anyone who wants to can join in teehee okie bye

Catching up (Tag Game)

Ive been a bit on and off and felt like making a tag game so here's one to catch up on each other's interests and hyperfixations! Answer the 10 questions and tag 5 people. No pressure ofc!

@fluffandgiggles @ppystkposts @crazy-as-a-jaybird @blobbirobbi @kusuguricafe + everyone who wants to join! **edit + everyone who received a notification from when I tried to tag 10+ people and the tumblr post broke 😂

❤️ Newest obsessions: Dungeon Meshi, probably has been clear.. and capybaras. Taylor Swift not very new but refueled obsession since seeing the eras tour concert!

🎥 Last 3 movies I watched and what I thought of them:

Inside Out 2 - CRYING SOBBING LOVING IT SO MUCH

The Parent Trap 1998 rewatch - Still golden fav, one of my guiltiest pleasures

Sous la Seine / Under Paris - Love a good shark movie but thought this was mediocre smh. the ending was cool tho hahaha

🎶 3 songs I discovered recently and love:

Peggy - FEMININE RAGE

Spencer Sutherland - Alive

HOYO-MIX - Interstellar Journey

💘 Newest fav ships: Falin x Marcille , Chilchuck x Senshi, and Laios x Kabru all from Dungeon Meshi!!!

📺 Currently watching: The Apothecary Diaries, Wind Breaker, House of the Dragon, Pokemon Johto Journeys (rewatch), FMA Brotherhood (rewatch), Mushoku Tensei S2 (might drop it)

📖 Currently reading: Dungeon Meshi manga, Define the Relationship manhwa, XXX Buddy manhwa (both manhwas on hold but I'll continue reading soon!)

🎮 Currently Playing: Fortnite, Minecraft, Genshin Impact (haven't played since Cyno story quest tho), Zelda Tears of the Kingdom (on hold), Yakuza 0, Zelda Skyward Sword, Hogwarts Legacy, note: I kinda dropped all mobile games but I'm really considering starting love & deepspace again hmmm.

😍 Currently looking forward to: New Fortnite update, Genshin Natlan update (even though I have to catch up on the previous ones lol), the new Deadpool movie, Blue Lock movie (seeing it this week!)

✅ Recently finished: Kaiju No. 8 (anime), other than that no books, manga, games or shows. All still in progress lol.

💌 Something to Share: I'm glad to see people are enjoying the x reader drabbles and I'm motivated to work on them faster when I can! Thanks everyone for your patience.. T-T

[mightyoctopus]

Girl Squad 🧕🏻✨

[ID: Azula, Ty Lee and Mai from the Avatar the Last Airbender episode “The Chase” edited to wear headscarves.

Ty Lee is standing to the left, she wears a large orange headscarf that covers her hair and neck, and crosses diagonally across her chest all the way down to her hip. She also wears a pink, flowy shirt covering her stomach, an under-scarf, and a long sleeved undershirt. Mai stands to the right, wearing a maroon headscarf that covers her hair and neck, but shows her fringe. 

Azula is crouched on the ground between them, lifting a strand of Appa’s fur. She wears a red-ish brown turban style headscarf that’s tied into a knot at the side, with two trailing strands. /end ID]

[beignetbenny]

I like to think about the Jasmine Dragon during pride month.

The first flag he hangs up is the classic rainbow in the window because Zuko came out to him like a few days before and he wants to show his support. The fact that it’s already pride month and a lot of stores have various rainbow decals isn’t lost on him but he mostly did it for the look on Zuko’s face when he realizes it’s there. Zuko doesn’t cry. In fact, he makes an even faster dash to behind the counter to get to work. Iroh doesn’t tell him he sees how often Zuko glances at it and smiles though

He puts an order in for the lesbian flag when he sees Ty Lee and Mai coming in with matching chinese ladder style friendship bracelets that were all orange and pink. Iroh noticed it on Mai first because it was the only drop of color she wore that day. Mai says it’s because Ty Lee made it too tight to take off even though a few moments later Mai switches hers so Ty Lee and her have it on the same side. When it comes in the next day he puts it along the display window. 

He learns about the bisexual flag when Sokka comes in and steals Zuko away on his break while he’s breaking in a pair of sneakers with pink purple and blue stripes along the side. It’s Suki who tells him what it is though. It’s also Suki who insists he gets this gay pride flag instead. The rainbow is classic so it takes the window spot right next to the lesbian one with the bisexual flag beside that. The pride flag redesign gets the coveted door space.

Smellerbee gets in on the fun and tells him about the trans flag. Toph doesn’t know what the ace and nonbinary flags look like but she sure knows they exist. Aang flashes the pan flag headband he bought for the parade. So on and so forth until the windows are almost blacked out by all of the rainbow flags. He moves them to hang along the walls instead but keeps the main one in the door. 

He gives his employees the day off for pride (It takes more convincing for Zuko to enjoy the parade but Sokka manages to help with that) Since the Jasmine Dragon is right along the parade route he premakes a bunch of iced teas of various sweetness and flavor, puts them in a cooler out front, and sits himself there with a folding chair and an over abundance of those funky little flags of various sexualities to give away for free with the drinks while wearing one of those “I’m Proud of You” Shirts.

The flags stay up when the month ends

[discombobble]

Took a while, but I finally finished some art featuring the boys from Avatar to go with my art from two years ago of Katara, Toph, and Suki! Just in time for Tampa Bay Comic Con (July 30th - August 1st), which I will be tabling at. First con since covid, so I’m really excited! 

For the redesign, I was really inspired by eastern street fashion and had a lot of fun researching for the initial sketch, which is one of my favorite parts of the whole process. 

I want to also get one done of Azula, Mai, and Ty Lee, but that one will have to wait while I finish up some other projects. 

[emryn]

Some dynamic pose practice with Ty Lee, who else? 🤸‍♀️ also did a fun redesign with her outfit, I thought she’d really rock some gold ✨

(Pssst, my commissions are open — message me for info!)

[mingi-bubu]

i do be finding people who disagree that’s it’s any more fucked up that Kda. Why do you think it’ll destroy the boundary between idols and fans because surely fans will know the AI is fake and not a real person

Ahh sorry I had taken a nap after my class this morning bc like I was up late last night bc like irl life said the years start coming and they don't stop coming you know? Also, sorry for no read more, I'm on mobile.

Anyways, so as to answer your question, I think that why this will destroy the boundaries between fan and idol even more is bc of how fans act when an idol does something that is too "human" even tho we all go into kpop knowing that our favorite idols are projecting personas to the fans/audience. Like super giggly Mark and TY may really be a part of their true, behind-the-scenes personality but regardless it's definitely played up for in front of the camera. TBZ Jacob purposefully makes his voice lighter and more comforting and doesn't show many emotions besides happy or confused (which is something he's talked about actually in his generation z videos). These are just some examples of idols' personas that, should they not be adjusted instantly to please fans, will cause undeserved backlash towards the idol and the rest of the group. And this is again, just when it's a regular human.

When we bring in technology like AIs, these things are coded to be the perfect image of what the audience/fans will want to see. As Lee Soo Man said himself, they're designed for the user to do anything with that they can't with a human idol. That's dangerous not only for the user, who can indulge in fantasies on a whole different level than say a reader insert scenario, but also for the idol who now has to live up to computer generated perfection, an impossible task. Fans get upset with female idols if they don't look happy all the time, unless it's that idol's concept for her persona, and it's even worse if they think that she was frowning at someone or something. These girls in aespa are going to be young adults (late teens, early 20s) and/or teenagers. They are going to make mistakes. They are going to chafe at things out of their control. They are going to be human. It doesn't matter how well SM has trained them to act in front of the camera; at the end of the day, these are not full grown adults who have a better control over their emotions. They're kids who are being thrown into a concept that they know nothing about and hasn't been done before. And then having to act in front of a camera with an AI who is totally and completely based off of you is going to cause issues.

Another issue I have with the AI concept is how they are going to look. We have seen Karina and KarinAI already. We can see how.. animated these AIs are going to be. And for an animation, it works you know? I'll give SM credit where it's due. As an animation, the KarinAI looks very much like the vocaloid-hatsune miku design. And if it were simply a digital group with no irl people in it, I would probably be more in favor of the concept. But the proportions on the body? Those are made for an animation, not to reflect real life. Tall, willowy, big eyes on a small face, skinny that only animations can have. Yes, the fans and the aespa girls know that it is fake, but that image is going to hurt so much more in the long run. Women already have to deal with so much on a daily, even hourly, basis when it comes to beauty standards. It is still going to affect them in some way, even when they know it's fake. Barbie, before her redesign to make her more realistic, had effects on the culture and beauty standards of women. She's a plastic toy for kids. The AIs are going to do the same.

There are going to be consequences for SM and Lee Soo Man's hubris and it is unfortunately going to deeply hurt the idols and any trainees left under them.

Tl;dr: fans are going to be fans regardless of if it's human or not. Having access 24/7 to a computer generated model that is coded to act whatever way pleases you the most is not healthy for the fan and it is not healthy for the idol. Idols get criticized over the smallest of things, like blinking or breathing at the wrong moment while on camera. AIs are only going to exacerbate that issue. There are going to be long lasting effects for these girls emotionally, mentally, and physically and SM does not and will not care. SM and Lee Soo Man will pay for their hubris but it will come at the cost of their idols and any trainees that are still left.

[f4liveblogarchives]

Fantastic Four Vol. 1 Annual 1981

Tues May 05 2020 [12:15 AM] Bocaj: ANNUALLL [12:16 AM] Wack'd: Bryne's run may be in full swing but he has not been yet anointed King of All Fantastic Four and also annuals are done way in advance I think [12:16 AM] Wack'd: So this one has a different creative team [12:16 AM] Wack'd: Who or what is a "Steve Ditko"? [12:16 AM] Bocaj: I think a spider man villain [12:16 AM] maxwellelvis: I dunno, some independent guy. I think he's the guy who rebooted Blue Beetle? [12:17 AM] Bocaj: Englehart on Avengers had the annuals tie into the ongoing plot a couple times. That must have been a pain to manage [12:18 AM] Wack'd: I mean Lee and Kirby also did that a lot--Reed and Sue tying the knot, Franklin being born [12:18 AM] Wack'd: But they had the advantage of also writing the regular book [12:19 AM] Wack'd: Anyway the book opens with a guy named Ral Dorn being chased by a buncha Dragon Riders, who are like cops from his world, and he's blasphemed by stealing one of their weapons [12:20 AM] Bocaj: DO-NOT-BLASPHEME DO-NOOOT-BLASPHEME [12:21 AM] Wack'd: "Wow, I can't wait to see how superstar artist Steve Ditko draws all my favorite characters," I thought, like an idiot

[12:22 AM] maxwellelvis: I see his ability to draw the Thing has not improved over the last 20 years. [12:22 AM] Wack'd: Anyway Ben recaps the plot of #35, Dragon Man's first appearance. His frat bros are like "what does any of this have to do with us" [12:22 AM] maxwellelvis: "I'm buyin' -- so shaddup" [12:22 AM] maxwellelvis: Wow, perfect timing, me [12:23 AM] Wack'd: Ral Dorn stumbles into the bar and Ben's frat buddies are like "you should deal with whatever this is" [12:23 AM] Wack'd: So he does that [12:24 AM] Wack'd: Ben calls an ambulance and then several days pass so I guess none of that was relevant [12:25 AM] Wack'd: "Why don't people talk to each other anymore? These days everyone's always got their head stuck in a newspaper. Why in my day, you made eye contact when you sat down to a meal with someone!"

[12:25 AM] Wack'd: (Also did people still say "making time" in 1981) [12:26 AM] Bocaj: Wow. War never changes [12:26 AM] maxwellelvis: This is a fun moment. [12:26 AM] Bocaj: I should print this out and smack people with it who say things about phones [12:27 AM] Wack'd: Anyway Reed's pocket Baxter intruder alarm goes off so naturally they leave the diner as obtrusively as possible [12:27 AM] Bocaj: Its the Fantastic Four way [12:27 AM] maxwellelvis: How many $$$ in property damage is that? [12:27 AM] Wack'd: Not much unless Johnny set something on fire on his way out [12:27 AM] Bocaj: People make jokes about the X-Force not knowing what doors are but they are posers [12:28 AM] Wack'd: Anyway it turns out it's Ral Dorn [12:28 AM] Wack'd: He doesn't want a fight but you know how it is [12:29 AM] maxwellelvis: They missed a perfectly good brunch because of him [12:29 AM] Wack'd: He uses his forbidden weapon to get rid of Johnny's flame but then he's like "oh, whoops, Johnny can't fly without that, I fucked up" [12:30 AM] Wack'd: Dunno what this thing is but it looks neat

[12:30 AM] Bocaj: Ral Dorn: "I am become error" [12:30 AM] Bocaj: Like this cool design [12:31 AM] Wack'd: Reed and Sue arrive just as the Dragon Riders do and decide to abduct Ral Dorn first as a bargaining chip to find out what happened to Johnny [12:31 AM] Wack'd: Sure is a convenient thought process for the narrative [12:32 AM] Wack'd: Ral Dorn manages to slip away from the fight and find Ben, who he explains the situation to [12:33 AM] Wack'd: "You need to save me!" "But why do you need saving?" "I did a genocide"

[12:33 AM] Wack'd: Not a very compelling argument [12:35 AM] Wack'd: Anyway Ral Dorn comes from a libertarian utopia. His dad was the only other human Dragon Rider but he died in battle so Ral got free admission to the very expensive dragon riding school [12:35 AM] Bocaj: damn it is about who you know [12:37 AM] Wack'd: So Ral and Lalique graduate but their instructor has gazed into the future and seen that no dragon wants to symbiotically join with them so he technically gets his degree but will never ride a dragon [12:37 AM] Wack'd: Turns out this is because all the dragons have been killed, and because of what happened thirty seconds ago, everyone assumed Ral did this out of bitterness [12:38 AM] Bocaj: Huuh [12:39 AM] Wack'd: Anyway he and Lalique to escape through a time portal which you can only navigate with dragons! And one of Ral's old teachers is like "it's impossible but I'm going to try and stop you anyway" [12:39 AM] Wack'd: And Ral does a self-defense so now he's wanted for genocide and also assault [12:40 AM] Bocaj: My takeaway from this is that future vision and time portals make things worse [12:41 AM] Wack'd: Anyway Ral was like "I heard in your time someone, like, artificially made a dragon? And it had all the qualities of a real dragon. So I want it" [12:41 AM] Bocaj: oh no [12:41 AM] Bocaj: But Dragon Man is neither a dragon nor a man [12:41 AM] Wack'd: And also Lalique and him parted ways because Lalique started trying to pressure him into admitting guilt [12:41 AM] maxwellelvis: "Well, okay, but I don't think Dragon Man can actually-" "I'll take it!" [12:42 AM] maxwellelvis: But he IS guilty! [12:42 AM] Wack'd: I mean he did do a self-defense [12:42 AM] Wack'd: Yeah [12:43 AM] Wack'd: But nah Lalique was trying to get him to admit he killed the dragons [12:44 AM] Wack'd: So what has Dragon Man been doing since 1964 or whatever? [12:44 AM] Wack'd: Terrorizing farms, apparently [12:44 AM] Wack'd: Burning down grain silos [12:44 AM] maxwellelvis: He fought the Avengers once or twice [12:45 AM] maxwellelvis: Also [12:45 AM] maxwellelvis: BURNINATING THE COUNTRYSIDE! BURNINATING THE PEASANTS! BURNINATING ALL THE PEOPLES! AND THEIR THATCHED-ROOF COTTAGES! THATCHED-ROOF COTTAGES! [12:45 AM] Bocaj: He DID fight the Avengers once or twice [12:45 AM] Wack'd: This is a little creepy, Dragon Man

[12:46 AM] Bocaj: Wait, he has to eat? [12:46 AM] Wack'd: I guess! [12:46 AM] Bocaj: but [12:46 AM] Bocaj: android [12:53 AM] Wack'd: The Fantastic Four go to find Dragon Man, with the Dragon Riders close behind. Fight fight fight [12:54 AM] Wack'd: Enjoy the worst drawing of Sue Storm in recorded history

[12:54 AM] maxwellelvis: Who felt the need to draw facial features on her invisibility? [12:54 AM] Wack'd: Ditko presumably [12:55 AM] maxwellelvis: And why did he give her Lenny face? [12:55 AM] maxwellelvis: ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°) [12:55 AM] Wack'd: Ral you dingus

[12:57 AM] Wack'd: Anyway Reed and the Dragon Riders decide to team up after Reed uses a polygraph machine to determine these beings are incapable of malicious deceit [12:57 AM] Wack'd: Sure, whatever [12:58 AM] Bocaj: Sure Reed [12:59 AM] Wack'd: Not sure what phrase I like more, "my father's private interspacial pocket continuum" or "foodsticks"

[01:01 AM] Wack'd: And so Ral and Dragon Man form symbiosis. Now that Ral has a dragon he is entitled by law to trial by combat. Sure [01:03 AM] Bocaj: this law system sure is arbitrary [01:05 AM] Wack'd: Anyway Ral wins and also proves that his old teacher did it [01:06 AM] Wack'd: The teacher gloats that his dragon was rejecting symbiosis so he drugged his dragon and killed the rest of them so no one else could have a dragon [01:07 AM] Wack'd: Anyway he had one more step in his plan [01:08 AM] Wack'd: All of the dragons he didn't kill he launched back in time to Earth to be murdered by the military when they go all Godzilla [01:08 AM] Bocaj: 😐 [01:08 AM] Bocaj: This is a bad plan [01:12 AM] Wack'd: Anyway, Dragon Man takes the Four and the Dragon Riders back to Earth in order to fix this mess, which they do fairly quickly. And Ral becomes a hero to all [01:13 AM] Wack'd: Anyway I just spent way too much time on a backdoor pilot

[01:14 AM] Wack'd: Yessiree. Time well spent

[01:14 AM] Bocaj: HAHAHAHAHAH [01:14 AM] maxwellelvis: Shame. His lizard-dragonfly girlfriend was kinda neat [01:14 AM] Bocaj: I know it was the trend for a while to introduce new characters in annuals and try to spin off new books I just didn't know it went that far back or that blatant [01:14 AM] Wack'd: She was [01:15 AM] Wack'd: Justice for Lalique [01:15 AM] Bocaj: Ral was only the latest in Marvel's attempts to make Dragon Lord a thing apparently [01:16 AM] maxwellelvis: Would it be too much to ask that if he has to remain human, that Ral Dorn at least be redesigned to look like Jason Momoa could play him? [01:16 AM] maxwellelvis: Did they want another slice of the fantasy pie after the success of Conan? [01:16 AM] Wack'd: hahahahah [01:16 AM] Wack'd: just fuckin realized ral's whole deal is basically just goddanged avatar [01:16 AM] Wack'd: the james cameron one [01:17 AM] Bocaj: Womp womp

[keeloves]

Hairstyles I see on white girl characters that would look great on Black Girls!

Pippi Long Stalking

Queen of Hearts

Medusa

Ty Lee from Avatar the Last Air Bender (Yes she is technically Asian)

Mandy from Billy and Mandy (Yes I there is a racebent version in fanart) I love it

Marge Simpson

Cindy Lou Who from Grinch

Didi Pickles

Stormy from Winx Club *Redesign done by my boyfriend *@thewickedmerman

Posion Ivy (I would have a field day coming up with hairstyles for her if she were black woman)

Toph from Avatar the Last Airbender. Black Toph was done by a man named David A. Here is Link to his Instagram so you can see his amazing work (@indaviduall) • Instagram photos and videos (He did all the ATLA\LOK as black people! I love that (Toph is also Asian)

Jenna Rink from "13 Going on 30" (Yes Christa B Allen as in young version of Jenna Rink is currently 30 years old feel old yet? Also, fun fact she played another younger version of a Jennifer Garner Character in Ghost of Girlfriend's Past!) I also thought it would be fun to show an example to show what a black version of Jenna Rink would look and what her hair style would look like as well!

[therandombanjo]

Songs From 2019 (one per artist)

Another mixed bag of stuff i either enjoyed a lot, thought was excellent or interesting (regardless of taste… sort of), emerging artists to maybe look out for, and generally music that for whatever reason connected with me in some way, including the odd earworm i just couldn’t shake. Some artists are left off just to vary a little more from some other popular lists. Hope you enjoy some of this too and find something new to be taken by. Please do buy their music if you can and hopefully from a local independent record store if possible to support their work. There’s a spotify playlist (below) for easier listening but I’ve also posted a few links to extra things on some of them if you want to check them out.  Spotify:

(As ever…. as i don’t tumblr or blog or anything (besides this list), this won’t be seen by many (if any?) people so if you like it or think it’s of any worth in any way, please do share this along)

In Alphabetical order:

A.A. Bondy - Killers 3 Abdallah Oumbadougou - Thingalene Alasdair Roberts - Common Clay Alex Rex - Latest Regret Andy Shauf - Try Again Angel Bat Dawid - We Are Starzz Angel Olsen - All Mirrors        bonus. her collab with Mark Ronson “True Blue” Anne Müller - Solo? Repeat! Antoinette Konan - Kokoloko Tani Arthur Russell - Words Of Love Asmâa Hamzaoui and Bnat Timbouktou - Sandia Baby Rose - All To Myself BCI - Grateful Bedouine - When You’re Gone Benny The Butcher - Crowns For Kings      ft. Black Thought Ben Walker - Afon Better Oblivion Community Center - Chesapeake Beverly Glenn-Copeland - A Little Talk     (from a reissue of her 2004 record Primal Prayer) Bibio - Curls The Big Moon - It’s Easy Then Big Thief - a. Not    b. Cattails    (from 2 excellent albums released in the same year: “U.F.O.F” and “Two Hands”) Bill Callahan - a. What Comes After Certainty    b. The Ballad Of The Hulk Bill Fay - Filled With Wonder Once Again Bill Orcutt - Odds Against Tomorrow billy woods - a. Spongebob w/ Kenny Segal     b. Western Education Is Forbidden    ft. Fielded        (From 2 excellent records this year: “Hiding Places” with Kenny Segal, and “Terror Management”) Black Country, New Road - Sunglasses Blu & Oh No - The Lost Angels Anthem    ft. Kezia Bon Iver - Hey, Ma Bonnie “Prince” Billy - Beast For Thee Bonny Light Horseman - Bonny Light Horseman      (”supergroup” of the great Anaïs Mitchell, Eric D Johnson & Josh Kaufman) Brent Cobb & Jade Bird - Feet Off The Ground Brighde Chaimbeul -  O Chiadain an Lo Brigyn - Oer Brittany Howard - Stay High    (the video for this, with Terry Crews, is a delight) Bruce Hornsby - Voyager One    ft. yMusic Burd Ellen - Sweet Lemany Caoimhín Ó Raghallaigh and Thomas Bartlett - Kestrel Caribou - You and I Caroline Polachek - Door Cate Le Bon - Daylight Matters Caterina Barbieri - Arrows Of Time Clairo - Bags Cochemea - Mitote comfort - Not Passing The Cool Greenhouse - Cardboard Man    (a pretty hilarious song about David Cameron) CRAC - You Can’t Turn Your Back On Me    (Unreleased old track from ‘76) Cross Record - PYSOL My Castle CZ Wang and Neo Image - Just Off Wave Damon Locks / Black Monument Ensemble - a. Rebuild a Nation   b. Power Daniel Norgren - The Flow Danny Brown - Dirty Laundry Daphni - Sizzling    ft. Paradise Daughter Of Swords - Fellows      (Mountain Man member Alexandra Sauser-Monnig’s 1st solo record) Dave - Psycho David Kilgour - Smoke You Right Out Of Here David Thomas Broughton - Ambiguity     (from the 15th anniversary reissue of his remarkable debut album, The Complete Guide To Insufficiency) Denzel Curry - RICKY Destroyer - Crimson Tide Dry Cleaning - Dog Proposal Dubi Dolczek - Do The Gloop Durand Jones & The Indications - Long Way Home Ela Orleans - The Season      (From 2012 but on a career retrospective, Movies For Ears, put out this year) Elkhorn - Song Of The Son Emile Mosseri - a. The Last Black Man In San Francisco b. San Francisco (Be Sure To Wear Flowers In Your Hair)    ft. Mike Marshall         (both from the wonderful score for the wonderful film The Last Black Man In San Francisco, the latter a cover of an old song sung here by the guy who sang “I Got 5 On It”!!) Erland Cooper - Haar Ernest Hood - Saturday Morning Doze        (from a re-issue of his “self-released proto-ambient masterpiece” in ‘75) Fat White Family - Feet Faye Webster - Room Temperature Fennesz - In My Room Fernando Falcão -  As 7 Filhas Da Rainha Sumaia     (reissue from ‘87) FKA twigs - cellophane Florist - Shadow Bloom Flowdan - Welcome To London Fontaines D.C. - Roy’s Tune Four Tet / KH - Only Human French Vanilla - All The Time Gang Starr - Family and Loyalty   ft. J. Cole Georgia - About Work The Dancefloor Girl Band - Shoulderblades The Good Ones - Will You Be My Protector?   (of Rwanda) Grand Veymont - Les Rapides Bleus       (of France) Gyedu-Blay Ambolley - Sunkwa     (of Ghana) Hailaker - Not Much HAIM - Summer GIrl Hana Vu - Actress Hand Habits - placeholder Hannah Cohen - Get In Line The Harlem Gospel Travellers - If You Can’t Make It Through A Storm Hayden Thorpe - Diviner     (Former Wild Beasts frontman’s debut solo record) Helado Negro - Running The Highwomen - Redesigning Women Hiss Golden Messenger - I Need A Teacher Holly Herndon - Frontier Homeboy Sandman - Far Out Hoops - They Say Hotel Neon & Blurstem - Language Of Loss House and Land - Rainbow ‘Mid Life’s Willows Ibibio Sound Machine - Wanna Come Down IDER - Saddest Generation The Innocence Mission - On Your Side International Teachers Of Pop - I Stole Yer Plimsoles    ft. Jason Williamson (of Sleaford Mods) Jacken Elswyth - The Banks Of Green Williow Jaimie Branch - nuevo roquero estéreo Jake Xerxes Fussell - The River St. Johns Jamila Woods - ZORA Jayda G - Leave Room 2 Breathe Jenny Hval - Ashes To Ashes       Jenny Lewis - Red Bull and Hennessy Jesca Hoop - Outside of Eden     ft. Kate Stables (of This Is The Kit) and Jesca’s 12 year-old nephew Justis. This live performance is so sweet https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cUPmE_hU7Ss Jessica Pratt - As The World Turns Joanna Sternberg - This Is Not Who I Want To Be Joan Shelley - Cycle John Blek - North Star Lady Jordan Rakei - Say Something        bonus. under his DJ pseudonym: Dan Kye - Focus Jo Schornikow - Incomplete Joseph Shabason - West of Heaven Julianna Barwick - evening Junius Paul - Baker’s Dozen Kali Malone - Spectacle Of Ritual Kate Teague - Sweetheart Kate Tempest - a. Firesmoke    b. People’s Faces Kelly Moran - Halogen (Una Corda)       (from a record full of all the bare piano parts she played for her prior record before all the editing and processing) Kim Gordon - Air BnB Kindness - Hard To Believe     ft. Jazmine Sullivan KOKOKO! - Buka Dansa     (Congolese collective upcycling discarded materials to make their instruments) Konradsen - Baby Hallelujah     (of Norway) Lambchop - Everything For You Laura Cannell - a. Sing As The Crow Flies     b. Flaxen Fields Laura Stevenson - Lay Back, Arms Out Le Groupe Obscur -  Planète Ténèbres Leonard Cohen - Happens To The Heart Leo Svirsky - River Without Banks Little Simz - 101 FM Lizzo - Tempo   ft. Missy Elliot Loren Conors & Daniel Carter - Departing Lou Roy - Bite Low Chord - Walkk Lower Dens - Galapagos Mahalia - What You Did    ft. Ella Mai Majja - Black James Dean Maria Somerville - This Way Maria Usbeck - Amor Anciano Mary Halvorson & John Dieterich - Vega’s Array      (Mary the recipient of the MacArthur “Genius” Grant this year, because she is) Mary Lattimore & Mac McCaughan - IV Matana Roberts - As Far As The Eye Can See Meitei - Ike Melanie Charles - Trill Suite, No. 1 (Daydreaming/Skylark) The Menzingers - Anna Messiahs Of Glory - No Other Love      (from a collection of rare black gospel from the Midwest between ‘65-’78 put out on Tompkins Square) Mica Levi - a. Hosting     b. Lobo y Lady (from the excellent Colombian film Monos) Michael Abels - a. I Got 5 On It (Tethered Mix)    b. Pas De Deux (both from the terrific score to the excellent Jordan Peele film, Us) Michael Kiwanuka - Living In Denial Michael Nau - Poor Condition Mike Adams At His Honest Weight - Wonderful To Love Minor Pieces - Rothko      (duo of Ian William Craig & newcomer Missy Donaldson) Modern Nature - Footsteps Molly Sarlé - Twisted      (Mountain Man member’s 1st solo record) Moodymann - I’ll Provide Moon Duo - Stars Are The Light Moor Mother - After Images Moses Boyd - Stranger Than Fiction Moses Sumney - Polly Mount Eerie & Julie Doiron - Love Without Possession MSYLMA - Inqirad (Rihab-U Dhakir)     (Saudi Arabia) The Murder Capital - Don’t Cling To Life Nardeydey - Freefalling The National - Rylan   ft. Kate Stables (of This Is The Kit) The New Pornographers - Falling Down The Stairs Of Your Smile Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds - a. Waiting For You   b. Bright Horses   c. Night Raid Nivhek - After Its Own Death: Side A    (Liz Harris of Grouper) Noname - Song 32 Octo Octa - Move Your Body ODD OKODDO - Auma      (Kenyan/German duo) Øyvind Torvund - Starry Night      (Norwegian composer) Pet Shop Boys - Burning The Heather Petter Eldh - Fanfarum for Komarum II Porridge Radio - Give/Take PREGOBLIN - Combustion Purple Mountains - a. Snow Is Falling In Manhattan    b. All My Happiness Is Gone   c. That’s Just The Way That I Feel Quelle Chris - Obamacare Quinie - Whas At The Windy Rapsody - Ibtihaj   ft. D’Angelo & GZA Reb Fountain - Faster Rian Treanor - ATAXIA_A1 Richard Dawson - Two Halves Robert Stillman - All Are Welcome Róisín Murphy - Incapable Rosalía - Milionària Rosenau & Sanborn - Saturday Rozi Plain - Symmetrical Ruth Garbus - Strash Sam Lee - The Moon Shines Bright   ft. Elizabeth Fraser (of Cocteau Twins) Sam Wilkes - Run Sandro Perri - Soft Landing SAULT - Smile and Go Seabuckthorn - To Which The Rest Were Dreamt serpentwithfeet - Receipts    ft. Ty Dolla $ign Sessa - Flor do Real         (of Brazil) Sheer Mag - Hardly To Blame Shit and Shine - No No No No Sinead O Brien - A Thing You Call Joy Siobhan Wilson - Plastic Grave Six Organs Of Admittance - Two Forms Moving Sleaford Mods - Kebab Spider Slow Meadow - Artificial Algorithm Snowy - EFFED    ft. Jason Williamson (of Sleaford Mods) SOAK - Knock Me Off My Feet Solange - Binz Sophie Crawford - A Miner’s Life Squid - Houseplants         bonus. Their cover of Robert Wyatt’s  “PIgs..... In There at End of the Road Festival) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DktZtQbo-YU Stella Donnelly - Old Man SUSS - Ursa Major Swamp Dogg - Sleeping Without You Is A Dragg   ft. Justin Vernon & Jenny Lewis Tami T - Birthday  Tenesha The Wordsmith - Why White Folks Can’t Call Me Nigga Theon Cross - Activate     ft. Moses Boyd & Nubya Garcia Thom Yorke - Dawn Chorus Tierra Whack - Wasteland Tim Hecker - That World Tiny Leaves - Respair Toya Delazy - Funani         (of South Africa) Twain - Death (Or S.F.?) Twin Peaks - Dance Through It Tyler Childers - All Your’n Vagabon - Water Me Down Vampire Weekend - This Life Vanishing Twin - Magicians Success Velvet Negroni - Confetti Vendredi Sur Mer - Chewing-Gum      (of France) Victoria Monét - Ass Like That Vieo Abiungo - Cobble Together Visible Cloaks - Stratum      ft. Yoshio Ojima & Satsuki Shibano Warmduscher - Midnight Dipper Weyes Blood - Andromeda Wilco - Love Is Everywhere (Beware) William Tyler - Our Lady Of The Desert Willie Scott & The Birmingham Spirituals - Keep Your Faith To The Sky     (from a collection of obscure 70′s era gospel on Luaka Bop, “The Time For Peace Is Now - Gospel Music About Us”) Xylouris White - Tree Song Ye Vagabonds - The Foggy Dew Zsela - Noise

[moonlightmadnessreviews]

Child’s Play (2019): Chucky Come Lately, The New Kid in Town

We’re coming up on a month since the release of Orion Pictures’ Child’s Play remake. In the lead up to the polarizing release, there were two very different teams drawn up: you were either Team Good Guy, or Team Buddi. If you were the former, it was thought you were an elitist, unable to see past your love for the original and too closed minded to admit you were even a little curious as to how the new movie would turn out. If you wore the latter team’s jersey, you were part of what is wrong with horror today, ready to gobble up corporate studio schlock even if it means trampling all over the original. At a time when a remake is announced every other week, I want to discuss why it’s okay to root for the home town hero, while also being curious about what the rookie has to offer.

Child’s Play was originally released in 1988, having been written and directed by Tom Holland from a story by Don Mancini, produced by David Kirschner and distributed by MGM. The film was a hit, drawing enough at the box office to spawn six sequels, and the cult following was immediately under the spell of the pint sized, Voodoo practicing antagonist, Charles Lee Ray. I recently turned 30, and it wasn’t until I was in my early teens that I realized the original trilogy was called Child’s Play and not Chucky, as I’d always referred to the movies. Brad Dourif plays Chicago serial killer Charles Lee Ray, The Lakeshore Strangler. After he’s chased into a toy store and fatally wounded by Detective Mike Norris (Chris Sarandon), Chucky transfers his soul into the body of a Good Guy Doll. The rest of the movie follows Chucky and the first person he reveals his identity to, a six year old boy named Andy Barclay (Alex Vincent), as Chucky murders his way through babysitters, old accomplices and Voodoo mentors! All the while, Chucky preys on Andy’s innocence, telling him they’re “Friends til the end!” simply to make it easier for him to transfer his soul into Andy’s body.

This set up was, and still is, perfect! For much of the movie, Chucky is a stoic rubber doll, resembling one of the Cabbage Patch Dolls that were so popular in the 1980s. It’s clear to see how excited Andy is when he gets the doll as a birthday present, and you feel genuine fear for the kid knowing there’s the soul of a serial killer trapped inside his new best friend! I would give anything to travel back in time to sit in the theater on opening night and experience the moment Chucky finally reveals his true nature to Andy’s Mom! What may seem silly to us now must have made for an awesome group experience in that theater, especially considering the amazing animatronics and Dourif’s fantastic voice over work, his animalistic aggression striking fear into children for years after.

For all the praise we can give Chucky and the lore his movies built up, they did become somewhat formulaic, but Chucky and pals had solidified themselves in the minds and memories of millions. It’s easy to see why fans were hesitant, and confused, when the remake was announced. Some went as far as to write off the movie completely before even hearing what the changes would be. Well, as it turns out, the changes were pretty drastic, in part due to the legal issues of having a remake separate from the Mancini Chucky universe, soon to make a place for itself as a spin off TV show on the SyFy channel.

Child’s Play 2019 has brought Chucky and Andy into the era of asking someone for their WiFi password as soon as you walk through their door. The film is directed by Lars Klevberg (Polaroid) from a screenplay by Tyler Burton Smith (Kung Fury 2) and produced by David Katzenberg and Seth Grahame-Smith (IT, Chapter 1 and 2). In our post-Stranger Things world, Andy, played here by Gabriel Bateman (Lights Out), is no longer a six year old child but rather a young teen having trouble fitting in and making friends in his new neighborhood. His mom, Karen Barclay (Aubrey Plaza), is still a single mother working in retail, but the doll she brings home for Andy’s birthday is incredibly different due to the exclusion of one incredibly important character: Charles Lee Ray. Gone is the Voodoo. Gone is the Lakeshore Strangler. Gone is the voice! The new direction is daring to say the least.

In this version, Chucky is a WiFi capable, Cloud connected Buddi doll. As part of their use as an educational tool for children, Buddi dolls learn from their Best Buddies, picking up on their sense of humor, social cues and behaviors. Eventually Buddi could help you keep track of your calendar and even control climate setting in your home. Seems pretty cool, right? Well it would be, except Andy’s Buddi doll was hacked by a disgruntled factory worker who does away with Chucky’s limiters for language, violence, and seemingly even his free will.

What I feel works especially well in the new take is Chucky’s innocence at the start of the movie. A Buddi doll’s only mission is to imprint on their new owner and be the best friend this child could ever ask for. We get scenes of Andy and Chucky playing chess, hanging out, and even looking through scrap books of Andy’s art. Chucky takes a genuine interest in Andy and simply wants to be his Best Buddy, so when Andy is scratched by his mother’s cat, we get the first glimpses into Chucky’s unlocked potential for violence. He wants to punish anyone, or anything, that wishes Andy harm. Chucky hasn’t just imprinted, he is frighteningly obsessed.

One of my favorite scenes plays out as Andy, and his friends Falyn and Pugg (Beatrice Kitsos and Ty Consiglio, respectively) are watching a particularly brutal horror movie. I was genuinely giddy in the theater when the clips started to flash on screen, so I won’t spoil it here. This is where we see Chucky’s gears start to turn. Much like a child who may pick up on violent behavior they’re exposed to, Chucky sees Andy and his friends laughing at the outlandish violence on screen and decides to “entertain” them with a butcher knife.

Through out the course of the 90 minute run time, we see Andy struggling with how to control Chucky, now having gotten the wrong impression of violence and feeling rejected by his Best Buddy. The stakes are raised as Chucky becomes increasingly violent, seeking to please Andy at every turn only to make things worse, like a genie who twists their master’s words, making them sorry for not being more careful with their wishes. Come the third act, we can start to see hints of Chucky’s own fully formed personality, now having been twisted and deranged by the movies events.

This movie was more fun than I anticipated, and it even got my wife’s stamp of approval after I dragged her to the theater with me on opening night! Rather than try to be some incredibly bleak, super realistic take on the story, Child’s Play knew exactly what it was and went all out with the ridiculous concept. The movie’s R rating was also used to its full potential, and though most of the scares are pretty telegraphed, they shower you with so much blood and gore that you can’t help but laugh. Andy’s group of friends, though not nearly as charismatic or fun to watch as the cast of Stranger Things or 2017’s IT, really helped to give the movie some much needed warmth and heart. Brian Tyree Henry (Atlanta), who played this movie’s Detective Norris, also gave a great performance, balancing comedy and that detective bravado just right.

The standouts though were Gabriel Bateman and this movie’s Chucky, none other than Mark Hamill (Star Wars and The Joker in Batman The Animated Series, I mean DUH!). Bateman gave a great performance as Andy, carrying a lot of the movie’s emotion, and Hamill helped give this Chucky his own voice. The third act culmination of Chucky’s deranged personality would not have been nearly as effective if not for Hamill’s amazing voice over work. This is not to say though that the movie was perfect. Aubrey Plaza was bland as Karen Barclay, giving every line that classic, so-edgy-it-hurts, Plaza sarcasm. It works on Parks and Rec and even the movie Safety Not Guaranteed, but it feels so out of place here. Thankfully, Bateman was there to sell most of their scenes together, or I would not have been able to buy into their relationship as mother and son, much less care about their survival. In addition to Plaza, there were a lot of jokes in the first and second act that simply didn’t land. The lines fell flat and hardly got more than a chuckle from most of the audience I was with. I’m sure they were after the wit and timing of the young ensemble cast of IT, but that came from time and intensive work building off screen relationships within that cast. Some jerky editing also made the movie feel like it would have benefited from an extra 15 or 20 minutes, leading to certain scenes that were meant to be emotional being brushed over and rushed.

Lastly, let’s address the elephant in the room: Chucky’s redesign. The very first reaction I heard as Chucky’s face flashed on screen was “Ew, what the fu-“. I want to give the effects team credit for sticking to mostly animatronic work once again, but Chucky’s face was simply horrendous. I’d like to think this was intentional, perhaps they wanted to play up the Uncanny Valley effect as much as possible, but I can’t see myself or any other fans saying the design won us over, no matter how fun the movie was.

Did Child’s Play 2019 have to be a Child’s Play movie? No, not at all. In fact, they could have called it “Alexa Gone Wild.” and it would have held much of the same effect. With that being said though, I think I enjoyed it as much as I did because of their new take. It impressed me just enough to leave me thinking “Wow, that was really fun!” I love the original Child’s Play, and Brad Dourif is quite honestly irreplaceable, but the film makers saw the challenge they had with this new version, knew the audience they had to try and win over and they swung for the fences. I may not be able to convince everyone to give this movie a shot, and I’m fine with that, but I think the most important thing to remember is this: If you’re going to update one of my favorite toys, my “Friend til The End”, then make sure the new version keeps me entertained til the end, friend.

Rating: 3.5 Full Moons out of 5 🌕🌕🌕🌗

[bloodybells1]

Motley Boo: The Dirt 2019 and a Tertiary Failure to Reframe the “Baddest Band”’s History within Patriarchal Discourse

It’s difficult to overstate the impact Mötley Crüe made on the history of heavy metal with their 1981 debut album, Too Fast For Love. Raw, phlegmatic, and, yes, fast—it clocks in at less than 40 minutes—the album dropped into the world of heavy metal like a megaton anvil (or a turbocharged racer, depending on how you looked at it). The repercussions were conclusive and far-reaching. Shortly after the release, the band would support established acts like Kiss on the road, and later followed up the record with an even bigger smash hit, Shout at the Devil, permanently engraving them into the annals of heavy metal. 

What distinguished this freshmen effort in the larger context of the metal scene, however, was the band’s—well, really, Nikki Sixx’s—intelligent cross-referencing of glam rock optics within the giant soundscape of the Marshall amp set. Almost a decade before Guns’n’Roses would introduce a similarly decadent soupcon of glam rock attitude into heavy metal’s DNA (more in the form of LA dispossession, but you know what I mean), there stood Crüe, bow-tying the cranked distortion of heavy metal with an androgynous, lipstick-smeared pucker.

Yet, the record was more than just a public relations gambit to redesign heavy metal in the image of T. Rex. After all, it seemed the band had actually made a great album. It was good enough to make it into the mixtapes of LA punks and New York skinheads, at least, as well as those of breadbasket-America headbangers—quite a feat for a band that cared little for the punk scene’s headier nihilism. Punks, for their part, looked past the cockrocking and focused instead on the record’s straightforward production and live sound. As it turned out, it was a good sign that a band like Crüe, for all their apparent fluffiness and ostensibly commercial leanings, had gained the favor of this more reticent community, having passed the “canary in the coal mine” test of punk rock’s preoccupation with authenticity.

And yet, I bet the first thing that comes to mind when prompted by the name of Mötley Crüe, at least to that of the layman, isn’t the infectious speed of “Live Wire”’s thunderclap-opening riff, but rather the band’s notoriously depraved extracurricular reputation. In fact, the quartet was already infamous for debauched hedonism prior to their even getting signed, the lore going back to their salad days as local lotharios at the Viper Room in downtown Los Angeles. Right out of the gate, they were as famous for fornication and drug abuse as for their music. 

Far from discouraging the storyline of excess, Crüe seemed right at home with their association with drugs and sex. The emphasis on carnality became a career-long feature of their mystique, both as a marketing strategy and as a core element of the philosophy implied in their music. Ultimately, they would enshrine this element in the form of a tell-all, committing all the sordid details of their exploits to paper in their aptly-named 2001 anthology of licensed sin, The Dirt. 

Couched as an entry of the confessional genre, the volume was jointly written in equal parts by each band member, offering long, anecdotal chapters, written in an extemporaneous, oral style. The accounts dove deep into the cesspool of their origins and the progress of their career. Obviously, the band didn’t write an exhaustive account of their entire story up to 2001, when the book was published, on their own; journalist Neil Strauss adroitly arranges their tracts with a wink and a nod. Not satisfied with a simple tell-all, though, he weaves the band members’ submitted drafts and “journal entries” into a grand narrative fabric that belies not only Strauss’s objective’s gaze, but a teleological vision of the price of fame, a tale steeped in storied entries of similar abasement, perhaps dating all the way back to Joris-Karl Huysmans’ A rebours.

Despite The Dirt’s clear insistence on the prevalence of moral transactionalism, it has nonetheless become known as a foundational text for the “sex, drugs, and rock ’n’ roll” trope of decadence. Readers seem to cherish the opening chapters of early hedonic excess without making much of the larger morality play laid out through the book’s end. The earlier chapters are so naked (excuse the pun) in their reportage of the band’s debauched activities, they’ve been taken as advertisements for that behavior. This rendering misappropriates the book’s real value—as a text on moral cosmology—by turning it into further glorification of rock’n’roll’s early hedonistic credo. Those early chapters are really a set up for what the book truly is, and should be known for most, that is, a discrediting of that credo.

The Dirt makes a clear case that the band has paid for their excesses—Vince Neil loses his daughter, Nikki Sixx almost dies, Mick Mars fights his way up to become the true sage in the band, Tommy Lee keeps getting divorced. These facts are laid out convincingly through a simple prose style: diaristic reportage of the self that, through careful pacing, mines deeper and deeper levels of personal pain and reckoning. Strauss is methodical in doling out these sojourns into the moral deep, making sure not to preempt their trials with hints of the future (never mind that we know how the story ends). This, along with the distinct voice of each band member, has the added effect of keeping the reader on the edge of their seat.

The supranarrative that emerges by the final page, one that supplants the traditional one that the unsuspecting reader no doubt imports into the book from decades of formulaic pandering to baser perspectives, states the fundamental primacy of Fate, that even the world’s most riotous band could not escape cosmic will. Mötley Crüe, as authors of the commodity known as “Mötley Crüe,” and through the media amplification of commodity fetishism, have become godlike and must be thrust down, made human again. Fate will make a human out of the man no matter how demiurgic he becomes. 

It’s no surprise that, with heady matter like this associated with a known commodity like Crüe, an early film deal sprang out of the publishing of the book. The Dirt came out in 2001, 20 years after Mötley Crüe came on the scene, and it has taken almost as much time for its dramatization, in the form of a Netflix biopic, to emerge. That’s a long time for a movie based on a book to come out, and there has understandably been a lot of anticipation.

Through the years, I’ve come to loathe biopics, which with few exceptions turn out to be the mere regurgitations of original texts, authored under viably artistic circumstances and trademarked, but then repeated by a committee of capitalist shills for a waiting audience eager to consume the brand anew. This explains why almost every biopic is a formulaic compendium, lacking any vision or direction, since its objective in the first place is to provide brand pornography for consumers of established texts.

It’s quite sad that the cinematic dramatization of The Dirt is no exception to this rule. It so exemplifies the craven absence of real art in the modern biopic as to appear almost comical at times. Indeed, when I looked at the image on my Netflix home page of the movie, I initially thought that perhaps someone had given Mötley Crüe’s inimitable story the Christopher Guest treatment.

Alas, no.

The movie is a sorry parade of every single biopic cliché that was ever established in the history of biopics. I won’t go into just how pathetically—shamelessly, even—this movie panders to the basest titillations of brand pornography. That sad fact has been firmly established by the critical consensus. (It carries a 43 percent Tomatometer on Rotten Tomatoes, a rating I, in fact, find charitable.) My point in writing about this infuriating piece of exploitative pablum is to direct the reader to the incredible missed opportunity of this movie.

As I’ve already written, the book’s greatest accomplishment is not the lascivious proxy to bad behavior its protracted tales of sexual promiscuity and substance abuse offer the more upstanding, less adventurous reader. It’s the successful reframing of the “sex, drugs and rock ’n’ roll” narrative as a cautionary tale. Granted, we’ve seen this story inscribed into the annals of pop stardom before the publishing of The Dirt (hello Buddy Holly movie, Walk the Line, et al). Yet, its innovation lies not in the mere fact of the reframing, but in its offering the pen to the miscreant author: The Dirt is perhaps the first bad boy memoir: a behind-the-scenes tell-all yes, though of the Gore Vidal sort, and repurposed for the headbanger set with a moral edge.

By 2001, it had long been understood that this snot-nosed gang of aging rockers no longer had a decent recording in them (that’s no criticism if you believe, as I do, that the artform of rock music entails an inherent expiration date).  Instead, they produced a memoir that, shot straight from their shaky typewriters and notebooks, reinvents the band as willing atoners. In so doing they reemerge as personal subjects of a grand, cautionary tale, a heavy metal story for the era of Oprah, if you will. Mötley Crüe, then, performed a more authentic act in the writing of this book than any album they would have dared record.

Yet, along the current of its blood-soaked river of retribution, The Dirt, misses one crucial point of reckoning, one that positively begs for further exploration. 

Thanks to the #MeToo revolution, we are now given a critical apparatus to judge the excesses of the past committed in the name of patriarchy. Prior to this revolution, texts containing sexist, heteronormative givens were accepted reflexively by the zeitgeist. These were mythologies that historically debased and objectified women as the enslaved recipients of male lust, simple organs of the hedonic will of masculinity. We might have laughed at the music video for “Looks that Kill,” which features, among other debasing tropes, a gaggle of women in generic Neanderthal livery, but today we laugh harder—and more painfully. We no longer turn our eyes away from the now obvious rooting of this imagery in patriarchal attitudes.

The Dirt admittedly has almost nothing to offer by way of a #MeToo moment. (Early kudos, though, to Mick Mars who dedicates many of his paragraphs to the ludicrousness of male promiscuity.) But this isn’t necessarily a shortcoming of the book, anymore than that we may fault any number of classic stories and records that import similarly unexamined masculine, heteronormative givens into the 21st Century. As late as 2001, our eyes were yet glazed over with the unquestioned spectacle of male desire. Furthermore, the book is rife with vulnerable emoting and painful rumination. It thereby confers it an atmosphere of thoughtfulness. To a certain extent this vitiates against accusations of insensitivity.

But this potential forgiveness isn’t possible in cinema, where the taut storyline and shorter format require a more conclusive, unshaded verdict. Never mind that in 2019 it’s positively inexcusable. The #MeToo movement has today firmly established a visible discourse that supersedes antique notions of male desire, yet the movie seems to have taken no note of this seismic occurrence. To name but one of the movie’s baffling examples of cultural myopia, there are at least two scenes portraying women materializing out of the darkness underneath dining room tables, complete with satiated visages fresh from a round of clandestine fellatio. This is only one of the movie’s dated pickings from pre-#MeToo boilerplate, but it is perhaps the most glaring.

The film seems to conflate factual verisimilitude and hindsight objectivity; to which the simple response is that portraying something “as it was” doesn’t inoculate you from the sins of the past. One need only watch a couple seasons of another Netflix offering that traffics in garish ‘80s pop-cultural paraphernalia, GLOW, to witness a successful handling of these two elements. Many of the antique notions that were part and parcel in the ‘80s are now clearly offensive from today’s standards of race and sex discourse. These are reframed as racist and sexist mythologizing by the show’s deep dives into the family life of one of the African American wrestlers.

There’s nary a hint of this sort of wokeness from the film version of The Dirt. You really have to scratch your head as to how the committee let this fly, not to mention how desperate anyone would need to be in order to ignore such profligate tone-deafness under their collective noses.

The Dirt in 2019 truly encapsulates the most tragic outcome of a band like Mötley Crüe. The film’s failure as a work of art is not surprising when you consider that most biopics fail in that regard (Bohemian Rhapsody, anyone?). But the movie’s failure becomes truly irretrievable, of a completely different order of magnitude, when you consider that Mötley Crüe missed another opportunity to reframe themselves along the contours of contemporary discourse. They were successful in 2001, when, during the era of Oprah, they took their foundational text of rock’n’roll hedonism and reframed it as a personalized descent into Orphic confrontation. This gave us cause for hope in 2019, during the era of #MeToo, when the missing piece of that story, the accounting with the greater societal harm caused by unexamined patriarchy, was given an incredible opportunity to be placed back into the spine of the band’s legacy. Unfortunately, as Netflix and Mötley Crüe have made clear, the hope was misplaced.