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painted-crow · 3 years

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Submission Time #12

Another submission from me! I’d meant to put in answers from the quiz… or really, my perpetual arguments with the quiz. But then I got distracted by writing out my thoughts and forgot to do that.

Oof, I’m afraid I don’t know who you are just from this–you sent it in with anonymous on! Hopefully that’s okay.

I get different answers from the quiz at different times. Last time I took it in earnest, stoned out of my mind, I came up Snake/Snake. This time I intentionally hatstalled to get as many questions as I could.

If this is too many words on top of too many words… I am sorry.

I see that lol! I appreciate that there is no lack of information here 😉

However, this post as it came in was VERY long, even by my standards, and for the sake of readability I've done 2 things:

1) Switched to desktop long enough to put in a cut. It broke the blue color I usually put over my replies in order to make these easier to skim, but I'm not putting it back because it's kind of a huge pain to redo.

2) Trimmed out some of the question/answer pairs. You have plenty, so although I read them all, I just kept those I deemed most relevant. I also skipped a few where my responses would have been repetitive. Just an editing decision I hope you'll be okay with.

That said, let's get on with the Sorting.

Primaries

• If people in your family or community disagree with you, is it hard to act against their wishes?

I’m not sure that I have a community, but yeah, if my SOs think something is a bad idea, I’ll listen and consider. I’m more likely to be the person disagreeing with and trying to convince someone else, though. Also, sometimes it’s plain easier to go along with things to keep life smooth. But if it was something important… I think I’d have to go with what I think is right, regardless of disagreement. I’ll listen to others, maybe I’ll change my mind, but I won’t not do a thing JUST because of the disapproval of my family.

Suggests internal primary, Lion or Snake.

• What’s your top priority?

I kind of hate this one because I want to answer all three. I want to make the world a better place for the sake of me and mine, and that’s one of my goals. Not one I imagine I can accomplish, but it’s something that matters. My kid will probably see a pretty rough world in the future and I wish I could do something to alter that, beyond trying to be an ethical consumer as much as I can.

This answer feels very grounded and practical. I want to say it feels Liony, partly out of process of elimination but mostly because it just does.

• When you’re making a decision and you’re stuck, what should you do?

Idk, panic? No, not really. I seek advice if relevant, don’t if not, seek out any information I can, think about it… make a decision… and proceed to worry about that decision for the next millenia because what if it wasn’t the right one? I usually go with my my gut choice but 1) sometimes I have to go hunting for that, and by sometimes I mean a lot, and 2) I still research the hell out of it.

The way you’ve answered this says more about your secondary than your primary, imo. You might be a Bird secondary.

• Do you listen to your intuition?

I’d like to, but I don’t trust it. I’m too afraid of everything.

Ooh, interesting. It’s worth noting, people who write to me are often Burned at least somewhat, because Burned Houses are always harder to sort; everyone reacts differently to trauma and comes up with different coping mechanisms. Wonder if you’re an at least somewhat Burned Lion who’s pivoted into Snake, perhaps because it fit with your old value set.

• Someone points out a flaw in your logic. Their argument makes sense, but there’s something about it that just bothers you. Do you change your ways because of what they said?

This one always bothers me. It’s not a thing that happens to me often, but I can’t understand not changing your mind in this situation. If someone points out that you’re wrong… well… you’d better go look into that, hadn’t you? Maybe because I’m constantly seeking to understand myself, and I don’t and that frustrates me, but… I don’t know. I agree with and disagree with all the answers.

This seems Bird at first glance, but it seems you’re too conflicted about it to be straight up unburned Bird (and Burned Birds are usually easier to spot because they tend to be wrapped up in the problem/s they’re struggling with). You might have a model or performance, too early to say.

That line about being frustrated that you don’t understand yourself is also a good hint toward an Idealist primary.

• Does disagreeing with your closest friends about something important to you make you love them less?

No, but I might think less of them, and I will probably argue my points at them in the future. Sometimes I change their mind, sometimes they change mine. I turned my SO into a social liberal, he caused me to adjust my stance on gun control. There’s always give and take.

Sounds healthy. That model’s sounding a bit more likely here. I’d be very curious if you turned out to be a burned Lion who actually had a healthy Bird model–that would be rare o.o

• What if everyone you loved left you? They betrayed you, abandoned you, or died, and you’re hurting. What keeps you moving forward?

This question makes me want to tear my hair out, because those are all different things.

If everyone I loved died, I would probably have a massive breakdown, spend a year laying in bed, and then use whatever money I inherited or insurance payouts I got to go try and live the life I’ve always vaguely wanted, traveling. I wouldn’t seek out relationships but I imagine I would, eventually, form new connections. It would hurt, but I would rebuild.

If they abandoned me, or betrayed me, which is… kind of the same, I guess, because abandoning me without cause is a betrayal… well, I would probably be confused, and angry, and curl into a ball and want to die, and then turn into a lifelong curmudgeon the likes of which I swore I’d never be. It would hurt, and I would probably be loathe to trust again.

This doesn’t feel Loyalist, at least.

• What if you realized that absolutely everything you thought was true was wrong? The authorities you’d trusted, the beliefs you’d held, the wrongs you’d fought against?

Another that trips me up. I doubt someone is ever going to convince me that punching down, bullying, or causing unwarranted harm is good. I don’t trust any authority without cause anyway, and I trust no authority to be right on every topic. I trust NASA about space but I’d be more interested in what the forestry service has to say about ecology, in a silly example. I’m not religious so I don’t have any authorities there. My parents were authorities once but it turns out they’re human and sometimes wrong, so…. I feel like I don’t know how to answer this question, because I can’t fathom what someone could tell or convince me of that would be that kind of a gut punch?

So, you don’t really have a system per se, but you do have a set of core ideals. You could call this a Bird model (and… a really healthy one if it is?) or you could call it partially unburned Lion.

• You can’t help everyone in the world who needs it, but you wish you could.

Nah, it would be nice to help everyone and I’m down to eat the rich and redistribute wealth and I firmly believe the point and purpose of society is to care for its populace, so definitely the world should be designed better to make sure everyone has a fair chance at what they want…but it’s not my responsibility to fix it for everybody, nor am I capable of it. I can do a small part, and I try to, but I’m not the savior of humanity.

I think we’ve established you’re not a Badger, although Badgers don’t always fall into this trap.

• You’ve changed your mind about an old belief or moral stricture that you used to value. You got new information and you’ve tried to update your way of thinking, and you think (hope?) you’re a better person for it. Do you feel guilty about the old belief you’ve abandoned?

Do I feel guilty for abandoning it? Not if I realized it was wrong! Do I feel guilty for having had the belief? Sometimes. I was raised in an unthinkingly classist household, and I still feel bad about my instinctive assumptions about people. I’ve worked on it a lot and unpacked a lot of shit, but I was definitely an ass and I regret that.

You have a lot of healthy Bird happening. I’m starting to wonder if your Lion is the model.

If you are a Bird primary, you’re one who builds your system much more than one who adopts it. You also seem very confident in your own perceptions, not unwilling to change but not impressionable.

When it comes to less major parts of your ideals, such as the gun control thing you adjusted your stance on, do you feel satisfied after puzzling things like that out? Or do you kind of hate that you need to?

• The next one is “If I’ve decided to stand by the people I love, it’s a choice. I could make a different decision.” Vs “At the end of the day, some things are right and some things are wrong. You don’t turn your back on the people you love.”

And my problem with that is… both. It is a choice, I could, theoretically, make a different one. But I don’t think it would be right to do so. I think that I would have to have an overwhelming reason to turn my back on my people. Someone cheating one me, or coming to hold beliefs antithetical to me (like if one of my SOs suddenly went TERFy or something), yeah, I would probably turn away, but it would hurt. But it’s still a choice I’ve made, either way.

I don’t think you’re a Snake.

• When you sit down and consider the terrifying lack of objective truth in our reality, how do you feel?

But what is truth? Does this mean truths about the universe, reality, physics, etc? I surely believe there is objective truth and structure there, though I doubt if humanity can discover it all. We are clever little apes, but its a big, weird universe.

Does it mean moral, philosophical truths? Moral relativism all the way babe! I mean, I’m an atheist, and I dont believe there’s one objective truth out there laid down by something supernatural, and I think it has to be something everybody comes to on their own as an accumulation of life experiences. I’ve got a few core things I think are important and the rest just… flows. I went with “the model in our heads is good enough,” because we’ve all got to settle for that in the end, I suppose.

It’s an interesting question and none of the answers quite fit for me. I think part of my trouble with the quiz is how abstract the questions are. “Do you like shortcuts?” Well, I dont know, quiz, what on earth is the CONTEXT? I understand why it’s written that way, but I do wish it was a bit more choose-your-own-adventure, handing me scenarios instead of philosophical abstraction.

You could be a Bird primary.

• When you’re not sure what’s the right thing to do, what do you turn to?

Research, and talking to my people, and then I think about it a bit. Or I just go with my gut and try to figure it out later. Either way I will spend a lot of time thinking about it, either trying to choose or trying to parse the choice I made.

Yeah, you might have to puzzle out which of these is the model yourself. This is a pretty subtle distinction. @wisteria-lodge and I both have posts about this. The appropriate tags on my blog are #ravenclaw primary and #gryffindor primary –if you can get Tumblr to function as intended (mobile search is very very flaky), those should get you the info you want, along with lots of accounts from other people Sorting themselves.

I’m starting to lean towards Bird for you, actually. But again, this is one pair that can be hard to tell apart, and sometimes it gets harder the closer you look at it. Maddening.

• Would you feel worse abandoning a stranger in need or turning your back on your closest friend?

Another one where I want context. If we’re talking identical scenarios – say, they’re drowning – I’d save my friend over someone else, except for maybe a small child… maybe? Honestly I’d probably try to save both and end up dying. But I do prioritize and I’d help my friend over a stranger, sans specific extenuating circumstances on the part of said stranger.

Once again, I don’t think you’re a Snake. I think you’re a Lion with loyalty baked into your intuition, or a Bird who’s picked up some Snakey philosophy.

• After spending some time trying to decide between two options, you are convinced that A is the right thing to do. The people around you, though, are just as convinced that it’s B. How do you feel?

Like I haven’t explained well enough, because they’re not getting why my opinion is the best one. Seriously though, it would make me wonder if I missed something, and I’d probably spend more time talking and researching to compensate. On the other hand… context… am I choosing colleges here (yes, folks, give me your input!) or whether or not to get an abortion (where I would value the input of those directly connected to me, but in the end it’s 100% my choice and those who disagree can eff off.)

When you’re choosing a college, you’re making a tactical decision, not a moral one. Gathering information from others is a Bird secondary thing: you’re doing research.

When you’re making a moral decision, that’s where your primary is involved, and here your answer is strongly Lion.

[I’m skipping a few of the next questions because they don’t give strong information for you specifically. Mostly what they get at is, you’re not a Badger, especially not an unhealthy Badger.]

• Does your internal moral compass know something you don’t?

Well… maybe? I feed a lot of stuff into my brain, and I don’t always know what I think until the words have fallen out of my mouth.

I gotta say, I’m a Bird primary and this sounds terrifying to me. Sometimes I need to write about something before my opinion fully forms, but I write and think so much because I don’t trust myself to talk about it until I’ve poked the issue a bunch on my own.

The only exception is that there are a few people who will take me at my word if I say I haven’t made up my mind about an issue yet, and will listen to me debate it with myself, without judging me for not immediately agreeing with the stance they’ve already taken.

Not everyone is the same, of course, but this answer is a very Lion one.

• If you get a chance to make the world a better place, you have to pursue it– even at the expense of your happiness and personal relationships. Do you think this is a true statement?

If I could throw myself into a volcano to fix everything that is wrong with the world, I would cry and hug everybody I love and regret the hell out of what I was about to do to them and then chuck myself in the damn volcano. I think not doing so would be more selfish.

That is... a totally different thing than this question asked! 😂

However, you've established in previous questions (some of which were cut for length) that you don't feel responsible for fixing/changing the world as a moral imperative, so your answer to this is actually more interesting, lol.

I don't know what it actually says about your Sorting, but I'm leaving it in because it made me laugh.

• Do you think you’re a good person?

Another easy one. Define good! I try to be, within my own belief systems. But I know a lot of people who would not think I’m a good person, because in their belief systems I’m not. I think some of those people are good people, I think some are bad people. Life is complex. I do my best.

This is a pretty Birdy answer. You keep going back and forth! :p I'm probably going to end up leaving you with an ambiguous answer, huh?

If you're a burned Lion, you sound awfully chill about it and you use your ridiculously strong Bird model in an unusually healthy way, for a Lion. Lots of Lions with Bird models really struggle to reconcile the different priorities.

If you're a Bird, you have a ridiculously strong Lion model that seems to actually override your Bird sometimes--but Bird systems are complex and can include weird recursive rules like "in this situation, this other Primary is more right so we use that." Also, your understanding of your system seems more hands-off than a lot of Birds.

• It’s important to do the right thing, even when it feels wrong.

…yeeeeeees…. but. Why does it feel wrong? I would want to investigate that before doing the thing, because if it feels wrong, maybe I’m missing something that my subconscious caught. If I investigate that and am sure about the right, I think… I don’t know. I’m not sure I could do something I felt super icky about even if it was quote-unquote right?

Oh hey, that's my approach to Lion primary too. One point for Bird + loud Lion model?

By now I bet you either have a strong feeling about which of the options I've narrowed down is you, or you'll think about it and go back and pore over the archives here and on the other Sorting blogs. And then you'll think about which approach you took and what kind of a hint that is, which is basically meta-meta-analysis. Except now I've written this and you've read it, so you'll be wondering how reading this will affect your judgment, so it's meta-meta-meta-analysis now.

...I'll stop. 😉

Secondaries

Future Paint here. Tumblr discarded the ENTIRE second half of my response to this post, because I saved it and then hit post without refreshing the page, so it posted the old version, because of course it did.

The tl;dr is that I believe anon to be a rapid-fire Bird secondary with a Lion model.

Brb while I reconstruct this post.

• Do you like going into situations with a plan?

• When you spot a metaphorical obstacle in your path, what do you do?

I would love to, and some situations I do– job interviews, for example – but sticking to a plan is not my strong suit. I can follow a schedule, to some degree, and I can kind of make plans… but then I trip up because how can I account for all contingencies? So I usually end up chucking the plan and YOLOing my way through something on a wave of accumulated knowledge and practice experience.

Not all Birds are big planners. The defining thing is preparation, and that can mean hoarding skills, knowledge, tools and contacts, not just making plans and decisions in advance. A Bird might, for example, decide not to schedule their vacation, and instead read a couple travel guides before they go but wing it when they're there.

This question is one of those where I’d love a less abstract scenario. Because… it depends. In a video game I’ll usually go around. In real life I’ll stop and panic for a minute or a day, then get up and deal with whatever needs dealing with. Unless its a super immediate issue, and then I’m in the middle of it already and have to put off my existential crisis until later (see prior example of “breaking up a dogfight by sticking my arm betwixt them,” see also “i spent much of my teens rolling out of bed at 3am and getting dressed to go help with a foal delivery and I didn’t really start thinking until like twenty minutes after we arrive and start dealing with shit.” Like, I was making decisions and thinking about things, but… its different. They’re not reasoned choices, they’re “this has to be dealt with NOW so do what you can and sort it out later.”)

• Do you like to gather all possible information before making a decision?

I guess I land on needing to understand your problems. You can’t put them off forever, but if you’ve got the time to do some research and contemplation aforehand, that seems like the better choice.

I need you all to know that I didn't cut this dogfight story--I'm not depriving you of whatever wild ride anon had, it's just as much of a Noodle Incident to me as it is to you. However. I don't think I need to argue *too* much that anon has a Lion model.

• Is knowing things or knowing people more useful when solving problems?

Another tricky one, because I think all the answers are correct. I do like to know what’s going on, but at a certain point that IS just stalling. But! It’s true that making decisions without understanding the full picture CAN really mess you up! But it’s ALSO true that, in many situations, I can change my mind if I learn more. I think I lean towards doing All the Research before making a choice, but I’m pretty sure that’s largely a procrastination tactic.

Birrrrd.

Both. Ideally, one would know a range of People who know/have many Things. I’m a big fan of bartering my own skills and knowledge in return for those of other people – for example I am the go-to research person, because I’m pretty good at sourcing info and condensing it into “here’s what you ought to know, here are your options, and here’s where you can go for more information,” a thing which I do freely for my family. In return they do things I can’t or don’t want to, like my taxes or getting things off high shelves or making travel plans or whatnot.

• When your plan fails, what do you do?

I’m better at accumulating knowledge than connections, but I think the right connections are more often useful than said knowledge.

As @wisteria-lodge has said before, some Birds accumulate contacts the same way they gather other tools. They like the be the person to say, "I know a guy."

You're VERY clearly not a Badger. I've cut all the questions that were like "do you do [Badger Thing]" and you were like "NO" so. I don't think you'll need convincing on this point lol

See above… panic then act, unless I don’t have time, in which case act and then panic. Solve the immediate problems, clear some space to breathe, then deal with the rest.

• Do you collect things? Facts, objects, hobbies?

……. do links full of interesting things I fully intend to get around to reading and understanding someday count?

…yeah, this is where I take a look around at my books, games, Interesting Facts, various half-compentent hobby activities, and enduring rage that I cannot possibly know All The Things because I am a mortal subject to the finite bounds of my life and acknowledge that yes. I hoard the SHIT out of both physical and intellectual stuff.

• Do you ever study or plan excessively for things that aren’t useful? Just for fun?

I’m torn between yes, and yes but they have a purpose. I do enjoy learning, i was always good in school, when I could be bothered to care. There are a few topics I enjoy for their own sake – language and history and anything world-building, really, anything to do with who we are and how we got there. But I won’t usually go in depth; most things I skim enough to understand the basic concept and move on, leaving those things as cocktail facts. “Oh, you’re an astronomer focusing on the moons of Jupiter? I read $JupiterFact a while back, what are your thoughts?”

• Do you act differently in different groups? Does it bother you, if you do?

Like, I dont care about the moons of Jupiter unless Titan or Europa or whichever turns out to have life, but space is neat and I’d be excited by that conversation and I’m intrigued by the concepts even if i don’t have the inclination to deep-dive the topic.

These 3 question/answer pairs explain pretty clearly why I think anon is a Bird secondary...

Not very often, and not much. I absolutely utilize code-switching, but I’ve felt bad about not opening my mouth at times when I worked at a place that assumed I was a good little Christian white girl… I’m usually too afraid of repercussions to say anything, but I remember my supervisor saying an atheist billboard was “too much” and I just said “no, of course it isnt” and we gave each other a look like “… well this isn’t good…”

• When solving problems, is your first reaction seeing what “tools” you have in your pockets?

In general though, I’ll use a mask when I need to but I’m just kinda… me.

...and this was what cleared up the Lion secondary model for me.

• When you are deciding how to react to a situation, are your choices most affected by internal (how you feel, what you think, what you want) or external inputs (what’s happening around you)?

…I’m really not sure. I don’t think i actively assess the tools, physical or mental, that I have to hand? I generally know if I DON’T have the resources to deal with something, but if i do have them, I just do the thing and don’t think about it.

That's normal. You just know your toolset well enough that you don't have to think about it. Some Birds don't, or their toolset is eclectic enough (or even granular enough; try remembering all the books you've read that are relevant to a given research paper topic) that they forget what they have.

I think if I knew what I felt, I’d be happy deciding based on internal things, but I don’t know that I trust myself enough.

This answer seems more relevant to your primary. Might be Burned Lion primary peeking through.

And that puts me at a hatstall again.

Sorry for the bombardment, but it seemed like this would be relevant. I know I prefer more info to less, when I’m trying to help someone figure things out, so… words. Many, many words. Thrown at you. Mea culpa.

Hope you don't mind my cherrypicking! This must have been a ton of work for you to write, and I threw a bunch of it away 😭

(Only sort of, I did read it all first.)

In conclusion

Primary: either burned Lion + healthy Bird model, or Bird + loud loud Lion model.

Secondary: rapid-fire Bird with Lion model.

Hope that helps!

#sortinghatchats #paint speaks #submission #gryffindor primary #ravenclaw primary #gryffindor primary model #ravenclaw primary model #burned gryffindor primary #ravenclaw secondary #gryffindor secondary model

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youngerdaniel · 5 years

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2018: Another(nother) Year at the Movies

Worms and Germs, we have successfully spun round the sun again. And with that, as is tradition, it’s time to babble and reflect on the things I’ve watched that made an impression. Before we get to that, I must also advise that I’ve decided to remove one part of the tradition, and that’s the movies I liked the least.

Life is too short to think about the things you didn’t like, and movies are a herculean that many people have worked on. As with any art, not every work will be to everyone’s taste. That’s what’s fun about movies. But that’s just my opinion.

At any rate, there’s quite enough negativity in the world these days. So welcome to 2019, and here’s some of the stuff I super dug in no particular order:

THROUGHBREDS

Everything about this movie charmed me. Economic storytelling at its finest, and a true gem about a couple of incredibly warped teenagers plotting to kill one’s step father. It’s dark. It’s funny. Despite its sparse nature, there’s a surprising amount of social commentary writhing beneath its surface.

BAD TIMES AT THE EL ROYALE

In case this was somehow ever news… I adore Drew Goddard’s work. Following up his directorial debut of The Cabin in the Woods with a contained thriller about seven strangers, each hiding a secret, whose agendas collide at a kistchy hotel planted smack in the middle of the border between California and Nevada.

This movie is the Drew Goddard show, and if you’re into it, you’ll love its deconstruction of Tarantino-flavored noir narratives. Stellar performances, unwavering personality, brilliant production design and cinematography… And it was shot in my old hood!

WIDOWS

From its opening scene, Widows grabs your attention and refuses to let go. This is the kind of all-women led heist movie that for years I’d unknowingly yearned for. The twists and turns are crafted in a style that is totally Gillian Flynn. The brutal swiftness of its final act is exhilarating. A slow burn in the best sense, and a delightful exercise in tension. A particular scene between Viola Davis and Cynthia Erivo comes to mind as the most riveting pair of eyelines I think I’ve ever seen. Really something special.

SORRY TO BOTHER YOU

It hasn’t been since I first saw The Cabin in the Woods that a film’s third act took me so amazingly off-guard while absolutely earning it… And then there’s Sorry to Bother You. This movie is fucking great. A hilarious satire of class structure, racism and the failings of capitalism that never once feels like a lecture. The above comparison does nothing to describe this movie… I don’t think I’ve ever seen anything like it before. Go forth and see for yourself.

HEREDITARY

This movie will punch you in the gut, then slam your head against a table repeatedly… Because it’s just that much fun. Well, fun might not be the proper word. Certainly not for the faint of heart. It’s a ruthless portrait of a family tipping over the edge of sanity. It also has a lot of super cool magic and is creepier than your grandma’s doll collection.

MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE - FALLOUT

I like to think this is the movie equivalent of what cocaine must be like. Simple story, relentless pacing, spectacular action sequences. You know what you’re getting yourself into when you sit down to watch any installment of the M:I franchise: Tom Cruise running, pulling of absolutely batshit stunts that will surely kill him one of these times. Everything about this movie was fun, and also made my neck because of the tension. Lovely stuff. (The MOVIE, not cocaine.)

ANNIHILATION

I didn’t know what to expect from Alex Garland’s followup to the magnificent Ex Machina, but a group of scientists exploring a fragmenting reality caused by alien life? The crew is all women? It’s got a bear whose roar is the scream of whatever the last thing it was? SIGN. ME. UP. Some truly excellent performances, and the typically heavy and existential musings of its creator. Is the nature of everything to destroy itself? That’s up to you, and that’s what makes this movie such a treat.

SUSPIRIA

I will not spoil anything about this movie. What I will say is, it’s amazing. It’s not what you’re expecting. It may be based upon a classic, and it certainly has no business existing, but it is a cut of its own. Luca Guadagnino’s take on the story of a prestigious ballet school hiding a coven of witches is dense, with a smoldering pace and an overwhelmingly dreadful atmosphere. It’s rare these days to see a horror movie that takes its time and plays itself as a drama, and this one (as well as Hereditary) do just that. Also? It’s a surprisingly artful horror movie. Me likey. You should watchy.

AVENGERS: INFINITY WAR (SPOILERS BELOW!)

What I love about this movie is what I’ve always loved about the Avengers saga — the gargantuan feat of simply pulling off this sprawling narrative is always a treat.

The real genius was structuring the movie around its villain was the only way to pull together such a massive lineup of characters, and its conclusion, though devastating, is really inspiring from a filmmaking perspective.

Marvel essentially pulled the biggest reversal in movie history, priming you for over ten years to expect the heroes to always win. Letting that grow to the point where most of us are complaining about it… And boom. We got the rug pulled out on us.

The theatre I saw this one in sat in stunned silence as the credits rolled. And somehow, along the way, this tragedy was a lot of fun.

BLACK PANTHER

I loved this movie the moment it opened in Oakland in the 90s. Looking at Black Panther as a superhero movie isn’t giving the story its due. This is a story about what Africa might look like if it were never colonized, and follows an antagonist whose convictions about empowering the oppressed are convincing. It’s a movie about duty, not just to one’s kingdom, but to our fellow beings. It’s about community and progress.

And yeah, it’s got a lot of awesome action sequences and has magic spirit trip herbs and people turning into big cats (but who am I to judge that?). It’s a fun ride, and a masterfully crafted film that easily stands alone from its cinematic universe.

A QUIET PLACE

High concept thrillers are coming back, and it’s awesome! Following real life supercouple John Krasinski and Emily Blunt as they struggle to keep their family safe in a world overrun by alien creatures who hunt using sound. If they hear you, the hunt you, and the worst (best) part is — the family’s just about to have a baby. Tense, inventive, and remarkably heartfelt. Let’s be real, though. We’ve all already seen this one. Watch it again!

MANDY

If Fallout was cocaine, then Mandy is acid, DMT, and everything you shouldn’t mix in one delightful, Nick-Cage-doing-the-Nick-Cagey goodness. I will not speak of the plot (though there is one!), and will instead say only this:

Chainsaw fight. But one of the chainsaws is like 10ft long and it’s lit like a 70s hippy den. Chomp on an edible, toss this one on, and prepare for a legitimate experience. An urban fantasy novel in movie form. Candy. Yeah, I know. I did it.

The sheer number of auteur visions that came out this year is promising. For a long time, people have said the spec script is dead, and the proliferation of big-budget franchises dominating the box office has a lot of people saying good movies are dying.

I’m not so sure that’s true.

Low budget and medium budget movies keep popping up, and this year’s global turmoil did exactly what a lot of us were saying it would do — it produced good art.

As we move into the new year, let’s hope these new avenues for smaller movies continue to grow. The big movies have their place, and they’re not going anywhere, so we might as well enjoy what’s to enjoy about them.

Limitations almost always yield the kind of creativity that produces awesome art. I’m at a bit of a loss over how many movies hit the list this year. I hope it keeps growing.

#journal #2018 #movies #screenwriting #story #yearinmovies

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scripttorture · 6 years

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A character a nearly beaten to death with blows using a knuckleduster to the face and torso and afterwards receives no medical attention and is starved. What would their mental and physical state be like with these conditions over the course of a month? (I want to show the progression of deterioration)

OK well this isn’timpossible by any means but my answer is assuming that by ‘starved’ you mean avery restricted diet rather than absolutely no food and there are a couple ofthings you should be aware of with beatings.

The first is the waythey kill. A major cause of death is kidney failure. Repeated blows and massivedamage to the muscles leads to a lot of very large proteins being released intothe blood stream. These are channelled to the kidneys (because it usuallyfilters poisons out of the blood) and…well basically there’s too much for thekidneys to cope with. They fail and that leads to death.

This means someone canbe beaten to death and die days later.

Another possible issueis the ‘coward punch’. A single sudden blow to the head (often when the victimwasn’t expecting it) that knocks them instantly unconscious. These regularlykill. The victim can’t protect themselves as they fall and they tend to getmassive head injuries when they hit the ground.

Then there’s the possibilityof straight up death from brain injury caused by repeated blows to the head.

What I’m essentiallytrying to highlight here is that beatings like this can easily be lethal in anumber of ways and the time scale can vary hugely depending on what the majorinjury is.

If you want thecharacter to die there’s a lot of points where something could realistically gowrong. If you want the character to live that’s also perfectly possible.

If there’s just the onebeating at the beginning of this ordeal then the majority of the deteriorationthe character goes through will be from being starved. Generally speaking abeating, even a serious one, isn’t going to cause a whole lot of physical deteriorationlater. I’d expect the character todie within a week, be in a coma for months, or not die.

With no medicalattention I’d say a coma would be an unlikely outcome: if the character wentinto a coma they wouldn’t linger they’d die.

The real lifecomparison I keep thinking of is work camps and concentration camps, which alltend/ed to rely on a combination of beatings, starvation and forced labour. Ithink that any survivor’s account of such a situation be helpful. I personallylike Ronald Searle’s combination of written and artistic account in To the Kwai and Back, but there are alot of others. Accounts of gulags or British concentration camps in Africa mightbe more helpful to you than accounts in central Europe.

With no medicalattention and a sparse diet I think you’re also going to need to considerdiseases and exposure.

The sort of torture you’redescribing is often combined with inadequate accommodations of some kind.Heatstroke, hypothermia and so forth aren’t necessarily going to happen, but awounded and starving character is going to be more vulnerable to changes intemperature. It’s a possible complication to consider.

Starvation makes peoplemore vulnerable to disease. In cramped conditions with other people parasitescan be a particular problem and gut worms can be very dangerous indeed. Things likefevers, common cold and diarrhoea can kill. Now if the character is surroundedby healthy people then some of the diseases commonly seen in famine conditionswill be less likely: things like typhus and typhoid for instance probably won’tbe a problem. But they will still have an extremely weakened immune system andwill get hit hard by just about every bug going round.

Psychologicallyspeaking I think in that monthstarvation is going to have a bigger impact than beatings. Once the characterhas recovered from starvation and is eating normally the reverse will be true. The traumatising effect of that kind ofvicious attack lasts, while the psychological effect of starving only seems tolast as long as the person is starving.

The longer term effectsof the beating arebroadly covered in this Masterpost on the common effects of torture. With afew exceptions the method of torture doesn’t affect the symptoms victims develop.We don’t have a way to predict symptoms in reality so I tend to suggest authorschose the symptoms they feel fit the character and story best.

Memory problems areextremely common following the sort of attack you describe and are rarely shownin fiction. Chronic pain is also a very common symptom after beatings and in a scenariowhere the character has no medical help it seems more likely: there are goingto be things that healed a little ‘off’.

These symptoms would bepresent during the month the character is being starved, but they’re likely tobe….less prominent than the effects of starvation itself.

Now thebest source I have on what starvation does to individuals is, happily,available for free online. It’s essentially the brief notes on the MinnesotaStarvation Experiment. During World War 2 a bunch of pacifists voluntarilystarved themselves so that scientists could study the effect of starvation onhuman beings and find better ways ofhelping the starving recover.

I think that’s prettybadass and I also found it really helpful for writing and understanding whatstarvation does to someone. The men kept diaries, which go a long way toturning the symptoms from a list of long words into something you can reallysee a character going through.

MyMasterpost on starvation is here. That’s probably going to be the quickestthing to look at in terms of physical effects of starvation.

In a month on a veryrestricted diet (ie some but inadequate food) then some of the physicalconditions are less likely to be prominent. Nutritional deficiency baseddiseases, oedema, prolapsed uterus are much more likely in someone who’s beenstarved for longer. Increased hair growth could have started and the characterwill probably have lost enough body fat and muscle that difficulty controllingbody temperature, weakness and fainting fits would all apply.

The character’s lookswould change considerably and in a way that might well be shocking to peoplewho know them. It can have a strange effect on people’s faces as the fat whichgives the face its shape starts to vanish. Given the time frame involved I’dsay that wasting of the body, the effect on the skin (drier, ashen, drained)and the hair (brittle, faded) would be very noticeable.

The change in theirpersonality might be more disturbing though.

Starving people areextremely volatile, apathetic to almost everything around them and completelyobsessed with food. They don’t have a lot of energy and they find it difficultto motivate themselves to do anything that isn’t food related. They’reincredibly anxious and suffer from severe mood swings.

I give a more thoroughlist in the Masterpost and the summary of the Minnesota Starvation Experiment Ilinked to includes extracts from the subjects’ diaries at different time pointsduring the experiment.

In terms of showing this deterioration I think thathaving the beating first complicates things a little. There’s going to be aperiod of over a week where the character is still recovering physically fromthe beating and as a result they may not recognise some of the psychologicalsymptoms of starvation as related to starvation. They might not even realisesome of these changes are happening at all.

Depending on how you writethat could make things easier or a lot more difficult. Including incidents thatforce the character to confront changes in themselves and their mental statewould probably be a good way of showing what they’re going through.

If the character is normallyquite morally upstanding I’d suggest focusing on the emotional blunting andapathy particularly. Because the character could recognise these and be shockedat their own response, and yet still find it incredibly difficult to do whatthey know to be ‘the right thing’.

Having other charactersaround who can see these changes from the outside would also help. They’re morelikely to recognise the changes aschanges.

If there are furtherbeatings during this ordeal then the character may assume that any changes theynotice in themselves are down to the beatings or recovering from them, ratherthan lack of food.

The effects ofstarvation will manifest gradually, getting worse with time, and they willvanish almost entirely as the character is allowed to eat properly and recover.

The effects of thebeatings and any other tortures wouldn’tmanifest gradually. They turn to show up almost immediately and would generallybe with a survivor in some form for the rest of their lives. Those are thingsthe character will have to learn to work around and live with rather than thingsthat can be ‘cured’.

I hope that helps. :)

Disclaimer

#tw torture #starvation #beatings #tw concentration camps #gulags #psychological effects of starvation #catherinedoveland

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scintillating-galaxias · 5 years

Text

give ‘em hell, darling

Chapter Four—Step 3

The Plan begins to fall apart.

(Read it here on ao3!)

Aziraphale’s cell was empty aside from him for what felt like days. Months, maybe, or just an hour. However much time had passed; all he could think about through it all was Earth. He’d told Crowley—oh, how he missed his one true friend!—to give them Hell, but he was not-so-secretly hoping he wasn’t making too large of a mess of the place. There was only one London, after all. Or perhaps, without Aziraphale to anchor him to one spot, Crowley was roaming about the Earth, causing as much chaos as he desired. If this was the case, then Aziraphale rectified the previous statement to now say, “There was only one Earth, after all.”

He’d taken to pacing around the perimeter to take his mind off of his worries. Occasionally, bouts of frustration and anger, at Uriel, at himself, at all of Heaven, rendered him motionless and stiff with fury and he had to remind himself, Crowley was waiting for him. He had promised to come back; therefore, he would come back.

Easy, angel, he’d probably say, and a spike of loneliness drove through Aziraphale’s gut, and off he would go worrying all over again, and off he would go pacing all over again.

This cycle went on for a long, long time.

Eventually, Aziraphale had memorized the number of paces it took to circle the room, had recited multiple of his favorite books to himself to stave off his restlessness, even tried his hand at sleeping, which only brought him shadowy, vague dreams of voices calling out to him behind endless curtains, and so he did not attempt it a second time. He tried not to think too much about Earth lest he be consumed by nostalgia and a bone-deep yearning for home.

Finally, he stopped to stare down at his feet. No one was coming for him. And though he was confident he would escape, he did not know when exactly that would be. He looked to the sigils on the walls. He had little personal use for them aside from the communication portal in his shop. Most of what he remembered about them was from the Early Days. No human book on Earth had the correct directions to create a real, working sigil, so he had no way to brush up on something he’d learned eight thousand years ago.

But that was no real concern. Aziraphale, if a somewhat lousy angel, was still devastatingly intelligent. He deemed no part of his life unnecessary and did not discard a single minute. He stored away every single day in a box-shaped memory and placed them in what was essentially a cubbyhole in his mind, waiting to be taken down and reopened again. All that was left was a relatively simple task of walking himself all the way down to the beginning.

He did that, and sure enough, he found the times he had had that knowledge sewn into his being. And then it was clear the sigils had a lot of threatening decorative flair to them, but otherwise were basic holding and repression sigils designed to prevent him from using his powers. One was made to reinforce the walls in case he—what, punched his way out? Either way, their meanings were not shocking in any capacity, but having a basic understanding made the sigils a whole lot less threatening. It was a bit like seeing an unnerving shape in the dark that is vaguely humanoid, but when one gathered the courage to shine a light on it, it ended up being a tree stump or an oddly shaped rock.

Aziraphale had just relaxed when his ears popped rather painfully.

“How’s this place been treating you?”

Aziraphale felt like a switch had been flipped. One moment a current of cautious optimism buoyed him, the next he was desperately struggling to keep himself from screaming.

“Gabriel,” he said coldly, refusing to turn around, “to what do I owe the honor?”

He heard Gabriel grin. “What do you think?” Footsteps came closer to him, dulled and weakened by the nature of the room. “I made it myself.”

Aziraphale tightened his jaw and finally turned to meet Gabriel’s falsely sunny smile. “What do you want, Gabriel. You’re not here for pleasantries.”

The smile slid right off of Gabriel’s face. In its place, an unfriendly scowl soured his handsome visage. “You need to do us a favor,” he said, clipped.

“Do I now?” Aziraphale twiddled his thumbs. “I do apologize, but you caught me at a bad time. I’m quite busy at the moment.”

“No, you aren’t.”

“Oh, but I am. I’m reading, you see.”

“What?”

“These sigils—they’re quite well done, is all,” Aziraphale replied chipperly. “I doubt you have a scrap of artistic prowess, so pass on my appreciation to dear Michael, but they’re fascinating to look at. Really.”

Gabriel’s violet eyes darkened to a nasty bruise-purple. “Enough with the chit chat. Either you can listen to me, or you can be left here to die.” He spread his hands. “It’s an obvious choice to me, but”—he sucked in a breath his teeth—“between you and me, you make a lot of stupid decisions.”

The dangerously powerful temptation to tell Gabriel to stuff it up his arse was mighty, but through the sort of class maintained through diligence forged in himself over the centuries, Aziraphale resisted. Crowley would be disappointed. Perhaps another time.

He warily side-eyed Gabriel, then carefully asked, “What do you want from me?”

“Advice.”

Aziraphale had opened his mouth furiously, and now it snapped shut with a clack of his teeth. “Come again?”

“The new agents we have been sending to Earth in your place are, hm. Struggling,” he said tersely, as though each word physically pained him to say. “The Council would appreciate some insight.”

Inwardly, Aziraphale sighed in relief. At least his foresight had been correct up to this point. Another angel had indeed been sent down to replace him. Multiple angels, if he’d heard correctly.

“If you don’t mind me ask—what sort of struggles are you encountering?”

“Earth has not been—how should I say this—welcoming.”

“I understand that. What exactly is happening that has forced you to come to me?”

“It’s just not working out.”

Good Lord. Aziraphale closed his eyes for a few seconds, inhaled deeply, and then reopened them.

“I’m afraid I’m not following.” Aziraphale raised his eyebrows conspiratively. “Perhaps you could show me?”

Aziraphale had precisely zero hope of that working. However, Gabriel appeared to be at his (very short) wit’s end and sharply jerked his wrist. Aziraphale felt a swooping sensation one would feel when driving down a sharp downgrade in the road, only throughout his whole body. It took him a few seconds to reorient himself and straighten out his coat; his wrists had not yet been freed from their cuffs. When he finished, he looked up.

Before him were the three other Archangels, Uriel, Michael, and Sandalphon, and one angel Aziraphale did not recognize. They were all standing in front of the massive globe of the Earth, muttering furtively. The tension weighing down the air was almost palpable.

Michael caught sight of him, and briskly made her way towards him. “Why is this happening,” she demanded. Aziraphale blinked impassively.

“Gabriel did not inform me of details,” he said honestly. “What appears to be the problem?”

He studied the other angel, who was studiously not looking at him. They’d probably been in the crowd that day, and it showed: their posture was impossibly stiff, as though someone had fused his spine with a metal pole, and their breast was puffed out like it was the bow of a foolhardy ship ready to crash its way through any storm-tossed sea, yet their flinty gray eyes practically frothed with apprehension.

“Let us play a small game,” said Sandalphon. His head was gleaming with sweat, which worried Aziraphale because if an Archangel was sweating when they typically do not even have sweat glands, something was tremendously wrong. “Principality Aziraphale, I would like you to guess how many angels we have sent down to Earth since you were sentenced to imprisonment.”

Aziraphale hesitated. “That depends. How long was I imprisoned?”

They told him.

“A year?” Aziraphale felt his heart drop right down to his shoes. But that—He’d meant to come back much sooner! How could he have spent a year pacing around in that jail cell!

“One Earth year,” confirmed Sandalphon. “Now. Do you have a guess?”

Aziraphale tried to run some numbers through his scrambled mind.

Obviously, they’d picked out one angel already. He could only assume something had happened to that one, but when exactly, he could only speculate. He recalled one other time when another angel who was not, surprisingly, any of the Archangels, had come to deliver a message to him. They had been crushed flat by a horse carriage. If that was the sort of “unwelcome” receival Gabriel mentioned—no, that time must have been a fluke—

“Erm? I-I’m not sure. Forty? Thirty. It must be less, yes? No?” Aziraphale caught Sandalphon’s positively murderous expression. “Oh, dear.”

“One hundred and forty-five,” he said flatly. “One hundred and forty-five angels in the past year either were discorporated or turned in their resignation within two weeks. The singular outlier made it two months before provoking the demon Crowley and ultimately discorporated after a short skirmish.”

Aziraphale frowned. That didn’t sound right, either. Although Crowley boasted of blending his plants in his garbage disposal when the misbehaved to invoke fear, Crowley also happened to be an extraordinarily shoddy liar when it came to Aziraphale. Crowley did not kill unless absolutely necessary. He didn’t want the children to die at the Ark, and he didn’t want to kill the Antichrist. If one were to ask, ‘What about the holy water? And the Nazi’s?’ that whole debacle with Ligur and the holy water had left Crowley shaken and extremely skittish around clear liquids for months. And the Nazis were Nazis. That should be explanation enough.

“May I ask what happened?” Aziraphale asked doubtfully.

Sandalphon sighed and miracled a clipboard overstuffed with papers into existence. With another tedious sigh, he flicked back to about halfway through the stack and read, “The angel Asteroth was deployed to London on the twelfth of August, 2018. One month and eight days into her deployment, she attempted to enter a bookshop—your bookshop,” he amended, sneering, “where the demon Crowley was found to be lying in wait. She drew her holy blade to dispose of him, but, according to her, as she was doing so, it struck an old bookshelf and, quote, ‘seriously up the books.’ The demon appeared upset and told her, ‘He’s going to eviscerate you for that. Best if I do it,’ before dropping a modified paperweight on her head and breaking her neck.”

Aziraphale, who had a brilliant surge of fondness for Crowley rush through him like a tidal wave—had he been staying at the bookshop all this time?—coughed to avoid a sharp burst of laughter.

“That is… unfortunate,” he said as sincerely as he could. And absolutely bloody hysterical. Not that Aziraphale found the discorporation of any angel funny, but for all the fuss Heaven made and torment they put him through by making him the unholy beacon of Heaven, they had no clue how to properly go about Earth (and Crowley) without the one angel who knew better. It was like building a railroad that ended directly off a cliff.

“Indeed,” Michael said gravely. “Our corporeal form department has not seen this much work since the Heavenly War.”

The new angel now appeared to be regretting accepting whatever exactly it was that Michael told them.

Aziraphale regained control of himself. “So, erm… what exactly do you want me to do about it?”

“We want you to oversee our performances and tell us exactly what we are doing wrong,” said Gabriel. “There’s absolutely no reason this should be happening.”

“I see.”

“Observe,” said Sandalphon, gesturing to where Uriel and Michael were speaking to the new angel.

“You’ve made the necessary preparations, Arael?” Uriel was saying.

“Yes,” firmly replied the angel. “I’ve insured my etiquette is inoffensive, my human body as neutral as possible, and I read the brochure on London’s Do’s and Don’ts.” They furrowed their brow. “It was… interesting.”

“Excellent,” said Michael. “I’m sure your arrival will be… better received.”

Aziraphale bit back a scathing exclamation. If their Earth 101 course was one long, convoluted lesson that could be summarized as “be nice”, it was no wonder why everything was going so poorly!

“Is that all?” he asked against his better judgment. “Are those the ‘preparations’ you’ve given to every single one of those angels?”

Uriel and Michael turned to him. Michael raised her eyebrows. “Is it incorrect?” she said.

He gestured distraughtly the best he could with the way his wrists are bound together. “Humans are much more than just saying nice things to them! They are complicated creatures—”

“It won’t present any issues,” said Arael such overblown confidence, Aziraphale could not stop the roll of his eyes. “I will guide them back to the right path if they choose to display ignorance and hate.”

“No! They don’t like that either!” Aziraphale exclaimed. “You won’t find a single Londoner who’ll take a minute out of his day to listen for someone to lecture—”

“I’m the one being dispatched,” snapped Arael. “You were the one strayed too far from Her path. I know what I’m doing.”

Aziraphale scoffed. “You are the one hundred and forty-sixth angel. Please enlighten me; what makes you think you’re so different from the other one hundred and forty-five?”

“You’re both being childish,” interrupted Michael. “We’re wasting time. Who knows what waste that demon lays while we stand around here and argue? We must get on with it.”

Gabriel placed an unfriendly hand on Arael’s padded shoulder. “Well? Off you go, then.”

“Of course.” Arael nodded stiffly, touched the globe, and was whisked away in a cloud of gray.

“And now we wait,” said Gabriel with a strained grin.

“For what—”

A bolt of lightning silenced him, and Arael reappeared on the ground in a bleeding heap.

“That,” said Uriel.

“Erm,” said Aziraphale.

“Arael.” Michael somehow encapsulated the tone of motherly patience that was barely holding its ground in its losing battle against the fury of a thousand suns in that one word. “It has been exactly nine Earth seconds since your deployment to Earth.”

“It’s so much worse than we thought,” mumbled poor Arael, shivering.

Aziraphale knelt down and helped their shaking heavenly form to their feet, murmuring, “Up you go, excellent, just like that…” The other Archangels did not move an inch, choosing instead to click their tongues and look disappointed.

“They’re everywhere,” continued Arael in a haunted tone. They listed dangerously, and Aziraphale hastily righted them while attempting to repress the bleeding. The Archangels shared a look betwixt themselves. “I can’t—I can’t do it. I was discorporated within ten steps.”

“Would you mind telling us what happened?” asked Gabriel with a very plasticky look of concern. “For future references, I’m sure you’d understand.”

“You can’t send another down there!” gasped Arael, and alright, maybe they were being a tad overdramatic. Discorporation was uncomfortable at best, and certainly not permanent. Arael merely had an unfortunate first-time.

“We must. Evil will not rest on its own unless Good is there to stop it,” said Michael. Aziraphale chose not to mention the time Crowley was asleep for a whole century.

Arael bled and swayed for a few more seconds before speaking. “Everywhere I looked, there were great metal beasts with two glowing eyes on the front.” They shuddered. “And they all had four black, round legs that don’t move like any of God’s creature’s should. They spun. They weren’t mentioned in the briefing I was given. I stepped off of the sidewalk, and one immediately charged me. It must have been a new breed of demon,” they concluded.

Ah. Aziraphale immediately understood what had happened and had to stifle a chuckle as the bewilderment growing between the Archangels sky-rocketed. He wasn’t quiet enough and was awarded a particularly nasty look from Michael.

“Poor thing,” she said, pulling Arael none too gently away from Aziraphale. She waved her fingers, and the swaying and stumbling stopped. Another wave and the wounds vanished, as well as the blood. Arael straightened themselves, dazed. Then their face turned glowed—literally—pink in humiliation.

“I—I need to file a report for a new body,” they stammered, rapidly backing away. “If, if you’ll excuse me, of course.”

“Before you go,” cut in Michael. “Tell us, what did this particular demon look like?”

“A 2016 Ford Fiesta,” said Arael, and they hurried away.

The remaining angels stared at Arael’s retreating back until Uriel coughed awkwardly. “That was a new record for shortest visit to Earth.”

“What in Heaven is a ‘Ford Fiesta?’” asked Sandalphon.

“I will pick a few more angels from our queue,” Michael said hurriedly, and she vanished in a flash.

Gabriel turned and caught Aziraphale’s shoulder in a vice grip. “That,” he said, squeezing painfully, “has been happening every. Single. Time. What are we doing wrong? Tell us.”

“What do I know?” said Aziraphale pleasantly, ignoring the growing pressure. “Arael was correct, after all. I’m not fit for the job.”

Gabriel glowered at him, his eyes blazing with a fury that begged to be released and only reined in after Aziraphale was laid to rest. Aziraphale smiled amicably, then squeaked as a knife jabbed into his chin.

“You’re going to do it,” growled Uriel. “Or you’re never going to see your boyfriend again.”

“Ooh, very good Uriel!” said Gabriel, clapping his hands delightedly. “That was—very nice. Now then. Aziraphale.” He smiled thinly. “You will be delivering the briefings. Tell them everything they need to know before they go and get themselves killed again. If we don’t see results, we’ll have to intervene.”

Aziraphale tilted his chin up to spare some distance between his flesh and the tip of the blade. “And if I refuse? You don’t have anyone else like me.”

“You get to go back to your cell for the rest of time. We’ll figure the rest out eventually.”

Incredible. He was being offered quite the variety of choices, wasn’t he. “Fine. I suppose I am forced to accept. Under the conditions”—he caught Gabriel’s glare and hardened his own gaze—“that I am not kept in that cell. I will not attempt to escape to Earth—”

“You can’t, anyway. You’re bound here by the First Laws.”

Ah. That somewhat dampened Aziraphale’s spirits, but at least it was information. He carefully stored it away and made a note to review those laws later. “I see. And the other condition is to have my cuffs removed. I can’t go anywhere anyhow, and they’re serving to be demeaning at this point.”

Uriel and Gabriel shared a dubious look, but it was Sandalphon who cut in. “We accept your current conditions. Is there anything else?”

Aziraphale kept fluttering bubbles of joy tamped down. He knew he could not push it any further, but it felt like a step in the right direction, a step closer to home; a step closer to Crowley.

“No,” he said primly. “That will be all.”

With a reluctant snap of their fingers, Uriel vanished the cuffs. A deep ache of relief spread down as Aziraphale’s spine as his wings were finally allowed to unwind after a year. He flapped them in their plane of existence, wincing as he felt the bones click and pop in complaint. “Thank you.” He cleared his throat. “I accept your offer. I will try to assist to the best of my ability, but I must note that there are no guarantees.”

“Results,” Gabriel insisted. “Something better than nine seconds.”

“I believe I can manage that,” Aziraphale said lightly. “I cannot tell them everything about human cultures from the past six-thousand some years. Humans are complex and wonderfully diverse creatures, and you cannot expect the same things from every single one—”

“It’s not us you should be talking to.” Tremors began to rumble from Aziraphale’s shoes to up his legs. “It’s them.”

He turned just as Michael rounded the corner with at least fifty other angels in tow of all ages and ranks. Some angels who didn’t look a day over twenty walked with one massive, willowy seraph who was bringing up the rear, which Aziraphale could not help but be extremely confused about. They were all chattering excitedly, but upon seeing Aziraphale, they unanimously silenced themselves and stared blankly.

“Erm,” said Aziraphale. “Hello.”

A few of them murmured back, “Good day,” and one even managed a, “Hi.”

Aziraphale smiled encouragingly at the unsure shuffling and side-eyes. “I suppose we’ll make this our first lesson, hm? Does that sound okay? Lovely. Most humans would appreciate a response, a ‘hi,’ ‘hello,’ ‘how do you do,’ even if you”—he bobbed his head once—“simply nod. Now. Let us try that again. Hello!”

All at once, fifty angels cried, “Hello!” so loudly, the glass window nearby developed a crack. It was shocked by this development, and, believing itself to be fatally wounded, fell apart.

Aziraphale blinked once, and then very quietly sighed, “Oh, dear.”

It looked like he had his work cut out for him.

#good omens #good omens fanfic #aziraphale #uriel #sandalphon #gabriel (good omens)#michael (good omens)#the archange #angel oc's #my writing #gehd

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briangroth27 · 6 years

Text

The Cloverfield Paradox Review

I absolutely love Cloverfield and 10 Cloverfield Lane, so I was stoked when God Particle was announced as the third Cloverfield film. The delays in its theatrical release were frustrating, but I hoped they would only improve it and make the wait worthwhile. When Netflix renamed it The Cloverfield Paradox and released it right after the Super Bowl, I was shocked and excited. And it was…underwhelming, unfortunately. I absolutely believe there’s a great concept at the core of this movie, but it’s nowhere near the quality of the first two.

Full Spoilers…

The story of a particle accelerator experiment seeking to create an unlimited energy source for an Earth quickly running out of them was a solid premise that felt reasonably realistic and relevant to problems we may be facing in the near future. Ava Hamilton’s (Gugu Mbatha-Raw) dual emotional struggles of leaving her husband (Roger Davies) back on Earth for years while she tested the accelerator and her attempts to grapple with the deaths of her children in an accidental house fire gave the film some strong emotional resonance. Mbatha-Raw carried the emotional arc of the movie very well (and she had the best material to work with), though the middle of the film seemed to lose focus on that aspect. In the end, I enjoyed the way she was able to push her alternate self onto a better road by warning her about the house fire along with providing her the instructions on making their particle accelerator work. Hamilton’s brief desire to jump ship and live on this alternate universe with her kids was understandable, but I liked that they referenced the realism of that situation: those weren’t really her kids and they already had a mother. I definitely appreciated that they didn’t make it an easy decision, like having the alternate Hamilton die in the fire instead of her kids. The rest of the characters were pretty thinly drawn and didn’t capture my attention the way Hamilton did. They were fine for what we did get out of them—and I appreciate the diversity of the casting throughout the movie—but they struggled to escape the stock characterizations they were given. For example, a subplot about a parallel version of Schmidt (Daniel Bruhl) being a traitor only served to give Mina (Elizabeth Debicki) a reason to try and kill him, without giving him the chance to reflect on who he might’ve become or revealing some hidden truth about this version of himself (or giving her a moment to realize that now she was the traitor). That all the astronauts represented different countries (and eventually, different universes) was a nice way of reinforcing the theme of cooperation and the idea that the only way to save the world is if we work together. The scenes set on Earth—apparently added after test audiences wanted to know what was happening there—didn’t work that well for me (despite solid acting) because they didn’t show much; they ended up taking screentime from the more interesting plot in space without swapping in something equally engaging. If you’re going to tease apocalyptic tears in the fabric of space and time, show us what comes out of them! If it was meant to be a thematic tie to 10 Cloverfield Lane’s bunker setting, it didn’t work for me. And if the escape pod or the crashed alternate Cloverfield Station was supposed to be the mystery debris at the end of the original film, that could’ve been explained better.

I thought the physics gone crazy was fun, creepy, weird, and imaginative, but I would've liked them to push things even further, particularly given any logic rules seemed to be out the window. Instead of the "very similar Earth" they traveled to, I wish they had gone much bigger and visited the dimension all the aliens and monsters are coming from (“Earth is gone!” was a cool hook, but finding out they’d just moved the station across the solar system was a letdown, even with the alternate Hamilton stuff). Not only would a dimension of original aliens be more innovative than what they did (and the danger would've been bigger, showcasing their escape from a universe gone mad), but it would've worked as more of a direct backstory to the rest of the Cloverfield films instead of just saying all the weirdness is a completely unintentional result of an unrelated accident. Scientists trying to out-think the impossible to get back to their dimension would've been a fun challenge for their logic-driven minds, while inadvertently opening doors to those horrors throughout the multiverse as they got home would’ve been a better gut-punch twist ending than just a massive Clover showing up (think of all the alternate versions of Hamilton’s kids who will now suffer because of the monsters she let into their worlds). I would have cut the conspiracy theory exposition about the station and just showed a montage of it happening (with a Hamilton voice-over explaining it), complete with scenes from the other two movies, making the link between films a surprise. Additionally, if you wanted to continue Hamilton’s story, you could have her set out to fix the mess she inadvertently caused (which, yes, sounds a lot like Abrams’ series Fringe, which had a similar event break physics in multiple universes). Unfortunately, it seems a more solid connection would've been impossible with the way this movie was made: God Particle was a standalone film that had Cloverfield connections retrofitted into it during production (so was 10 Cloverfield Lane, but that was a far stronger solo effort and it was less important to the overall Cloverfield mythos). Had this been written as a Cloverfield movie from the start, it would've been much tighter and stronger. As it stands, it feels more like a good idea that didn't reach its potential.

That said, I don't think they ever needed to connect these movies into a shared universe in the first place. Abrams' initial idea of Cloverfield being a "theme park" with each movie being an unconnected but thematically-linked "ride" was cool; sort of a cinematic Twilight Zone. Still, this was an interesting way of connecting the films without having to explicitly explain how each new movie fits in (particularly if they continue folding previously unconnected movies into the Cloverfield umbrella, like the upcoming Overlord). Whatever craziness is going on in future installments, we can just assume it's happening in a different time/reality from the other films (unless a character recurs).

The Cloverfield Paradox is fun and showcases a strong performance from Mbatha-Raw, but unfortunately falls short of its predecessors. Luckily, this isn’t a conventional franchise, so this one’s untapped potential doesn’t hurt the other films in the series or create unnecessary work for future sequels to pick up the slack. I wouldn’t mind seeing Mbatha-Raw’s Hamilton set out to stop the breaches (maybe she could team up with Mary Elizabeth Winstead’s Michelle from 10 Cloverfield Lane!), only to show up in the aliens’ dimension so that we could explore the weirdness to the fullest in a true, from-the-first-draft Cloverfield movie.

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