#welcome to the niche corner comrade

[beggars-opera]

tumblr is like HUAC if it was run by a bunch of teenagers with no reading comprehension instead of a bunch of grown ass men with no reading comprehension

[lordymaru]

I don’t really know anything about the AoT fandom and shipping, but I’ve begun watching the anime and I’ve seen some pretty popular ships. The one that’s really confusing to me is Petra and Levi. They didn’t really interact before her very gruesome death, and as someone who’s trying to understand this fandom and the ships, as well as from what the writer has said, their seems to be no indication of Petra and Levi, other then fans just shipping a very adorable ginger with a stoic captain. They seemed no more then just captain and comrade. Legit even searched why, and some reasons seem very silly. HELP. Me understand this fandom.

Adorable Ginger!!! I think @petra-realsnk will enjoy this anon as well.

If it helps, I know very little myself. I can't speak for everyone else but I can tell you that I started to ship them from the way Levi looked over his shoulder when her body was lost, from the way it is assumed he cut out that one badge, from the way Levi stopped to look at her body against the tree, from the way her father pretty much cornered him after the mission. Those tiny little things, I ship them because canonically she's gone and all he can do is miss her.

I cannot help you understand because that would mean I'd be drilling an idea into your head, my personal preferences. All I can do is share my pov with you.

This fandom is huuuuuge! That's the beauty of it, you can find your niche in every corner, no matter how tiny. And honestly the Rivetra community is quite small but they're very, very welcoming. So... If you wanna understand just hop in this train and see if you can tie the knots or not.

[thefilmslist-blog]

The Recent Movie Round-up… Arrival (2015) and The Martian (2016)

Wow, it has been ages since my last review. Apologies, a lot has happened in the last few weeks, I got married for one, went on holiday to Italy, loads. I guess I’ll have to watch some Italy based movies to review to celebrate. Anyway, these are two movies I have been wanting to cover for a while…

I have been enjoying my recent tangent of looking at two films that have some significant connective tissue, either on a surface level or more deeply thematic. Luckily these movies connect on both of those levels! On the surface they are both Sci-fi movies about the possible dangers posed by space travel, that dig a little deeper into the experience than that would suggest. Here we go…

 Arrival (2015)

Finally, a true Sci-Fi movie! Not a fast paced, colourful space action-adventure (although I welcome those as well) but a hedonistic, thematically rich piece about humanity. The premise is about how aliens have parked a couple of their ships in certain spots all over the earth. Without knowing what they want, the various governments of the world scramble to understand the ships’ purpose and provoke a reaction, either through communication or military action. Amy Adam’s language and translation specialist is brought in by the US government to establish a method of communication with the visitors.

This movie’s love of communication and language, as well as the barriers they create is woven all through the film. The other string to the story is the stories understanding of empathy, and both strings work together to push the story and characters forwards. We have the two sides of the same coin in the two main characters, played by Amy Adams (her best performance in any role I have seen her in) and Jeremy Renner (who is slightly less impressive in a role that is slightly underserved), one seeks to understand humanity through her understanding of languages, the other uses cold, hard data to approach a situation. However, both characters come to understand, work with and even come to love each other. The same themes are played out in the characters attempt to communicate with the ‘Heptapod’ aliens, once communication has been established and empathy has developed between the two species, Adam’s character is given insight (or enlightened) to the power the alien language holds and can complete her arc and save the day. Even the rewards for the main character’s understanding and empathy is itself understanding and empathy.

The dangers caused by the lack of those emotions (I guess they are emotions) are also made clear by the plot, on a micro and macro level… We see that abuse of communication and a lack of empathy, in the plot through the alarmist, xenophobic BS spewed from niche radio, can lead to misinformation and fear; pushing the young soldiers to explode a bomb in the alien ship, causing the death of Abbott. On a global scale, fear and aggression builds when China threatens to launch weapons at the alien crafts, causing all other nations to cut off shared communication with each other. The day is only saved when Adam’s character gains her enlightenment and uses it to appeal to the warhead brandishing Chinese General.

See… the central message for me was basically “through communication and empathy can we achieve enlightenment and mutual gain”, which is surprisingly Buddhist-like for a little sci-fi movie. What’s also interesting about this message are the times this film was released, and it feels very prescient considering the position the US, Europe and Russia find themselves. If I was to place this movie into my Empathy Tringle (which I think I did), I would definitely lean it towards the empathy and intellectual corners (which I think I didn’t?).

This movie is also famous for its central twist, seemingly Adam’s character lost her child to a disease in her past, memories of which trouble her through the present story. We find out at the end of the film that we are actually watching her future as she gains the ability to see all time at once from the Heptapod. She knows that her child will one day die, but she goes ahead anyway. The more I think of this thread, the less I think it is the core story thread with which the movie is built around, and more I think it is a (very, very clever) way to allow the audience to understand how the time bending abilities of the aliens work by planting the seed early…

Those are my thoughts on the major themes of the movie. It helps that it is backed up by the masterful direction of Denis Villeneuve; now entering the pantheon of our favourite movie directors since Enemy (fantastically mind bending) and Sicario (his virtuosic masterpiece). The foreboding alien-ness is perfectly captured by the director’s signature looming distance shots, while the realism is maintained by the desaturated and almost drab colour-palette, and finally the emotionality is captured by the all-round fantastic performances…

Even the designs of the aliens and their ships work to establish that sense of real-ness, uncertainty and foreboding. My only criticism would be that maybe the interiors of the alien ships were a bit too basic and derivative. reminiscent of the kind of alien ships in Ridley Scott’s movie of the same name (which is a fun connection considering the next movie in this review).

Other than that, Arrival easily earns its score of 90/100 (slightly low upon review now) and slots in at number 9 in the current list. It goes without saying that Villeneuve is our one to watch in future, and I’m looking forward to seeing what he can do with Blade Runner in the upcoming sequel (another Ridley Scott connection!)

 The Martian (2016)

More connections! More connections! If Arrival is the story of how one person can use the power of communication to save the whole human race from oblivion (I’m generalising slightly but I think you know what I mean after what you’ve just read), then the Martian is the story of the whole human race using the power of communication to save one person from oblivion (sort of!).

Ok so, the basic premise, one extremely resourceful American Astronaut is stuck on Mars, and he has to use his own expertise and ingenuity to get back home. It’s a great premise, right? And (Matt) Damon’s character is extremely resourceful in getting himself back to good level of survival on his own after the disaster that left him stuck on Mars. He fixes his wounds, rations his food and even manages to extend his survival time by devising a plan to grow potatoes. The movie allows us to build empathy with him through his charming audio/video logs that go into some detail explaining how he is going to ‘science the shit’ out of his situation (by the way, the book the movie is based on goes into so much more detail on the science, believe me, I’ve read it 4 times…)

He basically becomes the Martian, scientific Robinson Crusoe; self-sustaining away from the larger community. However, the movie shows us that he can only get so far on his ingenuity alone. Only once his comrades at NASA realise he is alive and a communication begins between them can he be rescued.

The pure scientific glee at evolving communication between Mars and NASA can be seen in the moments of relief when the Discovery probe whirrs to life and begins to spell words and sentences using the complex letter system followed by Damon’s character. Similar to Arrival, the building blocks of language is both a trial to overcome and then the key to achievement.

The Martian may lay out these themes less subtly than Arrival, but is no less powerful for it. The myriad emotions that can be produced from a short and easy conversation bridging massive expanses can be seen when Damon’s character emails back-and-forth with his comrades who had to leave him behind. The rallying of the people behind NASA’s efforts to safely return Damon’s character from Mars also speaks to the power of hope through communication and understanding. For me, the movie plays its best hand, thematically, when negotiations are opened up with the Chinese aerospace scientists to combine efforts for a rescue attempt. Only when communication is opened can the characters achieve their goals.

The lack of antagonists is also an interesting decision for the movie, it solely allows humanity to show its best side and become the true protagonist of the story. It would not be difficult to view this movie as taking place a short while after the events of Arrival, where humanity has achieved a kind of platonic, scientific ideal. The closing we come to an antagonist is time and space.

I enjoyed most of the acting, there were some problems that yanked us out of the action. Matt Damon’s performance was perfectly charming, but you can’t help but think that you are just watching Matt Damon in space. Chiwetel Ejifor’s character has his some of heritage edges sanded off that help bring the character to life in book and Sean Bean feels like he is acting in a different movie altogether. My favourite has to be Jeff Daniel’s subtly magnetic performance, I may be slightly biased but between seeing him here and in Looper, I don’t know why he’s not in every movie.

Visually Ridley Scott does his job well and we get stark Martian vistas that evoke the loneliness and harshness of trying to survive on the planet. They might not be as stirring or intense as Villeneuve’s work, it gets the feeling across well.