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graysoncritic · 19 days

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A (Negative) Review of Tom Taylor's Nightwing Run - Conclusion

Introduction Who is Dick Grayson? What Went Wrong? Dick's Characterization What Went Wrong? Barbara Gordon What Went Wrong? Bludhaven (Part 1, Part 2) What Went Wrong? Melinda Lin Grayson What Went Wrong? Bea Bennett What Went Wrong? Villains Conclusion Bibliography

Though it may not appear so given the length of this essay, I did try to be fair to Taylor and Redondo. I focused my criticism on Taylor because my knowledge of written storytelling far exceeds my knowledge of visual storytelling, especially when it comes to sequential art. As such, I did not think it was my place to criticize something that I did not feel entirely comfortable addressing.

As I implied in the introduction, this essay was both an intellectual exercise and a cathartic one. Much of the information in it were reworded discussions I had with other Dick Grayson fans throughout the past couple of years. I must also thank them for allowing me to quote them when appropriate, as none of this would have been possible without their contribution. The essay itself was written in the time span of months, and sometimes I went weeks without even opening the document, only doing so again when a new issue came out and I wanted to vent.

As I worked on this, I was able to articulate a frustration that has been building up inside of me and, I know, many Dick Grayson fans for years. These frustrations are not exclusive to Taylor's writing. Rather, Taylor’s writing is but the most obvious and prominent example of said problem, with new and old symptoms drawing glaring attention to themselves on a monthly basis. The real problem behind all of these grievances and, quite frankly, the hurt Dick Grayson fans feel at the moment is rooted in the fact that DC Comics as a whole seems determined to undermine, if not completely erase, the importance of this amazing character.

There are other ways in which this can be observed. One of the Dick Grayson fans I know has been collecting examples of this erasure that span decades. I, myself, have thoughts on the motivations behind these actions and how they are reflective of a societal dislike for those who are othered, and especially those who challenge patriarchal ideals, the gender binary, and heteronormative culture.

Perhaps one day I will address those subjects. Or perhaps not. As cathartic as writing this was, I do want to write more about the things I love rather than the things I hate. But I also believe it is important to express dissatisfaction when experienced, to vent when required, and to critique when necessary.

If you stuck around this far, then I do not believe that this needs stating, but just in case, I must assert that I reject any claims that comics should not be analyzed in this much depth. I do not, for a second, believe that comics are above serious criticism simply due to their format or their content. Comics, like every form of storytelling, are worthy of being examined and dissected. They are a part of our culture. They are literature and as such, they deserve to be studied.

This essay explored Taylor’s current, ongoing run of Nightwing. I believe it proved not only its failure as a good story, but also as a good Nightwing story. Taylor’s superficial characterization, weak plot, and simplistic morality that undermines the story’s stated themes, demonstrate that Taylor does not care about Dick Grayson. He does not see Dick as a character worthy of his care and attention. At the very best Taylor lacks the knowledge to understand Dick. At the very best, Taylor has no interest in getting to know him, nor any respect for his predecessors to learn how they handled Dick and incorporating their work into his continuity. At worst, he despises the character so much that he wishes to re-invent him into something different, tossing away everything that was special to his fans in order to bring in a new crowd that never cared about Dick Grayson before he was made palatable to them.

And that attitude is not isolated to Taylor. It is, I believe, observable throughout much of DC. Not all current writers, editors, and artists are like this, of course, but for years — decades, actually — there have been attempts to erase Dick’s importance to certain characters, to replace him, to downplay his achievements and his uniqueness in order to prop up others, and to water him down until he becomes but a shadow of who he was. Sometimes, it feels like DC is trying to kill Dick Grayson, remove his parts and give to other characters. This character gets his unique relationship with Bruce. This character gets to keep Dick’s relevance to Robin. These characters can have Bludhaven. For how long, I must wonder, do Dick Grayson fans have to put up with this silently? Must we just quietly watch this continue until Dick is all hollowed out and is only a memory living in the hearts of those who love him?

Because we do love him. We love him for all the special characteristics that made him different, that did not make him into a blank canvas, an every-man hero. I do not hate Taylor personally, but I believe that his clear disinterest in Nightwing is not an isolated case, and that DC, at this moment in time, is unwilling to engage with Dick’s character and his fans. They want a brand new and palatable hero to step into his place, not the long standing bastion who has been around longer than most of DC’s characters. They don’t want Dick Grayson. They do not respect or care for him. And as such, I believe Dick’s fans have a right to be angry and to feel like DC does not care or respect them.

I do not know how long these attempts at erasing Dick will last. I do not know how long-lasting the effects of Taylor’s run will be. But trends come and go, and Dick has been around for nearly a century. He’s a strong enough character to survive this long, and I believe, despite previous and current attempts, that he will survive this as well.

And as he does, I will be there, cheering him on.

#nightwing #dick grayson #anti tom taylor

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mysticdragon3md3 · 1 month

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Maybe this was in the online digital Nimona artbook before it went offline, but I didn't pay attention to the costume design rules for all the people in the Kingdom, until this video "Visual Storytelling: The Production Design of 'Nimona'" by Gnomon (from which I screencapped all these pics).

It's interesting to consider how these clothing design rules symbolized Ballister's and Ambrosius's positions in society, but also might have reflected bits of their personalities.

"So we first approached it by a very anthropological approach, where we sat down and said, "if this world was to actually evolve in a closed setting, behind these walls, from the medieval, in this kind of fear-based world, how would society evolve from the medieval rules? And how would that work?" So we researched the medieval rules and found that there was the distinction between, you know, nobility and citizenry, and then non-citizens. And so that was a good place to start for us, to say of "How do we organize this massive pool and system of crowd characters? but in a---in a getable way, that also relates to our story and expresses this world that we're doing?""

The Institute:

Nobility:

"So we broke we broke it down into contemporary, um, a contemporary ideology, where our main---our nobility was much more based on, um you know, haute couture rules, where we were---they were simple. They were bold. They were evolution of the kind of royal colors and sumptuary laws that the medieval had, but in a modern, in a modern take."

Citizens:

"Same with the citizens, where we leaned more into broader scope, where we needed to have the ability to have business wear, and athleisure, and, um you know, the color palettes that would be associated. …The range of body types that you would need, and…the range of races and ethnicities."

The Magicals:

Interesting thing about The Magicals, is this note "NO blue or neutral grey (due to the Institute's persecution, magicals have refused to wear Institute colors)."

Ballister's regular clothes seem to be the same color palette as The Magicals. Given the order of these slides, The Magicals seem to be the lowest rank in the Kingdom's society. Previous concept art showed that the Nimona 2023 movie originally would have portrayed a secret society of people with magical powers like Nimona. I assume these costume design rules were for them, though they got cut from the final movie. It seems appropriate that though Ballister has no magical powers, he is dressed in the colors of the Kingdom's lowest societal rank. But as anyone who has drawn him has noticed, the pendant on his shirt is blue. The one color which The Magicals do not wear, because it is the color of The Institute. Ballister is a commoner trying to become a Knight of the Institute, so it makes sense for him. And though Ballister's clothes could maybe be considered shades of gray (as per The Institute), they have the same dark values of The Magicals and are actually more of the "earthy" tones, noted in The Magicals' palettes. Ballister does not wear the light, almost silver, grays of The Institute. But he does wear a blue pendant. And though his pants have a thin golden stripe running down the sides, which is another color emblematic of The Institute, on second look, it is less gold, and more of a light tan, another earthy color. Almost makes me think that after the end of the movie, maybe he should change his blue pendant to purple, since these design instructions for The Magicals also note "One subtle purple item on each magical as a symbol of resistance and solidarity". (It explains the shade of purple in Nimona's skirt.)

Interesting to look at Ambrosius's outfit, while considering these design instructions. Ambrosius does not wear the "bold" colors or high amount of patterns prescribed for Nobility. Instead, he wears white and a dark shade of blue, with mostly solid, non-patterned clothes, as prescribed for The Institute. He is their symbol, through and through. Except for one point: his hoodie's secondary color of tan. Not only is tan an earthy tone, like The Magicals, the lowest societal rank in the Kingdom, but is takes up a noticeable amount of space in his outfit. It is almost like his one little piece of rebellion against his birth position and the expectations of society for him to represent The Institute and Nobility. It may be his one expression of who he is as a person, rather than the expectations placed onto him. It's kind of interesting that they let him get away with that. Maybe he had to fight for it. Maybe it makes him feel closer to Bal. Maybe he likes the distance it puts between him and the Institute. Maybe he didn't get brave enough to start wearing such colors until after he met Bal. (Now I'm getting into headcanon territory.)

Medievals:

This was explained as the costume design instructions for the flashback characters from 1,000 years ago.

#drawing reference #costume design #nimona 2023 #official art #headcanons #character analysis #ballister boldheart #ambrosius goldenloin #pinkfluidnf #ambrbalnf #color schemes #color palettes #patterns #fabric patterns #food for thought #nimona2023

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tatasoom · 4 months

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I'm here today for a special preview analysis in TWO PARTS.

Here in the first part we will talk about the most speculative theory mostly based on nothing lol

In the second part you will discover that P'Aof loves an airport scene so much that gonna give us TWO OF THEM.

Enjoy!

A CRAZY THEORY BASED ON THE PREVIEW (OR NOTHING)

Yeah, I don't think predictions makes much sense now, but some viewers in the comments on YouTube (and also I) noticed a really strange thing in the preview for the last episode. Let's take a look.

Mhok is in the airport and see Day, probably two or three years later (I took this time information from a "novel" and it seems logical due to Day's graduation we see in the preview).

The last shot is already one of my favourite, Jimmy's acting (shock - hope - pain) and the angle, ugh!.. Well, let's talk about Day in this scene.

We see him on an escalator with a bag only and then walking freely... I believe he's a talented boy, but do you believe blind person can walk like this without a stick or a dog?.. I see sometimes visually impaired people in the metro and they're really good at navigating without any help, but they always have the stick! Actually Day also has one!

And that's how we're coming to the first part of the theory:

In this upcoming scene Day is not blind anymore.

Okay, we assume he can see and then the question is why he shows no interest in Mhok.

When I suddenly met my ex three years later after an extremely dramatic relationships and devastating break up, he stopped in the center of the metro station crowd and trust me we both looked more like Mhok, than like Day!

Some viewers think that Day just can't recognize Mhok, because they met each other after Day's vision had lowered to 20%. However we not only saw him looking at Mhok from that one palm distance, but also having photos of Mhok! Don't you think after a successful surgery Day must want to check out what a person he loved so much looks like?..

And that's how we're coming to the second part of the theory:

Day recognized Mhok, but pretends he didn't.

Yeah, I told you this theory is crazy! But listen... all previews, especially for the second part of the show, was playing with our emotions. And as we already know the episode 11 preview just showed us some moments from idk maybe the first ten minutes of the episode. I couldn't even imagine how much fluff and pain this episode actually brought us.

So no wonder this airport scene can be another moment of Day playing on Mhok's nerves (remember that beach scene with the book?) and P'Aof playing with our hearts.

That would be so f***ed up that I'm even ready to forgive them for giving Day his vision back haha

I've also read the novel ending and the series is definitely not gonna be the same, but will have some similarities. Maybe we'll see not only Day's graduation, but also his small bookstore and working process.

The most important part for me is not the circumstances of Day and Mhok's reunion, but the words about Day all that years looking for the kind of love Mhok gave him. I'm not ugly sobbing, you are.

P. S. Still processing episode 11 with a whole mountain of real life stories in my head. Trust me P'Aof is more realistic in storytelling than it seems. If you need a long post about different people I know going to the US for different reasons, also with breaking up with their lovers, just ask me haha

Thank you for reading and don't forget to check the second part!

#last twilight the series #last twilight #jimmy jitaraphol #sea tawinan #jimmysea #mhokday #morkday

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duhragonball · 1 month

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Dang I had a completely different experience with the last two episodes of NGE. I liked how instead of trotting out a bunch of stuff to explain things, it zeroed in on what I saw as the core of the show, which is the emotional disconnect and desire for connection the characters hold and how this has all torn them apart. I much prefer that we got a finale focused on Shinji trying to reconcile his self hatred and fear of connection and his desperate desire for acceptance and love, all of which was made more confusing and intense by his age and circumstances. Resolving that was way more important to me than explaining a bunch of hard details

I totally get what you're saying, and I will concede that EoTV 25 and 26 were more effective at getting to the bottom of Shinji's problems. EoE 25' and 26' tried to go the other direction with the story, except Shinji's still got the same problem to resolve whether it gets addressed or not. I guess that cat photo must have done the trick.

"Well, Shinji, I think the most therapeutic thing you could be doing is putting more cat food in my bowl."

The problem is that the show may be centered around Shinji, but it isn't just about Shinji. It's about his father, it's about the other Eva pilots, it's about Misato and the ultimate fate of humanity.

Like, Asuka wandered off and turned up lying naked in a bathtub in Episode 24. She's in really bad shape, and EoTV just skips right past that to deal with Shinji's damage. Really? Because I think Asuka was in a much worse place than he was at that point. At least Shinji was still walking and talking. I get that he's the main character, but you can't introduce a supporting character like Asuka and put her in that position and then drop it like it never mattered.

The thing I can't get past is that this franchise had two separate chances to put a bow on the story and it whiffed it both times. The first time was supposedly due to limited time and budget cuts, and the second time was apparently because someone broke into the studio and replace a lot of footage with film of people in a movie theater.

"We're a plot point, apparently!"

And it's treated like this is some sort of zero-sum game, like NGE could either focus on Shinji's mental health issues or wrap up the plot threads from the series, but not both at once. The thing is, most storytellers know how to pull off this kind of trick. Most of the time, the events of the story are the therapy that the character needs. Locking Shinji inside his own head seems pointless. If that's what he needed then the show could have just been about him alone in his room, processing his issues by his lonesome.

What boggles my mind is that from the very beginning of the story, it's made clear that this is all about Shinji having it out with his absent father, and yet neither of the two endings bothers to include a scene of Shinji having it out with his father. There's your low-budget, satisfying finale to the TV series right there. Two episodes of Shinji just sitting in a room with his dad. He needs Shinji to pilot the Eva one last time to execute his Third Impact Plan, but Shinji won't cooperate, and he has no choice but to talk it out with him.

It'd just be two characters sitting in a room together talking it out, maybe with some flashback clips to keep the visuals interesting. And while they hash out their issues, they can provide exposition on Asuka's condition, and what Rei was supposed to be, and so on. Again, this is a way to focus on the core conflict of the show, while still addressing plotlines involving the supporting characters. And when it's over, Shinji leaves the room, feeling a lot better about himself than he did before. He's still got some things to sort out, but at least he's settled things with his dad, which was what he came to Tokyo-3 to do.

Or, just put in this photo of a soup can on a public bench, I guess.

#ask duhragonball #neon genesis evangelion #2024ngeliveblog

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panicked-herb · 2 months

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Critique of Fionna and Cake’s Season Finale

It’s been a good couple months since the Fionna and Cake series finale came out. At first it felt lackluster to me, then it felt extremely disappointing, then gradually I felt more and more meh about it. I could see what they were trying to do, but it kept bothering me how bad the finale was in comparison to the earlier episodes.

Now I finally have time to write out my thoughts about it and make it everyone else's problem.

Important note before I start: All of this is just my opinions on a TV-14 show. If you disagree, that’s great and I’d be interested to hear why. Just please be respectful.

What I Liked

The animation and visual storytelling was great. I liked that at the bus stop, they initially had Simon place Betty on the step below him, but later had him place her next to him. Too bad the writing doesn’t back this up (more on that later).

The voice acting was good. This isn’t my forte, so no comments besides that.

Most of the jokes landed for me. Especially Pawn Swan. He was easily the best part of Cheers for me.

I loved the Lich speech to Glob

Blue Shift is such a feel good song it almost made me like the ending.

What I Didn't Like

Catharsis

My second biggest issue with these episodes is how little catharsis there was. We got to see Fionna get upset and cry, but that was mostly because the Scarab was kicking everybody's ass. I wished we got to see Cake get upset about how people don’t see her for who she is. Or potentially exploring her fears of going back to being a normal cat.

I especially wished we got to see Simon ugly cry. This man has been through an apocalypse, lost his sanity, lost the love of his life, been depressed for years, and is now trying to curse himself. Dude literally said he missed being the Ice King because he was so out of it most of the time he didn’t realize how messed up his life was. He felt like almost everybody preferred him when he was cursed. Then he finally sees GolBetty after years of searching for a way to cure her, only to fail. There should have been some waterworks going on.

Pacing

Generally, the pacing felt too slow for me. It made the episodes feel more like a second or third draft vs a finale result. The biggest offender to me was all the fights against the Scarab. Each individual battle was fine, but there were too many of them. We know the Scarab isn’t going to destroy their world in the end, so all the fights don’t do much besides look cool. Which would be fine, if they weren’t trying to make it emotionally impactful.

This is relatively minor, but it bothers me that Casper and Nova are mostly in the episode Cheers when in basically all of the other episodes, the titular character(s) are the main focus for that episode. I think this could have been fixed, if they just cut back on the number of times they fight the Scarab.

Pay Off

There were a lot of Chekov’s guns that either didn’t get fired or turned out to have only blanks (basically you could remove them from the story and it wouldn’t affect the plot much).

No Pay Off

Simon and Marceline’s phone call/ relationship: I know I wasn’t the only one hoping to see these two reunite after Simon tried to curse himself again.

Dirt beet guys manuscript: This is minor, but I just feel like it would have been easy to fix.

The time core: This is a classic case of Adventure Time world building, where they introduce a cool concept, but don’t do much with it. I don’t know what I wished they did with it. But I would have liked for them to do something.

Disappointing Pay Off

Cosmic entities that the Scarab imprisoned: Cake lets them go and they fight the Scarab. But that fight lasts for like a minute. We also see Kheirosiphon in the ending credits. But besides that, we don’t see much else.

Everything in You song: The song is only used as a segway into the final flash back of Simon’s and Betty’s relationship. I’ll give it credit, the song is good and the scene is cute. However, you could remove it and there would be almost no effect. Considering Glob’s weakness is harmony (music), I really thought they were going to do something with it.

Fionna’s top fantasy: Throughout the series, Fionna makes references to her dream fantasies (EX: castle made out of candy). We learn what her top fantasy is after their universe already becomes canon and they’re in their final (unnecessary) fight against the Scarab. Her top fantasy turns out to be turning into a giant woman. Ignoring the Totally Spies vibes that scene gives me, I think they really missed an opportunity to make this really sweet. In the final scene, instead of Fionna saying “Just a normal world.” She could have said something along the lines of, “This is my top fantasy”

Fionna and Cake turning things normal in other universes: Ignoring the Winter King, this plot point does almost nothing. Sure, Cake accidentally turns BMO into an alarm clock, but BMO was already dead. There’s also the Scarab’s speech, “All the worlds you've visited, all the people you've infected. Your little trip must have shown you the truth. It would be better for everyone if you were just gone.” But they themselves don’t ruin that many worlds. The only reason for them seriously thinking that is the Winter King. But he was a grade A asshole and removing his magic freed Princess Bubblegum from the madness he imposed on her.

Casper and Nova

Before I start this section, there are two important things for me to mention

I should note that I've had over ten years to theorize about Simon and Betty. Naturally, I’ve probably forgotten some of my head cannons and character interpretations aren’t actually canon. Especially since we never really got much screen time for the two before Fionna and Cake. It also doesn’t help that Simon/ Ice King’s character arc hits close to home for personal reasons I’m not sharing in a tumblr post. But, it does mean that I’ve probably projected some of my feelings onto those characters at some point.

I’ve never particularly liked how Betty’s been written. I wished she got more screen time in the original show and I STRONGLY dislike that they introduced the fact that she didn’t go on an expectation she was really excited about for a man she’s known for one day in one of the final episodes of the show. To me, it turned her character from an impulsive, headstrong woman who for all intents and purposes is stuck on an alien planet and the only person she knows who is still alive has magical dementia to a fucking manic pixie dream girl. She doesn’t need to have always been completely obsessed with Simon to explain why she’s going to desperate measures to save him. Once again, he’s the only person she knows in Ooo, but as the Ice King he’s basically a stranger. She also convinced him to give up his only chance to die as himself with the hope that she could save him. Finally, she loves him and doesn’t want him to suffer.

Casper and Nova are pretty explicitly supposed to be narrative parallels to Simon and Betty and help show Simon the issues in their relationship. A lot of defense I’ve seen against criticism about this part of the story comes from a place of assuming the fandom is owo-ing the male character and doesn’t want to admit he has flaws. To be fair, it is a reasonable knee jerk reaction to have. Fandom has a LONG history of doing shit like this and villainizing women. But, at least in my case, this isn’t what's happening.

Casper and Nova aren’t on equal footing because Nova keeps making unseen sacrifices for Casper and they always do things Caspers way. The moral that Simon is supposed to take from them is that he/ Casper should have realized how much Betty/ Nova was sacrificing for him all the time, stopped, and supported her. However, this isn’t the main issue Simon and Betty have.

There are a total of two times where Simon does kind of stand to the side while Betty sacrifices herself:

The first trip planned to study petroglyphs in Australia: Simon jokingly offers Betty to go on his expedition with him. She accepts, which surprises him, and mentions offhandedly that she had another trip planned. Maybe he could have told her she could always go on another trip with him sometime else. But he could have just as easily assumed she wasn’t really interested in her original plan and if he asked if she was sure, it could come off as him telling her not to go.

The second trip planned to study petroglyphs in Australia: Simon stops Betty before she leaves for the bus and in the heat of the moment he says he always wants her by his side always. Betty still could have easily just given him his number and still go on her trip or they just agree to meet up later. Also, the show makes a point that Simon should have gone on the trip with her. I would like to note that Betty was planning to leave the day Simon realizes she has feelings for him. I don’t know how archeological expeditions exactly work, but joining so last second seems really rude to me. Also, he would have either needed to pack really quickly or bring nothing with him for a six month long trip. To add on, he won’t know what type of funding that trip was. For all he knew, it only had funds to send Betty over.

More often than not, we actually see Simon recognizing the sacrifices Betty is making and actively trying to stop her:

Betty time traveling into the future and away from basically everything she knows: Simon originally time travel calls her to apologize and tell her that he forgives her for leaving him as a way to allow her to move on. Betty chooses to jump through the portal.

Dedicating herself to save him: Simon literally begged Betty to let him die rather than turning back into the Ice King. He only changes his mind after she begs him to give her a chance to save him. Everything she does afterwards, he’s either basically passed out or is cursed.

Merging with Glob: Simon begged Betty to forget the crown and escape Golb with him and Finn. Betty pushed him out of there and merged with Golb. Simon spent years trying to find a way to unfuse her with Golb.

Not getting any acknowledgement for helping to find the Enchiridion: Simon wanted both of them to get credit. Betty told him that she wanted him to get all the credit. He awkwardly, but professionally, told her that she deserves the credit just as much as he does. She still turns down any acknowledgement. (I really don’t like this story beat because it could have been such a good chance to comment on how academia often discredits or ignores women)

We also have moments where they do things Betty’s way (or at the very least Betty does things her way) on their expedition together.

When crossing the river: Simon carefully walks across the rocks. Betty takes her shoes off and just walks through the river. Simon follows suit then slips and falls. I would just like to add that crossing a river without shoes on isn’t safe. It decreases trackson and increases your risk of cutting yourself in an open body of water. They should have just either dealt with the wet socks, brought a spare pair, or use water proof shoes.

When crossing an area full of snakes: Simon advises Betty to stick with the tried and true method for dealing with snakes. Betty decides to do the trick her mom taught her and runs through the area screaming. Simon doesn’t stop her. Instead once he sees that it’s working, he smiles.

As we see, with the exception of two instances (which could easily be changed without impacting the plot too much), Simon doesn’t need to learn the lesson that he should have supported Betty more and stopped her from sacrificing herself so much.

I think the bigger issue in Simon and Betty’s relationship is just how obsessed they are with each other. When the crown drives Simon insane and takes all his memories, the last thing Simon can remember is that he wants to marry his Princess. This leads him to literally kidnapping princesses. Betty time traveled 1000 years into the future after hearing Simon say he never saw her again after wearing the crown. In the process of trying to save him, she went mad herself. They’ve both spent years trying to save the other from and were willing to sacrifice themselves to do so (I’m fully convinced Simon didn’t have a plan for how to leave Golb’s dimension. I think the dude was just going to apologize to Betty then die).

Not Part of the Finale, But Still Bothers Me

Having Prismo be the one to actually write Fionna and Cake removes depth from Simon/ Ice King’s character. I liked how surprisingly good Fionna and Cake was and interpreted that as parts of Simon shining through. But they needed to have Fionna and Cake actually be real for the show, so they had Prismo make them. Instead of Prismo making them out of boredom, I think it would have been cool if he made them as a way to grieve Jake. Maybe after Jake died, Prismo turned to reading Fionna and Cake since his favorite person liked it and Cake’s basically a genderbent Jake. But, after reading everything the Ice King wrote he wanted more. Since he lives in the TIME ROOM, I don’t think it would be a stretch to allow him to interact with the timeline in weird ways (in fact I think we already saw this in the episode Is That You?). So, as a temporary solution Prismo made Fionna and Cake real and stores their universe in the Ice King’s head so he could get more stories out of them. Prismo meant to delete their world before the Ice King turned back into Simon, but he didn’t have the heart to. Also, they could have totally had Simon keep writing Fionna and Cake fanfiction like how he sometimes dresses up as Ice King. Except, this time, he writes them in his own modern day AU as a way to cope with how out of place he feels.

Not part of this spin off, but it’s always irked me that Simon got to time travel to the past, but Betty didn’t. I get that Betty wanted to intentionally create a time paradox. But it still feels really hypocritical. Honestly, I think they should have just made Simon accidentally freeze her when he first puts on the crown. After Frost and Fire, when the Ice Kingdom got melted, have her thaw out and start researching ways to cure Simon. Then, during the episode she’s supposed to debut in, have her be the cause of Bella Noche.

Conclusion

The finale had cool concepts, but it doesn't fully match up with everything that came before it.

#adventure time #adventure time critique #Fionna and cake #Fionna and Cake critique #fionna campbell #cake the cat #simon petrikov #betty grof #mine

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wowbright · 5 months

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I'm about halfway through La La Land. Really wanted to like it. I mean, it's a musical. I like musicals. But I didn't know much about it other than that.

Review/liveblog below the cut.

Started suspecting in the opening number that I might not like it, since the opening hinted that it would be an ode to the LA film scene. (Ooh, LA film people talking about how great LA film is--I'm not an actor, I'm not a filmmaker, hopefully this movie will have something more interesting to hook me in.)

Oh, good! It's also going to be about jazz!

Huh. Neither Emma Stone nor Ryan Gosling are very good singers. They are okay at dancing. Now, I hear that these days it's important that anybody in a musical be an actor first and the other things second. But if music and dancing are part of the storytelling, it's important that they be as strong as the acting IMO.

Okay. Now we're back to jazz. He's going to explain to her why jazz is so awesome. He takes her to a club.. Except ... Hmmm. This is uncomfortable. Why are we seeing jazz exclusively through the eyes of this white dude? We see black musicians, but they are just in the background. He plays at a club. Again, black people are furnishings. John Legend gets a line. Then he gets some more lines.

Around now this review of the first half of the movie turns into a live blog of the second half of the movie.

Yay John Legend sings. Alas it's on a stage and not part of the storytelling, but background to the storytelling. Idk I can't really watch this scene too closely because of the strobing lights.

(Aside: Where has she been getting the money to pay for the dresses, the high heels, and now the one woman show? There's a limit to how much you can put on a credit card, isn't there?)

The dialogue in this movie often feels stilted. Is this a stylistic choice?

Now they're arguing. He doesn't like the music he's been playing with John Legend, which is interesting, because it seems like he was enjoying it and she was the one who wasn't enjoying it. Is any of this real or they just like super enmeshed and codependent?

Eh I've completely divested myself emotionally from this movie. I'm going to start fast forwarding to see what happens. It's not like there's musical numbers anyway.

Photo shoot. More strobing lights.

Why do we see him perform, but we don't see her perform?

Oh look they're fighting again. Do I give a fuck? No.

I don't get it. Is it supposed to be a fun musical or A Star is Born?

We have gone half an hour without a genuine musical number.

Emma Stone is singing. This is a musical again! Too bad this song, like the others, is just so-so. (Idk maybe it was Kristin Chenoweth they would sound amazing?) I feel like this song is supposed to be the big emotional payoff for a strong storyline, but unfortunately the storyline hasn't been that strong. (I mean to be fair I have fast forwarded through like the last 20 minutes but that was because the story was already meandering and sucking.)

They break up. Unfortunately, I never bought their love story beyond the initial crush, so I don't care. (I'm not saying I don't believe that these people *could* love each other deeply. I'm saying that the story skipped over the part after the first kiss where they got to truly know each other and fall in love, so I'm not convinced of it.)

What the fuck? in the alternative "what if their lives have been perfect" montage, Ryan Gosling just waves off Keith like he's some kind of subordinate? Like, arguably one of the most talented musicians we have seen in this whole movie? Gross.

Then in the part that is an explicit visual ode to the golden age of movie musicals, when they are on that colorful soundstage resembling a cartoonish LA, I actually lose track of where Emma Stone and Ryan Gosling are mixed in with all the other dancers. That should not be possible if the correct cinematographic choices were made.

Also I think it should be illegal to market movies as romances when the characters don't end up together in the end.

So yeah I guess this movie got all the accolades because the people who give the accolades and awards see themselves in this story.

But seriously what the fuck now that I've seen this movie I feel like I've been lied to for the past six years.

#la la land #live blog #wow watches movies #racism #liveblog #spoiler alert I didn't like this movie so if you don't want to see someone not liking this movie don't read this post #white supremacy #in the sense of elevating white people's opinions of the relative worth of various forms of African-American artistic expression

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mio-nika · 1 year

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I promised @turquoisewaves07 podcast recommendations

So let's get going. I will not obviously include every podcast I ever listened, only the ones that I really like and sometimes relisten.

1. Knifepoint horror.

Possibly my favourite podcast ever. It's the series of stories written and narrated by a guy called Soren Narnia. They are not usually connected and would sound similar to oneshots of MAG (almost every story starts as "my name is..." just like the "statement of..."). They usually very weird in nature, and it's really hard to explain why I like them so much. I usually recommend starting from "school".

2. Limetown.

Oh, the classic story about "every living person disappeared from this small unassuming town in the middle of the night".

It's like. One of the most famous ones in my list? They even had show adaption?? I never saw it, even tho every time I listen to it I think " fuck, it was really made with visuals in mind". Especially the last scenes.

3. The White Vault.

If it still snowing where you are it's a great one. Small expedition goes to a remote arctic station to fix things. Bad things happen. Interesting that almost the entire crew (both characters and actors) are bilingual and it plays big part in the story. Well, except one character. The Canadian-russian guy played by Peter Lewis. But I like him so I'm not even THAT mad.

4. Mabel.

Hi, so do you like LESBIANS? Mabel is really hard to recommend, because it made almost like a theatrical play where characters are talking in verses. It's a story about fae, lesbians, haunted buildings and women emancipation? It's extremely good. You will want to write lines over all of your walls, on your hands, on your heart.

5. The Big Loop.

It's the second podcast in the list, that is basically one guy writing not connected stories. He's name is Paul Bae and he more famous as one of the authors of "The Black Tapes". He left after the first season and he's probably the ONLY reason why first season is good. I highly recommend starting from "The Surrogate" if you like horror and "F.M.L." if you into hopefull dark comedy.

6. Alice isn't Dead

Do you remember how good were early podcasts writtend by a WTNV staff? I think we starting to forget. It's another "do you like lesbians" story, but its actually so much more. I cried real fuckin tears in a bus after the last episode, not from sadness, but from overwhelming hope for humans.

7. Death by Dying.

I've already recommended it in another post. But if you liked WTNV you need to listen to Death by Dying. It's a series of obituaries from a small weird town written by a guy who are very very VERY weird. He talks to a Angel of Death, he adopts cannibalistic cats and writes his abituaties more like personal stories of stupidity.

8. Small Town Horror.

This one usually gets overlooked, probably because of the very generic name, but for me it's really a hidden gem. Traumatized guy are trying to put together things that happened to him in his childhood and why he's so fucked up. If you really want to read story written by an unreliable narrator, this one is for you.

9. Within the Wires.

I already sang my praises about how good was the early podcasts written by a WTNV, but I will repeat it here. THEY WERE REALLY GOOD. It has a very different styles of storytelling from season to season. The first one is told through a series of mindfullness recordings. The second one is an art lections. Every season happens in the same universe and expands the over-arching story.

10. Spines.

I was thinking that to put as a last one and mostly torn beetween Spines and Girl in Space, but I'm a horror visual girl, so I choose Spines. Our heroine wakes up with no memory in the bath full of blood with a cultist-looking people and a probably other cult victims around her. Slowly she learns that she really is and in that horrying reality she was born.

#podcasts

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dropoff99 · 8 months

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Wheel of Time S2 Episode 5 - “Damane” is an achievement in adaptation that should be recognized

I’m not an active reviewer of this show or any other. It’s not something I am very interested in. However I think it’s important to note when a piece of art begins to transform into something greater than the sum of its parts, especially with an adaptation of this magnitude which has so many things to juggle it can make your head spin.

This series has been a part of my life for over 25 years. It’s as difficult for me to remove my bias as it is for anyone, especially when beloved moments from the series are changed. Any fantasy fan who has spent time around the genre has experienced this. However I feel that the fandom really needs to recognize what is happening currently on Amazon Prime’s Wheel of Time.

Robert Jordan’s Wheel of time is possibly the most ambitious fantasy series ever created. A magic system with as much depth as you will find in fantasy, hundreds of named characters, 14 large books, a prequel novella, a couple encyclopedic volumes, and now a major streaming series on Amazon Prime.

Up until this point half-way through the second season the show has been admirable in some of its attempts at adapting Jordan’s beloved series but I don’t think any fan (of either the show or the books) could really say it is has been a total success in terms of quality. S2 E5 on the other hand is simultaneously a great adaptation of the series and a great episode of television that could be the turning point from a capable fantasy show to an excellent one. Before we get into that let’s revisit where we’ve been.

Season 1

S1 had 2 really good episodes, a couple outright bad ones (finale), but mostly could be described as average storytelling hidden by some great performances by Rosamund Pike and Daniel Henney and set in a beautiful and interesting universe. For all intents and purposes it was a success in terms of attracting viewers, introducing new audiences to RJ’s series and being a decent show.

There have been some great casting choices and the majority of the cast has worked with a couple exceptions (recasting of Mat). The characters are firmly recognizable from Jordan’s work with of course some big changes as well that vary in terms of popularity with the fandom. However, the challenge of making the wheel of time universe really sing (ie the fantasy/lore concepts) was hit or miss for me in S1 (in many ways a miss). I’m not speaking of book accuracy, simply how interesting and cool they were.

Emonds Field 5 - not perfect but definitely a success

Myrddraal and Trollocs - success

Channeling - 50/50

White Tower - success

Thom/gleeman - failure

Ta’veren - TBD

Loial/Ogier - meh (admittedly high degree of difficulty)

Eye of the World - failure and was not interesting at all

Aes Sedai and Warders - biggest achievement of S1, huge success

Fal Dara - meh

Traveling people - meh

The ways - decent

Two Rivers - 50/50

Logain/male channelers - success

Darkfriends - success

Whitecloaks - decent

Shadar Logoth - decent

Overall an admirable effort, especially considering how much they adapted but IMO they had some big misses that brought down the season.

Season 2

So far the second season has seen a huge jump over the first season in terms of production quality, visual style, performances, and dialogue. Many of the actors on the show have found their footing, particularly Josha Stradowski who plays Rand. Every new major character they have introduced has not only been written well but their performances have been off the charts which I will touch on more when I discuss E5.

However the first 4 episodes were much like the first season. The pacing was hit or miss, some of the changes have landed (Nynaeve in the arches) and a few have not (namely Lan’s arc). Mat is still MIA but we will see how they land things with him later. Either way season 1 caliber storytelling combined with the other upgrades in acting, visual style, and overall polish makes for a pretty damn good product.

Episode 5 - “Damane” (full spoilers)

It’s difficult for me to fully explain why E5 was so satisfying. It is less about any one individual factor and more about how smoothly it weaved (no pun intended) many well executed components together.

The first thing I will start with is visual style. S2 has been an upgrade in general from S1 in many of its choices but Episode 5 is on a different level.

The initial location (near falme) Liandrin takes the girls is absolutely stunning. I took my own little photo above to demonstrate just how sumptuous this looked in 4K in my living room. The show has always been pretty but I will admit the variety of locales in S2 as well as the cinematography has been a significant upgrade. What I especially liked about this scene is that it did not lean on a slick establishing shot of a CG city or even a giant fortress/village made specifically for the show, two things WoT is very good at. Instead this is a simple scene in terms of CG. It’s just a waygate and the effects used for channeling all look great and are not too over the top. As far as set design it’s just the stone pillars for the waygate and the large throne that Suroth rides around on (and Seanchan costumes). Otherwise it’s a beautiful natural location that grounds the action and fantasy elements organically while pulling in the viewer to this world.

But that’s just a taste.

Story locations in this episode: Falme, Cairhien, Toman Head, The White Tower, Tel’aranrhiod, The Ways. And that’s not counting different areas within those places.

Each of the above have a strong visual language to communicate the various cultures and landscapes of Jordan’s universe and I don’t think it skips a single beat going back and forth between them. Forests, deserts, marshland, night scenes, day scenes, cities, villages, fortresses, and fantasy creations like the ways and the dream world. The show was in its bag in terms of something interesting to draw the eye the entire episode.

The performances were no different in terms of their variety and quality. Fares Fares (Ishamael) and Natasha O’Keefe (Lanfear) were probably the best on screen fantasy villains I’ve seen since vintage Game of Thrones seasons. They were engaging, scary, and villainous in a relatable but unapologetic manner, delivering line after line that could easily be viewed as cheesy if not for perfect execution in direction and tone. And frankly what I liked most is that the show didn’t fall in to the modern temptation to make them less evil. Sure they have their justifications/motivations but they are also unambiguous baddies from the viewer’s perspective which is true to Jordan.

Moving on to Rosamund Pike who we’re really running out of things to say in terms of her acting which has never dipped for a second for the entirety of the show. What was more impressive is how the show’s writers have demonstrated their commitment to showing a ruthlessly efficient character who will do whatever it takes to save the world. This episode highlighted her commitment to her cause as well as her intelligence in dealing with a character who is immensely powerful.

Ayoola Smart as Aviendha provided the best action sequence and an excellent dialogue scene with Perrin that efficiently introduced ji’e’toh and Aiel culture. I am really looking forward to seeing more from her as Aviendha is one of my favorite characters. On a similar note Meera Syal really got to flex her abilities as Verin in a much more recognizable manner to book readers than what we saw earlier in the show. It was thrilling to watch her pick apart Liandrin’s plot.

The last thing that I was really impressed by and primarily why I wrote this post to begin with is how committed the show seems to be to genuinely introducing some of the most difficult elements of the Wheel of Time universe which is honestly not what I expected given the first 4 episodes. Let’s take some inventory of what we got from E5 as well as S2 so far straight from the books/universe.

Aviendha/Aiel/ji’e’toh - success

Falme - as a location it’s a success

Seanchan - success (with a very high degree of difficulty)

Collaring - success

Lanfear/Selene - huge success

Ishamael - huge success

Novice training /arches - success

Cairhien - success

Horn - TBD

Elyas - success

Wolfbrother abilities - controversial but a success IMO

Tel’aranrhiod - success

Verin/Browns - success

Channeling - success

Mat’s abilities - TBD but this might be a big L

Min’s Visions - TBD but so far an L for me

Elayne - success

Do I think this show is going to be this good every episode from now on? Probably not. And yes there is still plenty to dislike from S2. Mat/Min are borderline non existent so far, the Lan/Moiraine arc was miserable until they separated, and Siuan hasn’t even shown up yet (despite having some badass scenes in the second book that are very memorable).

However I will say this is the first time where I’ve felt real confidence in where the story is headed both short and long term. If they do this for the remaining three episodes then Wheel of Time will hold the belt for best fantasy show currently running.

#Wheel of time show #wheel of time #Robert Jordan #Rafe judkins #fantasy #Amazon Prime #The Great Hunt #Lanfear #Ishamael #TV #books

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greatrunner · 11 months

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Emily (2022), and when a dramatization is just bad

So, I watched this movie about Emily Bronte on Amazon Prime, called Emily (to its blandness). I was really looking forward to just watching a period piece ‘biopic’ about the Bronte sisters, because, despite their fame in the lit world, it’s weird that there’s so little about them in visual media.

From what I actually knew about the Bronte sisters prior to watching this (”a sister trio of writers, cool!”), what’s publicly available about them via documentaries and historians, I figure you’d have to try real, real hard to fuck up a dramatization about them.

And it’s to that end, I should’ve never underestimated director Frances O’Connor’s abilities, because, whew, lord, Emily was hot garbage on a sweltering day.

I really started thinking about how much the film (and novel) romance genre is informed by women’s particular brand of misogyny and sexism. You’ll see [white] women go on and on about sexism from men, especially in media. And not to discredit that, but, I’m honestly beginning to think it’s overcompensation.

No one throws women under the bus quite like other women.

Emily depicts the second best known Bronte sister as “so misunderstood” by her family, but especially by her sister Charlotte Bronte - who is depicted like the stuffy, uncool competitor of another man’s affections, with little to no interest in writing and imagination.

Anne Bronte is basically a background extra with little to no dialog who crumbles under the peer pressure of Charlotte who despises Emily’s need to turn every situation into an opportunity for storytelling.

Like, this film’s beef with Charlotte Bronte, and disinterest in Anne Bronte, is baffling. I come here for sister vibes, and instead I get Mean Girls. The fuck.

Emily Bronte is the embodiment of “not like the other girls”. She hangs with the boys, she smokes, drinks, she has a thinly veiled incestuous relationship with her brother, Branwell Bronte, and fucks generically hot priests (Oliver Jackson Cohen in maybe one the less inspired roles of his career).

Emily Bronte could not be any more of the 21st century white woman’s idea of the “cool girl who reads dark academia” if O’Connor taped the description on actress Emma Mackey’s head.

I can’t stress how much priority this film puts on male characters vs female characters as Emily Bronte’s choice of satellites. And as a justification for why she wrote Wuthering Heights, it’s boringly embarrassing.

Comparatively, Emily makes 2007′s Becoming Jane (starring Anne Hathaway as Jane Austen with a struggle accent) look like an Oscar winning drama (spoilers: I like that movie). Jane, at the very least, isn’t interested in the vilification or minimization of other female characters (that aren’t Professor McGonagall), even as it charts an equally fictionalized (or speculative) romance between Austen and James MacAvoy’s Thomas Lefroy (one that argues he was key in making her writing hit different).

While it’s clearly influenced by Joe Wright’s Pride and Prejudice (2005), Jane Austen’s relationships with her family, particularly her sister, matter in her story arc in the same way Elizabeth Bennett’s do in the aforementioned film. There’s sense of balance, however dramatized Austen’s story became for that film for the sake of a romance plot.

Comparatively, Emily depicts the Bronte family, sans her brother, as obstacles (if they aren’t nonevents) to her indulgences because they’re “oh, so ashamed of her proclivities”. Additionally, I just don’t care about Oliver Jackson-Cohen’s William Weightwright. Nigga is boring. I’d sooner believe Bly Manor’s Peter Quint (Jackson-Cohen, again) was a Healthcliff and homeboy was inspired by whole another ‘gothic lit’ author (Henry James).

For lack of a better word, I really hated this movie. There’s the argument that if you know next to nothing about the Bronte sisters that you might enjoy it. But even on that level, there’s a lot about the storytelling that is bland, and outright hateful imho.

Anyway, I hated everything (except maybe the score, which, as other have said, is overbearing for no rasin). It can die in a fire and be lost to the void of history.

#emily 2022 #bronte sisters #emily bronte #amazon prime #women directors #white women directors #oliver jackson cohen #greatrunners meta

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onlycatsdeservetobestanned · 1 year

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Man Suang Postergate part 1: an update

A more detailed translation of that contentious explanation of Postergate (part 1) during the IG live has surfaced! Man, Mile really is so much better than Apo at this PR bullshit. So Mile said you can't fit everything about the movie in a single poster (no shit Sherlock) so they chose to feature just the dancers. And something something again about showing the beauty of Thai culture. But the main point really, he said, is that they wanted to show that Apo wasn't the only dancer (really Mile, wbk). And Apo said that there would be posters with other actors on it, but it wasn't clear from the translation if he was referring to the main poster and not just the standard character solo posters. (But would there be another poster in Cannes, hm?)

Like I said, PR bullshit mostly, but Mile is pretty good at the delivery. And it's more interesting than how Apo explained it, for several reasons. One, nothing in the explanation contradicts my theory that Apo is the main and Mile is not (but he still probably has a pretty significant role. Maybe.). I still think that Apo is too central to the film to leave him off the poster. And even just visually, Apo in his dancer costume is the most striking image that they could have for promo. I really do not see them ever leaving him off a main poster or other main promo materials. But of course, this is just my assumption, and we'll find out how right or wrong I am. Bring on Postergate part 2!

Second, the second dancer point can be a bullshit misdirection, or it could be a plot point like Mile seemed to be hinting at. Maybe Apo disguises himself as another dancer to carry out his mission or something? Will there be a case of dancer-related mistaken identity? Guess we'll have to find out.

Third, I'm not convinced of the reasoning that they just wanted to highlight traditional Thai dance for the Cannes poster, like they're from the Ministry of Tourism lol. Not that I'm a film industry pro of course, but that doesn't feel like it's interesting or unique enough, because any Thai production company can do something involving traditional Thai dance (whether they do it well is another thing). What will set them apart is the story and the perspective that they're offering, and guess what would be unique? A queer love story in that historical setting. How many films have done that? Why not make that the selling point? Is it because it's not actually a queer story? Is it because the government doesn't want them to advertise that? Who knows, but if it's neither, then why not.

Fourth, all this soft power talk still feels too in-your-face government propaganda for me lol. This presenting the beauty of Thailand to the world thing still makes me wary of it being more of a glossy, romanticized perspective than sincere storytelling about humanity, which can be messy and ugly in some ways. I personally prefer the latter, but maybe the former will sell better.

Fifth, what's with "we'll have different posters!" like are they making a special poster for every film festival? Lol. Is this them bragging about how much budget they have for marketing? They should at least put that white cat in all the posters for being so cute and good and enduring a film set. Give that cat the fame it deserves!

Finally, good for them for making it to Marché du Film. It's very unlikely they'll get into the actual festival next year, because Cannes requires that a film must not have been shown in countries other than the country of origin before showing in Cannes. But the opportunities (and bragging rights) that they would have gotten being in that film market would be immense already.

#man suang #postergate part 1 #bring on postergate part 2 #mileapo #are we having tag problems again

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rankarana · 2 years

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i can't believe the show that's gonna make me become a genuine oldhead isn't going to be Noir (2001) or Madlax (2004) or Saint Seiya Heaven's Overture (2004) or even Simoun (2006) but potentially Air Master (2003)... not bc its necessarily as good as the former shows (though it's pretty great for the most part!!!) but bc its so emblematic of a style of show that we USED to get and just don't really any more... the kind of show I call nebulously Girls' Action. a lot of other things from this era that i like are weird one-offs that got to exist because of how crazily varied anime was at that time, where the curve of profitability vs licensors' interests was just skewed right, but there's a decent bunch of shows like Air Master (Ikkitousen is the most immediate comparison) that you just don't get any more....

so while i might be enjoying it just because it's been a while since i've seen a fresh one of these shows, it also just has the most Fucked Up And Crazy female delinquent protag.

Maki is just SO crazy in a way that the show makes sure to depict both through truly classic visual metaphors (she is a wolf!!! there is a hungry wolf inside her!!!!!!)

but also? she just says this stuff constantly....

and also like.... the last arc had her fight an evenly matched enemy and all the shots of her looking increasingly feral and ready to kill with each knockdown is just....... maki kakkoi.....

also the artstyle actually having like, prominent/realistic noses is fun. like its one of the things you don't notice until you see a show actually do it - and I remember this show being called 'purposefully ugly' back in the day and... I do think it has a surprisingly 'grimy' and 'realistic' look to it despite how also very anime (even a little, dare i say it, How To Draw Anime) of the era it looks? it kinda ties into that even though it is often VERY goofy, it takes its core characters and its empathy for them very seriously, which is key in a fighting shounen and even MORE key for one like this....

and yknow sometimes... the very obvious and genuine Yuri Vibes are just good...

that's what Air Master is, it's genuine in every direction, and that does lead to insane bits like the mpreg jokes and maybe SLIGHTLY too many Mina's Huge Titties jokes, but... it also leads to stuff like this so!!! it works out!!

ii desu ne............ hopefully the second half of the show doesn't shit itself but seeing as the next arc is about Maki and her psychotic older woman rival teaming up in a tournament arc... i have faith 😊😊😊

bonus: sakiyama kaori gif. i think its awesome they let her make such insanely evil mean faces while being the second most sympathetic character in the show...........

oh right writing so much about Air Master made me forget that i was sad they don't make shows like this any more when they easily could. I do think part of it is just that manga might have moved past this era of storytelling too but whenever I find out about stuff like the spear fishing girl manga its like... nah the spirit is still out there. I just gotta find it..........

#air master #truffle hunting

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lil-tachyon · 2 years

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Hey logan, i'm trying to get into sci fi more, do you have any media, movies or otherwise you'd say it's a must watch for someone starting to get into it? Thanks

Super broad question! And precisely the thing I love to talk about. Although unfortunately I really don’t watch a lot of movies or TV so the best I can do for you is list some stuff I like and hope that you find something you enjoy. If we were talking sci-fi literature, that’s something I would probably write a full essay on- if anyone’s interested in reading my thoughts on that and getting my really long list of recommendations, just let me know. I might even do it on my own anyway, just for fun…

I guess if we’re going to talk about “must-watch” sci-fi movies then we have to talk about Star Wars first just to get it out of the way. I’ll keep it brief, far too much ink has been spilt regarding this franchise and you can find more in-depth opinions somewhere else. The original trilogy is great- there’s a reason it launched one of the biggest media franchises of the past 45 years. Endlessly rewatchable, somehow still looks better than basically any other big budget SFF popcorn movie and just plain fun. If you somehow haven’t seen the OT yet, get to it.

You don’t really need to watch any other Star Wars stuff aside from the OT. The prequels aren’t exactly essential and they’re unquestionably worse in terms of dialog, acting, pacing (i.e. the nuts and bolts of storytelling.) If you’ve never watched Star Wars before you won’t have any nostalgia for them so you can skip them. Don’t even bother with the Disney sequels- pointless and incoherent. If you DO for some reason want more Star Wars in your life I can give you two recommendations:

First is the masterpiece that is Genndy Tartakovsky’s (creator of Samurai Jack) Star Wars: Clone Wars (2003) (no, not the CGI Clone Wars show you’re probably thinking of). Split into 25 episodes ranging in length from two to twelve minutes, the whole show is only about two hours long but boy is it sweet. There are no main characters and not much in the way of an overarching plot. Instead the show is composed of a series of rapid-fire vignettes that take place across the entire Star Wars galaxy and tell dozens of unique microstories. It’s pulpy and fun and never takes itself too seriously and the whole thing is on YouTube because for some reason Disney actually hates everything that made Star Wars good and hasn’t taken the time to copyright strike it.

Second recommendation is the Mandalorian. I didn’t believe it when people started raving about it, but it really is great and tells a poignant, self-contained, original story. It’s not perfect and it definitely suffers from the Disneywars curse of really obnoxious references to the OT, but it’s absolutely worth the watch.

Damn that’s so much more time than I wanted to spend on Star Wars. I always forget how much of a SW geek I am until I start talking about it…

Quick list of the other big “essentials” that I’ve seen and can recommend before I get into more personal stuff (in no particular order):

Alien (1979) - Weird and creepy and gross and with impeccable visual design in every single frame. I need to rewatch it, only seen it once.

Akira (1988) - Massive, groundbreaking, unsettling, beautiful. Brought cyberpunk into the visual realm, brought anime to the West in a whole new way. I could rewatch it a hundred times.

2001: A Space Odyssey (1968) - A foundational film that moves at a foreboding crawl and leaves you feeling unsafe and unsure of what you just watched. (Also my dad’s band referenced the monkey scene in their big-label debut music video, so that should be reason enough to watch it)

Close Encounters of the Third Kind (1977) - UFOs, the American West, and the most 70s-looking cast imaginable. It feels more a product of its time than most of the others on this list, but I love it for that and it does nothing to make it any less impactful or engrossing.

The Terminator (1984) and Terminator 2: Judgement Day (1991) - I waited waaaaaay too long to watch these. I only got around to seeing them this past year in fact. I had always just written them off in my head as nothing more than cheesy 80s action flicks but my God are they good and so much different from what I expected. The first one is basically a sci-fi slasher film and the second is probably the best sequel film I’ve ever seen and takes everything in a totally different direction that still manages to build on all the groundwork laid by the first. Please watch, don’t be like me and wait until you’re twenty-six.

Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind (1984) - My favorite Ghibli movie. For being a film about people flying airships and fighting bugs in a giant toxic jungle, it really has a lot of important stuff to say and says it very well.

Castle in the Sky (1988) - Hits a lot of the same plot beats as Nausicaä and, imo, suffers a little bit in comparison but still a great anime sci-fantasy romp.

The Thing (1982) - Disgusting sci-fi horror in the glacial Antarctic wastes

The Twilight Zone (1959-1964) - The first, the best. Sure, it’s inconsistent in terms of quality, but it’s at least consistently weird and inventive and the good episodes are really damn good. Also something I love about it is the acting- it’s very over-the-top expressive and exaggerated. Feels more like it’s meant for the stage than for the small screen. You don’t see a lot of TV like that these days.

The X-Files (1993-2002, 2016-2018) - Absolutely in my top 5 TV shows. It was great to watch as a 14-year-old because I was still young enough to find it scary, and it’s great on every re-watch because I can really appreciate how much chemistry Gillian Anderson and David Duchovny have and how fun, goofy, and overall weird it is. As I recall it starts to decline noticeably in season 8. Season 9 you’ll have to grit your teeth to get through. The 2016-2018 revival is half composed of unwatcheable “storyline” episodes and half surprisingly good-to-great “monster of the week” episodes.

Cowboy Bebop (1998-1999) - My number one favorite anime, I love everything about it. So much effort goes into small background details and characters that only appear for a few seconds and it really goes a long way to making the whole universe of the show feel so real that you could see yourself living in it. Also the soundtrack is top-notch, I listen to it regularly.

Neon Genesis Evangelion (1995-1996) and End of Evangelion (1997) - Another one that I took too long to get to and to be honest I probably would’ve been more into it had I watched it when I was younger, but it’s still great and I recommend it. Features a classic “inflation suit” episode

Stuff that’s less “essential” but I really like it:

Planetes (2003-2004) - My second favorite anime. Starts off as a workplace slice-of-life and slowly builds into a really, really emotional conclusion. Can’t recommend it enough.

Forbidden Planet (1956) - A sci-fi adaptation of Shakespeare’s The Tempest (I’m an illiterate piece of shit so I can’t tell you how good an adaptation it is). It’s slow-paced and eerie, and way more atmospheric than its decidedly 1950s visuals would lead you to believe.

Digimon: The Movie (2000) / Summer Wars (2009) - A short story: as a kid I probably watched the Digmon Movie about a million times. It was huge with kids my age and was probably an entire generation’s first introduction to ska-punk. It’s a great movie. Anyway, fast forward about a decade and a half and at some point I sit down to watch Summer Wars with my brother on no other information than that we heard it’s good. And it is! But pretty soon into the movie we both notice something odd- it seems to feature almost the exact same plot as the Digmon Movie. After a bit of digging we find out that they were both directed by the same guy and it seems he just had this idea in his head for a story that he really wanted to make for over a decade because Summer Wars is basically a more mature and less merchandisable remake. Watch them both!

Samurai Jack (2001-2004, 2017) - the first cartoon I saw as a kid that really made me say “finally, something for me!” I wouldn’t get another TV show aimed at me that was “cool” and “epic” and “badass” until ATLA came out. Nothing beats watching a samurai fight a million robots and bounty-hunters on an endless quest to go back to the past. Also the season 5 revival is great and I genuinely don’t get why a lot of people seemed to really hate on it.

Moon (2009) - It’s been a LONG time since I watched it, but I liked it quite a bit. A lonely lunar miner runs into what seems to be his double and things get spooky…

Prospect (2018) - More space miners running into trouble! Really great costume and prop design on a super small budget (but you wouldn’t know it from how good it looks).

Mobile Suit Gundam 0080: War in the Pocket (1989) - Listen- I’m not a gundam guy. I don’t care about all the different robots and I’m not about to watch 40 years of TV to try and figure out the story. Which is why War in the Pocket is great because it’s six episodes long and it just tells a really touching story punctuated by cool robot battles and you don’t need to know anything about Gundam to enjoy it.

Royal Space Force: The Wings of Honnêamise (1987) - A story about a space race set on an alternate world. What really sets it apart is the visual design- every detail from books, to currency, to texts to vehicles, to architecture is unique enough to feel totally alien but also grounded enough to somehow feel familiar. It’s quite an achievement. Trigger Warning: there’s a very uncomfortable rape scene in the middle of the film that seems to come out of nowhere. I’m still not sure why they chose to include it.

Jin-Roh: The Wolf Brigade (1999) - Military police get up to some real nasty stuff in alternate history fashy 1950s Japan. Very depressing, all my friends complained to me about how sad it was even though they went into it knowing what it was about and agreeing to watch it with me. You just can’t win sometimes!

That’s about all I have for now. I know it’s all kind of basic bitch stuff but like I said, I don’t often watch movies/TV. Hope it helps and thanks for the great question!

#sci fi #send me an ask!#long post

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1yyyyyy1 · 10 months

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Before you leave this account, you should take the time to tell us why you like Dishonored so much. The pictures and gifs you reblog are mesmerizing in aesthetic. I am contemplating watching a walkthrough/playthrough of either that or one of the Assassin's Creed games, and an advertisement would do wonders to help me decide. :3

The first thing that comes to my mind when I think about Dishonored is that it is extremely immersive. I fell in love with it when I was still a kid and much of my enjoyment can be attributed to nostalgia, but, having replayed the game, I understand why I liked it back then and have come to appreciate it even more as an adult. Thematically, the story has a lot going for it: technology, magic, religion, the occult, assassin syndicates, covens, dystopian themes, gods and people trying to comprehend godhood (and failing which is both realistic and funny). Dishonored has one of the most interesting and aesthetically pleasing deity characters I've personally seen in a series, the rest of the cast is well-written as well and makes the game feel like an interactive book more than anything. What I like about this game is that it has a "show don't tell" kind of storytelling where you get bits and pieces of the worldbuilding through dialogue, books and radio announcements, the zones feel organic to explore and the story is not in your face with huge walls of quest text. The environment is responsive to the player's decisions and your choices matter a LOT, it has a stranded feeling to it where you are left to fend for yourself but never alone with how lively the questing hubs are. It is also designed with both combat and stealthy playstyle in mind so you can choose to play it in a way that you want. This is just me listing my positive impressions before getting to the actual gem of the series - its visual design, because it is amazing. Every frame deserves recognition, it is even more relevant to the second installation which, in my opinion, a rare case of a sequel surpassing the original. To say that architecture in this game is impressive is not to say anything, the Clockwork mansion alone has beaten all of my expectations when it comes to level design. The same can be said about the game's soundtrack which is memorable and at times eerie, a perfect fit for a grim world like Dishonored's. It is an engaging universe with interesting characters and balanced storytelling, so I definitely recommend playing this game if any of this resonates with you.

#ask #if you do end up watching it i recommend zevik's walkthrough on youtube #forgot to add #both the second game and its dlcs have a female protagonist in them #i didn't realize how important this was to me until i decided to replay the game from corvo's pov and just couldn't do it #dishonored knocks it off the park with its female characters i have to admit

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theminecraftbee · 2 years

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I'm vibing so hard with your magical girl scar au but I realize I don't have much experience with magical girl media, do you have any recommendations?

okay so my all-time favorite magical girl show is definitely princess tutu, which is actually not what i'm basing this au off of AT ALL but i promise it is really really good and if you think you may like magical girl stuff it may be the way to go. plus, especially as we get into the second season? all the metacommentary about storytelling in that show has probably affected how i write and the sorts of things i like to talk about. princess tutu is SO GOOD guys even if you don't normally like ballet or magical girls i promise you should watch it and it's very silly in... many parts... anteaterina in that second episode... but it's also SO GOOD. and if you already like magical girls? GO WATCH IT WHY HAVEN'T YOU YET.

outside of that i like cardcaptor sakura a lot as a show that generally makes me feel happy whenever i watch it. it just is a show that has such nice and good vibes if you want something with nice and good vibes i recommend. plus something about cardcaptor's animation and designs specifically makes me feel soft and nostalgic for some reason. (this au takes its inciting incident almost verbatim from cardcaptor's inciting incident, fun fact, although then things immediately change due to the differing directions from there.)

classic 90s sailor moon anime is a classic for a reason; it is very much the magical girl formula but also it's like, one of the first ones to do it as strongly as it did, and if you like monster-of-the-week 90s TV and anime you'll definitely like it. or if you like stuff like power rangers; 90s sailor moon anime is actually pretty high on the 'basically super sentai for girls' scale as far as magical girl stuff goes (plus it's probably my formative magical girl anime).

i don't know much about precure; someone else can tell you what precure is good to watch! however i do know precure is really good and is what currently holds the torch of played-straight, long-running magical girl franchise, and i have seen the transformation sequences and stuff and it looks really good i just haven't had time to watch much of it. at some point i will.

recently, tokyo new mew is out, another thing i need to watch, because i watched tokyo mew mew in high school as one of the first anime i purposefully sought out to watch. that one's fun, i really like the animal themes in it, another just very good magical girl show in my opinion. it's been a long while since i last watched it but i remember i liked lettuce a lot. (they are all named after foods for some reason.)

madoka magica is gonna come up when you talk magical girls; it's... i like madoka actually but i will say that both a lot of people tend to misread it and also that it did this thing where it permanently made people go "oh but what if OUR magical girls are EDGY" as though magical girl shows have never had anything dark in them and also as though edgy makes it better. (all the sailor scouts die like, once if not more than once at various points in sailor moon guys, this is not a thing madoka invented for the genre.) it's very good and i really love the visuals of the witches in madoka, but it's also very much not a magical girl show played straight and i honestly think you appreciate it more if you actually like magical girls? idk complicated feelings on madoka you know.

however i will add one last recommendation for a post-madoka magical girl thing, and that's the webcomic sleepless domain by mary cagle. it's a REALLY cool webcomic, has good worldbuilding, despite the specific twist it uses it doesn't feel like one of the ones that went "but what if our magical girls can DIE" after madoka did but has like, a lot to do with its premise, i like a lot about how it's magical girls work and i'm really interested in what's going on right now. i wouldn't be surprised if it influenced my ideas for this au a little considering that i actively read that one as it updates.

and... yeah that's my list of various magical girl things i recommend! obviously there's also a lot of other stuff out there depending on what sort of show you're looking for?

#answered #starkeeper-the-storyteller #my BIGGEST recommendation on here is princess tutu i ADORE that anime so so so much #but also all of these are good places to look too!

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sapphire-weapon · 11 months

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Do you have a favourite version of Leon, or a close second to RE4R? I really loved his design and and character depiction in Vendetta. He seemed a lot more fleshed out and was overall just really enjoyable to watch imo!

this is a super interesting question that I've never really thought about before.

I would probably say that I don't have a favorite version of Leon per se, so much as I appreciate it when installments actually follow the emotional throughline for his character.

every RE character has a problem of an inconsistent characterization, to a certain extent, because the writing teams at Division 1 change from installment to installment. the reason why RE2make to RE4make feels so coherent is because it was literally the exact same team both times, which almost never happens. in the OG canon, the writers for RE4 were not the same writers as Damnation, and those guys did not write RE6, etc.

the only version of Leon that I straight-up did not like was Degeneration, and I'm pretty sure the vast majority of the fandom agrees with me on that. and, I've been over this before -- I get it; I understand why Degeneration was such a shitshow. but that doesn't absolve it.

but like. I'm very critical of Damnation Leon, for example, because he's so fucking annoying in that movie, because Capcom went real hard swinging the pendulum in the opposite direction after Degeneration. Leon is literally the worst part of Damnation; he ruins every single scene he's in. if you were to remove him from that movie, the entire movie would be much better off for it and would probably be able to stand on its own as a genuinely good film. it would've done a wonderful service to Ada's character, too, because she's mostly fantastic in that film -- but Leon's presence drags her down, because it always does.

but even Damnation has moments of brilliance with him -- particularly, the very beginning and the very end. (the sarcastic nod he gives JD when he's tied to the chair is also probably one of my most favorite Leon reaction moments ever, too -- on par with his tantrum at Chris in Vendetta.) his anger and frustration at the US government is so on point and finally exposes just how little he trusts them and how stuck he feels. that was something that was missing from OG RE4 (for, again, understandable reasons), so it was really great to have that put out in the open and expressed.

same thing with RE6. there are moments in RE6 when Leon is absolutely insufferable and/or feels like a scene was crafted without the intention of even putting him in it, so he's just kind of there -- but there's some really brilliant moments with him. his reunion with Sherry will always be a stand-out moment for him, and the entire Tall Oaks section with him being The Professional(TM) to Helena's rookie is excellent, too, and shows real character progression from his own rookie days in RE2.

and Infinite Darkness -- holy shit, his characterization is all over the place in that series. it's like he's three different characters rolled up into one, and he just bounces wildly back and forth between who he's meant to be for any given scene. but that scene of him and Jason in that shitty apartment, sitting across from each other and talking about treason, and then Leon just hauls off and shoots him in the heart -- that is one of the single best scenes in the entire Resident Evil series, period. not only is Leon's character perfect in that scene, but everything about the visual storytelling there was on point to create the perfect amount of tension.

but now that I'm thinking about it -- you're right, in that Vendetta is probably the best example of consistently good characterization that he has. Vendetta doesn't stray or get distracted at any point when it comes to Leon's character, and it follows his emotional throughline perfectly. the only issue with Vendetta is that he's so steeped in his misery that he almost comes off as mean-spirited sometimes, when that's really not who he is.

#resident evil #leon kennedy

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