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maxwell-grant · 3 years

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Having asked your thoughts on designing Frankenstein's daemon, might I now ask your thoughts on bringing Count Dracula from the written word into illustration? (I'm definitely in favour of the 'Hairy Old Mountain Man of Horror pretending he's people' look from the original novel; one of the small tests too many Draculas fail to pass is an absolutely tragic lack of the Evil Beard and/or Wicked Moustache explicitly described by Mr Stoker).

Unlike with Frankenstein, where I think the design needs to be painstakingly thought out in order to achieve the best balance of the creature's traits for horror and tragedy alike, I think with Dracula you can actually just take an approach of "whatever works". Because as I mentioned before, I think much of the appeal and longevity of Dracula is how the character's both a layered villain as well as a shapeshifting narrative force that can be tailored to whatever you want to do with. Granted, there are bad or dissappointing Dracula designs, of course there are, but in regards to the leeway you get for reinterpretation, you get a lot more of it with Dracula than with other literary icons.

Like with Frankenstein, I'm gonna bring up how I'd tackle a less grim, more comedy-centric Dracula first, one that's less a force of horror and more of a charismatic villain, and I think to that end I definitely agree that people are sleeping a lot on the hairy old man barely-passing-off-as-humanoid of the original story. Despite very much loving these performers, I'm actually not a fan of takes that mold Dracula too closely to people who've portrayed him, like Bela Lugosi and Christopher Lee, partially because I think it's a waste of an opportunity to create your own Dracula design. Since I can't draw (yet), I'll do what I usually do and make a board of images to try and convey some of my thoughts on one way I'd design Dracula.

(Pictured: Kiwi's design for Dracula, Hotel Transylvania concept art, Nandor, Castlevania Dracula, Charles Dance in Dracula Untold, Vladislav, a Transylvanian rug)

I used the images in my other Dracula post and I’ll post it here again because I absolutely adore @kiwibyrd's designs for Dracula and it's main heroes, in particular I love the way it strikes a good balance at making sure Dracula looks distinctly separate from the humans, but not too much that he couldn't conceivably operate in society as just a harmless old man. I also adore the mustache and bushy eyebrows and pointy ears and I think these three are wonderful features to keep on any Dracula design. I'm also very partial to the Hotel Transylvania concept art, even if it makes me incredibly depressed to look at all the great designs they had for Dracula that they threw in the trash because they somehow decided making him look like Adam Sandler was the idea to go with.

I deeply adore What We Do In The Shadows, both the movie and the show, and Jemaine Clement's Vladislav is one of my favorite (maybe even my actual favorite) on-screen Draculas. But I also enjoy Nandor just as much, and I think it's really great that as a character he's completely different from Vlad while also being ostensibly a take on Dracula, and in particular I bring up his Jersey look because "Dracula in common clothing" is a criminally underrated concept for a joke.

As a character, I'm very partial to comedy takes on Dracula that play him up as a decadent aristocratic supervillain, the kind that can get away with talking in third person. I also have this idea for a version of Dracula who dresses ostentatiously in finely-broidered Romanian or Transylvanian patterns, maybe even wearing a rug as a cape, claiming that he's carrying the legacy of his people on his back. And of course he's lying, he's not Vlad Tepes and he's not even Romanian, he is just a parasite pretending to have a history to be proud of, but good luck getting him to admit that. And finally, I'd like this version to be played by Charles Dance, and I consider it a tremendous crime against humanity that he has yet to play Dracula proper even despite being in a film with the character's name on the title.

So that's kinda how I would design a take on Dracula for something more comedic or more based around him as this guest character and personality on-set. Now, if we're talking a more serious version, I think the possibilities increase, and I won't be getting into all of them because I may prefer to keep them to myself, but I'll elaborate a few ideas.

For example, the edition of Dracula I personally own comes with these really scratchy, really creepy B&W illustrations related to the story, that I can't find scanned online so I'm uploading them here so you can look at. They don't necessarily depict the scenes but rather some of the story's moments, like Van Helsing staking Lucy, Renfield in a straightjacket, Dracula as a coachman, and they are more focused on conveying the horror of the concepts at play.

Dracula never looks the same way in any of the illustrations, in fact you kinda have to piece him out of them by trying to find teeth or capes or eyes or bat-features to see where he's hiding this time. In the first, it's the half-man half-bat, in the 2nd, he's the shrieking bat silhouette next to Renfield, and in the latter, he's the gaping jaws and eerily humanoid eyes in the wolf. The effect to me almost feels like if you were to look at a bunch of tv static and then see a humanoid shape form for a split second before everything went back to normal, something like you'd get from Slender Man or other modern creepypastas, and I’ve argued before that Dracula’s form of horror is a very modern one.

In terms of illustrations of Dracula that keep up the original traits while still pulling off horror, I definitely have to hand it to the one at the left of the image above, drawn by regourso on Deviantart (account deleted at present). Going back to Castlevania’s many takes on Dracula, two in particular that stick out to me would be Castlevania: Judgment’s armored dress Dracula, who’s got this great twisted heart/rose motif going on in his outfit, and Dracula’s final form in SOTN where he just sits in his throne and his cape twists into all these monsters, particularly how it’s depicted by witnesstheabsurd’s depiction.

I’m not particularly a fan of how Dracula’s “final form” in these games is usually just some big demon, and part of what I like about his final form in SOTN instead is that, while it’s not a particularly challenging final boss, I do find it interesting the idea of us never actually getting to see what Dracula’s true final form looks like, only an ever-shifting pitch-black torrent of teeth and claws and bloody veins pouring out because that’s ultimately what Dracula is and brings to the world.

On the flip-side of the rotten old monster, we have the charming seductor Dracula, and while I’m really not a fan of how various adaptations have convinced people that “the point” of Dracula is that he’s a seductive force and an allegory for Victorian xenophobia and I’m reeeally even less of a fan of adaptations that make Dracula some misunderstood tragic hero (and I think I’ve made rather violently clear my feelings on interpretations that play up a romance between him and Mina), that the seductive force part exists is impossible to deny, so conversely, while on one hand we can have Dracula as the gargantuan whirlwind of predatory violence, we can also go for Dracula as the tantalizing lover.

I’ve seen a lot of opinions proclaiming Frank Langella as the best Dracula because he was the best at actually being seductive while still playing Dracula, although I haven’t yet seen his performances. If I had to point at one picture I look at and do buy for a second the idea of Dracula as a romantic character, it would be that particular still of Raul Julia in the left of the above image. And it’s strange for me to think of Raul Julia as attractive because I mainly associate him with his brilliant comedy performance of M.Bison (I know it’s far from the highlight of his career but, look, I grew up with Street Fighter, I can’t help it) but those eyes are definitely looking pretty convincing to me, if nothing else.

And I’ve included this still of Sebastian Stan in the right because, during a conversation between me, @krinsbez and @jcogginsa about who could be a good fit for Dracula, jcog suggested Sebastian Stan, partially because he’s Romanian, and I’ve learned recently that Stan was actually interested in playing the character in Blumhouse’s upcoming remake. And you’d think I’d hate this idea considering how much I don’t care for tragic anti-hero Draculas, but who says that’s what he’d have to play?

Do you have any idea how much actors, who are traditionally known for heroic or supporting roles, usually LOVE it when you give them a chance to cut loose as the main villain?

I’d want Sebastian Stan to put all of his charm, all of his talent, all of his good looks and etc, into playing the absolute most vicious, bloodthirsty and irredeemable Dracula put on screen. Someone who is exceedingly, eerily good at being a lovable protagonist, who’s all smiles and charming eyes and politeness mannerisms and maybe even a funny accent, and then it isn't as funny when he's flying through your window intent on kidnapping babies to feed to his brides, except he may take a moment or two to do so because he's feeling pretty hungry himself right now.

Now, admittedly this is kind of a lot to juggle in regards to a single character, which is why my answer for questions like these inevitably has to be “depends on what I’m going for”. That being said, if I was going to try and cast someone who I think could both look the part of Dracula, as well as respectively, play “cartoon aristocrat” Dracula, “mercurial embodiment of evil” Dracula, as well as realistically be an attractive, even seductive performer who can charm viewers even as the character descends into horrible villainy, and juggle these performances even?

I think I’d have to go with Mads Mikkelsen. Not specifically because of Hannibal (I actually haven’t watched it yet), although it’s definitely a factor, the thing that actually made me pick him specifically is, other than his looks, his voice, his reputation for playing sinister characters, the fact that he loves the role and wants to play it, or how many people are deeply in love with this man, or that people already joke that he looks like a vampire, was watching him in Another Round, and specifically that glorious final scene where he’s just dancing to his heart’s content and just, moving with such spring in his step and such joyful vitality even though he’s past his mid-fifties, and that was the moment where, in regards to how much you all love this man, I went

And now I am going to add “casting Mads Mikkelsen as a dancing Dracula” to The List of Reasons Why I Became a Filmmaker.

#replies tag #dracula #horror tag #bram stoker #charles dance #sebastian stan #mads mikkelsen #castlevania #raul julia #wwdits #what we do in the shadows #vladislav #nandor

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river-bottom-nightmare · 3 years

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“You need a new superhero name.”

Damian brought it up unexpectedly, eyes still trained on the security camera he was dismantling.

“What?” Jon was sifting through the footage, using superspeed to catch every little detail of last night, but at Damian’s voice, he paused the recording and looked up.

Damian was still digging inside the camera, having removed the back panel and a good chunk of wires, and was now sifting through the piece of tech with a pair of tweezers. Nonetheless, he continued the conversation. “A name. You’re not going to be Superboy forever, are you?”

“Um,” Jon could honestly say he’d never thought about it. He’d always been Superboy, ever since he could remember. He wasn’t one to place much thought into birthrights or heritage, not like Damian, but he also wasn’t overlooking the fact that his father was Superman. What exactly did that make him? Superboy was the obvious answer. “I don’t think I can be anything else, Damian.”

“You have an older brother who also goes by Superboy.”

Jon shrugged. “We share.”

“Still. You’re graduating high school in just a few months, Jon. Though it’s surprising to say, you’ve outgrown the title.”

Jon’s lips instantly turned upward in a smirk. “I’ve outgrown the title, huh?”

At that, Damian turned to glare at him. Pointing a finger, he said, “I will taze you. Shut up.”

“Whatever you say, short stack.” Jon chuckled at Damian’s little growl. “But honestly, what else am I supposed to be? Everyone knows me as ‘Superman’s Son.’ I mean, Dad’s name is so big in the League, I don’t think I’ll ever separate myself from it.” And if he was honest, Jon didn’t know if he wanted to separate himself from it.

Damian hummed. “Not true. Look at Richard.”

“Dick? What about him?”

“Well,” Damian paused to move the tweezers to his other hand, “Richard started out as the first child hero, working under Batman. And unlike the other early proteges, he didn’t simply work as his mentor’s sidekick. He created his own legacy. And then he became Nightwing.”

“But Nightwing was already a thing,” Jon pointed out. “It’s a Kryptonian legend.”

“Yes, but there hasn’t actually been a Nightwing, has there? Even if there was one on Krypton, Richard was the first Nightwing on Earth. You wouldn’t call him a sidekick, would you?”

“What, no!” Jon’s reaction was immediate. “Nightwing’s, like, one of the most well-known guys out there. Literally everyone knows him, and literally everyone trusts him. He’s not a sidekick.”

Damian turned to smile at him. “Some would say he was. Do you understand my point?”

Jon pouted, took a deep breath and let it out. “Yeah. Yeah, I think so. I don’t know, I’m not even sure how to go about doing that.”

“Well, to start off, find a new name.” Damian hunched over the camera even more, suddenly focusing in on something.

“I guess so. You got any ideas?” At Damian’s lack of response, Jon asked again, “Damian?”

Damian straightened, holding up the tweezers. Clasped tightly between the tongs was a miniscule data chip. “Here’s the footage we’re looking for.”

Jon stared at him, eyes wide. “How did you even know that was there?”

Damian shrugged. “Simple matter of deductive reasoning.”

“Tim told you, didn’t he.”

A pause. Then, “Drake may have mentioned a while back that a certain trafficking ring was hiding the data chips inside the cameras, and that others were catching on to the trick. I simply tested out his theory.” Damian looked physically pained, and Jon laughed.

“Cool. Put it in, I’ll look through the footage.”

Damian handed the chip over, then laced his his fingers together, put his arms above his head to stretch. Jon, still holding the chip, stared at the line of Damian’s muscles. When Damian quirked an eyebrow, Jon quickly cleared his throat and took the old data chip out of the computer, replacing it with the new one. “So, any ideas?”

“For your name? A couple,” Damian said. “Of course, you need to have an idea for what you’re thinking of.”

Jon nodded absently, pressing rewind on the footage. “I’m not sure if I want to separate from the Super name entirely, though.”

“You don’t want to, or are you scared to?”

Jon snorted. “You probably know the answer to that better than I do. I think I got a name, it’s on the side of the truck.” He zoomed into the footage. “Yeah, it looks we were right. The pharmaceutical company’s related somehow. There’s that stupid gremlin looking thing again.’

“The griffin?” Damian asked, peering over his shoulder. He made a contemplative noise, brows furrowed

“Is that what that thing’s called? Looks like a half drowned bird.”

Damian laughed, and batted Jon’s hands aside. “That’s not what an actual griffin looks like. Here.” He pulled up a couple pictures on his phone.

Jon swiped through a couple pictures, eyebrows raised. “Yeah, those are a lot more impressive. What are they though?”

“Mythological creatures from a variety of different places. They have the body of a lion and the wings and head of an eagle. They’re quite majestic.”

Jon squinted his eyes at him. “You’re implying something. I know you’re implying something.”

In response, Damian nodded his head towards the phone.

“What?” Jon asked.

“Griffin! It’s a perfect name.”

Jon raised his eyebrows skeptically. “Oh yeah. Because I’m part cat and part bird. Perfect analogy.”

Damian slapped his hand lightly. “No, you moron. It doesn’t have anything to do with the eagle or the lion.”

“Then?”

“Your dual heritage.” At Jon’s uncomprehensive look, Damian sighed. “You’re half-Kryptonian, half-human. And it shows. When you fight, you’re fierce and unafraid, much like your father. At the same time, though, you’re endlessly curious and inquisitive, like your mother. God knows I’ve been on the end of that far too often.”

“Oh. That, huh. That actually makes sense.”

Damian shrugged. “I’m just saying. It would be a good homage to your roots, and you’re honoring your parents, without being too overt.”

Jon looked down at the phone again. The lion part was strong, muscled, steady. The bird’s head was curved and fierce, wings spread majestically.

“Griffin. You know what? I kinda like it.”

OKAY SO THIS WASN’T ACTUALLY MY IDEA i read a damijon fic a while back on ao3 where the author had jon’s name as griffin and i thought that was so so cool so i wrote a thing and i tried to find it again to give them credit but i couldn’t find it!!! so if anyone knows the fic i’m talking about, or if you yourself wrote the fic, please let me know so i can link you in the thing. it really was an incredible idea.

tag list: @comicsandhoney @birdy-bat-writes @elles-shitposts-personified @subtleappreciation @yesboopityboop @dangerduckjpeg @astroherogirl

and i know you’re not actually on my tag list so sorry for bothering you with this but @iamwhelmed i thought you would appreciate this

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mademoiselleseraph · 3 years

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Do I really think this would make Catherine better or do I just want it to be more like Perfect Blue?

AU where Vincent is an aspiring actor still trying to make it big at age 32. He has talent, dammit, but he never seems to get the right auditions at the right times. He's lost more than one job over prioritizing his potential acting career and is lucky that Orlando got him a job with a little more leeway at his workplace.

He does love Katherine-with-a-K, but he'd be lying if he said their relationship wasn't beneficial to him and his ability to chase his dreams. She's paid his bills a few times and she honestly doesn't mind if she'll pay his bills for the rest of their lives, she just wants something to show for it. And honestly, it's worrying that he wants to do something where so much can go wrong and he isn't even insured. Katherine herself got into fashion by designing otokoyaku costumes for stories that would make great Takarazuka shows when the should have been studying. The first conversation they had was about the performance arts. She wouldn't ask him to give up his dream but would it kill him to be more realistic?

The first night out with the guys we see has Vincent tell them that he went to audition for Romeo in a production of Romeo and Juliet. But they were hoping for someone younger and prettier so he read for the part of Paris instead. When Toby admits he didn't actually read it in school, Jonny explains that Paris is the romantic rival. Vincent scoffs at this, objecting that Paris is the one Juliet doesn't want to marry, and would rather die than marry. Toby responds with a sympathetic "ouch."

When the mysterious Catherine-with-a-C shows up she makes a point to mention that she has connections. Helpful connections.

And after waking up with her in his bed and no memory of how she got there, he gets a call from the theatre company. They went with someone else and he apologizes for wasting their time but the director on the other end says their sister company is casting Hamlet and they put in a good word for him as the title character. It would suit him much better than Paris. He thanks them profusely and writes down the address and time so he can make it. He'll have to cancel plans with his actual girlfriend Katherine, but she'll understand.

You don't get suggested for Hamlet after being a Paris so sub-par you don't even get a call-back. It just doesn't happen. Something's fishy here. And yet... maybe that girl had something to do with it. She did have connections, didn't she?

And so it goes. Vincent goes home and passes out after a night at the bar, seeing the same girl every night. He finds himself exposed, clawing his way to the top of a shaky tower. He can't stop or get too comfortable or it will fall from underneath his feet. Sometimes he has to push others down to get there. He wakes up next to that girl he can't remember saying yes to or inviting home and he finally starts actually landing the roles he tries for in tv and film. They're not leads, but the characters are named and have a good amount lines and personality.

Jonny mentions that his girlfriend is an opera singer, and discusses plot points in Faust, her current production, with Vincent, who studied Goethe's version of the tale in college. They talk about nude witches and smutty metaphores involving apple trees, and of course, the betting of one's soul.

Toby describes Vincent chasing his dreams as inspiring. Vincent wonders at what point does inspiring mean desperate and pathetic, but in a cute way.

Erica and Vincent were in a Greek tragedy club in high school that cast the characters "the traditional way" and Vincent remembers taking the role of Jason in Euripides' Medea so Erica could play the title role. He jokes that she didn't seem offended at them letting her perform and she says they just weren't used to girls that looked like her then.

Two questions relevant to Vincent's role as Hamlet show up in the confessional. One is "who's responsible for the king's death?" The answers presented are Claudius, which leans toward order and Gertrude, which leans toward chaos. The other goes "Did Hamlet have a hand in Ophelia's demise?" The answer "he's not guiltless" leans toward order and the answer "it's not his fault she's sick" leans toward chaos.

The best ending for Catherine-with-a-C involves everyone at the bar wondering what happened to Vincent and catching a news story on the tv that he's set up to become a star like few others after showing up out of nowhere and landing roles that should have conflicting schedules left and right. He sounds like a pig in the interview, saying it's all about the connections and sometimes connections have nice legs and a waist you can wrap your hands around and that he's not looking for love but child support would take care of itself if his career keeps up like this. Everyone shares their disdain, hates his shades, and Jonny states that he'll give Katherine-with-a-K a call to make sure she's okay. We cut to the other Catherine sitting on the edge of the bed, grabbing Vincent's hair and saying, ever so sweetly, "I'm still your number one, aren't I?" And he leans in to kiss her, whispering "Anything you say," before his lips touch her neck.

In Katherine-with-a-K's best ending, Vincent mentions signing on to play the neighbor in a family comedy. It's not prestigeous and it won't get him any awards, but it's a steady paycheck, and they've even given him some creative leeway. The deal with his character is that he's head over heals with a lady way out of his league. He suggested that she could be a missed connection from high school, career-oriented, in the fashion industry, and named Katherine. They've accepted all this input. His girlfriend is touched by this and when they get married he declares that she'll be a bigger household name than him, and he can't wait to be known as her husband.

Rin's best ending involves him being a producer, yes, but any movie Rin composes a score for is contractually obligated to offer Vincent a cameo. By the time he dies he's sure people will make compilations of the cameos, construct elaborate theories of them all being the same universe-hopping character, dedicate memes to him, and the like. His legacy will be people on the internet having some harmless fun.

The Neutral ending has Vincent publishing a memoire of that week of nightmares, dedicated to "The two women who taught me what I was not and the person who saw me for what I was. I still think about you, Rin." He's well aware this won't be received as nonfiction, and so he's working an a manuscript for a fantasy novel. There's a hero and a dangerous tower and a god with ill intentions and, well, you'll have to read it to find out what else.

#catherine #catherine full body #instead of commitment or freedom it's more clearly satsfaction in stability or the thrill of the chase

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the-littlefangirl · 3 years

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TFATWS episode 1 rewatch commentary

The first scene was so beautiful. I loved that we didn't start directly with the fight sequence. It feels way closer to the quiet beginning of CATWS and I love it so much.

The title is also SO NEAT, music's on point too but hey it’s Henry Jackman the one thing I’m sure it’s going to be great overall is the score.

The choreography is AMAZING, really well shot. Sam shielding himself with only one wing was MA-JES-TIC.

“WHAT'S UP” EXACTLY SAM EXACTLY

I did feel so uncomfortable in regards to the military aspect of it. Not that I was expecting anything else, but both here and in Captain Marvel the military we're good guys < 3 propaganda is so blatant and ugh:/ At least there wasn’t a literal recruitment spot like with CM.

The yellow filter in the Tunisia scene BYE please stop with the yellow filters 2k21

"I've been working with the Air Force for six months now" So, did Sam even catch a break at all after Endgame? Or did he just throw himself to work like SOMEONE did after being iced for 70 years. Hmmm? Sam????

"Essentially, these people, they want a world that's unified without borders" OH NO! HOW AWFUL, how evil of these bad guys smh

Joaquin: SO about Steve

Sam: :)))))) nope

"Moon stuff" SAAAM

#1 cry with Sam's speech, full on chills.. Fuck. Me. His voice about to break before saying thank you bYE.

Shady politician: "It was the right decision" (FUCKKKKK YOUUU)

Rhodey: *press any key to doubt *

I need someone to analyze the different curation of the two exhibits pretty please

NOT THE PHOTO POST-AZZANO JFC. That photo is my weakness, Bucky sweetie (also I find hilarious that usually when there are articles about Stucky and/or #givecaptainamericaaboyfriend they aaaalways use that photo LMAO)

In case someone wants to read the transcription of the texts about Bucky: "In 1944, while on a mission to thwart a Hydra weapon transport in the Alps, Barnes was thrown from a train and believed to have been killed in action. It wasn't until 2014, over seventy years later, that it was revealed that Barnes was alive, having been found by Hydra operatives. Captain America himself (i can't read) the effort to bring Barnes in only to later aid in a escape from custody having been convinced of his innocence. Steve's loyalty to his old friend, coupled with his refusal to sign the Sokovia Accords, led to the dissolution of the Avengers and drove the Captain into hiding with other like-minded Avengers including Natasha Romanoff, Wanda Maximoff, and Sam Wilson. The current whereabouts of Barnes remains unknown, habing been labeled a fugitive following his escape from custody."

"current wherabout unknown" but not the government, interesting. Also, pretty good summary of CACW from the public's perspective, although one of the things I always wanted to see explored was the public's reaction of the fallout of them going into hiding after Civil War (which I'm hoping we'll get to see a little bit of in Black Widow).

Interesting point about the 70 years without having Captain America. Clearly the sacrifice play wasn't enough this time to fuel the nationalism so they went with a squeaky clean John Walker instead.

Sam saying the shield belongs to Steve I'm going to cry now excuse me. Sam. Sam sweetie.

The No. 1 Captain America comic in the display ugH fuck yes

See this is how you do a cameo that has actual meaning. Thank god for Malcolm Spellman being a competent writer. That scene was so well written.

HAVE YOU PRAISED ANTHONY MACKIE'S PERFORMANCE TODAY?? Holy shit that last shot fucked me up.

I'm loving the use of the wide shots, especially in the flashback. The camera movements are in synch with The Soldier's state of mind and mission focus, so good.

EVERYONE STAND UP FOR THE NATIONAL ANTHEM aka The Winter Soldier theme composed by Henry Jackman.

Without a doubt the most brutal TWS fight scene there has been, People involved in Punisher and John Wick are involved in this and it SHOWS.

For the record, still stands that the only time we've seen him chocking someone with his right hand instead of the metal arm remains the Maria Stark assasination. I know it's probably because of blocking and the way the shot was composed but the implications are still bone chilling. God.

Uhhmmmm I'm very ambivalent about the "Hail Hydra". On one hand, it was 100% fanservice and the internet is probably going to go insane over it, and the dead way Sebastian Stan delivered the line. Good shit. Buuut what I love about CATWS is the way Bucky never, ever ever, mouths Hydra rethoric, and even when Pierce tries to gaslight him with it, it's just an empty effort. The Winter Soldier isn't doing anything because of ideological loyalty to Hydra, even if it's product of brainwashing, it's just sheer dehumanization. They don’t need him to say the words because he’s just An Asset. There are people who have put it more eloquently but yeah, I rather go with the fanon interpretation of that aspect.

The music growing louder with the shot of the keys. GOD.

I'm fine this is fine.

#2 cry with the therapy scene of fucking course.

The government monitoring Bucky is noooot going to end well lmao.

"We need to know that you're not gonna * slowmo stabbing motions *

Bucky: * nodding along slowly *

I laughed out loud.

"It's passive agressive" I love him.

The way this scene just sucker punched me in the face, made me weep and then had me cracking up. Amazing.

Therapist: You can't do anything illegal

Bucky: yup yup check checkity check. What IS considered illegal tho?

*aggresive tablet finger pressing *

"Then why isn't it rule number one?" Bucky your Steve is showing.

I love the close up shot. I'll keep saying it. It's so good.

"I'm James Bucky Barnes" yeah you are🥺

That smile is nightmare fuel LMFAO I love it.

Uhm the way I'm kinning Bucky it's not funny anymore damn

That whole “are you lashing out at me” rambling is really reminiscent of the bar scene in CATFA and how he lashed out at Steve after Peggy left. Uhm yeah fuck.

"WHAT DO YOU WANT?" "Peace"

"That is UTTER BULLSHIT" "You're a terrible shrink"

yeah ugly crying to ugly laughing speedrun for me

"You're free" "To do what?" jesus. That entire scene. #3 and #4 and #5 cries for moi.

Ugh that Brooklyn shot. Someone needs to do a gifset compairing it to the one in CATFA asap.

"It's like Monique but it's got a "U" in there for uniqueness" "That's absurd" LMAO

"You can't keep fighting with your neighbors" uHM * redacted redacted i'm shifting into 1940s mode abort abort *

"Nobody passed 90" "So young. Such a shame" FGADHGA

🥺🥺 yes flex those flirting skills good for you

"It's a dance to this things. You can't… you gotta warm up and I haven't danced since 1943. Feels like." #6 cry I completely broke down into tears with that.

This Yori storyline is going to punch me in the face with a metal fist. Great!

The TWS theme when he looks at Yori fuuuuuck.

GREAT LET'S GO TO LOUISIANA THAT WAS GETTING HEAVY.

Those shots of Sam in the car. Immaculate. Showstoping. Yes.

Marvel, what if instead of promoting the military industrial complex you put a lot of publicity about cars?

"Uncle Sam!" LMAO subtle.

Everyone trying to have the wings lmao same.

I've only had Sarah for a day but etc. Brooklyn 99 meme

Good mirroring about Steve and Sam family's legacy. Good shit. Goooood shit.

Sam is trying so hard ouch my heart. I can't imagine how painful the scene with them reuniting must have been. He 100% still feels a lot of guilt about being gone for those 5 years (and even longer before that).

"Maybe it is time for us to move on" uuuuuuuuuuh

"To the rescue" "Always" 🥺🥺 i love them so much already

That shot outside the restaurant is so beautiful. Can't wait to see the night scenes in Madripoor tbh.

"I tried the whole online dating thing. It's pretty crazy". Uhm well that is something that Bucky Barnes has now said. In canon. Damn.

"It's a lot" "You sound like my dad" LMAO

Every Bucky fanfic trope speedrun with this scene

"Wow you really can drink" OH you have no idea

Just realized we don't even know her name, well.

"You have any siblings?" "I have a sister" THE WAY I SCREECHED. We're definitely getting Becca

Well that escalated quickly. The important thing is to try?

I can't deal with this BUCKY SWEETIE #8 cry right there fuck

The wardrobe department is KILLING IT, there's such a difference between the outfits of the shows vs how ugly and generic it usually is.

"ThEre is NO such thiNg as on time. You're either EARLY or LATE . picK One" lmao the way he delivered that line

At first I thought the flag smashers had thrown two cars out of a window LMAO

"I don't know how jurisdiction works here, but I'mma have to place you under arrest" uhm yikes. The way they changed Joaquín Torres backstory to just random army nice guy #1 is not sitting well with me, what can I say.

Sam's wings motions I LOVE HIM YOUR HONOR

Fuuuuck this guy.

"Funny how thing's always thighten around us" "Look, I'm on your side. After all, he's a hero". This script is C R I S P as hell, great fucking job.

"I don't care, I'm not gonna quit" "What are you trying to prove? And who you trying to prove it to" SHIT HSIT SHIT!!! UGH amazing. Look it's not necessary to say the show's questions out loud but how they flow between the conversations is still very satisfactory without feeling in your face about it. Inner conflicts have been set up fucking perfectly everyone * claps *

Ugh here we fucking go. I knew this was how the episode was going to end but my stomach still dropped like a rollercoster. God.

The score is on point. Damn. Damn.

God, Sam.🥺🥺🥺🥺🥺🥺

The captain america franchise's visuals in the credits are always so amazing.

Also, does anybody know why Mackie isn't first in the billing? Uhm what's that about?

ANYWAY CONCLUSION THAT EPISODE WAS SO FUCKING GOOD LIKE HOLY SHIT. I love them so much. The balance between the personal conflicts and the political aspect (although the military aspect is still very much yikes) was on point and it was overall a joy to watch.

#tfatws #tfatws spoilers #i'm so happy rn #sorry for the ramblings i just wanted to have it all written down #sam wilson #bucky barnes #captain america #tfatws commentary

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bigskydreaming · 3 years

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I know how you feel about anyone other than Dick using thr Robin title, so for all of his successors, what mantle would you give them based in who they were. I know Jason becomes Red Hood and Stephanie became Spoiler, but if they could have skipped being Robins altogether, what would you have done?

Ah no, apparently I have not been clear here, so allow me to clarify.......all my rants about the Robin title notwithstanding, I have ZERO problem with there being other Robins besides Dick, and the others using the name as well. My only bone of contention is that I think the emphasis should be on the fact that later Robins are Dick’s legacy, rather than just Batman’s partner. Robin means something in and of itself, because of Dick. He wasn’t just Batman’s partner, he was one of the founders and leaders of the Titans, he had his own symbolism and meaning to the citizens of Gotham that was entirely distinct from Batman’s, rather than just being Batman-lite as his sidekick.......Robin was a distinct identity and mantle by the time it ever passed on to Jason......and it was the role of ROBIN that Jason and the others stepped into when it came their turn, not simply “Batman’s sidekick.”

If the latter were all that mattered, they could have had any name, unique to each of them. But they all for various reasons took up a mantle that already had a history, a reputation, and those things were Dick’s, because he’s the one who made all that, who established that. It wasn’t Bruce’s just by association, and so the thing that bugs me is when the later Robins are treated or written as seeing no real connection between Robin and Dick other than him having come before them......and making Robin and everything it meant to them and everything they did as Robin entirely about Bruce and being his partner, as though it had nothing to do with the actual originator of the legacy they chose to be part of.

So really, my big beef about the Robins is just wanting to see Dick more often actually respected by those that followed him, rather than resented or just apathetic towards him. Cuz like, why take up a role that means nothing to you, instead of establishing your own? Why link your identity and reputation and message to everyone who saw you to the legacy of someone you don’t respect or have any real use for? You wouldn’t, IMO. It doesn’t make any sense for Robin to be SUCH a strong part of each of the later Robins identities if the mantle of ROBIN, specifically, didn’t hold weight for them.

And even with say Tim, who had more than just Dick as a predecessor and someone to associate the Robin mantle with, like......you still can’t separate him from it and his role as originator of it, because while Jason absolutely made Robin his own and was worthy of recognition in his own right, he was still building on a foundation that Dick established first, and you can’t just yank that foundation out from under all that and act like everything atop it could still exist if it hadn’t been there to build upon in the first place.

So yeah, I’ve never had a problem with others using the name Robin, just the way he’s so often hipchecked out of having anything to do with who gets to USE his legacy or treated like what happens with his legacy should have absolutely nothing to do with him. And I think a bigger deal should be made out of the times Bruce or others have decided its their place to pass on DICK’S legacy than the one time Dick actually had the nerve to make a deliberate decision about his own legacy himself.

I get that the whole Tim and Damian thing was written messily as hell, and there’s plenty of ways and reasons in which its understandable that Tim was upset at the specifics of HOW that went down, but the way its regarded as though Dick just had absolutely no right to say “this is my mantle that I created, and for various reasons I think its important to give it to Damian right now and that has absolutely nothing to do with not valuing Tim or his skills”.....not to mention the fact that this has over the years been regarded as SO much more controversial than Bruce giving the mantle to Jason without any input from Dick or even a headsup.....when Dick wasn’t just part of a chain of succession but rather the originator of that chain who had absolutely no intention of anyone else but him wearing it or being known by it, which in my mind is an even greater slight because here there wasn’t even any precedence of multiple wearers making it more of a role worn by many, but rather just straight up giving someone the end results of someone else’s hard work building up that role without ever asking if he was okay with someone else sharing what he made for HIMSELF......THAT’S what bugs, specifically.

Like, so many people write stories about how much this mantle and identity mean to each of these later characters and yet a good half of them also make the case that the guy whose literal legacy it is somehow means nothing to them at all, or else is outright disliked, resented, or viewed with varying degrees of contempt.

Make it make sense, you know?

I mean RIP to popular fanon versions of Jason, Tim and Damian, but if I were gonna be a superhero only identifiable or known to the public by my superhero alter ego, I’m gonna go with the mantle of someone I actually respect and admire and build off what they started or else I’m gonna make up my own damn name and start from scratch. But I mean hey, that could just be me being weird huh hfaklhflkahflakf.

But yeah ultimately it has nothing to do with thinking Dick should be the only Robin or even with the specific origins of the Robin name and WHY Dick picked it, like whether it was because it was his mother’s nickname for him or just modeled after Robin Hood, like either way it all boils down to the same thing for me: characters who take up a legacy mantle that someone else has built a preexisting reputation around should, idk, have at least some respect or admiration for the guy whose rep they’ve made the conscious choice to link themselves to and springboard off of, or else it just begs the question why didn’t they just build their own rep from ground zero like he did in the first place. As the unspoken answer that I think a lot of fans don’t really think about here being that this actually kinda makes them look like ungrateful asshats who want the perks of starting out Day One with a rep that someone else laid the groundwork for but don’t want to offer up any acknowledgments to the predecessor who did that work without having anyone else to pave the way for him.

And remember, we’re talking about a mantle that’s KNOWN for sticking out like a sore thumb.....the bright colored, laughing child hero that SHOULDN’T be able to hold his own in a city like Gotham, but that everyone knows CAN and does just that.......because Dick established that it was possible, made himself into someone that was respected and viewed as capable even when by all appearances he shouldn’t be. Someone like Robin was ONLY unprecedented in a city like Gotham for Dick himself....because for every Robin after him, he was the precedent, the reason none of the others at least had to prove that Robin was a figure to be taken seriously......because he'd already established that, against all odds. Sure, the others absolutely all had their own struggles but like.......end of the day, they all wanted to be Robin because Robin already MEANT something to people, something they believed in themselves and wanted to embody, and its just weird to me how many fans try and act like none of that has anything to do with.....the character who like.....made it mean something to people.

LOL anyway, sorry for the complete non-answer to your question, but its only because its not a question I really have an answer for since I DONT actually want any of the others to not have been Robin. I honestly can’t really picture it because they are all very much Robins and tied to the mantle as well in my mind, and like, with reason and with it being a good thing. My eternal crankiness about the Robin mantle is really just 100% about it being a legacy mantle that people keep trying to distance from the character its the actual legacy of.

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popculturebuffet · 3 years

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New X-Men Xtrospective Part 1: E is For Extinction “They Will Need Us”

I am SO fucking excited for this one. As might not be obvious to ALL of my readers but should be obvious to some, I fucking love the X-Men. They are one of my favorite superhero teams period as are several of their spinoffs such as X-Factor (All versions), New Mutants, and Marauders. I love the wide cast, the hugely vast universe within the already vast and wonderful marvel universe, and the sheer amount of GREAT stories. I own all 11 movies, have several action figures, and two posters from Jonathan Hickman’s current and utterly dynamite run right above me right now as I work, as well as a marvel 80′s themed poster behind me that’s at least half x-men for good reason. I love this gang of mutants and I have not talked about them enough.

I”ve done some X-Men stuff sure: I’ve talked about hickman’s time as head writer of the books a year in earlier this year, I did a few scattered reviews back when I did single issues of comics, and then we get to the one I beefed big time: covering ALL of X-Men evolution. While it’s a noble endeavor I freely admit to overexerting myself: I recapped the episodes way too closely, gave myself no real schedule and did so while I was already covering two shows a week at the time. My point is it was a good idea, but the timing was REALLY fucking bad and if I do it again, I intend to do it right and iwth a proper place in my now properly paced schedule. I also planned to do the movies which, unlike evolution, I have solid plans to do once I clear out some of my projects. Point is I burned bright and then exploded and took a whole projecet with me phoenix style.

I had until this moment yet to do a really big x-men project, something digging into the comics, something that could help fans both of the comics and not get familiar with something really good, and help me dig into both the good and bad of something. I jsut needed the right start.

Then Christmas gave me that spark, that project that gave me the idea for a butload more x-men content on here and was the perfect starting point for some. See my friend Marco lives in Honduras, and so since i couldn’t afford to send him anything for christmas in the mail, as i’m not exactly rich, I instead offered him three reviews of anything.l He still hasn’t taken up two of them, nor one I gave him for graduating college, but the first one was a doozy, something he hadn’t read due to not liking the art, which is fine as I have some art in comics I don’t like everyone has diffrent tastes, at least for the first arc, and something VITALLY important to x-men as a whole and that’s the backbone of hickman’s current run: the first arc of new x-men, e is for extinction. And given New X-Men is one of my faviorite comics of all time I not only lept on it.. but decided fuck it I’m covering the whole thing. So every so often on here from now until I finish, i’m going to be covering Grant Morrisons ground breaking, mind shattering, status quo destroying run on the children of the atom. This.. is going to be fucking awesome. Buckle up.

New X-Men came about in 2001. Stop me if you heard this one: The X-Men, once marvel’s best selling title and one of i’ts most beloved, had been set adrift in a seal of editorial bullshit, bad writing, bad storylines and a stale continuity where not much could change or grow and things always reset to about the same place it was last week. If this sounds familiar it’s because it somehow happened AGAIN thanks to Ike Perlmutter’s bullshit, hence the current hickman run, but we’ll get into all of tha tsome other time. Point is as it was in 2018, so it was in 2001: The x-men were in bad straits and marvel reached out to a host of various creators to swing for the fences and find a new direction, something to bring sales and life back to the book. To my shock they actually took a LOT of diffrent pitches in before Morrisons won and from huge names: Geoff Johns, who had not yet returned to DC never to leave, Alex Ross, Keith Giffen.. all huge creative types. but in the end the best man won.

For those unfamiliar with him, Grant Morrison is a gloriously batshit scotsman with a long, storied and delightfully insane history in comics, mostly at DC before and after this comic. This is for good reason: DC scouted Morrison specifically because of his early work at 2000ad. See at the time Alan Moore had hit it really big with Swamp Thing, taking a d list, so so book and making it into an utter masterpiece and giving it thoroughly interesting mythology. Given it was a blockbuster hit that’s still widely loved and discussed, as it should be today, DC decided to repeat the strategy of asking British indie comics creators to come do the same to another property. This same experiment is why Neil Gaiman’s The Sandman exists, so.. yeah it was actually a great strategy and naturally Grant had their first big hit with Animal Man, a metafictional take on a b-list hero that made him a loveable family man, while also putting him through hell and playing with the medium and dc’s vast history, the last two being Morrison’s trademark from then on out.

They’d next go on to reinvent one of my other faviorite teams: THE DOOM PATROL! The patrol are a bunch of victims of strange accidents who got powers out of them that are basically curses... and Morrison solidified that concept, taking over after a weak run that ironically enough was trying to imitate the x-men’s success at the time. Instead Morrison just went all out with his weird shit for the first time and made them a team of broken but likeable people with weird powers fighting just the weirdest most incomprehensible shit, a run i’ll likely be digging into eventually along with the team as a whole. It’s also, along with Gerard Way’s recent run, the bedroock for the current and utterly masterful doom patrol series I need to catch up on. They also apparently once wrote a satrical comic starring and lik mocking hitler... a fact I somehow JUST learned but naturally doesn’t surprise me at all.

Morrison’s career at dc, after doing some creator owned stuff there when Vertigo opened up, hit it’s peak in the late 90′s as they were given the go ahead to reinvent the Justice League, with the wildly successful and awesome JLA, another book I probably need to take a look at that put the big 7 back into the team. And by now your probably getting the point of me covering his career pattern.. besides giving morrison the praise they deserve, and they’d have some really great runs after this.. and some terrible ones but no one’s perfect. My point is that at this point in their career Morrison’s greatest skill was taking something that had grown stagnant or been forgotten, blowing it up and reworking it into something glorious and new. Taking what worked, scraping away what didn’t and on the whole making something fucking glorious out of it. So here we are. The X-Men needed a new coat of paint and uncle grant had their lcd laced psycadelic paint bucket and brush shaped like a pidgeon at the ready. And for better, way better and admitely sometimes here and there worse,they changed the x-men for good. Some changes were rolled back out of spite, others finally got their chance after said rollback recently, and some were just outright thrown on the grown and smashed with a hammer. But for the most part Grant left a huge impact on the x-men and i’m here to show you why, warts and all. To me my x-men, this is new x-men. Now naturally there’s even more exposition but i’ts more in what COULD’VE been. Originally while Wolverine, Cyclops, Jean Grey and Professor X were all part of the team the other two members of the slim roster for this run, Beast and Emma Frost.. weren’t. Originally Morrison was going to have Colossus and Moira Mactaggert, long time team ally, token human until very recently, and now thanks to hickman one of the most important x characters peirod and long before that a fan favorite of mine, on the team, with Moira taking over for beast.

This.. didn’t pan out since Marvel apparently either didn’t give a shit about their plans or already had things in motion as the climax of the longtime legacy virus storyline killed both off. Colossus until Joss Whedon, bastard he may be, brought him back for his terrific Astonishing X-Men, and Moira SOMEHOW stayed dead until House/Powers of X. See this speaks to one of the big roadblocks morrison faced: Jonathan HIckman currently has absolute power and all his writers working in concert, a new way of doing things comic companies shold honestly copy en masse as it’s really working wonders. Grant.. was just one of many writers and one of three main x books the others being Chris Claremont’s XTREME X-MEN, basically “let the legend do what he wants since he can’t get freedom on the main book” and another writer on uncanny... before eventually chuck austen took over and I will tackle that horrible mess some other time. Point is while Morrison was setting the tone, costume style and making the big waves, they still didn’t have full power and thus had to play nice with eveyrone else. So their next idea was Rogue, making mer more like her x-men evolution version.. except Chris wanted her, so that was out, though being a decent enough guy he willingly gave up Beast since the moira thing meant Morrison needed a science person. As for Colossus replacement, as it turned out a fan had suggested Grant do something with Emma Frost since Gen X was canceled and while Morrison had zero intention for it clearly Emma clicked with hthem and she was soon both a main part of the cast and one of their biggest contributions to X-Men as a whole.

As for what I think of the needed changes.. they ended up being for the best. I do like Moira... but Hank ended up being a much better fit for the team dynamic wise and power set wise, while Emma was the same. While Colossus, Rogue and Moira are all fantastic characters, I think what we ended up with was just a better mix overall. I DO think the team is incredibly white, but that’s a general x-men problem, even with having an assload of diverse and intresting characters, so it’s not entirely his fault. All in all it’s a fantastic roster: four of the x-men’s best, their leader in the field for the first time in forever, and a new and intresting wild card. IT’s a nice ballance of characters and we’ll get more into it as we go. Now all the expositions done, we can finally dive head first into new x-men. I hope you survivie the experince under the cut.

After an utterly gorgeous and striking cover, the one used up top, we get one solid page to introduce us to Morrison’s mission statment, how they feel and how good Frank Quitely’s art looks

I cropped it best i could for tumblr but this one image immidetly says a lot. Our heroes are just.. easily taking down this sentinel, an old model... the same one we’ve seen a dozen times. What were once the grim, possible destroyers of an entire race of beings in days of future past and devistating killing machines in the present.. had become stale easily defeated murder bots There had been noble attempts to really make the sentiinels work again like the horrifying omega sentinels, humans forcibly converted into sleeper agent killing machines, during operation: zero tolerance, but otherwise they were mostly just a prop for the x-men to knock down. And that.. really is morrison’s whole point. Lampshading and mocking the fact the x-men had grown stale, things hadn’t really progressed.. and that it was time to move on. But to Uncle Grant’s credit, they not only uses this as a mission statment but it’s plot relevant: this mission will both be explained soon and explains why Logan and Scott are out and about enough to end up where the plot will soon need them. It also helps, via the sight of the syndey opera house establish something Morrison made a staple of their run: the X-Men going global. While the x-men were never really NOT global post claremont, Morrisons run has them handling rescue missions and what not worldwide far more often than most runs before it sans Claremont, and really made it feel like they weren’t just another super team but a global force of good with a specific goal and mission. More on the global aspect next time, as that’s where it really comes in but I felt it was important to show it was there for minute one.

So yeah before we move onto the first full scene of the run, let’s talk about the costumes.

We’ll talk about Emma’s later since she’s not introduced to the story for a while but yeah. There’s a sharp, obvious and immediate change just in the outfits, which take after the movie’s more military look, having the x-men not only look more like a unit but more like a professional orginization. Someone to come and help when needed. While this would take on more siginifigance in a bit, we’ll get to it, it also fits Morrisions own views that the x-men were less of a traditional superhero team and more something different on the edges that fought things out there, sorta what like he did with doom patrol. And it’s honestly a valid interpretation as the x-men are often seen as outlaws and misfits by society for beingn well.. mutants. Not as trusted as the avengers. So having them adopt this look played into that: Having them look more professional and focused as The X-Men have a less blanket mission statement than the avenger.. but also mildly threatning. Something to alarm the humans. It’s an utterly brilliant look thrown best together by the big yellow x’s, still giving it a nice flash of color to show off and show this is still a comic and this is still damn colorful.. this just isn’t your AVERAGE supherhero comic or the x-men your used to. IT’s a real shame the only fox x-men movie to use it was fucking dark phoenix.. a film where it didn’t even fit as xavier was getting flashier and more reckless so why wouldn’t he have more garish and colorful and more traditional superhero outfits. They did look good in their variants in first class though. Props there. Point is this is a classic, utterly stunning look, and tha’ts coming from someone whose fine with goofy superhero outfits and perpetually bitter hawkeye is almost never allowed to wear his actual comic outift and is instead stuck with shades instead of you know.. a mask. Or anything resembling an actual good looking costume. This though this is how you do a less superheroy costume: practical and realistic, but still cool looking and comic book friendly.

We cut to a mysterious lady, we’ll come to know her as Cassandra Nova and while I know her origin... i’m saving it for later as the comics themselves explain it eventually, and a simpering dolt she brought with her, Donald Trask, a distant relative of the creators of the sentinels who, via holograms she’s showing cro magnons slaughtring the neanderthal. Her point is that Mutants are going to do this and she’s clearly fearmongering him and trying to talk him into genocide: to wipe them out before they wipe out humanity. And it’s here we get one of hte most important plot points of Morrisons run and one of the most intresting: according to cassandra’s research Humanity will be no more in 4 generations. Mutankind is on it’s way to overtaking them at last.. i’ts still a few decades off.. but it’s coming. It’s sometihing that the whole decimation nonsense sadly snuffed.. and John Hickman has thankfully brought back. I’ll get to his run once i’ts complete in a few years, but point is it’s an utterly marvelous plot hook: Humanity, whose already attempted genocide a few times, is now in real danger of what their petty, racist, fearful attacks have been about: being replaced. It’s one of the central themes of the work the other two being “Just what IS mutantkind and what will it be”. WHat are they as a people? We’ll dig into these as we go but the threat of exctincion is the backbone of this arc... and will lead to something truly ghastly.

It’s then we get our title page.. which nothing really to add it just looks really good and helps show off who are cast is and what they can do with striking simple art.

And since we’re already talking the art of the book, let’s take a moment to discuss an intresting detail of this run: despite it’s short length there’s quite a few diffrent artist, who we’ll talk about of course as we get to each one. The most common and notable though is Frank Quitely. Frank Quitely is one of Morrison’s closest and best creative partners, having a unique, squishy art style.. i.e. the one my friend didn’t like which is why i’m covering this. And while I like the art style quite a bit, I do get why it’s not everyone’s cup of tea: His art is squashed, weird, and admitely some faces can be good god no incaranate. But it’s also why I like it: his characters feel unique, each body and figure feels like it was custom made and thus feels.. real. Like this is a person before you. And given comics can often surrender to having everybody look the damn same, this is nice. His faces may sometimes look similar but his bodies are where the action is. But while having a realistic feel his work also has a weird alien quality that perfectly fits Morrison, and thus his run on x-men. I will say while I love All-Star Superman, his art fits less there in the more hopeful silver agey story, so he’s not an artist for EVERY STORY OF EVERY TYPE.. but when it comes to sci fi weridness, he fits it like a glove so i’ts unsuprising he and morrison are practicaley soul mates, nor that his art sets the tone perfectly for the run: this is something new, diffrent and strange.. and what says x-men at it’s best more than that?

So after our opening titles we cut to the mansion where Hank is showing off his latest and greatest invention: Cerebra. Cerbebra is a massively upgraded version of Cerebro, aka Professor Xavier’s iconic helmet that allows him to track mutants to help them out.. and covertly backup their conconousness for his long game plan, but shhhh, don’t tell anyone yet that’s not going to be retconned in for a few decades. Though i’m damn certain if Morrison has heard about the current era of x-men and how it both builds on what he built, shatters the status quo and is incredibly weird, he’d be damn proud. As for how it’s diffrent Cerebra not only has a large dome around it but said dome allows the machine to amply Charles powers to a global reach. He can now see mutants all over the world anywhere in the world, something I didn’t realize wasn’t ALWAYS a thing because it seems so simple. It’s also likely to bring it more in line with the movies. And while marvel has done TERRIBLE with bringing things in from the movies or in line with them in recent years, i.e. making star lord more like his movie self while forgetting that’s how he already used to be in canon before later writers thankfully did hte better step of merging the two, Hawkeye’s outfit, Cap’s outfit or Nick Fury Jr. But for every mistep there’s also been tons of times it’s worked out really well such as here, as well as bringing hulk into the avengers for the first time since the founding, making tony stark more like the mcu version and less like a nightmarish self righetous dicktator who rightfully gets beat up and called out a lot, making Scott Lang prominent since he became prominent in the MCU, Wakanda being a major force in the marvel universe as it always should have been and various titles that have popped up to tie into movies, often bringing back a team or property that hadn’t had a book in some time like Ant-Man, Black Panther, and Shang Chi just to name a few. It’s not always hawkeye looking all jeremy renner is what i’m saying.. though thankfully comics clint isn’t that uninteresting. Hopefully the series will change that.

So yeah along with a bigger shinier cerebro we’re also introduced to a big change in Hank whose taken on his lion form rather than his classic gorilla with a weird haircut or his return to that except bald. Here he’s more like aslan in a human body and I.. love it. It looks great, helps sell hanks delima of being brilliant while looking like a beast and makes sense: he kickstarted what was likely his own secondary evolution by drinking the potion that made him bestial, so it only makes sense his body wouldn’t be all that stable even if it took years to change again. And even that makes sense as hank was breifly turned back to his original hairless ape mutation during x-factor, easily one of the books.. worse decisions honestly and one that louise simonson thankfully later undid. That probably bought him some time hence why it’s only mutating further now. It also adds an intresting wrinkle which the run will explore further: how far does this go? Will he regress? and how much hank will be left? And how will society treat his new form?

For now he’s actually extatic. While he’s going through hormonal changes, and giving out some excellent banter with Jean

Which also includes one of the greatest lines in comic book history, one that’s been in my head for decades and made me absolutely love henry mccoy.

He’s just great is what i’m saying. As you can tell it’s stuff like this why i’m glad Moira fell through. While I love her.. Morrison’s hank is just a delight and one really questionable subplot aside, we’ll get to that, he’s one of the highlights of this run with an intresting internal struggle, and great chemistry with EVERYONE. And that is the main reason i’m glad Moira fell through as his history with everyone but Emma, who he still has a great raport with, means each interaction has weight. He’s close friends with both scott and jean and thus serves as their needed confidant, while still being able to buddy and banter iwth good old weapon x, and speak with his mentor charles as an equal. While I love moira... Beast just fits into the cast too perfectly and I 100% suspect Morrison was only using her because, while she’s awesome, Claremont wanted her and thus gladly snapped her up when he no longer had a science person. I’ll get into his Jean soon enough but she’s likewise fantastic and easily my faviorite version of the character.. not that until very recently there was much honest competition.

So Cerebra fires up showing a massive cloud of mutants, showing just how much of a huge spike theirs been with Xavier wondering what it all means.. and Hank seeing a weird flare on the mointor for just a second with his special eyes. But since Xavier isn’t stupid and isn’t the kind of idiot who just dismisses it as a fulke, and since Scott and Logan are in the field, he decides to confrence call them in to see if they can go take a look.

And naturally we get to see what their up to and get context for what the hell happened in the first page. Our heroes were on a rescue mission to save Ugly John, tha’ts what people called him, a three faced mutant who ends up passing out as they head out of the atmosphere for a second. Wolverine is regenerating and smoking out of his neck becaue he could still smoke back then before marvel decided “he’s setting a bad example”.. in a comic meant for teens and adults.

I mean I get it on some level as the x-men cartoon was a huge thing in the 90′s and Ben Grimm is basically a giant children’s toy with the mind of a surly 40 year old jewish man from yancy street, but stilll it’s just.. why. I may not like smoking but it’s not like it was SPIDER-MAN saying

It’s a grown man.. whose not a sterling roll model and who Claremont went out of his way to have Logan point out his healing factor means it really dosen’t hurt him in the long run and when Kitty, an actual teenager, tried one of his cigars she choked. I know it’s a weird thing to get hung up on but while i’m all for keeping kids from smoking, this was a really clumsy way to try and hehlp that that made no sense and will never make any sense.

One tangent later we find out that Cassandra was showing Trask a simulation on a flight to, unsuprisingly, south america, to a sentinel blacksite. Between covertly funding civil wars as they do, the US Goverment naturally founded an experimental sentinal project, and a second master mold during the production of the first line... when larry trask asks where it could possibly be well...

Subtly was not the trasks strong point.. or common sense... or.. not realizing their creations would dominate humanity too or not dying.

Anyways we then cut back to the x-men, as their having a psychic zoom meeting with Charlie giving one of his patnted big speeches.. and like a lot of this comic it’s too damn good not to use

The reason I couldn’t should be obvious: This one speech sums up the x-men, why their great and why their necessary in a nutshell: in a world full of prejucided morons.. there’s plenty of scared kids who NEED the x-men to protect and guide them, and with a surge in the mutant population, their needed now more than ever. We also get a good explanation in universe for the uniform change: Charles had them in the superhero outfits hoping humanity would accept them if they were packaged as something they know. Since that clearly hasn’t worked he’s trying new ways to reach out and thus going with a diffrent more rescue team approach to the uniforms. He assigns Wolvie and Cyke to go check out the flair as you’d expect and the meetings over. On the blackbird we get our first hint at a subplot as Logan noticed Cyclops couldn’t wait to get out of there, and is being a tad distant to his wife. He actually has reasons for being kind of cold for once instead of just bad writing as he just came back from being possed by apocalypse. Yeah that happened. So the experience has rattled our boy some what. More on that as we go. But Jean ducks the subject with hank but does breach the fact that Charles has been going kind of crazy with the spending, new uniforms and ambition lately. Hank explains it perfectly: After all the death, suffering and misery the x-men have endured lately, the aforementioned deaths I talked about that took Colossus and Moira off the roster, have lionzed Charles to make sure it was all worth something and look towards the future.

But enough hope time for horror as Cassandra makes her first direct move, trying to take over Charles brain , make his body her own and use cerebra to kill lots and lots of mutants. We then get one of the best moments of Morrisons run with Charles response to a horrifying monster trying to take his brain

While it is shocking to find out Charles has a gun..it’s a grim but kind of understandable precaution. The guy once got fully taken over by a brood, assembling the New Mutants in part because the brood wanted to create more of i’ts kind with more super powers. You’d be paranoid too if some of your beloved students were brought together partly due to your good intentions and partly because a space monster wanted to make more space montsters out of helpless teens, and even horribly gaslighted one of them. We’ll get to that some day. Point is Charles brain is one of the greatest weapons on earth and if the wrong person got a hold of it, it’d be the end of said earth. Thankfully Charles does not need plan gun, as Jean yanks Cerebra off him but the sheer HATE Charles felt from Cassandra, the sheer power has rattled him.. and also told him she’s in Ecuador and his X-Men need to be warned NOW. It’s a great way to set up just HOW powerful Cassandra is. Speaking of which as our first issue of the arc ends, we find out two things: Cass faked being int he government but really just used dead soldiers as prop.. and just what kind of sentinels are out there.. wild sentinels. Easily my faviorite variant of the old killing machines and one that’s barely used despite being really damn awesome. Their adaptive killing machines, designed to mutated just like their pray and take tech from around them, as a result they look like a jumble of guns and parts.. but not only does it give them a unique, cool look.. but it makes them ten times deadlier as instead of being big bricks of robots that while intimidating, the x-men know how to kill... their unpredictable variable killing machines. You can figure out how to kill one sure.. btu the next might be entirely diffrent. They are one of morrisons best creations and I hope someone uses the idea again.. aka hickman. Please use it jonathan I know your focused on nimrod but come on.

And we end on one of the best lines of the entiire run as we close out the issue

Yeah it goes without saying but i’ll say it anyway; Morrison is really damn good with dialouge and being damn quotable.

So we open with another great quote “When I got up today I didn’t expect to kill 20 million people”... and Cassandra being aware Wolverine and Cyclops are on their way and sending the Wild Sentinels to dispatch them. Also our heroes brought Ugly John along while while a dumb move, Wolvie does point out how dumb it was to divert to Ecuador with a civlian in tow.. after the plane crash of course. As for “wait what plane crash’, the sentinels attack and start picking it apart... and since letting them have such good tech is a terrible idea, Scotty blows up the damn plane. So to recap our heroes are stuck in ecuador, surrounded by murder machines, and oh look their there and knock off cyclops viser. Fantastic. So yeah our heroes are fucked. And naturally captured by the enemy.

The rest of the x-men are doing SLIGHTLY better. While beast makes a note for his girlfriend, more on that later on, Charles is in bed, half alive, explaning the rationale I gave for why he has the gun with Jean refusing to let him get back out of bed and you know.. put on the device that just nearly killed him. But when beast announces they lost contact with our boys.. yeah that ceased being an option.

Back in the Ecuadorian Genocide Factory, Cassandra does the obvious and kills donald trask as his real purpose..was to stick around and be stupid for a bit while she copied his dna so she could have full control of her new murder toys.She soon uses them, having a horrifying death chamber slaughter john.. or at least flash fry him. Wolverine takes it how you’d expect and since the sentinels need to “perserve trask dna”.. they can’t fire on him without killing her. Scott escapes.. and in a heart wrenching scene mercy kills john.. before getting badass.

To anyone who says Scott Summers is boring, unintersting, or a stupid asshole idiot head I present exhbit shut the fuck up. Morrison gets scott just right, deconstructing his emotional suppression, while showing him off as a dedicated, companionate man who gets the job done and who seconds after tearfully having to mercy kill an innocent mutant whose death was partially his fault, wastes no time making it painfully clear to the person responsible she WILL die if she tries that again. Logan however realizes she’s already won in some fashion as she’s grinning.. and yeah never a good sign when a genocidal madwoman is grinning like a loon.. and when we find out why.. it’s even less good> We cut to Genosha. A lot of you probably know what happned to Genosha but in case you don’t know what it is it was once a horribly racist country that genetically enslaved mutants and used them for slave labor. It was freed, but still struggled to truly move on.. till Magneto showed up, took the country for himself and made it a home for all mutants. When we last saw him he once again tried to take over the world leading to Logan seemingly killing him. Right now though Emma Frost finally enters the scene teaching some mutants.. when a young one named Negasonic Teenage Warhead.. yes that one and yes she was entirely chosen for deadpool for her name, reveals, via precognition, that their all going to die.. right as the sentinels attack.

Genosha.. is gone. In an eyeblink 16 million mutants are dead, a possible future gone, and one of their greatest leaders is no more. Yeah Magneto WAS alive.. but paralyzed so he could do nothing when his island was utterly slaughtered. Only a handful of mutants will be revealed to survive. Humanity had done a lot to mutants before .. but for once.. they’d succeeded in wiping a massive chunk out. What was an x-men location for DECADES at this point.. was now a smoldering crater. A what could of been that would hant the x-men ever after, even now into utopia it remains the darkest day in mutant history outside of hte decimation. It is a truly horrific moment.. and if the changes already hadn’t made it clear this is morrison saying “NO character is safe, nothing is safe, and nothing will be the same and I damn well mean that”. In one act of hate the world has changed. And it hasn’t finished changing yet.

Issue Three opens hammering in things, as Jean and Beast are in the ruins of genosha, with Xavier having found ONE surivor among the rubble, and our heroes sturggling to find even them, though Jean eventually picks them up and uses her TK to sift through the rubble.

They find Emma who emerges from a bunker in shock, clutching NTW... and not realizing she’s dead until later and revealing she now has diamond skin, her own secondary mutation. Secondary Mutation was a birlliant idea, new powers sprouting up within established mutants.. it’s just morrison barely used this great idea as did hardly anyone else. Only X-Men Blue ever really dug into it and those were artifical at that. IT’s a great idea..it’s just barely used and at most heavily implied to explain changes in powers like Jamie Madrox Multiple Personalities later on or Doug Ramsey’s vast increase in power. Disapointing.

While Charles takes in the tragedy and the fact his old frienmie is dead, the x-men wonder what the fuck Cassandra is and what to do with her.. why did she kill 16 million people, and what the fuck is she. I mean I know, but as I said i’ll explain that when the story does. IN the other room Beast tends to Emma who wants none of not fucking killing Cassandra.. and is utterly right. Bitchy, because i’ts Emma, but right: she killed 16 million people. Say what you want but while it may not be up to the x-men to kill her.. she shoudln’t be living much longer. She commited genocide. Emma decides fuck that and prepares to leave summoning a cab and making peace with being a glorious living fabrige egg. Emma did apparelty change in generation x.. but Morrison is responsible for returning her not only to being a bitch, but a gloriously delightful one And really I don’t think they reset her character entirely: she’s not the heartless monster she started out as: she has empathy, grace, and caring.. she just buries it under a lair of absolute bitch and after you know, surviving a fucking genocide who can blame her? And honestly.. I love their verison of her. She provides a nice contrast to the more idealistic, even logan, x-men and a nice contrarian voice in the room without being obnoxious and her style and sacrastic swagger makes her endlessly entertaning. Thanks to morrison she’s stuck around to this day and went from a pretty good character.. to a great one. And what makes her this way, or as jean puts it “such a bitch?”

With that settled, Hank explains what Cassandra is: a competing species. As he puts it sometimes evolution takes a quantum leap forward.. and Cassandra is the result. Thus she wants to wipe out the compettition and is so far above humanity, she dosen’t need them... especially since she knows what Hank now knows: humanity is at an end. As hank puts it we have an E Gene, one that basically shuts off a race.. and thus the x-men now know what we learned earlier and that cassandra wasn’t lying: in 4 generations there are no more humans and something has to repalce htem. And Cassandra wants it to be her.

Before Logan can do what he does best, and asks why she looks like charles, Cassandra escapes, and Scott briliantly urges them to fight only on instict as she’s a telepath. A damn awesome fight insues including Cassandra donning Charles Psoonic battle armor, Scott being put in his black bug room and the general good looking chaos you’d expect from a superhero fight. While this goes on Emma has an ephinany and realizes she likes to teach, the x-men have a school.. and she shoudln’t give up on helping kids just because of what happened and turns around.

Cassandra is near victory, slipping her way to Cerebra.. and planning to kill only one mind before getting to the millions she wnats, a horrifying slug manifesting around her.. only...

So the x-men accept this and cassandra rises.. seemingly saying “I am charles” Huh... and then charles uncaracteristiacally shoots her saying things must change

We’ll get to what all of that means next time as we close on Jean and Scott in bed. Scott explains why he’s been so distant as what I said earlier: fighting off apocalypse stripped away a lot of illusions about himself and he’s having a hard time walking back from that but Jean is willing to help.. but before they can resolve their issues.. charles has an annoucnment to make and grant has one last whopper of a suprise to end his opening arc on, and just like genosha...it’s a game changer of titanic proportions

No longer is Xavier’s School hidden. Their walking into the light now and so is charles. Hope they surivive the experince. Obviously this move is brilliant: while it removes the veil of saftey the x-men had it also brings on tons of new possiblities and unlike secondary mutation, this one not only stuck but would impact the x-men for good: no longer would they hide and cower.. their mutant and proud.. and their here to stay. E For Extinction is one of the best x-men stories period. Blisteringly paced, full of great character, great concepts and utterly terrifying and terrific moments that would impact the x-men all the way to present day. It’s beautifully drawn, well paced, and a masterwork. I highly recommend it and it’s a great kickoff to a great run. Shame the run couldn’t of ended on this kind of high but.. we’ll get to that. For now this is a masterclass in how to start a run and if you haven’t read it do so NEXT TIME ON NEW X-MEN: A bunch of weirdos try to harvest mutant organs, the x-men get a brain in a jar and a new teamate, and Scott maybe cheats on his wife. Until then, goodbye goodbye goodbye.

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your-turn-to-role · 4 years

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hi okay i hate sending asks to people without knowing them but you seem kind so im trying: during the break, i’ve been working my way through VM, and i’m at episode 75. my question, because i’ve read some of your more recent meta, is “what’s Percy’s deal?” i know he’s loved by the fandom, but i can’t find myself relating to him, and i find his assertions that he’s the only one with a plan offputting. is there more context you can give to me about percy’s character that explains his motivations?

aww, thank you!

(and yeah, asks like this are totally fine, i totally get that anxiety, good job on sending this!)

i mean, first off, you don't have to like a character everyone else does? if you don't relate to percy you can just, not relate to percy, that's fine

(and to be fair, as much as i love him as a character, i would not want him as a friend, because he's a very flawed person that has a lot to work on, but in fiction those traits are interesting to watch rather than difficult to deal with)

but, percy's deal! the short answer is people generally like him because taliesin's funny and charismatic and he does morally grey right, which is rare and a fun thing to explore (also in his relationships with other people, the entire vex-vax-percy-keyleth square is full of neat parallels and opposites and interesting things and i have whole essays in my head on all six combos there)

i don’t know which posts you’ve read so i’ll link this one here too, just to cover a couple more of the generally unnoticed aspects of his character, and things i like about percy

he’s also far from perfect, as you’ve noted, he does tend to believe he’s the smartest person in any given room, because he’s young and clever and used to being that, which you’re allowed to find off putting, but i will say i find he does that less than a lot of characters of his general archetype? he listens to pike, he listens to keyleth, he listens to vex, he respects when they have more knowledge than him on a particular subject, he’s not above asking for help. and generally most of the arguments he has with keyleth on that subject aren’t him asserting he knows more than her, but more a matter of principles and values (they’re a really interesting pair that way, they have similar backgrounds, both children of royalty running away from the crown, but they’re such opposites. percy is a natural leader who would rather anyone rule than him, keyleth fumbles her way through all of it but sticks to it because she doesn’t want to let anyone down, percy is a pragmatist, keyleth is an idealist, they both are too focused on the big picture but in two completely different ways, i could write a whole other post on this, but to get to my point, they wouldn’t be such good balances for each other if percy didn’t absolutely respect where keyleth is coming from)

for the long answer, i’m gonna break this down into parts and try to get to the core of percy's character and why he is the way he is

(under the cut bc this gets long)

1 - heavy trauma

like... this is the really really big one. percy, at age 17 or 18, had his entire life up to that point completely destroyed. his family was killed, his friends were killed, people he trusted like family (professor anders, who was a more present figure in percy's life than his actual parents) betrayed him and helped the briarwoods, he was imprisoned in his own castle's dungeons and tortured for information, they threw his siblings' bodies in there with him to make a point, cassandra helped him escape but as far as he knew she died helping him. he has two years of his life after that he straight up doesn't remember, his hair turned white from the stress of it.

trying to go after ripley the first time didn't work, he was captured and left to starve in a prison cell, for the first few months of travelling with vox machina he genuinely believed it wasn't real, because realistically no one was gonna come save him, this was just a hallucination of his dying mind. returning to whitestone he was forced to confront the fact that literally everyone he ever knew growing up (with the sole exception of archibald) was either dead or working with the briarwoods, and even after retaking the city there's a lot that can never be repaired.

and he's just... never really dealt with any of this? like, he gave vox machina the technical details of what happened to him in the briarwood arc, because they needed to know that information, but the first time he actually started processing his trauma, the first time he admits it out loud to anyone, is the final episode of campaign one. before then it had been occasional snide or handwavey comments, and like, he'll let himself feel the anger over it (in the beginning of the story he encouraged it, because then he didn't have to feel anything else), but he's never processed the grief, never admitted to himself how badly that affected him

which means he's got a lot of pent up emotions in there that he just keeps burying, and sometimes they come out in unhealthy ways. having so much taken from him also makes him really motivated to keep the things he does have - he’s got some deep set abandonment issues and takes any kind of betrayal really badly, don’t know if you’ve got up to the scanlan stuff by the time i post this, but that’s something to keep in mind as to why he acts the way he does there. (and it’s not more explicit because percy was raised nobility, keeping a brave face through anything is part of who he is, he tends to cover emotions he’s insecure about in snark or indifference or, for the intense ones, anger, because those are the things he thinks he’s allowed to show, but the real emotions show up occasionally, when they’re particularly strong, or if you’re reading between the lines. he really does care a lot about vox machina)

2 - legacy and loyalty.

speaking of nobility, it's hard to do a character study on percy without mentioning whitestone and the house of de rolo. this is the number one thing to percy. he was raised to respect title and name, and most importantly, raised to respect the people he represents - both the townsfolk of whitestone and also percy's ancestors and future de rolo generations. whitestone is more important than any one life, he has a duty to protect and serve it, and that comes before any personal wants he may have. it's also important to him for family reasons - he was a pretty lonely child, but he loved reading about the history of the city, all the weird ghost stories whitestone had even before the briarwoods. it probably made him feel more connected to all of that, this is the place he belongs. and after his family dies, it becomes even more important, because this is his connection to them. the soul of a city lives as long as its people, by protecting what's left, he keeps a little bit of what came before

(and also in just tidbits to understand percy's character, he sees all cities and man-made things the same way - in a world where some races live for centuries or millennia, their history exists mostly by word of mouth, you can physically talk to people who were around 500 years ago and get their take on things - humans don't have that, they get 100 years at most, so the things they build are vital to their heritage. this is how you keep people alive long after they're gone, by honouring what they created. and especially for someone so concerned with legacy and history, percy literally says abandoning westruun would be blasphemy, because the place people grew up is important, yes it's better that they live, but letting the city be abandoned and destroyed would be an irreparable act of violence.)

this is the number one thing on percy's mind when evaluating anything about himself, where do i come from, and what do i leave behind? which is a question that has a lot of moments to be tested, because of my next point...

3 - pragmatism and terrible thoughts

when it comes down to it, percy is a very ends justify the means kind of person. he finds it very easy to square away any kind of collateral damage as long as it gets him to his end goal. see: trial of the take, where he's fine to catch his friends in the blast radius of a new bomb design because he's so excited that it worked, preparing to fight vorugal and resigning himself to potentially having to kill innocent people to kill the dragon (he wasn’t okay with that, but he would do it), also his conscious decision to let ripley go, knowing she would lead to the deaths of thousands because it was her or the briarwoods and he wanted revenge

(this is by his own admission his lowest point and worst mistake, because as mentioned, he thinks about the consequences of his actions near constantly, he knew she would reproduce his guns and they would lead to a whole new form of warfare. but in that moment he was just blinded by grief and way too emotionally burnt out and did not have the capacity to care. and he spends the rest of the campaign and honestly probably the rest of his life trying to make up for that one)

he's also, by his own admission, someone who has a lot of bad thoughts he doesn't act on, he's very clever and creative and ideas for ways to use those skills for violence or vengeance come easily to him (like, percy as an actual villain would be ripley but worse, ripley's intelligent but a very direct point a to point b kind of thinker, percy has multiple times criticised her lack of imagination, a percy with her lack of morals would be terrifying)

(honestly this is why i was seeing percy so much in taliesin's narrative telephone, because "sometimes i wake up having dreamed of a terrible thing, and normally i just file that away for things that i would never do, because i wanna maintain friendships, but then LIAM did something to me." and the whole being absolutely fine with throwing the rest of the cast under the bus just to enact revenge on liam was quintessential percy)

but we’ve seen the pragmatic anti hero everywhere, anyone can be a terrible person, and have reasons for it, that alone doesn’t make an interesting character (at least not for me)

what does, is my last point

4 - trying to be good

i still vividly remember when i first watched campaign one, being really surprised at how much percy asked for help? like, i went in expecting the usual full on demon possession storyline, i expected percy to hide how bad it was, i expected him to make poor decisions without realising he was doing it until he was in too deep to back out

and like, he had some of that. but at the first sign of things being out of his control, he asked his friends for help. he let pike greater restoration him. he told vax to kill him if things ever got too out of hand. he was really, genuinely scared about what he got himself into and what he might do because of it. there was never a point where he pretended, even to himself, that making a deal with orthax was okay. the minute he realised there was a demon involved, he was working to stop it. and yeah, by the time he realised it was already a bit too late, there were already some things out of his control (and also taliesin kept having the worst rolls against the whitestone corruption which was really fun on a meta level), which is how things got as bad as they did. but honestly, all things considered, there’s very little to criticise about the way percy handled himself in the briarwood arc.

and he keeps doing that, trying to get better. he struggles with it, he struggles a lot, against his anger issues, against all the trauma, against the fact that he really doesn’t want to be here and things would be so much easier if he were dead. but he recognises he holds grudges too easily, so he starts actively trying to forgive those who’ve wronged him (this is something he and vex have in common, and something they were working on together before they were together, which probably helped a lot in getting them to that point as well). he recognises he makes poor decisions when he’s angry, so he starts learning to step back in those moments and leave the decisions to someone else. he has never not owned up to his mistakes, he takes responsibility for everything he’s done, and if he notices a problem he can’t solve himself, he asks for help.

and i find that fun to explore. like, percy’s been likened to hamlet in the actual show, and i was the kid who got super obsessed with hamlet when i was like 15 because i was in that same mental space of suicidal self hatred and existential melancholy but also thinking i was the smartest person in any given room and being too young to have gotten over the arrogance that makes you ignore everyone else’s needs for the sake of indulging your own problems. and then i got older and realised there are smarter ways to go about things, like having empathy and appreciating the light in the world and not being a dickhead to people because it makes you feel better, and maybe hamlet can be justified and in the wrong at the same time. and while there’s some stuff i won’t spoil for you, percy after ripley kills him is definitely starting to learn that, which you rarely see in the hamlet archetype, bc everyone’s like “ah yes so Deep so Important who cares what bad things this person did they had Trauma and are Clever”

well, percy cares about the bad things he did, and cares about not doing those anymore. so like, he’s still a disaster of a person bc he’s like 23 and no one has their life together at 23, especially not someone in percy’s situation, and honestly i find that fun to watch as well bc i like watching characters make stupid mistakes and do stuff i’d never approve of in real life, and as i mentioned at the start, taliesin makes captivating and funny characters. but yeah, that’s generally where percy’s at, most of the time

#would you believe me if i said this was the second shorter attempt at answering this ask?#i honestly tried to pare it down but this hit at least 6 or 7 separate essays in my head that all wanted to be included #and then i had to figure out how to combine them #my brain keeps giving me more things i should add but i think this is enough to be going on with for now 😂#but hey anyone who likes listening to me talk about percy know i can keep going #this is my word MINIMUM #(and it's still over 2k im so sorry)#but yeah hope this helped!#cr1 #percy de rolo #cr thoughts #text #meta #ask #megabees3

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inspector-montoya-fox · 4 years

Text

here’s why Thieves in Time is a bad game

before y’all try it, i just want to say that i’ll be as unapologetically petty and sarcastic as i want and fucking rip this game to shreds. yes, this is how i’ve spent my days since Thieves in Time came out. sitting alone in my room, staring at the wall, crying and complaining. because it has since been my life’s aim and dream to think about it every day, state the negative things about it, and become an evil essay witch on this half-dead website. *evil laugh*

Story:

References: i want to start with the smallest problem, but one that annoys me to this day. in the original trilogy, there weren’t a lot of references but the ones that were included were meticulously researched and well thought-out (i’m specifically referring to that Neil Diamond Carmelita vinyl gag, but can’t find the original post). the references in Thieves in Time however, were obviously just the creators’ interests. Turning Japanese, Clan of the Cave Bear and Bentley’s “hacksona” presented as Rambo just scream 1980s (which i’m assuming is the decade the creators grew up in), and Of Mice and Men is classic literature about the Great Depression, which subsequently started being taught in school in the US during the 1980s. it feels like the creators just went ‘let’s discuss what our lives had in common during our teen years and put that in’ instead of researching it first. and, here’s the thing: when you’re adding references, in order to make them funny or interesting, they have to fit in with the property or the character that’s connected to them in some way. Don Octavio was an opera aficionado so his episode’s title card pays homage to the Phantom of the Opera, young Muggshot was influenced by the movie “The Dogfather” because he’s a gangster, etc. these were funny because they were so spot-on with these characters. if every character in the Sly Cooper universe references the same type of stuff (from the 1980s) and shares the same interests, it’s just claustrophobic and uninteresting. i’m pretty sure i’m not the only one who had to look up these ultra-hetero, scrotum references when the game came out. that’s because they were specifically tailored to be funny to them, and not their target demographic which were kids in 2013.

Narrative: now that we got that out of the way, let’s look at the narrative. at the end of Sly 3, Bentley says he’s building a time machine. Sanzaru took that joke and decided to run with it as the premise for their game. ok, not the best idea, but i get it - you’re literally picking up where the last game left off. since all the storylines were wrapped up, they could’ve done something different like Sly’s kids or Bentley and Murray’s families, but this isn’t an essay about suggestions so...... time travel (i want to say that it’s, again, an 80s reference but whatever) was pretty ‘out there’ in 2013. i mean, even Plants vs Zombies 2, which was released that year, had to do with time travel (yes, i’m referencing an app). but Sanzaru had the advantage of applying this premise onto already established mythos and lore. the story had definite potential: someone is threatening Sly’s lineage so he has to travel back in time to save the day. the player would get to explore new locations and iconic eras in history, and, of course, the main selling point: playable ancestors. how could you screw that up? welp.... let’s think about the plot holes here for a sec. Bentley’s device would take the gang back in time when given an item from the specific era. stop. this right here is called ‘over-complicating’. how did they know the items would take them directly to the point where the specific ancestor was in danger? the Feudal Japan period lasted for 700 years: how did the machine know when and where to drop them off? and if the gang could return to the present at any time, why didn’t they do so when they were in trouble? oh right, the machine was broken. so how did they return the baddies to the present after they defeated them? i mean, why did they use the Grizz’s crown to travel to Medieval England if they went back to the present to drop him off to Interpol first? and on that note, how did they drop the baddies off to jail without getting caught and without Carmelita being around? i can already hear you thinking but these are total details that aren’t important, you jerk! well, yea, they truly are details and i truly am overthinking it. and yes, i truly am a jerk. but let me tell you something: when Sanzaru chose to make a new Sly game, did they not think ‘oh we’ll have to follow up Sly 2 and Sly 3′s stories’ which were well thought-out narratives with depth and various themes and didn’t have huge plot holes (as seen by my analysis through the episode project) ???? and did they also not think that their game would come out eight years after the last one, having expectations at an all-time high???? yea, that’s what i thought.

Characters: i’ll make a different section for Sucker Punch’s characters, so this is for Sanzaru’s original ones. name one iconic original character from Thieves in Time. i’ll wait... nope. not one. that’s because all of them were absolute shit. and here’s where i want to touch upon Sanzaru’s over-reliance on the trilogy. Ms Decibel (perhaps the most obvious copy) is a mix between Don Octavio, Miz Ruby, and the Contessa. El Jefe is Rajan if he went to the gym. Toothpick has Sir Raleigh’s temper and tendency to grow in size. and the Grizz is... whatever the fuck he is. (don’t worry i didn’t forget Le Paradox and Bob). there’s a difference between studying & creating similar characters and blatantly plagiarizing older characters because you lack the creativity. oh, boo-hoo this evil jerk’s telling it how it is. this set of villains is so lacklustre, i don’t even know where to begin. El Jefe is a tiger, even though we’ve already had two major tiger villains and one tiger flashlight guard. ok. Rajan could summon lightning because of the Clockwerk heart but El Jefe can do the same, how exactly? Toothpick is an armadillo (good) from Russia (better) with an obsession with the West (excellent) who can also grow huge (very bad). it’s never explained how or why. why?????? just tell me why. i want to know. i really want to know. Ms Decibel is an elephant who got into a tragic accident which left her with the power of hypnosis. music and hypnosis have already been done, but ok, i’ll give you the benefit of the doubt. so how do we use this character? spend the entirety of her screen time making jokes about... wait for it... her weight !!! this is top-notch comedy... really? like... really? the creators’ humor is a crime, at best. fart jokes and fat jokes all around. oh, and then there’s the Grizz. what the fuck where they thinking? just, what the fuck. i guess the guys at Sanzaru thought black people speak in rap? is that it? apart from it being extremely offensive, it’s also a blatant copy of Dimitri’s backstory. like, his introductory cutscene even has his paintings thrown at him and into the trash, like the intro cutscene for The Black Chateau. honestly, all of these villains caused me several types of pain, but not as much as...

Bob & Le Paradox: the absolute worst. i can just imagine the meeting going something like this: Sly’s ancestors are awesome! i wish we could fit them all in the game... here’s an amazing idea! what if we use one of the game’s few levels to introduce a brand new ancestor! yea! let’s make him dumb as fuck, strip him of any athletic prowess, and retcon the entire lineage by having him be the first Cooper ever! the kids will love a prehistoric level! ..... could you kindly point out where and when did ANYONE ask for this? i remember @ironicsnap saying something like the game is good until Bob. no, it was already bad - Bob just lowered the standard. like, a lot. people love Murray and his gameplay is neat, but no one ever thought ‘oh i wish we had a Cooper character with Murray’s game style’. why would they waste the opportunity to bring in Henriette, Thaddeus, Otto, literally any ancestor? why??? but they went ahead and created their own Cooper, and that wasn’t even the end of it. they had to make him dumb. they had to make him unbearable. they had to ruin the Cooper ancestry by adding this mess to the lineage. Sucker Punch made sure that all the ancestors were unique, but at the same time made all of them suave and funny and slick and you wish you could be them! well, fuck that. also, his name is Bob. Bob Cooper. it’s been 7 fucking years and i still can’t wrap my head around it.... so now, let’s talk about Le Paradox. i don’t have to mention the previous main villains, but i will. Clockwerk killed Sly’s ancestors and father, and was seemingly an eternal threat. Neyla was a psychopath who fooled everyone on her journey to becoming immortal by resurrecting Clockwerk. Dr M opened up the possibility for Sly’s dad to be a jerk instead of a hero, and died trying to unlock the Coopers’ legacy. how does Le Paradox compare? well, he’s a sleazebag skunk who was mad because of his dad’s downfall to the Coopers. that’s it. no twist, no depth, no clever dialogue. nothing. there’s nothing there. this is a new character, unfamiliar to everyone, who was hyped up for 5 levels and defeated in the conclusion. why was he a match for Sly? i don’t know. how did he fight for his life and ultimately tricked Sly into helping him? i don’t know. how the hell did he kidnap Carmelita? i don’t know. was it the power of persuasion? no, he’s revolting. so i literally don’t know. there’s no backstory, no fleshing-out the character, nothing. all we’re given to work with is a brief info-dump about his dad and how he escaped prison. i don’t know what else to say apart from how big a humiliation this was for Sanzaru and their team of writers. you had 8 years to work on something and this is what you came up with? anything would be better. anything would best this utter cliché of a villain, a distasteful misogynist, crybaby, idiot with an accent. literally anything.

Arcs & Themes: let’s take a look at the formulaic subplots for the gang’s members. apart from dealing with Le Paradox, everyone had a small arc. Sly had to deal with his break-up with Carmelita. Bentley had to deal with his break-up with Penelope. Murray had to deal with playing second fiddle to Bob. Carmelita was a damsel in distress and sex bait for the ancestors. the ancestors had their own mini storylines along with reacting to Sly’s presence. there you have it. i summarised it all for you, nice and neatly. are there any themes like in the previous games? nope. i promise you i’m not lying when i say that i tried hard to come up with something, even some speck of a detail i could use to over-analyse the story and come up with some ideas on themes. nothing. there are no themes. the subplots are character-driven and the player gives it 0 emotional investment. there is nothing to analyse, nothing to talk about. maybe even a theme for each level, like a spooky level or something? nope. the levels are dependent on eras and historical periods. the variation here is ok. Feudal Japan, Wild West, Prehistoric Australia, Medieval England and Ancient Arabia - pretty good selection. i’ll give them credit for it. but that’s it. due to the absence of themes, the hubs feel empty. there’s no replayability factor. after you collect the bottles and masks and treasures, there’s nothing. i would spend hours revisiting the trilogy’s hubs, just roaming around. the hubs here are huge and empty. there’s nothing to reminisce about. nothing to recall. oh that’s where this mission went down. no, nothing like that. the aforementioned subplots are resolved during mission cutscenes and then they’re gone. you don’t have to explore spooky Prague alone as Bentley to have him overcome his fears, you don’t have to find out miners abducted Murray’s beloved Guru and search the Australian outback for him, you don’t have to hold back your tears when you’ve reached the end of the Cooper Vault and Sly asks his dad for help. nothing.

Gameplay:

Controls: as soon as i laid my hands on the controller the first time i played the game, that fateful afternoon, i knew something was up. Sly would respond 1 second late after you pushed something on the controller. it felt clunky, is what i’m trying to say or, as my sister put it, it felt heavy. and she was right. the controls were clunky and heavy and didn’t feel light, like playing as a thief should feel. i don’t know shit about game mechanics but this definitely didn’t feel right. the hubs are also chunky in design, the cliffs are huge and so cyclical or hexagonal, that when you parachute your way to them and are just an inch close, Sly will automatically just drop because he can’t grab onto them. running as Sly doesn’t feel fast, silently obliterating guards from behind feels slow, and swinging, grabbing, pickpocketting, and hanging aren’t fun anymore. presentation-wise, @designraccoon goes into detail here, in an absolute gem of a post. in short, the gameplay animations make Sly look less sneaky. Sanzaru didn’t even consider a thief’s movements.

Missions: why the fuck would you remove the player’s option to choose between which mission to do first? why would you do that? the game lays out what goes first, sometimes having only one mission available in the hub. and the missions aren’t even enjoyable. firstly, the loading screens take up to 5 minutes, maybe even 7-8. secondly, there’s hacking every 2 missions. the missions don’t have any dialogue to make them fun, lack in interesting puzzles, what more can i say? they’re overly easy and lack any challenge whatsoever. at least there’s variation in gameplay (hacking, RC car, fishing, costumes, ancestors, turret etc.) but because of the controls, even these get tiresome. the missions are solely there to progress the story and that’s why the operations are merely ‘storm the main baddie’. the trilogy had some pretty interesting missions which made sure to complete jobs required to take down the big bad. e.g. kidnap General Clawfoot to take down the security, hack Contessa’s computer to make sure Carmelita will be freed, steal voices to tempt Neyla, and then take down the Contessa. the missions in Thieves in Time lack substance and variety. and the hacking (all three styles) sucks.

Collectibles: here’s another fantastic idea: have players collect costumes in order to collect bottles in order to collect treasures in order to collect masks in order to unlock funky Sanzaru logo-themed merch! what was the reason for the collectibles? in previous games, collecting all bottles would unlock special abilities. that was it. it’s the same thing here too, but there’s less incentive? i mean when you have to collect 1000 things, what’s the point? the treasures are random and very few are references to the trilogy, so whatever. and the masks unlock... superhero costumes for what reason exactly? oh, and then there’s also the achievements for your Playstation account, like ‘open the map in every single location you visit’. what fun! if the reason for collecting the treasures is to play godawful hacking minigames in order to get masks, what’s the point? decorate your paraglider with the Sanzaru logo? or have Bentley dress up as discount Robocop? i mean including masks in the interior locations was cool, but the bottles were always supposed to be something you could do whenever your soul desired. sometimes i left them last before the operation, sometimes i collected them before the first mission. so i was pissed when i found out that, in some cases, you had to unlock the episode’s costume in order to get the all the bottles. so, fuck off.

Animation: i’ll keep this short. the animation was terrible. do you remember that tumblr blog from a while back, where she dedicated the posts to pointing out the mistakes in the animated cutscenes? yeah. point is, there were lots of them. the animation style was bad, the character design was ugly, the characters’ movements were unnatural. everything about it was shit. looking past the bad decision to drop the trilogy’s comicbook-style animated cutscenes, couldn’t they have hired someone better? someone with more experience? their concept art was awesome. couldn’t they hire that guy and have it be comicbook style if he wasn’t trained in animation?

Legacy:

The Players: let me ask a genuine question: who was this game made for? kids growing up in 2013? maybe so. because it feels like Sanzaru didn’t even consider the fans of the trilogy. actually, it felt like a huge fuck you. Sucker Punch made their trilogy for whoever. there were great stuff for kids, but adults would pick up and appreciate the references, the real-life setting (e.g. tobacco use, existence of nightclubs, spice instead of drugs, etc.). that’s why all three games are timeless classics. judging by Thieves in Time’s humor, the game wasn’t targeted for adults. so, it doesn’t make sense to use an already established property, beloved by its fans, to attract a new audience consisting of nine year-olds who’d laugh at Murray dressing up as a woman. if they really wanted to appeal to the fans of the original, why retcon everything? why change who the first Cooper was? when the gang’s stranded in Saudi Arabia, why have Sly say ‘i couldn't remember a time since we've teamed up that we felt so defeated’? the gang’s been in way deeper shit before. why the ‘Sly’s dad vs Le Paradox’s dad’ deus ex machina? Sly’s dad wasn’t famous because of stealing the world’s largest diamond, what the fuck are you even talking about? do the guys at Sanzaru have such big egos and bravado that they needed to change the original games’ lore? were they so preoccupied with leaving their signature on a property which was never their own? i don’t know who needs to read this, but i’m stating FACTS.

Characters: now let’s talk about Sanzaru’s treatment of the Cooper gang and the ancestors (female characters will get their own section). why would you change the characters like that? if it wasn’t for the voice acting, i’d say this is a completely different Cooper gang. there’s no wise-cracking band of best friends, going on heists and being proud of their brotherhood and bond. all that is replaced with the formulaic story arcs for each member. the trilogy’s cutscenes and dialogues made sure to establish how Sly, Bentley and Murray have lived together since they met at the orphanage, play videogames all day and order chinese food and pizza and whatever. through missions and their adventures, they face obstacles they have to overcome as a gang, and when Sly 3 came around, their friendship was put to the ultimate test when they almost disbanded. Thieves in Time was too lazy to add to this. Sanzaru thought ‘oh the trilogy showed how they’re best friends so we might as well have them focus on their own stories separately’ and if this is truly the case then i ask again: who was this game made for? because new fans would never know how tight the gang was just by playing Thieves in Time. there’s a lack of genuine friendship moments. like, what happened when Sly came back after faking his amnesia? that’s completely ignored. where’s the witty banter? the ‘wizard & sitting duck’ type of jokes? nothing of the sort. what we get is fart jokes and Murray wanting to dress up as a woman. on that note, what was that all about? ok, have him dress up as a geisha to get in. fine. have El Jefe slap his ass, have him perform in a painfully lengthy dance sequence, have him dress like that during the rest of the episode, and then have him be persistent about getting the belly-dancing gig? the hell? Murray was always kinda goofy but this just feels kinda homophobic? it feels dragged out and unfunny. and then there’s the ancestors. i said it once before and i’ll say it again, Sanzaru deprived me of a buff Arab daddy Salim Al Kupar and gave us that elderly shit instead. all jokes aside, the redesigns were uninteresting. why take away Tennessee Kid’s facial hair and give it to Galleth? i legitimately think all the ancestors were boring. i mean, their gameplay was cool, especially Tennessee Kid’s guns, but in terms of character, they were just some dudes. did they believe that Sly was their descendant from the future? maybe. did they care? nope. they all had the same storyline of dealing with Sly’s arrival, flirting with Carmelita and getting their canes stolen. that was it. the fans waited for so long to get even a glimpse of the ancestors in action, and Sanzaru downplayed all of them. they reduced them to useless idiots too occupied with women and food, incapable of getting their canes back from stupid Le Paradox. and they didn’t even stick to the lore. no ma’am. let’s make Rioichi the inventor of sushi !! because that makes total sense and would defo fit in with the character and the property! why. just, why. you were handed the lore !!! you were given all this rich backstory and you threw it all away to replace it with trash !!! complete trash.

Changes & Inconsistency: i want to briefly mention some changes that pissed me off. where’s the laser glide move? it was an important turning point at the end of Sly 3, so why did they get rid of it? Sly is a master thief who’s traveling back in time, so you’d think they’d actually make him a master thief. also, the changes in the binocucom and Bentley’s slideshows in order to modernise them. if Sucker Punch managed to place the mission starting points at locations where the binocucom would show the objective clearly, so could Sanzaru. instead, they chose to have it be a moving camera, floating around the hub. and Bentley’s slideshows were absolute classics, opportunities to include gags and have Bentley show off in his own way. you just had to change it into a tablet, didn’t you. omg you’re still looking at small details like these? yes sweetie, i consider the details because i think they shape the game more than anything. if i didn’t consider the details, then my opinion on the game would be incomplete. when i praise the trilogy i don’t only look at story and gameplay. because i’m unbiased like that. here, i’d also like the mention Dimitri. what a fucking waste. you either include him in the game or you don’t. but don’t give me some half-baked shit on how he’s working for the gang back in present day. Dimitri staying home, waiting on the gang to call him in order for him to give them details on the villains. how does that even slightly resemble anything about Dimitri’s character? they didn’t even include his voice, some greasy sweet Raccoonus Doodus dialogue.

Female Characters: you know it’s all been leading up to this. this is the crux of the Thieves in Time hate. i don’t want to say the game is misogynistic so i’ll call it anti-feminist. why? just answer me. why? why did you have to disrespect Carmelita like that? right off the bat, they swapped the pants for the skirt. in what world does an active inspector who’s always on the scene wear a skirt? Carmelita now wears a skirt because her only role in the game is to be the love interest. Carmelita now wears bright red lipstick and has a new hairstyle, which would be ok if only it wasn’t Carmelita. Carmelita now plays up her inner sassy Latina because she’s pigeonholed into the ‘angry ex girlfriend’ role. they compartmentalised her, tried to sexualise her because she couldn’t possibly be one of the boys. nope. let’s take a respected woman, high in rank and as physically able as Sly, and turn her into a cliché, an angry ex girlfriend for comedic relief, strip her of her abilities and have her be kidnapped twice, have every exchange with her be about how attractive she is, have almost every male character in the game flirt with her, have her boyfriend be jealous of his own ancestors because they’re flirting with her in order to create purposeless love triangles, and then, after all that, dress her up as a belly dancer and distract some guards while the rest of the gang do the heavy lifting. that last one was really the nail on the coffin. did Bentley have other ways to enter that door? absolutely. so, what the fuck? why did i come back for a good Sly game 8 years later and receive a game where you have to shake your controller to have Carmelita shake her ass? why did they have the guards’ eyes pop like that? why did no one stop them? and it isn’t just Carmelita. it’s Penelope too. god forbid we have a female character who doesn’t have a waist smaller than my finger, and a voluptuous physique. why was the redesign so drastic? the story stuff is also nonsensical. why did she leave? wasn’t she happy with Bentley? i watched her speech about turning on the gang about a thousand times and it still doesn’t make any sense. like, i literally don’t understand. what was her motive? and why reverse her story of overcoming the Black Baron persona and the connotations of a meek woman hiding behind a man’s disguise? why repeat it, shamelessly? do the guys at Sanzaru only know women who have recently broken up? why does Carmelita, Penelope and Ms Decibel all go through break-ups during the game? why does Penelope go against Bentley before they even break up? why waste the opportunity to introduce a new, well-written villain and use it to repeat something already done? why???? no woman is safe from Sanzaru because Ms Decibel... boy, did i feel bad for her. apart from continuously reminding us that she’s haha fat!! she’s also presented as a blind lovefool. love? what a silly concept only women believe in! Ms Decibel had a crush on Le Paradox (for some reason i can’t even fathom) and for that she must pay by being utterly humiliated. and what do ALL women do when a guy breaks up with them? they get so angry! yikes, stay clear guys! ....why does Sanzaru hate female characters? i’m genuinely curious. i mean, what forced them to depict women like this? i’m sorry, i can’t take much more of this.

Ending: and how do you end a disappointment that came 8 years late and didn’t even have a sequel guaranteed? yeap, you guessed it! a cliffhanger. but not just any cliffhanger - a total fuck you to anyone and everyone. with a single move Sanzaru instantly screwed over the franchise. the fans, the creators, the characters, anyone looking to continue the series. everyone. WHY would you trap the protagonist in the past? WHY? did you feel defensive about something that wasn’t even yours and went ‘well you can continue the series but the sequel will have to do with time travel’. why did you think it was a good idea? how does it even slightly resemble a good ending? someone fill me in please. because i don’t think i’m being unreasonable, i’m just telling it how it is.

Conclusion:

i did it. i fucking wrote it in all its motherfucking glory. the idiots at Sanzaru could’ve given us an amazing game but instead of working on how to make it better or including extra levels, they wasted their time on deciding what killable baby animal to include in each hub or what the backstory for each treasure should be. how fucking distasteful. and to think i’m an idiot myself for trying to force myself to like it because i was so in denial about how bad it was. i’ve just outlined everything wrong with that cursed game. i’m exhausted.

#yOu'Re rEaLLy pEttY ! sOrRy hAd tO UnFoLLoW #i think i covered everything #THIS IS AN AMAZING ESSAY #this is the crown jewel of my time on tumblr #i love myself so much #sly cooper #anyone who even remotely comes for me because of this WILL get blocked #the birds really think i care about my rep on this fucking hellsite #HAHAHAHAHAHHAHA

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insanityclause · 4 years

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Guillermo Del Toro is no stranger to widespread acclaim, especially from his ride or die legion of fans. Pan’s Labyrinth, the Hellboy duology, the list of genre-bending, timeless masterworks goes on. Coming off his 2 Oscar wins for The Shape of Water in 2018, and moving into finally releasing his animated Pinocchio film from the pits of development hell along with an adaption of Nightmare Alley next year, this couldn’t be a more thriving time for the Mexican auteur. Though amongst all the praise and glory, something has still felt missing these last handful of years. Besides his Oscar-winning film, Del Toro’s works prior to the 2010s are what generally buzz conversations of his genius. Those aforementioned films did, after all, skyrocket his name to fame. His titles from the last decade, however, are just as crucial to the Del Toro canon and emphasize his greater influence as a filmmaker. One, in particular, has seemingly gotten by in its young life at the hands of few. But now that Crimson Peak has officially turned 5, it’s time to turn that few into many.

Del Toro’s trifecta of the 2010s (not counting his work on television) stand out vastly from one another. Pacific Rim, Crimson Peak, and The Shape of Water: all love letters penned from the ‘nichest’ corners of his mind. These 3 arguably boast more diversity in genre than Del Toro’s 5 films of the 2000s (3 comic-book adaptations and 2 Spanish-set fantasies). Not a criticism, as established, those films now flaunt an immovable place within the cultural zeitgeist. Though with a career notoriously marked by a slew of unrealized projects (more on this later), it’s not often recognized how the ideas that did make the cut still lead a crystal clear trajectory in Del Toro’s growth as a storyteller. In the eyes of many, Del Toro pulls ideas out of a hat and gambles on which one actually sees the light of day. Humorous sure, but this is far from the truth.

Each Del Toro project feels like a pivotal step for what would come later, take his work on Trollhunters paving the way for his upcoming first animated feature for instance. Despite this trajectory, Crimson Peak feels criminally unsung 5 years later. Pacific Rim continued its life with a sequel and more planned spin-offs. The Shape of Water literally set a new bar for the Academy. This leaves Crimson Peak feeling like the pushed aside middle child of this trio. This isn’t a call for a sequel, and ‘underrated’ gets tossed around very loosely in modern film discussion. But for cinema as quintessential as Crimson Peak, it just doesn’t feel like it gets enough recognition – especially when the current film industry is seeing less big-budget, R-rated projects heavily steeped in genre.

You can easily trace Crimson Peak‘s short-lived spotlight back to its marketing. The timely October release and scare-heavy trailers sold a classic ‘Haunted House’ horror, when in reality, Del Toro’s film is a Gothic Romance. Set in the early 1900s, an aspiring American writer, Edith Cushing (Mia Wasikowska), is swept away by a promising English baronet, Thomas Sharpe (Tom Hiddleston). They discover true love and marry, leading the young newlywed to her husband’s decaying mansion in the English hills. The age-old manor is slowly, but surely, sinking in red clay – the very source of Sharpe’s wealth. Here Edith is forced to live with her new sister-in-law, Lucille Sharpe (Jessica Chastain), a reserved yet commanding force who works to hide the true nature of the house and its endless secrets. Mystery lingers as untamed lust, envy and greed unfold between the mansion walls, not leaving enough room for the restless red-colored spirits who haunt them. When it snows on this cursed hill, the clay surfaces, making it seem as if the land bleeds. Given more than just red clay rises from beneath, a deeper meaning is given to the place locals call ‘Crimson Peak’.

Just like the clay at the center of its mystery, Crimson Peak is an amalgamation, but of genre. It would be novice to expect anything less from Del Toro. The Gothic elements call back to many classic tales, such as Alfred Hitchcock’s adaption of Rebecca and, of course, Charlotte Brontë’s Jane Eyre. On the horror side, homage is paid to Stanley Kubrick’s The Shining and Jack Clayton’s The Innocents. It’s a devilish blend that only this filmmaker could pull off so beautifully. And oh is Crimson Peak so god damn gorgeous. To contrast common period pieces that go for muted or sepia-toned color palettes, Del Toro turns the saturation on high. The result is an eye-popping picture that heightens the core emotions at play: fear, pain, and more importantly, love. Simply mesmerizing, avid fans will be quick to recognize the same shades of golden yellows, sea greens, and ruby reds found in Del Toro’s other works. It feels right at home in his filmography visually, while packing its own unique punch.

Red, a color mainly associated with passion, here instead intricately represents endless bloodshed. A twist that would suggest Crimson Peak is just as equal a horror film as it is a love story. Regardless of what might have been initially marketed to audiences in 2015, this film is a Gothic Romance from start to finish. Del Toro himself made this distinction clear to the studio from the get-go and repeatedly draws the line whenever given the chance. Yet, much like the rest of his repertoire, Crimson Peak utilizes horror not as a means to an end, but as a means for introspection. Yes, there are classic horror conventions such as jump scares, but it couldn’t be more obvious that Crimson Peak isn’t trying to evoke the same kind of high and dry fear other films heavily rely on. Del Toro is actively trying to get under your skin to achieve a hell of a cathartic viewing experience.

The ghosts of our past and how we let them define us is a core theme in Crimson Peak. The film opens on a flashback in which Edith is visited by the charcoal black ghost of her recently deceased mother. The nature of this visit sets the groundwork for the rest of the narrative. Mother Ghost, dreadful in appearance, doesn’t necessarily come to haunt her child, but to warn her. “Beware of Crimson Peak,” she says. The way Edith takes in this otherworldly occurrence, and those that follow, sets her apart from everyone else in the film. Wherein others flee from or lock away the ghosts of their past, she learns how to wear them on her sleeves – reaching out to the dead multiple times in the story, each attempt more confident than the last. Not too dissimilar from what Del Toro was playing with before, Jaeger pilots confronting past trauma in their quest to defeat Kaiju. At the same time, the transformation that occurs in Crimson Peak when neglected demons consume you from the inside – humans becoming the true monsters of their supernatural tales – would only be amplified in Del Toro’s next film.

Every minute detail coincides with this strategized, therapeutic use of horror. And to the everyday moviegoer trained by common tropes, Crimson Peak is quite deceptive. Just like Mother Ghost at the beginning of the film, the red spirits never manifest with the intent to cause physical harm, but instead to give messages and guide. Red clay seeps down the walls and the mansion ‘breathes’ as the country winds burst in. The house feels alive in the most cinematic sense possible, but the case as to it being ‘horrifying’ is not so black and white. Expertly designed to every inch, there is plenty of beauty to be found in the manor. Much of it has just been corrupted by a debauched affair – keeping this story rooted as a Gothic Romance. Subversion has always been the name of Del Toro’s game, and it’s within Crimson Peak that he uses it to mix genre so well while still staying true to his vision.

Though Crimson Peak saw Del Toro take subversion to a new level, notably with his main character. This film is a key chapter in his overarching legacy; not the first of his works to be lead by a defiant woman, but the first to have the female hero entangled in an unabashed love story. Effortlessly played by the brilliant Mia Wasikowska, the not so damsel in distress at the center of Crimson Peak is one of the most significant characters of Del Toro’s career. In discussing Gothic Romance with The Mary Sue in 2015, Del Toro explains: “This is quintessentially a female genre, that was written with characters that were very complex, very strong. I wanted to make a movie in which to some degree I recuperated and, maybe if possible, enhanced all that.” And enhanced he did for every central male character acts in more distress than Edith ever does, even when she is literally at the edge of death. A more than welcome change of pace that makes for a more resonating film.

Edith’s willingness to tackle the unknown is captivating and her vigor inspiring. But she isn’t absolved of frailty. For someone who comes to terms with facing the dead, her sheer vulnerability to heartbreak and suffering brings great humanity to the role. Hardly recognized, but Edith is one of Del Toro’s most self-reflective protagonists. A marginalized writer, inspired by the great Mary Shelley no less, in the midst of drafting her magnum opus, she immediately faces backlash from her novel’s inclusion of the paranormal. “It’s not [a ghost story]. It’s more a story with a ghost in it. The ghost is just a metaphor… for the past,” she says – giving Crimson Peak a rare Del Toro tongue-in-cheek quality that he utilizes until the credits roll. Meta enough given that the crimson ghosts Edith later encounters are, in fact, echoes of the past, but when looking back on the public’s initial perception of the film, it creates a charming, albeit ironic, wit only found here.

Additionally, when tracing back to Crimson Peak‘s pre-production days, you’ll find something even more profound. Penned by Del Toro and an old collaborator, screenwriter Matthew Robbins; this was the first script completed after the release of Pan’s Labyrinth in 2006. The two first worked together an entire decade earlier on Mimic, which has now gone down as the only film Del Toro has truly lost to studio interference. Del Toro was supposed to direct Crimson Peak in the late 2000s, but along came Hellboy II and his involvement in launching The Hobbit (another R.I.P). Through this hectic time, Del Toro would reunite with Robbins in writing 2010’s Don’t Be Afraid of the Dark, directed by Troy Nixey. However, the two also spent time together writing something else: an adaptation of H.P. Lovecraft’s At the Mountains of Madness.

For those unfamiliar, At the Mountains of Madness is by far one of, if not, the most tragic of this filmmaker’s unrealized projects. After spending years trying to get this dream off the ground, Del Toro had the following to say to Empire in 2010: “It doesn’t look like I can do it. It’s very difficult for the studios to take the step of doing a period-set, R-rated, tentpole movie with a tough ending and no love story.” The payoff of Crimson Peak being a period-set, R-rated, tentpole film only 5 years after that statement couldn’t be sweeter. In the film, Edith is told to insert a love story for the better of her novel. Del Toro is obviously commenting on expectations tied to gender here, but you can’t help but wonder if he’s also referring to one of the biggest thorns in his own writing career – one that also ties back to writing partner Matthew Robbins.

When faced with the question, Del Toro has consistently said that all of his films carry an inherent Mexican touch just from the utter fact that they come from him, and Crimson Peak is no different. Whether if deriving from his personal experiences with tackling genre, both on and off paper, or from actual events tied to his life – Del Toro reimagines two separate ghostly encounters experienced by him and his mother through Edith – this film beams with the very essence of Del Toro’s soul. Perhaps most personified when the marginalized writer gets bloody and fights back with nothing but her pen, a visual that cements this as an important stepping stone in his career. It’s a fascinating through-line, connecting to very different segments of his canon while still defining a clear path. The mending of our wounds and subversion of gender roles is continued from Pacific Rim, while setting a bold new course for delving into unfiltered, mature romance in The Shape of Water.

This is only a fraction of what makes Crimson Peak quintessential Guillermo Del Toro. Gothic Romance has long been part of this auteur’s framework, and you would be remiss not to indulge in all of its glorious melodrama. Even if it isn’t your cup of tea, Del Toro will make it so. Reaching its 5-year anniversary, the film hits stronger than before. The intricate motifs, compelling use of practical effects (complete with the involvement of Del Toro veteran Doug Jones), and cathartic use of horror make for something that has yet to be replicated by a major studio. Its lacking box office performance suggests that maybe the world merely wasn’t ready for this masterwork? But just like its characters, we hold the power to define what comes next. Del Toro himself has previously ranked Crimson Peak as one of the 3 best films he’s ever made, and straight-up called it the most beautiful. Take his word and dive in no strings attached, because who knows when we’ll get another large scale, unapologetic Gothic Romance with this much grandeur.

#Crimson Peak #guillermo del toro #Tom Hiddleston #Mia Wasikowska #Jessica Chastain #Charlie Hunnam #Jim Beaver #Doug Jones

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the-scooby-gang · 4 years

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Finally watched the Scoob!movie

Here we are in the future! As you guys know I was REALLY EXCITED to see the new movie. Well, here we are, so I will share my thoughts.

This one is a long one, so buck up!

Let’s break the movie down and see its high and low points, shall we?

One thing that I noticed right out of bat is that the movie is following the typical Hanna-Barbera crossover logic: “Hey audience, you already know these characters and their dynamics, so we will not really focus on them (unless is a plot point on the narrative) and focus more on the adventure”

Which worked for me. But I also know that I’m a 20 years old woman that was a child when Wacky Races, Dastardly and Muttley in their Flying Machines, Scooby-Doo and Captain Caveman was on every day at morning before I went to school.

What I mean is, I already know these characters, so watching the movie was just like watching the crossover episodes. It was fun, not because of the plot, but because the characters that I grew loving were sharing a screen.

But now I think of a new audience that may have NO IDEA who these other characters are and are kinda mislead by the title of the movie because, and lets be honest here, the movie should have being called something like:

Scooby gang and the Falcon Team!

or more precisely

Scooby, Shaggy and the Falcon Team!

That’s the first low point: The opening minutes leads you to believe that, even if Shaggy and Scooby have most of the screen time, after all the plot of the movie is clearly about their bond as best friends, you expect that the whole Scooby Gang are going to have equal screen time. But that is not the case.

They have nice moments of course! One of the first high points is that the gang is really wholesome when they are together! They are good friends that care about each other! What breaks them apart is not some forced antagonism between them, but an outside force (MOTHERFUCKING SIMON COWELL) and, by the way things went, if the plot had not kicked in on the bowling alley, the gang would unite again, hug, call Simon Cowell an idiot, reassure Shaggy and Scooby that they are valid and find a new person to sponsor the expansion of Mystery INC.

In fact, now that I think about it, the plot could have gone WAAAAAAY different, but that is a talk for another post.

High point one and a half: The movie was funny and cute. Self aware jokes, Muttley and Dick antics, Dick’s disguises, the F-Bomb, Shaggy is a Potterhead, Scooby was animated with “This dog deserves hugs” mentality and I approve.

High point number two: Dick Dastardly. His entire personality, his disguises , his motivation. God his motivation. I too would open the gates of hell to get my dog back (and also some treasure, this is Dastardly we are talking about)

In fact his interactions with Muttley are high point number three. THEY ARE SUCK ASSHOLES BUT THEY CLEARLY LOVE EACH OTHER SO MUCH I LOVE THAT!

But that also opens the gates for Low point number two: Where Dick arc is finished in a satisfactory way (being an asshole that cares for one (1) asshole dog) , Brian’s a.k.a Blue Falcon doesn’t.

You see, in the movie Shaggy clearly sees that Brian acts the way he does because he is NOT Blue Falcon. He is his son. He has the weight of a legacy on his shoulders and he is not coping well with that. This is highlighted by how Dynomutt sees him and his childish ways. (in fact, Dynomutt just being done with Brian shit 95% of the movie is high point number four) And you think “They are going to make a scene were he and Dynomutt are more open with each other. Where Brian says how scared he is and how the pressure of the legacy is maybe too much for him and that he is no hero, and them Dynomutt is going to reassure him that, No. You are a hero. I’m sorry for expecting you to be like your father, instead of doing to you what did for him: guiding you” and we got that! .....Really rushed in the middle of the final action scene with no emotional punch at all as a side effect from the “we expect you to know who these people are” crossover logic. Because I never watched Dynomutt and the Blue Falcon

I don’t how their dynamic was supposed to go. Even more by being the original Dynomutt with a new Falcon. I have no bases of how things used to be to feel anything. Especially because I don't know how the OG blue falcon acted in comparison to his son to see were he was falling short. I don't know how Dynomutt acted with the OG Falcon to see were he was setting the bar for Brian. Without that information, even if Dynomutt being done is entertaining and fun, it leaves the emotional impacts hollow.

Low point number three is also to blame here: the movie fells INCREDIBLY RUSHED. And I think I know the reason. Hanna-Barbera is no stranger to crossovers, but they never did more them one property + another before, three properties at most. It was always Scooby Doo and The Wacky Race or Scooby Doo and Captain Caveman or Scooby Doo and The Blue Falcon but never Scooby Doo and All of them together.

Even in the episode of Mystery incorporated “Mystery Solvers Club State Finals” were ALL THE HANNA-BARBERA MYSTERY SOLVER TEAMS WERE TOGETHER UNDER ONE ROOF , they made the mystery about the disappearing of all the mystery solvers except the mascots, which left the cast of characters of the episode more manageable them having all the gangs fighting for screen time, and even them some of the mascots have more dialog and character beats them others.

With so many characters, they had to pic which ones got a full arc or important plot beats, which left all the other character lacking as a side effect.

That brings us to low point number four: THE MYSTERY IS WEAK. It’s weak even for Scooby Doo levels and that is saying something. I saw episodes of Be Cool (that is a really good incarnation character design aside, you should check it out) that had a more well rounded mystery them this. The focus of the movie was divided in so many places that the mystery had no room to breath (Dick, Shaggy and Scooby, Shaggy and Scooby and the Falcon team, Dee Dee and Dynomutt backs aching by having to carry the plot forward, Shaggy and Brian have a heart to heart moments, Captain Caveman fight scene, and finally the mystery gang and the, you know, mystery)

The mystery is about “why the fuck Dick wants Scoob so bad” and the answer is “Because Scooby is descended from Peritas, Alexanders the Great Dog, and he needs him to open the gate to the underworld that Alex and Perry created to protect their treasure, plus save Mutley that is stuck there”

That could have being such a strong mystery!!! They would think that he only has greed in mind by opening the gates, not giving a flying fuck about the giant Cerberus that is going to eat Athens while he fills his pockets, only to discover that, yes there was greed in his actions but there was also a man looking for his best friend stuck on the other side, with would have made such a strong emotional parallel to Shaggy and Scooby final challenge. Missed opportunity.

Back to the high points to balance thing out, the high point number five: Fred is a himbo that loves his friends and his van. The moment were they hear that Shaggy and Scooby are in danger and he immediately turns the van around nearly launching Velma and Daphne though the window was really good, plus the “Leave Shaggy Alone” and the fact that when the Fake!Fred appears (Dastardly in one of his ultra-realistic disguises) in the island and Shaggy calls his name and they hug in the most wholesome way, the fact that Shaggy doest think that the wholesomeness is out of character implies that the Real Freddie is just as sweet.

High point number six: Daphne gains first an Allie and then an entire robot army for her friends though the power of compassion. This is a nice take on Daphne. They say that Fred is the Brawn, Velma is the Brain and Daphne is the People person, which I take is the fact that she can make fast friends and easy contacts to solve the mysteries + think about why someone would do something, like, Velma sees the logic behind the mystery while Daphne sees the emotion that lead to the mystery in the first place.

Which, unfortunately leads to low point number five: even if I can make all that character analyses from one phrase and this specific moment and its outcome, thanks to Low point number three and four a.e. Lack of character focus and lack of mystery I can't truly see if I’m right or not about Velma's logic and Daphne’s emotional knowledge... BECAUSE I CAN BARELY REMEMBER VELMA AT ALL. Velma is the one that suffered the most by the lack of mystery because there is where she thrives. The moments were Velma piece the clues together is so overshadowed by everything that is going down that you barely notices it. Same thing for Dee Dee. She and Dynomutt are, thanks to the way the plot was build, the only ones that are actually making moves to compel the plot forward, but outside of being the one flying the ship and trying to find were the skulls macguffings are, I can barely remember her besides a moment were she and Dyno are baffled about Brian thinking that Anonymous was an actual name.

Dee Dee is from Captain Caveman, she was the brains of the group, which we kinda see, but she is apparently in a point in time where she and Cavey don't even know each other. I think if they had removed the Caveman fight scene and instead added dialog of her talking about how she and her friends discovered a caveman on ice and they are planing on defrosting him, you know, THE PLOT OF THE ORIGINAL CAPTAIN CAVEMAN AND THE TEEN ANGELS would have being better. Or maybe just say that she is just here because she promised the OG Blue Falcon that she would help train his son to replace him and when her work is done she is going back to her team. You know, actually stabilising a more connected world without inflating your cast and making things difficult for yourself and the script writers.

Low point number five and a half : Captain Caveman is completely superfluous. He was a funny beat, but outside of that, the time that they expended getting to his island, finding him, fighting him and losing the skull macguffing anyway could have being expended on character moments either between the falcon team, or better yet, the Mystery gang. Or put more time on the mystery itself.

Now to high point number seven and the most important of them all, after all it is the plot were the entire movie is set upon: When Shaggy is speaking with Brian about how the pressure of his father shadow over him is beyond overwhelming, Shaggy is so insightful in that scene that it heavily implies that he feels in part in a similar way in the gang and that is one of the reasons he felt offended when Simon Cowell, and later on Dick Dastardly, say that he is virtually insignificant to the group and them gets jealous of Scoob when he starts to spend more time with the Falcon Team.

Is one thing to be the scary cat with your best friend, is another thing entirely to be the scary cat alone. AND I LOVE THAT

Shaggy and Scooby bond has being highlighted from the opening scene (high point number eight) and Shaggy’s felling of loneliness. That before Scooby came into his life, he had no one. And even after the gang was united, Scooby remains his first and best friend. The slight idea of losing his friend to something that he can never compare (What is a Shaggy in face of a Blue Falcon Team membership) makes him lash out. We joke about Scooby being Shaggy service dog, but for all effects, Scooby is his emotional support, his light on the end of the tunnel that was his loneliness. The gang are his friends, but they are really different from him. Meanwhile he and Scoob are almost always in the same wave lane. And them suddenly Scoob appears to be changing. Moving away.

The entire movie is Shaggy dealing with the idea of losing Scooby. Of losing his first friend and scared cat companion. What he ultimately learns is that the power of his friendship with Scoob is way too strong to let simple thing as “going away” or “changing” diminished what they created through the years. That’s why he says he has changed in the final. That he has grow. Because he has come to realise that even if Scoob changes and becomes more brave or something, he has nothing to fear. Because being friends is to know that, even miles apart, dimensions apart, your friendship lives on.

By acknowledging that Scoob can change, or even leave but never truly abandon him, Shaggy himself grows.

That’s why he chooses to be the one stuck on the other side.

Because he knows that he is not alone, not really.

So the final count is: HIGH points = 7,5 LOW points = 5,5

I liked the film. I was giggling like an idiot the entire time. My inner child was happy, even if my adult brain was not as pleased in many moments after further thought. However both my child heart and my adult brain agree that the movie is far from perfect. Many interesting ideas but poor execution of many of them. With is fine. We all know that the Scooby movies have already peaked *cough* Legend of the Phantosaur *cough*

This was a long ass review of the Scoob! Movie.

#Scoob!#Scoob review #Gih Writes #Scooby Gang #scooby doo #Shaggy Rogers #Velma Dinkley #daphne blake #Fred Jones #dick dastardly #muttley #dee dee sykes #captain caveman #blue falcon #dynomutt #i will later on make a WHAT IF about the Scoob plot #what I would have changed on the movie trajectory and what I wold have explored more #long post

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davidmann95 · 3 years

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"Infinite Frontier": has DC actually learned anything and will things actually be better?

‘Learned anything’ might not be the right way of putting it, because this doesn’t seem to be a refinement on anything they’ve done before so much as - as Bleeding Cool speculated in November (that’s a donotlink so go ahead and check it out) - laying the groundwork for a much bigger shift a little ways down the road to fully digital-first titles collected in trades and only a handful of remaining regular periodicals centered around the biggest marquee names and aimed more at bookstore and supermarket audiences than the comics direct market, presumably alongside OGNs and some prestige/Black Label material. They’re consolidating their titles around recognizable names, making a Walmart-style anthology a tentpole Batman title and experimenting with fewer but thicker monthly comics with backups, and slapping relatively few #1s on even major shifts like Bendis/Marquez on Justice League which would seem to suggest the BIG change is still to come. For now, and again this seems to line up with this being the endgame, the goal seems less than a handful of remarkable titles than linewide consistency; few if any of these books are going to end up all-time classics even if there are several standouts, but even the worst of the bunch look merely tepid rather than total disasters in the making, and in that regard it feels like the improved version of the basic Rebirth creative ethos. They’re here to button up their shirts, demonstrate some professionalism and competence, and prove they can make a model aimed outside the Wednesday Warriors work.

Anonymous said: You know how you wanted Superman writers to start harping on how “he’s just a regular guy” and do cosmic space god Superman? Apparently PKJ has said he plans to do exactly that with Superman in his run. Also seems like Jon will get one of the main books and Clark will take over the other, so Bendis won’t be writing him, he’ll be written by PKJ or Lewis most likely. Interview is on Coliseum of Comics YT channel.

Anonymous said: I don’t think Bendis is writing Hon as Superman. Given that FS seems to be dictating the direction of the line, Lewis or Watters seem more likely for that job. Would prefer either of them, they’re both good indie workers.

Between tweets, this interview that I’ve had relayed to me by a friend, and new solicit material: the plan seems to be that PKJ will only be handling both Superman and Action Comics for about a year, and after a big Action story illustrated by Mikel Janin he’ll remaining on that while Superman goes to someone else. And with very pointed notes that there should be space for both Clark and Jon ‘between the two books’, Jon standing in front of Clark in multiple promotional images, and Superman #29′s mention of “a new Superman”, it seems likely that Jon will in fact be taking on the title himself in the present along with Superman proper (probably as you said with Lewis or maybe Watters - if it’s not a self-contained future book I doubt Bendis is doing it after all) while Clark and PKJ remaining on Action. He even apparently said he was involved with the original 5G plans as they morphed into Future State, and that stuff from that is going to continue to be mined: between this and the Future State Batman being in the Infinite Frontier group shot along with Yara Flor Wonder Girl and the Flash of Future State: Suicide Squad, I think we’re gonna see a lot of legacy characters taking over in the present and that’s when we’ll see the big new wave of #1s absent here (probably paired with some cosmic type like Waverider or Spectre going “events are happening earlier than they were ordained!”). I’d go so far as to guess the digital first vs. few remaining periodicals will be divided between the new generation heroes and ‘classic’ material, though which is which would depend on DC’s priorities and which they feel would be best serviced where.

Further thoughts on the books outside my previous immediate initial takes now that full solicits are out:

* Is Justice League just being used as a catch-all for all the stuff the other ‘Infinite’ branded covers didn’t cover, or is this indicative that Bendis/Marquez Justice League will rope in a lot of characters beyond its immediate cast, given the big DCU group shot for this line was already on Infinite Frontier proper? The solicit mentions Flash for instance being part of the team even though he’s only on this cover, not the main one.

* That Superman Red & Blue is being launched alongside this - with further King stuff in the works for Black Label too - would seem to suggest that DC’s actively going to continue putting together prestige works, rather than putting those entirely by the wayside in favor of the mass-market stuff. There was word awhile back that Black Label might be going under as part of this shift, so glad that a place for a more creatively free approach seems to be remaining intact. Also they got the Final Fantasy logo guy to do a Superman cover, so cool!

* Ok, so it’s a new Swamp Thing altogether, along with more next generation stuff maybe that’ll be an in for me.

* Oh thank god the Batman logo is finally good again after a decade. Not exactly excited though for these Williamson backups with Damian, even should him seeming to rejoin Talia turn out to be a misdirect.

* “In the aftermath of Dark Nights: Death Metal, catch a glimpse of brave new worlds within the DC Universe...but what are these strange planets? As we delve into the parallel lives of the Man of Steel and the Dark Knight, we'll meet new villains, new heroes, alternate realities, and a transdimensional collision that you will need to see to believe! It's the dastardly debut of a cadre of new villains, including the Spider Lady and her poisonous webs, Dr. Atom, who sports a Kryptonite pendant, and the maniacal machinations of the Unknown Wizard! You've never seen Batman and Superman like this before—so buckle up and get ready for the start of a new era courtesy of writer Gene Luen Yang and artist Ivan Reis!” THIS IS EVERYTHING I WANT FROM COMICS, INJECT IT INTO EVERY VEIN IN MY BODY. I assume this is where we’ll see Calvin Ellis given his presence on the Infinite Frontier cover? And is Reis gonna stick around, or will it be a different artist each issue for this multiverse story?

* Spoilers for the apparent new Wonder Woman status quo behind rot13: Fb rfcrpvnyyl nsgre ure nccnerag qrzvfr va Qrngu Zrgny naq gur pbfzvp fgnaqneq frg ol Vzzbegny Jbaqre Jbzna, vg frrzrq bqq gur svefg fgbel ol gur fnzr grnz gnxvat bire ure obbx jnf tbvat gb or nobhg ure svtugvat Ivxvatf. Ohg ab, fur'f va Inyunyyn, orpnhfr fur'f nccneragyl nyy nobhg fbyivat TBQ CEBOYRZF abj. Tbq, cyrnfr yrg guvf grnz fgvpx nebhaq naq svanyyl znxr guvf obbx nyy vg fubhyq or.

* And as one era begins, another ends with Grant Morrison’s alleged final DC comics arriving on the same day in March with Wonder Woman: Earth One Volume 3 and The Green Lantern Season Two #12.

#DC Comics #DC: Infinite Frontier #Superman #DC: Future State #Opinion

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foster-fan-club · 4 years

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So I have been talking with @sophies-earbuds for awhile about sokeefe vs sophitz and I’ve wrote a little about it before, but now I really want to analyze each character in this love triangle madness->starting with Fitz:

[before I take off into the madness I would like to add a disclaimer: this is not meant to prove one ship “superior”, but at some points it will lean in favor of one or the other or both->it’s just meant to add some character analysis to the whole thing (message me if you ever want to talk more about these ships)]

Fitzroy Avery Vacker:

Fitz starts off as being an easily lovable and very cute character. Sophie falls for him, we all fall for him, and soon enough we are on the edge of our seat to see if Sophitz will happen. But just as we start saying he is our favorite, Shannon gives us a look into a trait that will soon define his character in a whole other way.

Alden’s mind breaks.

Shortly afterwards Fitz is left angry, broken, and feeling enormous loads of guilt-wishing that he could’ve been there for his father. Fitz starts to unload his frustrations onto Sophie and that is the first time Sophitz is truly questioned (besides the moment we learn how handsome Keefe is).

His anger issues are not resolved and he never truly finds closure or comes to terms with it. Instead this anger boils over into Alvar’s betrayal, Keefe’s betrayal, almost killing Alvar *twice*, the whole unmatchable drama, and more.

People argue that Shannon ruined Fitz to make Sokeefe happen. But in my opinion, she didn’t ruin him, instead she has now set him up for self growth and redemption.

By the end of Legacy, Fitz is finally adjusting to the changes in his life, he’s slowly realizing that Alvar is beyond his control, and he is working towards finding closure for his friends.

I feel like Sokeefe will eventually happen and that will present another obstacle for Fitz to endure. But Fitz has already hit his lowest point in Legacy, in my opinion. So now he is going to endure the greatest change. I feel like Fitz and Sophie both have a lot of personal growth they still need to go through apart, before they can even try to start dating again. Part of Sophie’s growth will most likely fall along the lines with Keefe’s recovery/new ability and their newish relationship. Fitz needs to refind himself and spend some more time with his family to help him heal. He will obviously depend on Sophie throughout this time and vice versa, but I don’t expect it to be in a relationship way.

Fitz Vacker is not a villain, even though some people paint him out to be. He is just as confused and as hurt and as betrayed as Keefe. He just deals with it in a not so great way. But Keefe also dealt with his guilt in a not so great way in the beginning too (I mean trying to play double agent against the Neverseen is not the smartest). Fitz and Keefe share many characteristics in common and they both have the potential to essentially make each other’s mistakes. But they don’t, instead they learn from them. They learn together, as best friends (wow I’m tearing up bc of Feefe/Kitz [idk their ship name]).

My prediction for Fitz is that he will start to branch off from the group and find his own way. Only once he has grown as a person, will he have a chance at winning back Sophie’s heart. If he does succeed with it all, Sophitz will end with a lot more value than it had in Flashback and Legacy.

So that was my overall *breif* analysis, but if you want more, just keep reading!

The change in Fitz was explained indirectly and perhaps some people missed it. Guilt is a major theme in the kotlc series and plays a big role in each character’s life. It is said multiple times after Alvar’s betrayal how getting angry is a way Fitz’s guilt is expressed. Just like how Alden’s guilt caused him to lean a little harder on his classic “no need to worry” standby. Brant’s guilt caused him to slowly go insane. The guilt Sophie felt for her human parents, eventually led her to a state of numbness. Keefe’s guilt causes him to be reckless. Grady and Edaline’s guilt caused them to shut out the world after Jolie’s death. Eventually each character finds a way to deal with their guilt. Alden eventually admitted that he was wrong to perform the memory break and was provided closure when Della and him helped Wylie and Prentice recover. Grady and Edaline adopted Sophie as a way to fill the emptiness in their home. Even Brant found closure by facing Grady and Sophie (although by then he was already too lost). Keefe is slowly finding closure by coming to terms with his dad, accepting that he isn’t responsible for his mom, and no longer trying to be the hero. He isn’t fully there yet, but Sophie is helping him get there. (This is very important for why sokeefe is such a strong ship but I already said a lot on that earlier) Fitz has never truly found closure and I think that is why he was so upset that Sophie and Keefe let Alvar go. Fitz feels responsible for being played by the Neverseen under his own roof (similar to Keefe). Fitz feels responsible for the shame he brought on his family’s *now questionable* reputation. [That is probably another reason why he wasn’t too happy about the whole unmatchable thing- not because he didn’t love Sophie but because he couldn’t bear hurting his family any more]

His direct family doesn’t blame him, but other members of the Vackers still look down on him. But most importantly, Fitz blames himself. He really wanted to be able to just finish Alvar, not because he is some dark, killing machine- but because he sees it as the only way to ensure Alvar doesn’t hurt the people he loves anymore. To me this is actually a sweeter side of Fitz that is often overlooked as just a creepy trait. Fitz would risk his own well being, he would risk breaking his mind, he would risk living with the burden of killing his brother- just because he believes he can protect his family, his friends, and Sophie. Now as creepy and weird of a justification that is- it is still a valid reason why Fitz would turn into who he is now so quickly. To me Fitz still has the same intentions in mind, but he is so guilt ridden and traumatized that he has gone to extremes.

When you hear him blaming Sophie for bad things that happen to him, it ends up actually being Fitz blaming himself. But Fitz doesn’t have the humility to admit that yet. I used to watch this tv series as a kid that I still love now that had a character who was very guilt ridden. The character was told that to become who he really is he must let go of his feelings of guilt and shame. The character responds *very hotheadedly similar to Fitz* “I’m not guilty or shameful- I am as proud as ever!” He is then told that pride is not the opposite of shame but it’s source. That has stuck with me through reading kotlc because it pretty much describes Fitz.

Fitz is PROUD to be a Vacker, he is PROUD to be a telepath, even in the beginning of the first book he gets defensive when Sophie makes fun of Foxfire because he is PROUD to be a Foxfire prodigy. All this pride can also result in tons of shame and guilt. He feels that he can not make others proud, he can not truly earn his titles, without leaving around loose ends that could tarnish his reputation. When you think about it, Fitz is as proud as ever. He just took elite level tests and will find out soon if he will get in. He figured out how to transmit long distances to Silveny. Sophie and him have strengthened their cognate connection after getting past their feelings. He found the moonlark. He is able to get past Sophie’s blocking. He has accomplished so much, but still feels guilt. His pride causes him guilt and shame, because when something that is out of his control happens- he does not have the humility to admit it. Instead he wants to hunt down Alvar, he wants to be angry for not being there when Alden’s mind breaks, he gets mad at Biana when she gets her scars from Vespera because he wishes he could’ve taken the hits for her. He really does try to be Wonderboy and sometimes he even shocks me with how skilled and smart he really is. But he is still learning how to admit mistakes and move on. This has been his characters biggest guilt related flaw throughout the entire series, it is nothing new. Each character has their own flaws that develop throughout the series.

When Fitz apologizes to Sophie at the end of Legacy, that is when I see his first true act of humility. He apologizes to her before, but this time it just felt so much more genuine because he finally is starting to realize what his actions are doing to those who love him. This is new self growth is where I see Fitz’s character heading. The end of Legacy has given him a chance for a sort of redemption arc. He was never a bad character or evil, he just needs to grow to be his true self. Fitz needs to let go of his past grudges to be able to move forward. He needs to admit that Alvar is out of his control and that he might not be able to be the hero (similar to Keefe again). I feel like when he says he is no longer looking to kill Alvar and hunt him down, but instead is looking for information about his best friend- that really made a difference to me. He is starting to move past it and work towards the greater good. Maybe post-redemption Fitz will have another chance with Sophie. But for now we are all rooting for sokeefe to have a standing chance.

I am so sorry that this is so much to read, but I was going to post all of this eventually so I decided, why not just spam everyone at once??

Soon I will be posting analysis for both Keefe an Sophie, but it will probably *hopefully* be a lot shorter because there is already a ton of great posts about their characters and I don’t want to be too redundant. My asks are always open if you ever want to send in your own opinions/feedback and/or other characters and plots you want to see more of on here!

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rapeculturerealities · 4 years

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Dee Rees was waiting outside a discreet home on a quiet street in Los Angeles on a warm day in June, wearing a T-shirt emblazoned with the words “Arrest the President.” She led the way past her fragrant jasmine bushes, past a kidney-shaped pool, past a Great Dane the size of a tween into an intimate guesthouse that had been converted into a music studio. The walls were painted dark blue and nearly every spare inch of wall and floor held equipment: Fender guitars, synths, amps, speakers and keyboards. The floor was covered by so many power cords that they resembled an area rug. A recording of an off-key voice earnestly singing was playing loudly on a loop. Rees shot me a pained look. “I’m not a singer,” she said.

Nearby, standing at a microphone, the singer Santigold was humming along to Ree’s voice and mimicking the undulations until she knew them by heart. The musician Ray Brady, sitting at a computer nearby, cycled through a series of drum-machine sounds until they heard one they all liked, and Santigold started singing over it. The air-conditioner was off — it interfered with the quality of the recordings — and the air was dense with humidity that no one seemed bothered by.

Rees and Santigold were recording a series of demos for a big-screen futuristic opera titled “The Kyd’s Exquisite Follies.” The screenplay, which Rees had been working on for about a year, describes the journey of a young, black androgynous musician living in a small town who sets off for “It City” in search of stardom. “An outsized, sequin-spangled, sunglassed Cosmic Being leans into frame,” reads the description for the first scene. “It is Bootsy Collins if Bootsy was simultaneously tripping on acid, André 3000 and CBD Frosted Flakes with extra sugar.” Her mood board for the project features images from the cultural festival Afropunk and a dream cast of Erykah Badu, Beyoncé, Janelle Monáe and the R&B singer Syd. The whole thing almost sounded like a fantasy incubated deep in a Twitter thread, but Rees later told me that she was inspired to combine the cultural legacy of “The Wiz” with the grandeur of the “Star Wars” franchise to create a kid-friendly movie as canonical as her reference points. “I was like, ‘Where’s “The Wiz” for us, for our kids, for queer kids?’ ” she said.

Rees has been working toward this moment for nearly 10 years, assuredly moving from indie films into blockbuster cinema with the hope of establishing a creative freedom few directors attain. She is placing a thick spread of bets, in the hope that she will soon be able to play as boldly as she wants. Legacy, she told me, is her ultimate goal: “I want to create work that matters and lasts.”

At 43, Rees has already had the type of success that will outlast her. In 2011, she released her first feature film, “Pariah,” a lush coming-of-age drama about a young black woman named Alike grappling with both her sexuality and the world’s response to it. The movie won more than a dozen awards, including, most notably, the N.A.A.C.P. Image Award for Outstanding Motion Picture. Last year, the movie was included on IndieWire’s list of best films of the past decade, along with “Moonlight,” “Carol,” and “Call Me by Your Name” — movies that also feature queer narratives, though it’s worth noting that “Pariah” came out years before them. In 2017, she released her next feature film, “Mudbound,” a drama about the lives of a black family and a white family working the same plot of land in Mississippi in the 1940s. It garnered four Oscar nominations, including Best Adapted Screenplay, making her the first black woman to be nominated in the category. Her latest project, opening on Feb. 14 before streaming on Netflix, is her most Hollywood yet: Starring Anne Hathaway, Willem Dafoe and Ben Affleck, “The Last Thing He Wanted” is an adaptation of the 1996 Joan Didion novel about an American journalist investigating illicit arms sales to Central America during the Reagan administration. It is Rees’s attempt to demonstrate her range across scale, genre and star power.

But here in Los Angeles, her deepest professional desire was underway. Rees had already secured a producer for “Follies” in her longtime collaborator, Cassian Elwes, as well as a costume designer. Lucasfilm’s Industrial Light and Magic had signed on to create the visual effects. The next stage of the process was to produce a music sample that could be played for potential financiers, studio partners and distributors, to generate excitement for the project.

The main song she and Santigold were working on that afternoon was a duet between the hero, the Kyd, and an unseen entity offering support from afar. “The intention here is that the Universe is accompanying her, and she doesn’t realize it,” Rees informed the room, using her hands to show two entities orbiting around each other, the smaller one oblivious to the larger one. She described the song as a ballet, with choreography. The Universe is not a metaphor, she explained; it’s an actual character, a guiding light and love interest, which she imagined being played by Erykah Badu. The song lyrics included melancholic lines like “It was easier when no one was looking” and “People see you as they need you to be.”

Santi, as everyone in the room called her, finished singing one part and began recording another, in a lower intonation to indicate a different voice. She and Rees were building out the bones of a pivotal point in the narrative: The Kyd is reflecting on the isolation, loneliness and self-doubt that accompany a rise to stardom — feelings that Rees teased out from her own life experiences as a young director. They worked intently for nearly an hour this way, playing keyboard, looping drums, recording Santigold as she sang both parts, then pausing to get feedback. When Rees wasn’t feeling something, it was obvious: She remained silent but shook her head “no.” When she liked something, she bounced in her seat and offered affirmations like “that’s hot.”

Watching the two women work, I realized that Rees didn’t just have an idea for music, she had created an entire universe, writing all the songs, arranging the melodies and constructing a 3-D model in her head of the sets and landscape. To her, composing compelling songs and comedy numbers while grabbing milk at the bodega comes as effortlessly as directing some of the biggest actors working in Hollywood. Despite that, the biggest question about her career now is whether Hollywood will allow her the longevity she craves.

“I know this character,” Rees said at one point about the Kyd, though she might have been talking about her own journey as an artist so far. “That feeling of being trapped, wanting to be an artist, knowing the odds are against you and doing it anyway.”

A few weeks later, Rees was sitting in a small coffee shop in Harlem, not far from where she lives with her wife, the author Sarah M. Broom, who recently won a National Book Award for her memoir, “The Yellow House.” Rees had been stationed there for a while, talking to other regulars, reading the short-story collection “Heads of the Colored People,” by Nafissa Thompson-Spires, and working on her laptop. Rees is a minimalist: Everything about her has an understated elegance, from the twists in her hair to the black and camo Jordans that she likes to wear. That day, she was dressed in a tailored white-and-pink-dotted button-down shirt and carrying a backpack.

Rees told me that people often describe her success in the film industry as overnight, which feels dismissive of the years she spent hustling for “Pariah” and glosses over the years that she struggled to sell pilots and feature films since then. “I’ve spent 12 years slugging away,” she said. She’s quick to point out that most of her work has not made it to market.

Rees said her strategy is to work on “five things at once and see which one sticks.” Each time we talked, she was working on a new project. Once it was a television show about a black police officer in the South, set in the 1970s. Another time it was a potential collaboration with a black playwright. This is both a survival tactic designed to navigate the ever-changing tides of a mercurial entertainment industry and perhaps also a defense mechanism: better not to get too attached to a project that doesn’t get picked up. The gap years after “Pariah” taught her to be strategic.

“For me, everything still comes with a grain of salt,” she said. “I never trust if it’s going to happen until you see a grip truck pulling up.” Many black women who make a compelling, noteworthy debut never manage to make a second feature — think of Julie Dash or Leslie Harris, whose names you might not know but who are responsible for, respectively, the indie films “Daughters of the Dust” and “Just Another Girl on the I.R.T.” “It seemed like people wondered if that was a fluke,” she said about “Pariah.” After “Mudbound,” she felt that question of her directorial ability has been answered. “Now it’s just about, How much do I get to do?”

From Rees’s vantage, this is the time to be working as quickly and furiously as she possibly can to get all of her dream projects off the ground — not just “Follies” but also a lesbian horror film she plans to write with her wife and a sci-fi graphic novel that she can eventually adapt for the screen. “It’s a creator’s market,” she told me. “There are more canvases, and not just feature films. You can work online, you can make different kinds of TV. You can make your thing, and they’ll come to you.”

Rees was referring, in part, to streaming services, specifically Netflix, which financed and is distributing “The Last Thing He Wanted.” Over the past five years, Netflix has done the same for hundreds of original shows and movies, many of which are critically acclaimed and attract as much attention and accolades than the offerings from traditional movie studios. In 2019, Netflix released 60 films, and analysts estimate the company spends more than $8 billion on original content a year. “We’re not a 100-year-old studio or own intellectual property like Disney does,” Scott Stuber, the head of films at Netflix, told me. “We don’t have an archive or a library, so it’s very important strategically to get in business with filmmakers like Dee, Alfonso Cuarón, Martin Scorsese, and that is our differentiator.” Netflix’s elbowing into Hollywood has propelled other companies to follow suit, including Disney, Hulu, Apple and Amazon, all of which now produce exclusive streaming content. Netflix’s dominance is likely to be challenged in the coming years, but the company has already reshaped consumer standards, including the expectation that people can watch high-quality, Oscar-worthy first-run entertainment from the comfort of their couch.

To stay competitive, traditional studios now have to pay attention to what those services are doing and try to beat them at their own game. Many of the directors making the best material are coming from the indie world, Rees reminded me: Ryan Coogler, Ava DuVernay, Barry Jenkins. “And it’s not because of altruistic reasons but because of moneymaking reasons,” she said. “Studios are realizing it’s profitable to keep their eyes open. Netflix forced the rest of the industry to take more risks. The advantage for filmmakers is that they’re making it impossible for the rest of the industry to be dismissive or willfully ignorant, and they make the industry consider films and filmmakers that they might not have considered.”

Rees also pointed out the desire for content aimed specifically at black consumers, noting that studio heads and industry leaders were finally paying attention to the black appetite: “We’re the consumers and we’re the producers. And we’re saying: No more ‘Green Book.’ We’re not interested in that.” Though Rees tends to avoid social media and the internet, she sees them as levers for this radical change. “The gatekeepers can still modulate production, but they can’t modulate awareness in the same way,” she told me. “With that awareness comes a hunger, and it sustains a stable of artists.”

In the 1970s, Rees’s parents bought a home in a largely white neighborhood in Nashville. Her father was a police officer; her mother, a scientist at Vanderbilt University. When I first asked Rees to describe her childhood, she told me it was a “typical, boring suburban experience.” She was an only child who liked to lose herself in video games, “Garfield” comics and Choose Your Own Adventure books. The family was solidly middle class. “At the grocery store, it was my job to hold the calculator and calculate the grocery bill as we went along,” Rees recalled fondly.

But Rees’s “typical” childhood also included anecdotes about growing up adjacent to white people who questioned her family’s presence in their midst. Neighbors hung Confederate flags as curtains. Kids toilet papered their trees, prank rang the doorbell, ripped up the roses that her mother planted in a wagon wheel. People regularly tossed garbage in their yard as they drove or walked by. “It was my job to pick up that trash,” Rees said. “They always seemed to be looking at us like, ‘How can you be here, how can you have more than us?’ ” Rees’s father often parked his police car outside their home to “let people know not to [expletive] with us,” Rees said. “You were constantly bracing for it, preparing for it and trying not to let it provoke you, as it was meant to do.” These incidents, and the questions about belonging they raised, can be felt in all her films.

Rees graduated in 2000 from Florida A&M University with a master’s degree in business administration and worked in marketing for a series of health and beauty companies. Rees envisioned herself as Marcus Graham, one of the young black advertising professionals in the movie “Boomerang.” “I really thought I’d be working with people like Strangé,” she said, referring to the eccentric Grace Jones character who gives birth to a perfume bottle in a cosmetics commercial. None of the jobs lasted more than a year, but the detour was productive: She went on a commercial shoot for a client, Dr. Scholl’s, and followed the production assistant around out of curiosity. She was energized watching the work, prompting her to reconsider her career trajectory. She was accepted to New York University’s graduate film program in 2003.

Rees had never been to art school or even touched a camera. “I had no idea what I was doing,” she said. She struggled with the assignments, which often consisted of making short film experiments. “I failed and I failed hard,” she recalled. Her professors seemed to pay more attention to the better students. “It felt like an instant divestment of interest.” By the second semester, she was considering dropping out. “On the first day, they told us that ‘only two of you will make it,’ ” she said. “And I was not the one who seemed like they were going to make it. I was like, ‘This is a waste, it’s so expensive, I shouldn’t do this.’ ” At 27, she worried that she was too old to start a new career.

Rees confessed all her fears and insecurities to her girlfriend at the time, who told her: “O.K., so there’s only going to be two of you. That means you and who else?” The pep talk helped, as did the support from a few professors, including Spike Lee, who has served as the film program’s artistic director for nearly two decades. Lee was impressed by Rees’s storytelling abilities and her eye, which already felt uniquely her own — rare for anyone, but especially students. “In my experience, very few people have a style right off the jump,” he told me recently. “It’s something that you develop over time, and she had it. I never had any doubts about her being successful. I could see that she was going to do what she had to do to get where she wanted to get.”

She felt her work began to click when the assignments moved into documentary. “That is when I found myself and found my voice,” she told me. She took a trip to Liberia with her grandmother and the budding cinematographer Bradford Young. “It just felt like no one was looking, and I felt confident and was able to make the doc.” That film, “Eventual Salvation,” tells the story of her 80-year-old grandmother, Earnestine Smith, as she travels to Monrovia, where she lived for decades, and confronts the aftermath of a devastating civil war.

She loved imagining herself into the shoes of her subjects. “It helped me be a better director, because I could see that ‘Oh, if I’d gotten this shot, it would be a better dynamic, better storytelling through body language.’ ” Rees’s graduate thesis was a short film called “Pariah,” and the strength of the script landed her at Sundance Labs to incubate the short into a feature. Lee offered guidance, and Young, still unknown, drenched the film in the shimmering, richly colored patinas that he would later use in movies like “Arrival” and “Selma.”

While at N.Y.U., Rees shortened her name from Diandréa to Dee. She was establishing a boundary between herself and the world that to this day feels as if it safeguards her personal life. She was coming out as a lesbian, which at first, her parents chalked up to an “art-school thing,” Rees said. But once they realized she was truly in love with a woman, they imploded. Her mother came to New York to try to stage an intervention. Her father was embarrassed. “Nashville is superconservative and small, and I guess word was getting around,” Rees said. Neither parent spoke to her for some time, but both came to see a screening of “Pariah” in New York in 2011. The support in the room eased their worries, as did the affiliation with Sundance. “My life wasn’t a wreck, which somehow made it more acceptable for them,” Rees said.

A common theme threading through Rees’s projects is the way the world places limits on people and whether that destroys or liberates them. The moments in her movies at which her characters confront that existential dilemma are often extremely subtle, but powerful nonetheless. In “Bessie,” the 2015 HBO movie Rees made about the blues singer Bessie Smith, we see how Smith rebels against societal expectations in her sexual fluidity, hard drinking and even in her confrontation with the Ku Klux Klan at one of her shows. But the moment that is most revealing is Smith, played by Queen Latifah, sitting fully nude at a vanity, her body shining with oil, seeing herself surrounded by the trappings of fame but ultimately alone and aging. She’s facing the choices she has made and seemingly deciding whether she’ll make different ones tomorrow. In “Pariah,” it’s the spark of possibilities reflected in young Alike’s eyes as she watches a dancer slide down a pole to Khia’s pleasure anthem “My Neck, My Back” in a gay nightclub.

What is striking about Rees’s work is that even though none of her movies are explicitly autobiographical, she still finds ways to channel her life experiences into them. Embedded in “Mudbound,” for example, is the experience of her great-grandparents, who picked cotton, but it also reflects the amorality of racial violence and how a country can fight against it in a war, while still perpetuating it at home. At the center of “The Last Thing He Wanted” is a father-daughter relationship complicated by guilt and obligation, but it’s also a thriller whose main character is determined to expose government corruption.

Rees realized early in her career that as a female director working in Hollywood, she wouldn’t have the same liberty as, say, Richard Linklater or Noah Baumbach to explore the details of her life onscreen. Rees made compromises so that she could still work on the themes that interested her most. “When I first started out, I was like, ‘I’m not going to do adaptations,’ ” she told me. “I only want to do my own stuff, but I quickly realized that I couldn’t survive because of the time it takes to get people to want to do your original thing.”

In 2014, Cassian Elwes, a longtime Hollywood veteran who has produced such films as “Lee Daniels’ The Butler” and “Dallas Buyers Club,” found himself horrified after reading about the extreme gender imbalance prevalent in Hollywood movie making. Dr. Stacy L. Smith, a communications professor at the University of Southern California at Annenberg, has found that less than 5 percent of major Hollywood movies were directed by women. People of color were also dramatically underrepresented. (Those numbers have not fluctuated significantly in the years since.) Elwes was similarly shocked to read that most young white male directors make their sophomore projects not long after their first; most women of color take years. Many of them, unable to support themselves during that gap, give up.

Around this time, two young producers brought Elwes the script for “Mudbound.” He fell in love with it, and his mind drifted to “Pariah,” which he’d seen at Sundance. Elwes sent Rees the script. A few years earlier, Rees had wanted to adapt the novel “Home,” by Toni Morrison, to explore the paradox of freedom for black Americans returning home from overseas; now she realized she could inject that desire into “Mudbound.”

“He was the first producer who was just like, ‘It’s yours,’ ” Rees recalled. “It wasn’t exploitative or like you should be grateful. He was like, ‘Whatever you want to do, let’s work it out.’ He’s believed more in me than some producers of color.”

A movie like “Mudbound” could easily be saturated with simplistic Hollywood narratives about the resilience of black people and the restorative power of interracial friendships. But Rees was not afraid to show a world where some white people are evil and none will save the black characters. Rees first impression of the script was that it was “a little too sweet.” It featured music as the balm easing tension between the two families. Rees wrote more scenes explicitly featuring the Jackson family, including one around a dinner table where they discuss their dreams of purchasing their own parcel of land, only to be interrupted by the white landowner, who demands they come unload his truck. The film finds its own emphatic language for the spectral horror of white violence in America through quiet vignettes: The tight face of a well-dressed black man, riding in the back of a white man’s dusty pickup truck. The wet and swollen face of a white woman sobbing into the arms of a black matriarch, whose resignation and fatigue can be read in the set of her mouth.

Rachel Morrison, the film’s cinematographer, who received an Oscar nomination for the film, said she was drawn to Rees’s ability to “put the audience squarely in the main character,” she told me. For example, when filming Laura, a woman at a loss for who she is in the world, the shots feature her petite, wiry body dwarfed by the soggy terrain and gaping blue sky. Rees was “uncompromising in only the best ways,” Morrison said, in a tone rich with admiration. She recalled an instance where Rees wanted a shot looking through a screen door, from the outside world into a dark home. “It was a ton of work, balancing the bright sun and dark shadows, but I was like, ‘If it’s worth it to you, I’ll do it.’ ” It was worth it to Rees. Morrison spent close to an hour manipulating the set to capture what would amount to seconds of screen time. When Morrison saw the final cut, she realized the elegance of the shot and how beautifully it articulated the difference between the two families and the worlds they inhabit. “It’s one of my favorite shots in the film,” she said.

After they finished “Mudbound,” Rees told Elwes that she wanted to adapt the Joan Didion novel. He knew Didion’s agent and was able to option “The Last Thing He Wanted.” “We took it around to all the studios, and no one would deal with it,” she said. “Netflix jumped in and saved it. But it was hard in that way. You think because it’s Joan Didion, like, of course — but nope.”

Rees struggles not to take the studios’ lack of interest in her work personally. When I asked her how she rationalized their indifference, she took her time answering, clearly weighing how much of her inner thoughts about Hollywood she wanted to air in public, staring into her coffee all the while. “When stuff doesn’t make logical sense, to me, I go to a place where there’s only one thing that can explain this. You know what I mean?” She paused again, fiddling with her latte. “It feels like a double standard, and the double standard to me is race.”

I asked her how she coped with being so demonstrably talented as a filmmaker and yet feeling thwarted in her efforts at the same time. “The only refuge I have is to do more work, to be relentless and keep making and making, and hopefully, eventually I won’t have to continue to prove that I have the capabilities.” She felt this deeply when “Mudbound” was passed over by major studios, even though it resembled a Birney Imes photograph come to life and featured mesmerizing performances by Carey Mulligan and Rob Morgan. It eventually sold to Netflix, reportedly for $12.5 million, the largest deal to come out of Sundance in 2017. “I’ve learned to go where the love is and work with who wants to work with you,” she told me. “The thing you’re up against is not new. Since first grade, the moment you enter school, you’re up against racism. But it’s still stunning sometimes.”

What remains striking about Rees is that these challenges haven’t muted her ambition. Elwes repeatedly highlighted it. “It’s gigantic,” he said, marveling. “She could be knocking out independent movies all day long if she wanted to.” But instead, with something like “Follies,” she is trying to create a pop-cultural empire. “She’s building a world, and right now in Hollywood, most people are just making another version of a comic book or a sequel or a remake,” Elwes said. Her fearlessness and talent are why he immediately agreed to help her produce and finance her sci-fi opera after she floated the idea by him in a text message. He has been hustling to raise the $80 million or so that she needs to pull it off. “It’s not a slam dunk,” he said, “but whoever takes the risk will get the reward.”

Toward the end of our meeting at the coffee shop, Rees told me shyly — a rare mode for her — that her biggest dream is to work on a major feature-film trilogy, something even more audacious than “Follies.” “I want to have a world with a black woman at the center of it, who ends up leading a rebellion,” she said. “I want to create a whole new world rather than color in somebody else’s.” The trilogy Rees wants to build takes place in a dystopic time, a hellscape devastated by climate change and out-of-control social media where people have to meet a minimum “credit” rating in order to have a decent quality of life.

Rees hopes that “The Last Thing” will be a bridge between her past work and her larger ambitions. Unlike her previous films, “The Last Thing” is a fast-paced political thriller with car chases, shootouts and body counts that includes tight close-ups and impressionistic landscape shots. The effect is claustrophobic and dizzying — a departure from Rees’s previous, more linear work — and yet the audience remains, as Morrison reflected, squarely in the perspective of Elena McMahon, the journalist at the center of it, played by Anne Hathaway. As McMahon loses her moral compass, the viewer becomes disoriented, too, and unable to keep up with the revelations, which, at Sundance, caused many critics to pan the movie.

When I spoke with Rees by phone from Sundance, right after the first reviews came in, she sounded sanguine. Her film had been “trashed,” she said, “but I still believe in it.” Then her voice perked up as she proceeded to tell me the details of a few still unannounced deals she had inked since we last saw each other. From her perspective, it seemed, the critical response was a blip in what she plans to be a long career.

Rosie Perez, who portrays a photojournalist in “The Last Thing,” told me that the day she arrived on location in Puerto Rico to shoot the film, she immediately noticed Rees’s sharp intelligence but found her aloof. “I wasn’t sure if I was going to connect with her,” she said. When it came time to work, Rees was meticulous but hands off. She set up the scene, positioning the camera with her own hands at times, and then stepped away. “It freed us up to just act,” Perez said. “She lets you do your thing. But you have to trust that she’s doing hers, too.”

Once, after a scene, Rees called cut, and Perez asked Rees if she was sure they got the shot. “She looked at me and said, deadpan: ‘I wouldn’t have moved on if we didn’t.’ ” Perez, deep in recollection, let loose that famous laugh from deep in her nasal cavity. “I was like: ‘Got it. Let me shut the [expletive] up.’ ” Her admiration for Rees was cemented in that moment.

But that wasn’t all she got from Rees, Perez told me, recalling a scene in which she and her co-star, Anne Hathaway, are running to catch a plane, dodging gunfire. “Anne is running like Catwoman, sprinting toward the plane,” Perez said. “I felt like the older lady trying to keep up.” She mentioned this to Rees, who replied, “Well, that’s your character, isn’t it?” At first, Perez’s ego was bruised. But later, Rees told her, “I hired you because you’re a kick-ass actress and also because you have the courage to look like a grown-ass woman.” At the time, Perez was splitting her time on the set of the second season of Spike Lee’s “She’s Gotta Have It,” where she was guest-starring as Mars Blackmon’s mother. Lee didn’t want Perez to wear a lot of makeup, and Perez initially balked. But her time with Rees adjusted her priorities: “I walked onto his set, and I was like ‘O.K.’ ” Working with Rees, she said, “gave me the confidence to do that.” That, she said, was Rees’s gift. “You have to let her be who she is, in order to see what she is trying to give you.”

#Black women #workplace #misogynoir #racism #Rees #director #film #voices

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