#there's an inherent tragedy to characters that are doomed by the narrative not just once but eternally

[valiant-portabella-pirkko]

every now and then I just spontaneously remember that Arkk exists and that he was coded as a member of Scarlet's Army for reasons left entirely unexplained and I just go. huh.

#my posts #GW2 #Guild Wars 2 #arkk fascinates me for many many reasons tbh #aside from him being another entertaining antagonist with funny dialogue he's just. interesting. #there's an inherent tragedy to characters that are doomed by the narrative not just once but eternally #it's not enough that he can never win. he can also never stop trying and failing endlessly forever. he hasn't just lost he is Always Losing #every time he thinks it's the first time but the truth is he's already been dead in all the ways that matter for a long long time. #he's a ghost that will never find peace because his grave is a recording that will replay continuously until the universe itself unravels. #man. his plot arc is short but surprisingly compelling for what it is. i still think about it a lot tbh #anyway hcing that he knew Scarlet/Ceara at some point and that's why he's in her 'army' for coding purposes #you would've thought they'd make him like. inquest. but nope they did that and I still wonder what the thinking was tbh #timeline-wise it'd probably make the most sense if he was already in the Inquest building up a debt by the time she joined there #with his departure into the Mists most likely taking place sometime shortly after her expulsion from Rata Sum #i need to think about him and Dessa more tbh (especially since they're both core characters at the Turnabout... haha...) #you thought I was just kidnapping Mai Trin? joke's on YOU I adopt EVERY character that canon leaves in the dumpster #and they didn't do anything with finding the 'real' Dessa or Arkk in SotO so I doubt they ever will. which means... mine now. #it's free real estate! stuffs them both in a bag and carries them away never to be seen or heard from again

[theloopus]

I finally watched mirror image a few minutes ago and I do not know what to say. Your sam in drag video got me to start watching QL a few months ago and by accident I'd also seen it mentioned that Sam never got home while looking up the show, but I didn't care at the time since I didn't know what that even meant. I got through 3 seasons in a month and then a started to slow down because I realized I was running out of episodes, so I slowly got through the fourth season. One I got to the fifth, I had to take a long break. I knew that the episode quality would decline since id seen you mention on Twitter once that you don't even consider them canon, but I was not expecting how difficult it would be to get though. I could only watch ten minutes of each trilogy episode a day, it was unbearable. But I bet you don't really care about all of this so let me get to the point. I had to pause the screen where it said Sam never got home. I don’t know how to feel and I'm so confused. I've looked through the episode wiki and the imdb episode trivia and I still want to know more. Whenever you mentioned stuff about Mirror image on here or on Twitter I always scrolled past it quickly to avoid spoilers, but now I can barely find anything regarding it, so I was wondering if I could hear your thoughts on the episode. Was the bartender God? Did you like Sam's choice to sacrifice his returning home for Al's happiness? Just, what are your thoughts on it? Thank you for introducing me to this wonderful show and these wonderful characters ❤

omg this is so much. i'm gonna put these under a read more because "what are your thoughts on Mirror Image" is a LOADED question with a controversial answer. i am so incredibly normal about Quantum Leap.

first of all i love that "binging the first three seasons like a starving lunatic then slowing down with the fourth because you realize you're gonna run out of episodes and then season 5 is just so bad on top of that you take ages to finish it" is such a universal experience. it truly is just a rough season to get through. which is a shame! and trilogy.... oh trilogy............. what the fuck was that.............

anyway, mirror image is an episode that makes me kind of insane. the thing is that. i don't know how to put this exactly. mirror image is complicated. in my eyes it's

a really, really good and interesting episode

not a at all a satisfying wrap-up for the show

really not a good series finale for the type of show they were trying to make at the time they were making it as tv functioned back then

a perfect finale for the quantum leap that exists in my mind that i've built from the subtext and character beats and unintentional lore/themes/motifs

because quantum leap the tv show from the 80s is a politically liberal, episodic science fiction adventure tv show from the 80s/90s, and the way these sort of tv shows works, there is an unspoken pact with the audience that they should have satisfying, relatively happy endings. romcoms should end with the leads getting together. superhero movies should end with the good guy defeating the bad guy. detective shows should end with the detective catching the criminal. and a tv show in which every episode ends with the good guy succeeding to put right what once went wrong, solving the conflict, and giving everyone a happy ending, should end with the good guy getting a happy ending himself.

but the quantum leap that exists in my mind and i've built from the subtext and character beats and unintentional lore, themes, and motifs is a Tragedy. it's a story about martyrdom, and saints, and sacrifice, and blind faith, and God, and trauma, and being stuck in the past because of that trauma.

Tragedy, as a genre, is characterized by this: the main character is doomed by the narrative from the beginning because of who they are inherently. whereas in another narrative their traits might've been assets, might've helped them succeed, in this narrative, it's what dooms them (ex. Hamlet's indecisiveness vs Juliet's impulsiveness). and, god, i ADORE Sam Beckett as a tragic hero: his defining characteristic is that he's "terminally good—if it was up to you, you'd save everyone!", and i'm obsessed with the use of "terminal" here, because it is that relentless goodness that ends up dooming him. Sam is Jesus, he's Saint Sebastian, he's Joan of Arc. God chose him to be sent on this divine journey, to help people, to save people from their own fates, to save humanity—at the cost of his own humanity, his own life. at the beginning, he says: "i can't have a life, all i do is live someone else's life!" and in Mirror Image he's still clinging to the hope of going home, at first, because he really does want to go home, more than anything. but then his arc is completed when he realizes it: he's never going home. this kind of journey doesn't have an ending. there are always more people to save. you might be able to take the weekends off, but you can't just quit the job of being God's chosen one. and in the end, he was never going to, because the reason why he was chosen is that he's terminally good. that if it was up to him, he'd save everyone. quitting would mean God knows how many people that needed saving won't be saved, and if everything we've been told about Sam is true, he wouldn't be able to live with himself. so he accepts his Celestial role, leaves Al behind with a parting gift, and disappears into the sands of time the way the Little Mermaid throws herself into the ocean and dissolves into seafoam.

the fascinating thing about Sam, actually, is that this terminal goodness perfectly coexists with the fact that he's also very selfish. in this way, Al is his perfect mirror: in his own words, Al looks out only for himself; he would not go out of his way to help a stranger at the cost of his own life because he's fought fucking hard and sacrificed too much for that life—and yet that's exactly what he's doing by helping Sam, by being the Sancho and Dulcinea to his Don Quixote, putting his own life aside to be there for Sam 24/7. because he loves him. romantically or platonically, however you choose to read their relationship, it's undeniable that Al loves Sam to a devotional degree. meanwhile Sam is riddled with guilt over not being there for his dad when he died, over "abandoning" him to pursue his own studies and interests—and then he proceeds to do exactly that to Al by stepping into the Accelerator, and then fucking again by doing what he does in Mirror Image.

i have so many frankly insane thoughts about what Sam does to Al in Mirror Image (hilarious unintentional wording sorry. unfortunately he does not fuck that old man quite the opposite.) and i am very much channeling them into a long, rambling, experimental post-canon fic, thank you very much. but the gist of it is that like... ok, taking your own words, it's very interesting that you said Sam is "sacrificing his returning home for Al's happiness", because that's not quite the way i see it. Sam was never going to return home. what he's doing for Al is, at least in his mind, setting him free and leaving him a parting gift.

ok so: Sam learns that his journey does not have an end, and he will never go home. throughout this entire journey thus far, Al has been his loyal companion, helper, and guardian angel. "i don't know if i can make it without you Al" "i don't wanna hear that you can't make it! of course you can. if you had to." but Al is just that, a companion (one that is 20 years older than Sam, worth mentioning)—someone who Sam unintentionally burdened with the role of helper. but where Sam is going, Al can't follow. he just can't keep following Sam around forever—Sam wouldn't want that for him. he wants Al to be happy, and for Al to be happy, he needs his own life back, and he needs the main wrong in his life righted—Beth.

...that's how Sam sees it, at least. because, as mentioned before, Sam may be good, but he's also selfish. it's very ironic, and juicy, to me, that he keeps repeating the same mistake over and over, with everyone he loves the most (his family and Al): consistently underestimating how much people love him, and leaving without saying goodbye. he's so obsessed with Saving Al that he fails to consider that maybe Al, who has a very specific and strong trauma about being abandoned by the people he loves the most, as much as he might be thrilled at having Beth back, might not appreciate 1. Sam not consulting him in the decision to completely turn his whole life and timeline upside down 2. Sam disappearing without a trace without saying goodbye or offering him any sort of closure in their very intense, very codependent relationship 3. having to sort of like... pay the price for having Beth by losing Sam, as if these two people, the two people he's loved the most in his entire life, were interchangeable.

and, to be fair, this part of the analysis does seem like a bit of a stretch if you've only seen the canonical ending of the show as it aired and not the original 'lost' ending that they ended up cutting for Reasons, but which i absolutely consider to be canon and the "real" ending of the show.

god, okay, i probably could have many more things to say about this if prompted, but that should be the gist of it, i believe. hopefully i'm not forgetting anything? did you know there's actually multiple alternate endings they wrote for different real-life scenarios Just In Case, including one where Sam and Al would go to space and Al would be a leaper and Sam would be a time traveler in his own body if they got picked up for a sixth season? i'm obsessed with it.

as for Al the Bartender? my fun little theory is that he's not God, or Time, or Fate, or an alien, or any of those things—in a way, in-universe, he's all of them at once.

he's The Narrative personified.

#txt #quantum leap #queap #UHH AHA. THIS IS LIKE. OVER 1K WORDS? #if youve ever been curious about me being a mirror image apologist. um. this is it. #this is my mirror image manifesto. #you guys ever think about television? #EDIT ALSO IM GLAD YOU LIKED THE SHOW ITS SO SO SO SPECIAL TO ME

[jadedharleys]

thanks i'm listening to francis forever on repeat now

coming up with this on the spot while sleep deprived dont mind me. ermmm sometimes she tries so very hard to have visions of timelines where she and vriska are actually happy together beyond a few moments of embrace . just to know some version of her has that empty feeling actually filled for once. either it never really works or she never can see them happy (DOOMED YURI!!!)

FUCK do you think terezi regrets being a seer

like how she regretted having her sight restored but like. she can never close her mind's eye and the knowledge of what knowledge it could give her burdens her more than her actual eyes

doomed by her class like vriska is doomed by her aspect (relevance)

truthing terezi ascending to ult in hs2,

I end up on a tree-lined street, I look up at the gaps of sunlight, I miss you more then anything

SCREAMING I CAN ONLY THINK OF TEREZI LOOKING AT THE SUN.

also i DESPISE what gamzee did to terezi i saw vriska throttling him in hs2 and i was like pop off

terezi is such an interesting character like hussie is so fucking talented with characterization that i even love CALIBORN for his writing and it hurts to choose a fave troll bc aradias arc is so painful but satisfying and hopeful and im fuckin gay for vriska and karkat is just iconic and dont even get me started on how hard kanaya slayed. but if i had to pick a fave out of the trolls it would be terezi. the deep sadness and emptiness and longing and the homoerotic teenage friendship and the tragedy against the chaos and goofiness and shenanigans and fucking around/finding out. shes so interesting to me sometimes it seems like shes just doing random shit but she understands reality so deeply while also being a very unwell teenage girl. shes so strange but so comprehending of the mechanisms behind sburb and some of her actions seem to be very in line with how it to a point of a fault . she kills vriska because she thinks she has to and not because she wants to and in the end she tears it apart to bring her back in a new alpha timeline even if she never sees it fulfilled herself.

and YEAH SEE i need to make a lyricstuck to francis forever so bad like ofc theres that line lmaooo but also. its so very much how vriska filled that missing part of terezi. the ignoring the longing and pretending to move on and just suddenly hit with that grief and yearning like “i miss you more than anything” even after so many years her wallpaper is STILL her and vriska she will never stop missing her they are meant to be in a way deeper than quadrants or narrative destiny yet they are simultaneously inherently doomed to a tragic end.

gamzee and terezi are so fucked up and i find that interesting to read bc like. her falling back onto an awful relationship like that after killing vriska makes sense but ofc makes things even worse during that time. and i love the bit in the vriskagram montage when vriska helps her beat him up lmaoooo .

#jade posts

[lorenfangor]

I heard that #40 was super homophobic :/ so I skipped it. But now your fic is making me want to give it a try. How problematic is it? Are the characters worth it?

Okay.

Okay.

Let’s talk about #40.

The plot of The Other (a Marco POV) is that Marco sees an Andalite on a video tape sent in to some Unsolved Mysteries-esque TV show, and he assumes it’s Ax and hauls ass to save him from being captured. Ax, being Ax, has videotaped the show, and they pull it up and Tobias uses his hawk eyes to figure out that it’s not Ax, it’s another Andalite - one without a tailblade. Ax is appalled at the presence of this vecol (an Andalite word for a disabled person) and we find out that he and others of his species have deep ingrained prejudices against at least some kinds of disabled people.

Despite this, Marco and Ax go looking for the Andalite in question because he’s been spotted by national TV, and they meet a second one, named Gafinilan-Estrif-Valad. The vecol is Mertil-Iscar-Elmand, a former fighter pilot with a reputation and Gafinilan’s coded-gay life partner. The two of them have been on Earth since book 1; they crashed their fighters on the planet and have been trapped there thanks to the GalaxyTree going down. Gafinilan has adopted a human cover, a physics professor, and they’ve been living in secret ever since.

Thanks to that tape, Mertil has been captured by Visser Three, and he’s not morph-capable so he can’t escape. Gafinilan wants to trade the leader of the “Andalite Bandits” to the Yeerks to get his boyfriend back; he can’t fight to free Mertil because he’s terminally ill with a genetic disorder that will eventually kill him, and (it’s implied that) the Yeerks aren’t interested in disabled hosts, even disabled Andalite ones. Despite Ax’s ableism, the Animorphs agree to work with Gafinilan and free Mertil, and they’re successful. Marco ends the book talking about how there are all kinds of prejudices you’ll have to face and boxes that people will put you in, and you can’t necessarily escape them even if they’re reductive and inaccurate, but you can still live your life with pride.

So now that I’ve explained the plot, I’m gonna come out the gate saying that I love this book. I love it wholeheartedly, I love Marco’s narration, I love Ax having to deal with Andalite society’s ableism, I love these characters, and as a disabled lesbian I don’t find these disabled gays to be inherently Bad Rep.

that’s of course just my opinion and it doesn’t overshadow other issues that people might have? but at the same time, I don’t like the seemingly-common narrative that this book is all bad all the time, and I want to offer up a different read.To that end, I’m going to go point by point through some of the criticisms and common complaints that I’ve seen across the fandom over the years.

“Mertil and Gafinilan were put on a bus after one appearance because they were gay!”

this is one I’m going to have to disagree with hardcore. I talked about this yesterday, but in Animorphs there are a lot of characters or ideas that only get introduced once or twice and then get written off or dropped - in order off the top of my head, #11 (the Amazon trip), #16 (Fenestre and his cannibalism), #17 (the oatmeal), #18 (the hint of Yeerks doing genetic experiments in the hospital basement), #24/#39/#42 (the Helmacrons’ ability to detect morphing tech), #25 (the Venber), #28 (experiments with limiting brain function through drugs), #34 (the Hork-Bajir homeworld being retaken, the Ixcila procedure), #36 (the Nartec), #41 (Jake’s Bad Future Dream), and #44 (the Aboriginal people Cassie meets in Australia) all feature things that either seem to exist just for the sake of having a particular trope explored Animorphs-style or to feature an idea for One Single Book.

This is a series that’s episodic and has a very limited overall story arc because of how children’s literature in the 90s was structured - these books are closer to The Saddle Club, Sweet Valley High, Animal Ark, or The Baby-Sitters’ Club than they are to Harry Potter or A Series of Unfortunate Events. Mertil and Gafinilan don’t get to be in more than one book because they’re not established in the main cast or the supporting cast, I don’t think that it’s solely got anything to do with their being gay.

“Gafinilan has AIDS, this is a book about AIDS, and that’s homophobic!”

Okay, this is… hard. First, yes, Gafinilan does have a terminal illness. Yes, Gafinilan is gay. No, Soola’s Disease is not AIDS.

I have two responses to this, and I’ll attack them in order of their occurrence in my thought. First, there’s coded AIDS diseases all over genre fiction, especially genre fiction from that era, because the AIDS epidemic made a massive impact on public life and fundamentally changed both how the public perceived illness and queerness and how queer people themselves experienced it. I was too young to live through it, but my dad’s college roommate was out, and my dad himself has a lot of friends who he just ceases to talk about if the conversation gets past 1986 or so - this was devastating and it got examined in art for more reasons than “gay people all have AIDS”, and I dislike the implication that the only reason it could ever appear was as a tired stereotype or a message that Being Queer Means Death. Gafinilan is kind, fond of flowers, and fond of children - he’s multifaceted, and he’s got a terminal illness. Those kinds of people really exist, and they aren’t Bad Rep.

Second off, Soola’s Disease? Really isn’t AIDS. It’s a congenital genetic illness that develops over time, cannot be transmitted, and does not carry a serious stigma the way AIDS did. Gafinilan also has access to a cure - he could become a nothlit and no longer be afflicted by it, even if it’s considered somewhat dishonorable to go nothlit to escape that way. That’s not AIDS, and in fact at no point in my read and rereads did I assume that his having a terminal illness was supposed to be a commentary on homosexuality until I found out that other people were assuming it.

“Mertil losing his tail means he’s lost his masculinity, and that’s bad because he’s gay! That’s homophobic!”

so this is another one I’ve gotta hardcore disagree with, because while Mertil is one of two Very Obviously Queer Characters, he’s not the only character who loses something fundamental about himself, or even loses access to sexual and/or romantic capability in ways he was familiar with.

Tobias and Arbron both get ripped out of their ordinary normal lives by going nothlit in bad situations, and while they both wind up finding fulfillment and freedom despite that, it’s still traumatic, even more for Arbron I’d say than for Tobias. And on a psychological level, none of the main cast is left unmarked or free of trauma or free of deep change thanks to the bad things that have happened to them - they’re no less fundamentally altered than Mertil, even if it’s mental rather than physical. And yes, tail loss is equated with castration or emasculation, but that doesn’t automatically mean Mertil suffering it is tied to his homosexuality and therefore the takeaway we’re intended to have is “Being gay is tragic and makes you less of a man”. This is a series where bad shit happens to everyone, and enduring losses that take away things central to one’s self-conception or identity or body is just part of the story.

Also, frankly? Plenty of IRL disabled people have to grapple with a loss of sexual function, and again, they’re not Bad Rep just because they’re messy.

“Andalite society is confusingly written in this book, and the disability aspects are clearly just a coverup for the gay stuff!”

Andalite society is canonically sexist, a bit exceptionalist and prejudiced in their own favor, and pretty contradictory and often challenged internally on its own norms. In essence, it’s a pretty ordinary society, and they’re really realistic as sci-fi races go. It makes sense from that perspective that Andalites would tolerate scarring or a lost stalk eye or a lost skull eye, but not tolerate serious injuries that significantly impact your perceived quality of life. Ableism is like that - it’s not one-size-fits-all. I look at Ax’s reactions and I see a lot of my own family and friends’ behaviors - this vibes with my understanding of prejudice, you know?

“Mertil and Gafinilan have a tragic ending, which means the story is saying that being gay dooms you to tragedy!”

Mertil and Gafinilan have the best possible ending that they could ask for? They are victims of the war, they are suffering because of the war, they get the same cocktail of trauma and damage that every other soldier gets. But unlike Jake and Tobias and Marco, unlike Elfangor, unlike Aximili? Their ending comes in peace, in their own home. Gafinilan isn’t dying alone, he’s got the love of his life with him. Mertil isn’t going to be as isolated anymore, he’s got Marco for a friend. Animorphs is a tragedy, it’s not a happy story, it’s not something that guarantees a beautiful sunshine-and-roses ending for everyone, and I love tragedy, and so I will fight for this story. Yes, it hurts. Yes, it deserved better. But it’s not less meaningful just because it’s sad. Nobody is entitled to anything in this book, and it’s just as true for these two as it is for anyone else.

“It’s not cool that the only canonically gay characters in this series don’t get to be happy and trauma-free and unblemished Good Rep!”

This is one I can kind of understand, and I’ll give some ground to it, because it is sucky. The only thing I’ll say is that I stand by my argument that nothing that happens to Mertil and Gafinilan is unusual compared to what happens to the rest of the cast, and that their ending is way happier than Rachel and Tobias’s, or Jake and Cassie’s. But it’s a legitimate point of frustration, and the one argument I’ll say I agree has validity.

(Though, I also want to point out that I think there are plenty of equally queercoded characters in the story who aren’t Mertil and Gafinilan - Tobias, Rachel, Cassie, and Marco all get at least one or two moments that signal to me that they’re potentially LGBT+, not to mention Mr. Tidwell and Illim in #29 and their long-term domestic partnership. There’s no reason to assume that the only queer people here are those two aliens when Marco’s descriptions of Jake exist.)

“Marco uses slurs and reduces Gafinilan’s whole identity to his illness!”

Technically, yes, this is true, except putting it that way strips the whole passage of its context. Marco is discussing the boxes society puts you into, the ones you don’t have a choice about facing or escaping. He’s talking about negative stereotypes and reductive generalizations, he’s referring to them as bad things that you get inflicted upon you by an outside world or by friends who don’t know the whole story or the real you. The slurs he uses are real slurs that get thrown at people still, and they’re not okay, and the point is that they’re not okay but assholes are going to call you by them anyway. He ends by saying “you just have to learn to live with it���, and since this is coming from a fifteen-year-old Latino kid who we know is picked on by bullies for all sorts of reasons and who faces racism and homophobia? He knows what he’s talking about. He’s bitter about what’s been said and done, he’s not stating it like it’s a good thing.

Yes, absolutely, this speech is a product of its time, but it’s a product of its time that speaks of defiance and says “We aren’t what we’re said to be,” and in the year this was published? That’s a good message.

tl;dr The Other is good, actually, and Mertil and Gafinilan are incredible characters who deserve all the love they could possibly get.

#animorphs #animorphs meta #mertil/gafinilan #mertil #gafinilan #mertil-iscar-elmand #gafinilan-estrif-valad

[planet4546b]

i’m new here blease tell me more abt ladybird (if u want to !!!!!! otherwise ignore <3)

OMG OMG you have no idea how happy i am that you asked about ladybird......ladybird my beloved!!! she's in a bit of a renovation phase right now (i do this once every like. 2 years) so this might be a bit of a mess and im still working a lot of stuff out so apologies in advance if this is incomprehensible lmao (also it means all the stuff on my oc page about it is outdated so ignore that)

the synopsis is that ladybird is a story that takes place after an apocalyptic event where two different realities literally collided with each other, which means that world now exists in a state where every reality takes place at the same time, on top of each other, in what is essentially a huge, completely chaotic and hard to navigate multiverse that functions by quantum rules on the large scale. our main character, samira hashemi, works at the location of a quantum anomaly known as a spire, as what's called an observer that keeps the world in a state of relative stability just by observing it (again, quantum rules). when something tears through a handful of other dimensions and crashes in the most stable one, samira climbs down from her spire and goes to find what it is and deal with it. she joins forces with emily and melanie castenada, twin sisters who work as cartographers (fun job in this insane little world) who recently realized their maps had...stopped working, and suspect the cause might be the same anomaly sam is trying to find.

here's the fun thing: samira, as an observer, knows that the world is slowly ending - the multiverse just sorta decaying into itself - and a good chunk of the other realities around them are failed attempts by other timelines to stop the end of the world, complete with fated heroes and doomed quests etc. sam's pretty sure that emily and melanie are destined to be The Heroes in this dimension's attempt, and wonders if she can like, game the system by trying to influence them with what she knows of the other failed attempts. they also pretty quickly find that our anomaly is...a person, actually, named jackie delco, who was SUPPOSED to help save the most recent iteration of the world, but said fuck it and left (wild of them to do that) and who may or may not be sabotaging everything that samira tries.

so these four have to try to save the world! or not! or who knows, actually!! along the way, it's a lot about circular narratives, fucked up family relationships, the nature of obligations and what it means to break them, how the way you percieve yourself as good or evil causes you to make bad decisions in both directions, the role of storytelling in stories, and the inherent tragedy of being a narrator. and also caves!!! a lot of caves. it is NEAR and dear to my heart as my longest running original project and i always love talking about it even if its a little incomprehensible so again thank you so much for asking about it omg!!!!

#asks #cherrytries #if youre like hey. all of that sounds familiar to [insert piece of media ive lost it over at least once here] dont worry! i am in fact awar #id like to say its on purpose but mostly i just have the same themes that i tend to gravitate towards #also i read through a book on quantum mechanics when i was like 13 and my dad was a physicist and that made me insane forever #about using quantum mechanics in stories. like im pretty sure as soon as ladybird got out of its demon phase #quantum physics has been involved in some way or another. big subset of main charas are all named after physicists so #ANYWAYS!!!!! thank you again as you can all see i am a little obsessed with my own original story SO #signal to noise

[bladekindeyewear]

Okay so, I have no idea who Aesma is. What does "Turning Vriska into Homestuck's Aesma" mean in this context?

I really don’t want to get into it much, as Kill Six Billion Demons is truly incredible from top to bottom so far and I think it’s more fun to go in blind.  Ideally, ignore everything I have to say and go read it some time.  (Be sure to read the text posts under every so-odd page, the sometimes-present hover-over alt-text too, et cetera.)  Like, don’t even read this post, even though it isn’t really a spoiler.

However, to sum it up if you want it.....

In the mythological pantheon outlined in K6BD, Aesma is the mother of chaos and quite seemingly the embodiment of the Id.  In stories of her exploits with titles like “Aesma and the Three Masters (and the lessons she never learned)”, Aesma is depicted as the epitome of willful selfishness and ignorant wickedness, a committer of atrocities both intentional and inadvertent -- and is also the most beloved of the Creator’s children by said Creator, not just for stripping bare the hubris of others, even the Divine, but for embodying the selfish drive of Life that distinguishes (and in this Creator’s view, should rightly distinguish) the living from nothingness.  She is selfish to the point of stupidity, egotistical in a way that is constantly self-defeating, and yet a paradoxically shining example of an attitude one must embrace in some respect to truly strive in life -- and an example none that live should believe themselves above.  Even the angels begin their prayers with her name in deference, though not exactly entirely admiringly.

You COULD say that some of the writers of Homestuck^2 love Vriska a bit more than the average fan, to say the least, and a little more than Andrew did.  And you could both judge from the story’s current contents and expect from the known views of said writers that they are PERHAPS more likely to focus on how awesome she is than the pain and suffering her continued refusal to learn anything will keep bringing down on everyone.  Showing her toxic flaws off, sure, but at the same time (in some crucial ways) having the narrative almost “forgive” them because she gets results. NOT that they've quite done so YET, not entirely! But they might.

That possibility worries me.

As far as Vriska went, the pre-Epilogue ending of Homestuck was pretty perfect for the story’s themes:  Vriska DID get to save the day, glory-hogging and fighting Lord English in the way she THOUGHT she wanted... but in the process was denied the Ultimate Reward, was in fact rendered irrelevant in the ways that ACTUALLY mattered and was left excluded from the happiness promised to those who decided that creating the next world and living in it mattered more to them than cosmic victory.  She chose relevance over everything else, and Paradox Space cursed her by granting her wish. (Never learning her lesson... and paying dearly for it, in ways she doesn't even realize.)

The Epilogues undermine her further.  They show that she was barely a cog in the machine that resulted in Lord English’s defeat.  They give her a second POTENTIAL chance at eventual happiness, but do so by “banishing her to irrelevance” and thrusting her into the “non-canon” storyline.  It was revealed recently in HS^2 that the history books of the Candy timeline didn’t even really give her actions any credit.

So... pretty much the worst thing I could imagine Homestuck^2 doing -- and I COULD imagine it doing this, unfortunately -- is taking this nigh-unrepentant abuser who has barely regretted her actions and torn the souls and potential out of characters like Tavros who were doomed never to recover from it, and “correcting” this ending a bit.  To have her potentially ruin an ENTIRE POST-VICTORY EARTH with another meteor apocalypse (or try to), to continue her same selfish attitude portrayed in FURTHER “heroic” light, and then have the narrative ITSELF imply that everyone should be thanking her in the end????

There are some good lessons to learn from Vriska’s better qualities.  However, K6BD’s mythological stories of Aesma treat her depiction VERY carefully, or I guess I should say heavy-handedly -- leaving NO illusions or ambiguity about the evil of her actions, the caustic ignorance inherent in the lessons she refuses to learn, turning a selfish perpetual-child into an almost-pitiable one that ultimately DOES “lose”... even as the story cautions everyone not to pity her, as to think oneself too much “better” than her is a grave and arrogant error.  That deliberate, clear nuance would be LOST if the same reverent narrative treatment were ultimately given to Vriska.  Homestuck^2 would become a vehicle to forgive her abuse, her choice of ignorance, as something that can be ultimately padded over or mulliganed at the last minute.  The stories of Aesma carefully depict her to show that if she had learned ANY lesson -- ANY at all in the multiple opportunities given to her throughout her storied life -- she could have been not just the Creator’s most beloved, but truly the greatest in every respect WE value.  And the tragedy that she does not is both unforgivable / deserving of mockery, AND a cautionary, frank depiction of Humanity itself as sharing that same blind failing.

Homestuck is another work that constantly tries to show the value in people who are flawed -- even dangerous.  (Unsurprising that they’d share this, given how K6BD began as an adventure on the MSPA Forums.)  Trying to blindly do the SAME to Vriska as Aesma, though, to finally end the story of the Homestuck series as one that gives her her “due credit”, risks communicating an awful lesson that her crimes were “worth it” despite trampling over the will of almost everyone else who exists, both inside and outside canon.  If it’s not done VERY, VERY CAREFULLY.

I hope they avoid this route altogether, and instead -- since it’s unlikely she’ll purely “die” achieving relevance at the cost of happiness again -- have her finally accept SOME degree of mediocrity in a way that actually learns her a fucking lesson for once, and doesn’t just let Vriska shut her sins into the closet and lean casually on the door, after a brief show of considering contrition or a disproportionately-small sob that her victims’ roiling, broken ghosts would roll their eyes at.

#Kill Six Billion Demons #Homestuck #Homestuck^2 #KSBD #Vriska #Aesma #K6BD #ksbd spoilers #k6bd spoilers

[jinruihokankeikaku]

If classpect analysises are still open, can you do Heir of Space?

 Certainly could!! The Classpect of one June Harley… or is that Jade Egbert? Mayhaps an Equius Maryam? Actually, scratch that last one. Wwe’ll just go with June Harley. That’s 8etter. (A.N.: So sorry this one took 5evver. Should 8e 8ack to a more steady postin schedule noww.)

Title: Heir of Space

Title Breakdown: One who passively manipulates [invites change in, invites transformation of, transforms into, invites others to change or be changed by] Space [birth, creation, outer space, the three physical dimensions, vastness and expansiveness]

Role in the Session: The Heir is a complex and unusual Class, being as it is the Passive counterpart of what is arguably the Game’s most Active Class. Between its association with Homestuck’s protagonist John Egbert, and the fact that Space as an Aspect is essential to any successful session (given the Space player’s duty to breed the Genesis Frog and create the new Universe), this Role seems like a likely candidate for leadership. However, due to the passivity of Heirs in general, and the fact that Space is for all its power somewhat lacking in focus and direction, an Heir of Space is unlikely to initially aspire to, or even be well-suited to, leadership. Their narrative arc is likely to lean heavily into the notion of embracing one’s destiny and accepting and ascending to one’s ultimate Role, and has within it the potential for both vast power and terrible tragedy.

Space players tend to spend a great deal of time isolated, and Heirs, along with their Inverse, Mages, tend to experience both the positive and negative extremes of their Aspect – Mages through their (often) reckless investigations into their Aspect’s inner workings, and Heirs due to their inheritance of (that is to say, inherent connection to) their Aspect. In this case, inheriting Space means being born into relative isolation, but also into a strong interest in art and a knack for taking the long view. Heirs generally struggle with embracing their inheritance and stepping into their Role – the Heir’s personal narrative tends to closely resemble a classical odyssey, with the Heir journeying far from their Aspect but ultimately returning to become one with it. In this case, the Heir’s journey could involve their being unwilling, or perhaps unable, to even begin the task of frog-breeding, necessitating a lengthy process of self-discovery. They may be forced into an unfamiliar and alien environment; their character arc would run parallel to their literal journey home.

Their Planet and its amphibious inhabitants would be immediately apparent, but also somehow impaired or impeded. Perhaps the wetlands of the Heir’s Planet would be contaminated, preventing the frogs from growing or multiplying, or perhaps the Planet is so vast that even frog-finding, let alone frog-breeding, is impossible without the use of the Spacy Thing (which Spacy Thing here means teleportation/bilocation). Heirs have had their Aspect in them all along, but they need to discover that before they can make use of it – as with any Passive Role, the Heir of Space’s unique talents lie latent until they have proven willing to rise to the duty that comes with their inheritance. A Sylph of Rage could certainly help the Heir cut through the lies and distractions in order to more readily reach the resources requisite to their rising to their Role, although this may come at a price; a Seer or even a Mage of Life could certainly also assist in this task, albeit in a more didactic way than the Sylph’s direct creation of Rage as disillusionment.

Opposite Role: The Mage of Time!! Hey, that’s the first analysis I did here on this channel wwe8log. Neat. Anyways, the Mage of Time is one who suffers from, actively discovers, engineers/innovates with, or extensively explores and experiences Time itself, along with Time’s associated symbols of heat, labor, death, and rhythm/structure. Most Mage-Heir conflicts arise between the difference in their subjective experience, as their actual circumstances are often oddly similar. Mages and Heirs are arguably the two Classes that most intimately experience their Aspect in all its forms; however, Mages tend to be forced into their Aspect, wherein they must strive to acquire the knowledge necessary to work with it from within, whereas Heirs tend to receive their Aspect like, well, an inheritance, but only after an (often lengthy) Quest or journey beyond their Aspect’s borders. As in the Heir of Life / Mage of Doom commentary I wrote a while back, conflict is almost inevitably going to arise here both due to the Aspect-bound worldviews and personal qualities of each of the players, and also due to the way the Space and Time players each relate to their respective Aspects. The Mage of Time is called, reluctantly, to embrace the end of all things, whereas the Heir is drawn on a long, but often exultant journey back to the start.

God Tier Powers

Space is the Expansive-Explosive-Actual Aspect, and its domains include literal physical space, as well as physics, chemistry, birth/growth, visual or physical art, and distance/travel, especially travel through Outer Space or other Voids (unsurprisingly, this is a domain Space shares with its adjacent/semi-sextile Aspect Void). The Heir is the Passive Manipulation Class and counterpart to the Witch, capable of subtly bending the rules of their Aspect and ultimately becoming one with the Aspect itself. Here are a few ways this could manifest in-Game, should the Heir Ascend to the legendary God Tiers…

Limited Omnipresence: This is the Spacy Thing. All Space players would, I think, have some capacity to teleport, but the Heir of Space would become one with the spatial continuum as a whole, being able to effectively be anywhere at any time. With sufficient exertion (and maybe the help of a Heart or Time player, if they can find one willing to collaborate with them) they could even be in multiple places at once. (A.N.: Insert discl8imer here a8out howw this is OP and you ought to use it wwith caution ::::p)

Infinite Inheritance: The Heir, once Ascended, “unlocks” access to a nigh-infinite supply of raw materials for their creation. They may find themselves serendipitously stumbling upon objects or substances vital to punch-card Alchemizing, Ectobiology, or even the Ultimate Alchemy, either literally finding them along their extensive odyssey through Space or even pulling them out of thin air as might a Rogue of Void. These objects may not be exactly what the Heir is looking for, due to Space’s expansive nature and their Class’s passivity, but they will almost certainly be what the Heir needs. They need only figure out where what they have found is needed.

Conjurer’s Closet: Once Heirs have inherited their Aspect, it tends to spill out around them, granting their Allies a measure of its power. The Heir can always be found if they want to be – after spending so long isolated, they can at last always find their way back to their friends and comrades, however far apart they may be. They may also open gates or create folds in Space as they travel, perhaps even allowing those physically close to them to ride their wake and teleport alongside them.

Personality: I think an Heir of Space would be rather lonely at first, not due to a lack of connection but due to the lingering effects of a lengthy, lonely tenure in some literally or figuratively isolated place. They may feel more distant from their friends than they actually are, but they’ll gradually work past this angst as they rise to their Role and their destiny. They may well be a “creative type”, as are all Space players, but being a member of a Manipulation Class their creations are likely to be rather novel and offbeat. They may push the limits of their medium, creating ambulatory sculptures or arcane graffiti, drawing fantastic creatures and places that no-one else might imagine, and the list could go on from here. Both Space players and Heirs have a boundlessness about them, and it’s possible that the Heir would perceive themselves to be less-than-completely separate from their peculiar environs. What’s most important for the Heir is for them to embrace their quirks and little rebellions fully, to dive headfirst into the boundless depths of Space, for it is only in doing so that they may fulfill their ever-present yearning for a return home.

Songs

Eighth Wonder by Lemon Demon

Sun in an Empty Room by the Weakerthans

In Memory of Satan by the Mountain Goats, if you wwant something darker ::::p

~ Thanks for the ask, anon!! I hope you find this analysis entertainin and/or informative, and if you havve any further questions, do feel free to ask ::::) And once again, sorry 8out the delay. Posts should be returnin to their regular frequency startin approxim8ly noww!

~ P L U R ~

#Heir #Space #Heir of Space #Classpect #Mythological Role #Homestuck #Classpect Analysis #anon #ask

[paramar]

even though we don’t know what the future has in store for mr. hamlindigo blue and he may as well have a very bad ending in the future, i'm very glad that so far how the show has presented it, therapy did work for howard, not only because it makes him more well adjusted and happier but also because what it means for the overall narrative.

is not unusual in stories with self-destructive or clearly unwell characters to immediately recognize therapy as an available option, so the stories in question usually have two alternatives: 1) either the characters refuse/dismiss therapy for ABC reasons or 2) therapy fails or is presented as inherently flawed, therefore leaving it as useless or not worth trying. before season 5, i had the impression the show was leading to the second option but now, with howard as a comparison, we see is closer to the first one given how the other characters deal with it:

first we have jimmy, whose moment of rejection comes immediately after seeing howard look dreadfully stressed, and when he suggested the therapist he considered seeing, howard tells him he already is seeing one! that’s when he decides to replace healthy (if painful) coping with bottling up everything, because at that moment the least thing jimmy wants to do is to confront the fact that deep down he is not having a good time at all, because sadly, there isn’t anything less of a shortcut as properly grieving.

then we see mike at the group therapy session, whose reason for dismissing it is seeing it as a pity party, which is not helped by the lying guy with the millions of backstories whom he confronted.

finally we have chuck, who seeks the doctor’s help once he is abruptly confronted with the fact that his condition was all in his head, a reality that he denied over and over. the tragedy of the Mcgill brothers is that despite how different they are, they are plenty of similar in many other aspects, so just as jimmy rejects the chance of therapy because it would be uncomfortable to him, chuck addresses the technicalities of his situation instead of the very uncomfortable source of the issue, so that it never feels too out of his control (he doesn't confront the fact that he resents his brother, he tries to stop him because is the right thing to do. he doesn't have a mental illness, is a physical condition). and in this particular case of his reach for help, while not a fault of his own (i need to properly rewatch to make sure if the doctor ever asks him about this) he tries to fix the technical, physical, provable aspects of his illness, without addressing what caused him to be in that state (to make a long post short and because i can’t find the exact post i reblogged years ago, is no coincidence that the time chuck is dealing with it perfectly is when he is not concerned anymore about jimmy’s issues, and he relapses in the worst way immediately after he purposely hurts him in the most extreme way).

so after seeing these three cases with our main characters, i immediately assumed that howard’s mental health was doomed to a similar fate to show us that therapy isn’t worth trying in this setting, or that jimmy’s cruel pranks would leave him in a worse state than before, but that would be proving the point that jimmy wanted to believe (that there is no point in seeking therapy so at least he took the right choice!), but instead, we see him calm and much more level headed than many other people would be in his situation. and that only enrages jimmy more (of course not helped by the stressful lalo situation he had at the court), whose erratic behavior and unhinged attitude leave him screaming frantically as Howard calmly walks away.  

so seeing therapy be effective and helpful to howard (who we can assume that, besides the obvious resources, has the mindset to actually confront his issues instead of putting them under the rug) becomes important because it reminds us that the characters had alternatives, especially for jimmy.

#better call saul #bcs #this post is so half-baked i couldn't have do it without grammarly #txt

[cogentranting]

My biggest complaint about the Star Wars sequel trilogy has been that, while 1-6 are essentially one narrative, 7-9 feels very much like a sequel. This is because while the smaller narratives of the previous two trilogies are focused on different characters, inherently they fit together as the story of Anakin Skywalker- his rise, fall and redemption. And the sequels just aren’t about Anakin/Vader. 

I still do think 7-9 are more disconnected than 1-6, BUT Rise of Skywalker not only tied the trilogy together, but tied it to the larger saga in a really significant way. 

The prequels are the tragedy of Anakin Skywalker. The original series is the story of his redemption through his son. And the sequels are all about his legacy. 

What 7-9 establish is that there are two people who are what I’m going to refer to as Anakin’s heirs. These two are, of course, Rey and Kylo Ren. Kylo is the last of the Skywalker bloodline. Rey has his origin-- the unexpected, unprecedented appearance of a very powerful force user on a desert planet, sold into bondage, an incredible pilot, skilled with mechanics. And they both are talked about in terms of how impressively gifted they are in the force-- to the point that it could be said they have jointly as a dyad inherited his power-- leading to them essentially fulfilling the same Chosen One role. More than any way they might take after Luke, Leia or Han, they are Anakin’s successors in terms of his family line, his power, and his role in the galaxy.  (More under the cut)

Furthermore, Rey and Kylo represent the two distinct sides of Anakin; Rey as Anakin, the young Jedi prodigy, and Kylo Ren as Vader, the traitorous Sith. Even in the way the Dark Side tempts them, they mirror different aspects of Anakin. In Kylo we see Anakin’s entitlement and his feelings that the world is unjust and he’s been betrayed. For him the Dark Side is about not only getting what he deserves but putting right a wrong that has been done to him. Anakin’s rant to Padme on Tatooine in Episode 2 reflects this side of him well-- he talks about Obi Wan being jealous of him, holding him back, the Jedi never understanding him etc. Very similar sentiments are given by Kylo when he talks about the actions of his parents and Luke.  Meanwhile Rey is also tempted by the Dark Side, but for her the temptation revolves around fear, especially fear of losing her loved ones. Anakin’s darkest moments came in response to losing his mother and fearing the loss of Padme. In the same way, Rey uses Sith lightning in a moment when she fears the loss of Chewie, which, in an ironic twist almost kills him, much as, in his fear of losing Padme, Anakin leads to her death. Even more so, her greatest moment of temptation is when she believes that all her friends will die if she does not give in to the Dark Side.  

In representing the two sides of Anakin, they also, as I’ve stated, take on his roles. Kylo was a student of the new Jedi order, but turned on them in response to his mentors demonstrating that they feared his potential rather than trusting him, leading to him slaughtering the students; Anakin’s faith in the Jedi Council was shaken when they demonstrated their lack of trust in him by not making him a Master, and when they asked him to spy on a senator, so he, like Kylo, turned to the Dark master who offered him trust, and ended up slaughtering the students. He then winds up the apprentice to a Dark Lord running a new empire, essentially the new Vader (though he too eventually kills his master), and of course is eventually redeemed. Rey, as previously explained, has Anakin’s origins and a similar role as gifted but rash, impulsive, and perhaps overly-aggressive student. She also eventually takes on his role as Chosen One at the end of TROS-- Anakin even explicitly tells her “Bring balance to the Force as I once did”. 

It’s also important that Rise of Skywalker reveals that Anakin’s heirs are not just confronting an evil like the one he did, but the very same evil. Palpatine is back and Anakin’s heirs must face the same test. This then brings in this idea that defeating evil, choosing good, etc is not a singular choice or action. It is a continued process, chosen over and over again as evil tries to reassert itself. And so as the conclusion of the Skywalker Saga, the Sequels ask the question, having seen the life of Anakin, what will its impact be? What legacy will be left? Will it be the legacy of Anakin and Luke? Or the legacy of Vader? 

Here it’s important to note that, as the representatives of the two sides of the legacy, neither Kylo nor Rey is a Skywalker. So we’re left to see which will become the defining Skywalker. For much of the trilogy, we’re left to believe that it’s Vader who had the more enduring legacy. His mask continually reappears, he’s spoken about, and Kylo chooses the Dark Side repeatedly. Meanwhile, Anakin’s name is never mentioned, Luke is in hiding, and Rey herself is unsure of her identity and conflicted about what she wants.  Then in Rise of Skywalker that shifts. Kylo Ren dies, leaving Ben Solo behind and destroying the chance of the Vader legacy triumphing. We are then left with the question of if the Anakin legacy will succeed, or if the Skywalker legacy is doomed once more to tragedy. The heirs fight together, combining the dyad of Anakin’s inherited power in the face of evil. And in the end the final victory belongs to Rey and the all the Jedi who’ve come before her. In this triumph, we notably hear Anakin’s voice for the first time, and have Kylo/Ben giving his life force to Rey, a final act of sacrifice ensuring that the proper legacy survives and is carried forward, while the heir which has carried the Vader legacy cements only his redemption. 

Notably, just as his children were tantamount in the initial Vader redemption and Skywalker victory for Anakin, Luke and Leia are the ones who bring about this second redemption and victory. It’s Leia who reaches out to Kylo leading to his return to Ben Solo. It’s Luke who gives Rey the wisdom she needs to confront her bloodline and define her own identity. It’s their lightsabers Rey and Kylo/Ben fight with. And their voices are pivotal in Rey’s final victory. As they were a light guiding their father back, they’re a light for the new generation. 

In her final victory, Rey proves that the Skywalker legacy is a lasting legacy of redemption and triumph over evil. She is the Skywalker that rises at the end, promising that the lines of Palpatine and Vader have truly ended, leaving a clear path for the continuation of the noblest heritage that Anakin and Luke and Leia have to offer. So through her the Skywalker Saga ends with a promise that the Skywalker’s do not have one great victory, but the beginnings of a great history of victories that will be their ongoing legacy. 

#star wars #tros #tros spoilers #star wars meta #the skywalker saga #anakin skywalker #kylo ren #rey skywalker

[popwasabi]

“1917″ Review: The Right War Movie for the Right Time

Directed by Sam Mendes

Starring: George Mackay, Dean-Charles Chapman, Colin Firth, Mark Strong, Benedict Cumberbatch

 The most surprising thing about “1917” is that its most hyped about feature, the long one-shot take throughout the film, is probably the least interesting thing about it.

The second most surprising thing is that the movie still remarkably holds up well despite it. In fact, the movie could not have timed its wide release at a better time.

With the world seemingly on the brink these days, war is on the tongue of many people and the various hawks of the country are all too happy to beat their drums once again to send other peoples’ sons, daughters, fathers, and mothers to do the fighting for them. People shouldn’t need reminding that war, even at its most noble of causes, is an inherently ugly business that ruins lives around the world. Yet time and time again people, often with nothing they can actually lose in the fight, get excited for it almost like it’s the Super Bowl.

(Like the NFL though the game is typically run by old, out of touch, wealthy white men all too eager put typically brown people in harm's way.)

Sam Mendes’ “1917” is in the same vein of war storytelling as Christopher Nolan’s brilliant “Dunkirk” but where the WWII film saw great triumph in victory, Mendes’ WWI angle chooses hollowness and tragedy in its senselessness.

“1917” tells the story of Lance Corporal’s Tom Blake and Will Schofield during the waning years of WWI along the German front contested by the British. The two are brought in for a special mission to relay orders to the 2nd Battalion to call off an imminent assault on the Germans the next morning to avoid a disastrous counter offensive that will cost the lives of 1600 men, Blake’s brother among them. The two set off in a race against time to ensure that needless blood isn’t spilt but it proves dangerous as they must trudge across the dreaded No Man’s Land to deliver the message before it’s too late.

History repeating itself is, well, as old as history itself and those who don’t learn it are just as common. 

As our man-child of a president continues to poke the bear of a potentially dangerous adversary the people who stand to lose the most are the soldiers and the citizens involved in both countries. Like the Iraq War millions of innocent civilians will likely die and it’ll cost our country trillions of dollars all because the president gets a chubby at the idea of killing Middle Easterners. In the hyper social media age of the world we can see the public’s responses to this potential catastrophic loss of life in real-time and let’s just say waaaay too many people were/are comfortable with dropping nukes on a sovereign nation whether you think they deserve it or not.

(Repeat after me: Civilians are not responsible for the actions of their government.)

“1917” sets out to make it very clear early what a waste of time this fighting is and the kind of horrible loss of life it costs to wage. The visuals of downtrodden, weary, burnt-out soldiers early on in the film followed by the vast deathly wastes of No Man’s Land makes Mendes’ anti-war message poignant from the start.

Mendes wants the viewer to be immersed and overwhelmed by all this; he doesn’t want you to simply be a spectator to the conflict but actively feel what it’s like as much as possible. As you view the carnage around the characters it’s hard not think about how senseless it all is, to die in these unmarked graves, to have your final breathes in a muddy crater alongside other equally pitiful souls.

The film does most of its talking visually here because of it, allowing the scenes of death and senseless carnage to tell you all the important story beats it needs. How the characters Schofield and Blake react to all this is also important. Their surrogates for the audience, of course, but deliver plenty of character moments throughout its arduous journey. The film keeps it simple, never diving into needless exposition on the fighting or what brought them to battle but just seeing how they all act as it all happens to them tells the viewer all they need to know.

(Sometimes words and big closeups aren’t important to character.)

None of this is possible without the impressive cinematography on display in each scene as the film captures these immense set pieces and battles both beautifully and hauntingly and it will hold your attention consistently throughout its extensive runtime.

But what about the one-shot film-making you might ask? 

A lot was made of it in the pre-film hype and indeed it can be truly impressive in many scenes but if there is one knock against this film it’s that it is kind of forgettable. It’s not because it’s bad per se but that in many sequences you kind of just forget it's happening and doesn’t add much extra to the scene. It doesn’t take away from the film of course, but a film like “Birdman” for instance did it much better and more seamlessly. Perhaps a more traditional approach for this story in some sequences would’ve made a slightly better film instead.

This all said the movie’s greatest moment is largely because of this particular film-making style and you absolutely must see it on the biggest screen possible to digest its full scope.

(Seriously.)

If you get too wrapped up in what this one-shot stuff doesn’t do well, you may miss the forest for the trees. “1917” hits all the right notes narratively for a war film of this kind regardless of its initial gimmicky premise. It might be easy to think this movie was made just to see what a film of this style would look like with this direction but if you focus too hard on this you’ll miss a fairly engrossing journey from start to finish.

The fast-paced nature of the film will have a lot of fans humming along to its ticking-clock structure like that of “Dunkirk” but will come away with a much different feeling compared to Nolan’s WWII epic. 

Where Nolan saw hope and triumph in the great struggle for victory with the British escape from Dunkirk, Mendes likely see’s only pain in the aftermath of bloody fighting regardless of winners or losers. This isn’t to say war can’t have true moments of glory but maybe the public needs to be reminded of the uglier side of it all and that sometimes there is no victory even when there is one.

When the general public is all too giddy about sending other people to die half-away across the world in a conflict they barely understand it shows just how ignorant we all are of what these wars really costs. We aren’t rooting for a hometown football team when our soldiers go to war; the star QB doesn’t get sent home in a casket if he doesn’t throw enough touchdowns.

(There would literally be no Bengals left in Cincinnati if football was waged the same way as war...)

“1917” is a bitter reminder that war is, even at its best, senseless and destructive. You can only begin to imagine what this level of violence might be like and this film gives us a staged but nonetheless real and grounded taste of it.

History will only continue to repeat itself over and over again until the supposed “support the troops” side of the country and world begins to truly understand this but until then we are doomed to never learn.

WWI was only 100 plus years ago, folks. Don’t be so excited to see that kind of destructive senselessness again…

 VERDICT:

5 out of 5

#1917 movie #1917 #movie #film #movie review #review #film review #1917 review #world war II #world war I #WWII #WWI #Sam Mendes #James Bond #Skyfall #007 #Hiroshima #Nagasaki #Atomic bomb #nukes #iran #Football #NFL #super bowl #benedict cumberbatch #war movie #war #war film #anti-war #Game of thrones

[breakingarrows]

Wolfenstein II: The New Colossus (2018)

[This was originally published on VerticalSliceMedia.com in 2018 and is republished from the latest draft I have]

Wolfenstein II: The New Colossus is a game at odds with itself but also very willing to face uncomfortable truths. Tool tips and mechanics can be rendered useless on difficulty levels beyond, and in some cases even on, the normal difficulty. BJ is presented as an unstoppable Nazi killing machine, but can be cut down in seconds when not in cover. A strong narrative and a presentation of a United States in control by the Nazi regime has enough to say about white complicity under fascism to be worthwhile, and is wonderfully timed.

Beginning Wolfenstein II you are confronted with a difficulty slider that ranges from descriptors of “Can I Play Daddy?” to “I am death incarnate!” This naming is present due to the legacy of Wolfenstein 3D. However, Wolfenstein II is a game that wants you to feel empowered, especially in the latter portion of the campaign, and has tooltips clueing you in on dual wielding and melee executions. Unfortunately, these sorts of mechanics are counterintuitive on the higher difficulties, and even on the default “Bring ‘em on!” health and armor deplete quickly. The lack of a hit indicator when taking damage doesn’t help. The New Colossus wants you to hack up Nazis, yet leaves you open to taking fire when doing so. It wants you to dual wield shotguns as you sprint through soldiers, but will leave you dead within seconds when you depart the safety of cover.

Comparatively, DOOM (2016), the natural companion to Wolfenstein, does not have this problem. DOOM on the easiest and on the hardest difficulty plays the same. Wolfenstein II on the easiest level is the best way to play the game, but it’s condescending at the outset. Wolfenstein II on the hardest will lead you to much slower confrontations and relies heavily on weak stealth. With no mini-map and no ability to see enemy vision measurements, stealth sections frequently devolve into an enemy commander sounding an alarm that will rotate in more enemies to reset your progress. A courtroom scenario midway through the game strips you of your weapons and starts you in the middle of a large arena surrounded by enemies. You begin with a submachine gun and have to slowly reaccumulate your small armory. Trophy data suggests otherwise, but I believe this section to be impossible on the highest difficulty. Surrounded by enemies with breakable cover your only protection, you will die often from cheap angles or just overwhelmed by numbers. This sort of scenario is not a challenge, its punishment.

Even on the easiest level, the gunplay is still the weakest aspect of The New Colossus. The weapons themselves are adequate, with the optional upgrades and satisfying audio feedback. Melee executions are a joy to watch, but it's a shame that there are no perks to give you bonus health or armor for each takedown. A jump and smash mechanic is used once in the introduction and very rarely appears as an option later on. A nuked New York City as at first arresting in its large scale tragedy, but eventually devolves into a muddled mass of grey husks with progression obscured by the confusing layout. New Orleans rotates between interior and exterior spaces, but besides a confrontation and ride-along with a Panzerhound, has nothing unique to offer. Not one level sticks out as memorable, and even Venus lacks a unique scenario or great setting for the shootouts. Instead, when outside the Venus base you need to fuel up on coolant consistently, which just layers on another meter besides health and armor that you must babysit.

The New Colossus’ narrative is its saving factor, as scenarios presented both in and out of cutscenes are wonderful to watch unfold, and character interactions can be very entertaining.

The relationship between children and their parents is a major theme of The New Colossus, evidenced by the introductions focus on BJ’s abusive father, Rip. Throughout the game, characters have to come to terms with either their own upbringing or the newfound responsibility of introducing life into this bleak world. BJ has his abusive father and impending parenthood to twins with Anya, Grace and Super Spesh already have a child, Max Hauss is cared for by the entirety of the Kreisau Circle, and Sigrun is belittled by her mother. BJ and Sigrun are the most interesting of these, as they must decide whether or not they will become mirror images of their respective parent.

BJ is informed early on that Anya is having twins, and he frequently contemplates his death in tandem with regret at not being able to be a father for his children. BJ’s own father did not leave behind a great example to follow. A racist, sexist, anti-semitic, economically anxious white man who is almost a cartoon epitome of everything that was and is wrong with part of the American population. As a child, BJ is berated for not being enough of a man to take care of himself, but Rip blames others for his own deficiencies. Instead of reflecting inward at his own failings, he explodes outwards at whatever is available. This conflict results in abuse towards his wife and pushes him to kill the family dog in a fit of rage. Rip is a good example of how not to be a parent.

Rip doesn’t just represent the worst offerings of what a father can be, but also the worst aspect of the american population. Willing to sell out his family for meager rewards such as property ownership, it was men like him that paved the way for Nazi occupation to sweep through the United States as quickly as it did. People like him gave in to their debase hatred of the Other and went above and beyond betraying their fellow citizens in order to have an easy life. We already allow people of color to be unjustifiably killed at the hands of police, would it be so hard to believe we would go further under threat of violence to willingly give them into the hands of death?

A positive influence on BJ was a young black girl named Billie, who exposes BJ to the discrimination experienced by those whom his father hates. She upends the expectations he has inherited from his father, teaches compassion, and they even share a child crush. She teaches him empathy, something his father never bothered to even attempt. BJ is forced to relive and reflect on these memories when he revisits the family farm. Upon confronting his aged father, BJ kills him upon learning that his mother was sold out by her own husband. By doing so he rejects the teachings of his father about white supremacy and all that it entails.

Mentioned throughout the main narrative and spread throughout collectibles in each level are details that tell the tale of how America fell to the Nazis, and how it was mostly with a resigned sigh. An ex-military student murders scientists working on the “Manhattan Project” resulting in Nazi Germany obtaining the nuclear bomb first and using it on New York City. This attack is framed as a necessity to end a brutal war, much like the United State’s position on the bombings of Nagasaki and Hiroshima which resulted in extraordinary civilian death. History is written by the victor, and since we were not the subject of an atomic bombing in this timeline we are free to justify it. After this forced surrender, America reverted back into what it was a hundred years earlier: devoid of rights for any who weren’t straight or white.

A most damning example of this new America is shown during a brief segment taking place in Roswell, Arizona The townsfolk celebrate “Victory Day” as Nazis parade through the streets. A soldier critiques/mocks Klu Klux Klansmen on their failed attempts at German, a different soldier rebukes a white woman who tries to earn favor by talking shit about Austrians (not knowing Hitler himself was Austrian), and a citizen reminds her family of an upcoming slave auction. Propaganda newspapers talk about replacing the fake news of yesterday and the efficiency of the new regime compared to the “clique of corrupt elites who were never interested in [your] welfare.” Two Nazi soldiers discuss attacks against their rule and how violence is not okay before pondering if they’ll be assigned to the same death squad in New Orleans. A newspaper clipping I am convinced was placed late in development explains our current political situation:

“...then the odds are on the man who is, intrinsically, the most devious and mediocre - the man who can most adeptly disperse the bottom that his mind is a virtual vacuum… On some great and glorious day the plain folks of the land will reach their hearts desire at last, and the White House will be adorned by a downright moron.”

America in Wolfenstein II is complicit to the racism of the Nazis due to their beliefs being intertwined with our history. Not content to exist only behind us, this inherent discrimination continues to be active given the rise of the so-called “far-right” and blatant racism in figures like our current president. The white man, a majority of the population, has nothing to fear from a Nazi overhead when compared to the black, the queer, the Other, who already had restricted rights underneath a “free” America.

As for those born underneath Nazi rule, we are given Sigrun Engel, daughter of Irene Engel our central antagonist. Having turned on her mother due to Irene’s consistent verbal abuse towards Sigrun’s weight and diary entries, the Kreisau Circle welcomes her but doesn’t accept her. Members frequently call her a Nazi despite her protests. This boils over during BJ’s birthday party in which she confronts Grace over her Nazi labelling and overcomes her emotional connection to Bombate. She represents the hope that even those born under Nazi rule can break free and work against it. We even avoid predictable plot beats as Sigrun is not secretly feeding her mother information or betrays the Circle near the end.

Ultimately, you take revenge on Engel after she has killed Caroline during the introduction, steals a family ring meant for Anya, and mocks you after murdering Super Spesh. After taking over her Ausmerzer fortress in a frustrating shootout, the Circle confronts Engel at a talk show where you hack off her arm before delivering the fatal blow to her head. No matter the timeline, members of the Circle deliver what is meant to be a rousing speech to those watching the television broadcast, but any emotion is swiftly eliminated by the end credits song: a horrible cover of We’re Not Going to Take It.

#Wolfenstein II: The New Colossus #Wolfenstein #The New Colossus #Video Game Criticism #Criticism #writing

[its-just-like-the-movies]

It Comes at Night (17, C?)

It makes sense, I suppose, that an object as paranoid and claustrophobic as It Comes At Night feels longer than its 91 minute runtime. Then again, did anyone else feel they’d spent a full two hours watching it? It’s an exhausting endeavor, as horrifically inevitable in its finale as any tragedy, perhaps going farther in some instances than expected yet ending pretty abruptly at a moment of crisis for the few survivors. I admire how the film immediately throws you into the post-apocalyptic setting and worldview of it characters, setting it up quickly through filmmaking technique and the lived-in terror of central family Paul, Sarah, and their son Travis. Opening with the killing and cremation of Sarah’s infected father, the sheer efficiency of their removal of this dying man suggests plenty of questions on how they’ve gotten this routine so down pat - is it practice or other real world experiences? - and introduces us perfectly to these characters. Paul and Sarah are harder and less trusting of the world than their son, though they’re still a kind of loving nuclear family unit. Paul’s word is still final, though depending on the graveness of the situation he’s happy to hear contributions from the family. Travis is more visibly bothered by the ruthlessness his parents have taken up, though this is mainly manifest in increasingly surreal nightmares. These, thankfully, are the films only real forays into jump scares, and as effective as they are they ultimately feel cheap and somewhat atonal next to the slow burn psychological study on paranoia that Trey Edward Shults had been making so successfully in so many other moments. All the scenes of the primary family interacting with the outsiders is uncomfortably tense and well crafted, either escalating a situation, acting as a release valve, muddying a previous narrative, trying to keep a lid on something everyone knows is going to boil over.

The actors fill it out fine, etching out their roles memorably, though perhaps too much of the film is privileged to relative newcomer Kelvin Harrison Jr. as Travis, especially since you can feel how limited all the roles outside of the son and his domineering, paranoid father are. Carmen Ejogo feels palpably limited as Sarah compared to the rest of the cast, especially since she has almost nothing to do once second couple Will and Kim are introduced except confer with her husband and stare askance at the rest of the cast. It’s genuinely unclear between this and Alien: Covenant - at least giving her more to do in her scenes and has a better reason to sideline her narrative so earIy -  which film gives her less to do this summer. I admired the sincerity that Christopher Abbott and Riley Keough use to portray new couple Will and Kate, removing them as objects of outright distrust through a kind of decency sorely absent from Travis’ life. This ultimately makes the moments where they do have to fight for their lives sadder and seemingly more upsetting than the ones where Paul and Sarah do, the difference between cornered animals and pragmatic survivalists. Even their son has a few lines, a few close-ups, a little narrative import. 

That said, attempting to write about the film has reminded me more of what the film doesn’t offer than what it does. As impressively claustrophobic as the whole thing felt, Shults crafts a lot of different tensions without making them cohere in any interesting way. Even the lack of coherence is less interesting than it might be, but instead the different ways the film makes us anxious grate against each other without assisting the overall picture. It’s not that any one scare isn’t affecting, but it’s hard to find the unifying umbrella to put the jump scares, the hallucinogenic dream sequences, the faux-casual anxiety, the genuinely casual anxiety, fear of the unknown, and outright horror elements underneath. The variety is admirable, but it’s hard to reckon with the film’s tonal shifting once everything starts feeling like vignettes on the same kind of scenario. It Comes at Night lacks the kind of singular, rigid, claustrophobic tone that made horror films like It Follows or even chamber dramas like Cries and Whispers such terrifying yet gripping sits, ultimately worth their payoffs as we spent comparable amounts of time in front of them. It also helps that both films have stronger presentations of its characters, not exactly acting showcases or character studies but certainly give the space for great acting to arise out of their ecosystems, letting characters breathe as long as they were alive and let their personalities shine through thorny interactions and uncomfortable decision-making.

Granted, the survivors of this film’s post-apocalyptic scenario already come with plenty of steel in their spines, and the crux of the piece is as much about character relationships more than the characters, but the actors are hemmed in by how easy the trajectory of the film is to chart out. As soon as the new couple arrive all we can do is wait to see what they do wrong that blows it all to hell, not just because we know what kind of film we’re watching but because we never for a second consider that Paul, Sarah, or Travis will be the catalysts for any fuckery. The way the group-splitting decision occurs leaves no questions of loyalty or blame, dividing the expecting parties up perfectly without leaving any questions to how this miniature turf war will ultimately be settled. Everything feels like it matters, but once the film finished I was hard pressed to think of what I got out of it. The setting is fairly specific, and I didn’t mind the way that whatever infection these characters were so afraid of was mostly referred to like a Voldemort-ish unspoken evil. But at certain moments, when the film suggests something else these characters are on guard for, it trips itself up, suggesting an actual creature that Travis draws, or in the return of one character with a terrible gash in their belly. Is this an airborne virus? Some horrific nocturnal demons? The titular “It” points to the virus, a home invader, and a dog, all plausibly so, but the lack of definition around what “it” is might be a benefit if the film wasn’t gesturing towards a living, breathing thing fulfilling the role of “it” that would attack the central families.

The characters, too, are barely even defined enough beyond Paul to be considered types, and the abruptness of the last minute suggests an even more torturous but far more fascinating five minutes, or even a better 90 minute feature, as the two doomed survivors sit frozen at the kitchen table, not just reckoning with the recent past but their bleak futures. Everyone in the house that morning had died at their hands, and all that is left to determine is how they will take care of each other, in every sense of the phrase. The individual contributions of the actors, good as they are, frankly make you wish they had more to do than what they’re given. I talked earlier about how sidelined Ejogo is, but it’s not as though Keough, Abbott, or their kid are given radically more material than she does, their moments just come later in the script. The whole cast seems ready for richer characters to take, and it would’ve served everyone better to give some of the perspective that Travis got to the other, non-Paul characters. Harrison and Edgerton do fine work, but I can’t find much to really say about them. Whatever the actors add to their performances, they don’t have the space to deepen them in any surprising way.

Ultimately, I’m not quite sure what to take away from It Comes at Night. The picture would’ve benefitted tremendously from a more cohered range of tones, more room for its characters to breathe, perhaps for the audience to breathe too, and an ending that allowed the survivors room to explore the ramifications of their actions in their final moments. I enjoyed the film plenty while I was sitting in front of it, but for the life of me I’m not sure what ideas I’m supposed to take away from this. The inherent insustainability of human bonds in life-or-death scenarios? It surely can’t be about the consequences of distrust and paranoia, since Paul and Sarah are pretty much right all the time. It can’t be a study on the horrific lengths one goes to to survive since. Well. Anyways. I’d say the idea here seems muddy but I’m not quite sure what it is, to be quite honest. When the film ended, most of our theater let pretty quickly. Ahead of me and Jack was a pair of women, one of whom turned to the rest of theater asking “That was it?” and I agreed with her 100%. I also agreed with Jack about enjoying the oppressiveness of the film’s style, but we spent about equal time discussing the trailer for the Murder on the Orient Express remake, and Kenneth Branagh’s awful mustache. Is it hard to get to the center of It Come at Night because the center is more elusive than I’m giving it credit for, or because it’s as insubstantial as I think it is? I don’t plan on rewatching it to find out, and this has for sure made the idea of seeing Shults’ first feature Krisha a much more dubious prospect. I’m excited by the idea of a good film by somehow who seems so interested working with claustrophobia and tonally oppressive projects, and if this feature is the proper stepping stone for him to make that film, I’ll be happy. But I can’t quite find the value of this project. It scares, sure, but it doesn’t last, and there’s no meat to it. It Comes at Night evaporates far quicker than I expected, lingering only for what it could have been, while what it ultimately is feels as alarmingly opaque as its characters, and as empty as their home.

#my posts #my reviews #it comes at night #2017